My Professional Journey
Unbeknownst to me at the time, my early life was a training ground for how I work today. Working my way through high school and college and being largely financially independent from a young age did not just build grit, it rewired how I think. Those early years built a deep respect for responsibility, effort, and the weight money carries in a family’s world. I learned to see second-order consequences, stay calm under pressure, and treat every decision as real because someone’s life sits on the other side of it.
I started in financial services while still an undergraduate as a customer service associate at Bank of America, earned my Series 7 during my senior year, and began my advisory career at an insurance-backed RIA in Connecticut. I worked with utility workers across New England, helping them manage their 401(k) and IRA assets. Many are still clients today, more than twenty years later. Early on, I experienced the moment every advisor faces. Clients were not simply investing. They were entrusting me with their life savings. That responsibility hit hard. It created a healthy fear of being wrong, and it drove me to build real depth.
Soon after that epiphany, I immersed myself in the world of finance. I pursued an MBA at Fordham University with a concentration in portfolio management, enrolled in the CFA program, and talked my way into a role at Credit Suisse in New York City. That period combined formal education and self-study with the intensity of real markets and the expectations of sophisticated families. It forced me to organize information quickly, form independent views, pressure test assumptions, and make decisions with incomplete data. Over time, those lessons became a repeatable system that still guides my work today. Rigorous research, disciplined portfolio construction, clear risk management, and a bias toward clarity when complexity is highest.
One of the most profound chapters of my career was running a family office that operated inside a large national organization. It put me in the middle of what actually drives outcomes for complex families. I had exposure to company financials, strategy meetings, mergers and acquisitions, business positioning, marketing decisions, and the family dynamics that shape how wealth is built, protected, and transferred. At the same time, I managed the family’s public markets portfolio, staying close to markets every day through active trading, manager due diligence, and portfolio construction across both public and private investments. That seat taught me to think like an owner and an operator, not just an advisor. It trained me to connect business reality to personal planning, stress test decisions across tax, liquidity, governance, and risk, and move capital with conviction. During that tenure, I also gained substantial real estate experience, investing tens of millions of dollars of equity across transactions and learning firsthand how structure, execution, and cycles matter as much as the asset itself.
While I was doing that work for one family, other families began approaching me with the same question. Can you do for us what you are doing for them? That pattern confirmed a belief I still hold today. Many successful families want institutional quality advice and coordination, but the traditional wealth management industry is often not built to deliver it with the rigor, integration, and accountability required.
That insight pushed me to build, not just advise. I partnered with my close friend Frank McKiernan, and we started our practice at Merrill Lynch, where we built a significant business over three years and earned the titles of Vice President.
Our work caught the attention of the CEO of Baker Tilly, a top-10 CPA advisory firm, who recruited our team to establish and grow the firm’s East Coast wealth management presence. Frank and I later became Co-Practice Leaders for Baker Tilly Wealth Management, overseeing a national group of roughly a dozen advisors and helping build the platform, elevate the client experience, and bring a more institutional approach to planning and portfolio construction for complex families.
Over my career, my role expanded far beyond investments into trust and estate coordination, tax strategy, philanthropic planning, and serving as a steady advisor during periods of complexity or uncertainty. Across these experiences, one theme became clear. The best advice is rarely one-dimensional. It requires seeing the full board and evaluating decisions from multiple angles. Call it a third view.
That philosophy ultimately led to the co-founding of Third View Private Wealth, where I serve as Managing Partner. I hold the CFA and CAIA designations, and I am a Registered Financial Advisor with the NFL Players Association. These credentials reflect both technical depth and a lifelong commitment to preparation, perspective, and professional excellence.
What I'm Building
Today, my primary focus is building Third View Private Wealth into a best-in-class advisory firm that functions as an outsourced family office for select clients. We believe most families with less than $1 billion in assets are not well served by the traditional definition of a full-scale family office. Building a complete in-house family office is expensive, inefficient, and hard to staff well. Many families instead hire one or two people to work directly for them, which can be extremely helpful, but those roles are often shaped by a narrow background and do not consistently cover the full range of the family’s needs.
That is where we step in. We built Third View to serve the most sophisticated families, then scale that same institutional quality framework down to whatever a specific client actually needs.
Overall, our goal is not scale for its own sake. The goal is depth. We bring together investment management, strategic planning, and thoughtful coordination across a client’s full financial life, with the discipline and accountability of a true family office approach.
I am especially focused on building the systems and team that make high-touch advice repeatable without sacrificing rigor. Institutional research, clear decision frameworks, proactive planning, and a culture that values preparation and intellectual honesty. We are building a firm designed to compound over decades through knowledge, trust, relationships, and results.
Recognition & Media
I have been recognized by Forbes, including as a Best in State Wealth Advisor (1) and a Best in State Top Next Gen Wealth Advisor (2). I have also been featured across leading industry and national publications, with work appearing in outlets such as Barron’s, Investopedia, Accounting Today, and other publications focused on wealth management and markets.
I regularly share market and portfolio insights through live television and media appearances, including segments on Schwab Network and Yahoo Finance. I have also been a speaker at Future Proof Festival, contributing to the broader conversation around modern portfolio construction and family office-level advice for complex families.
Family and Personal Life
Outside of work, my life is grounded in my family. I am a husband, father, son, and brother, and those roles shape how I think about risk, legacy, and what wealth is ultimately for. They reinforce the values that show up in my work every day, including patience, stewardship, resilience, and the responsibility that comes with being trusted.
I am also deeply committed to health, endurance, and personal discipline. I train as an endurance athlete and stay connected to a community of professionals who use physical challenge to sharpen mental clarity and leadership. Long-distance training has reinforced the same lessons I see in markets and in life. Progress compounds quietly, setbacks are part of the process, and preparation beats intensity. Reading, writing, and reflection are also central to how I operate, helping me think clearly and communicate simply. That mindset carries directly into my work as an advisor. Steady, prepared, process-driven, and built for the long run.
Social Media
To read more of the articles I've written, visit my blog here.
1. In April 2024 & April 2025, Jerry Sneed was named by Forbes and SHOOK Research, LLC as Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisors 2024 and Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisors 2025, respectively. The 2024 award is based on the period from 6/30/2022 to 6/30/2023 and the 2025 award is based on the period 6/30/23-6/30/24.
2. In August 2023 and 2024, Jerry Sneed was named by Forbes and SHOOK Research, LLC as Forbes Top Next-Gen Wealth Advisors Best-in-State 2023 and Forbes Top Next-Gen Wealth Advisors Best-in- State 2024, respectively. The 2023 award is based on the period from 3/31/22 - 3/31/23 and the 2024 award is based on the period from 3/31/23-3/31/24.
Forbes America’s Top Next-Gen Wealth Advisors ranking was developed by SHOOK Research and is based on in-person, virtual, and telephone due diligence meetings to evaluate each advisor qualitatively, a major component of the ranking algorithm that includes: client impact, industry experience, credentials, review of compliance records, firm nominations; and quantitative criteria, such as: assets under management and revenue generated for their firms. SHOOK considered advisors born in 1986 or later with a minimum 4 years as an advisor. Advisors have: built their own practices and lead their teams; joined teams and are viewed as future leadership; or a combination of both. Investment performance is not a criterion because client objectives and risk tolerances vary, and advisors rarely have audited performance reports. SHOOK’s research and rankings provide opinions intended to help investors choose the right financial advisor and are not indicative of future performance or representative of any one client’s experience. Past performance is not an indication of future results. Neither Forbes nor SHOOK Research receive compensation in exchange for placement on the ranking, but a licensing fee is paid for the right to use their logo. The full methodology can be found here.
