Advisor Spotlight: Raymond
A Bit About Raymond
Raymond is one of the co-founders of DiversiFi Capital, and currently helps lead the advisory team while also serving as the firm’s Chief Compliance Officer. In this dual role,Raymond’s main focus is advising his clients with the responsibility of overseeing compliance across the entire company, ensuring that DiversiFi continues to uphold the highest standards of integrity and trust.
Raymond is a Certified Financial Planner™ with a degree in Business Economics. Raymond is known for his patience and detail-oriented approach. Clients value his ability to simplify and educate around equity compensation, retirement planning, and homeownership into clear strategies that align with both long-term goals and day-to-day life.
Raymond believes financial planning is not just about the numbers; it’s also about creating balance—working hard, but also enjoying the present, and building a secure future with loved ones.
Raymond, tell us a bit about yourself!
“I was born and raised in San Francisco’s Sunset District. I later moved to the East Bay where I continue to reside. I recently got married to my beautiful wife and adopted a dog into our family. This has been a wonderful new chapter in our lives that has brought me a lot of joy.
Professionally, it has been amazing growing DiversiFi Capital to where we are today and to have an amazing team to work with every day. To my clients, I have been known to write lengthy emails (sometimes even called “novel” emails) to provide clients with a detailed response and explanation around my advice. But don’t worry: I have learned different writing styles over the years to adapt to each clients’ needs.
As a financial planner, I enjoy reviewing the numbers to help quantify my advice while following industry standards when it comes to topic discussion. However, I also treasure the fact that “money is made to be spent” and to enjoy life now while being financially resopnsbile, so that we can spend as much time with our loved ones.”
What does “Financial Wellness” mean to you as an advisor?
“Financial wellness to me is the ability to live a healthy financial life that YOU choose for yourself. This means taking control of your financial health now as well into the future while understanding the tradeoffs of your choices today. .
Understanding your finances, money habits, financial philosophy, and financial goals for yourself helps to provide the “purpose” behind why you are saving. This prepares you to take the steps needed to achieve your goals while consistently aiming to improve your quality of life are all part of financial wellness.”
If I were new to my financial wellness journey, what is some advice you would share?
“So much of financial wellness starts with the basics: understanding your cash flow. Budgeting isn’t always fun, but it’s powerful—it shows where your money is going and gives you the clarity to decide how you want to spend and save.
Once you understand your budget, you can start utilizing tools and building strategies to make your money work for you. This foundation creates confidence to weather sudden obstacles, and provides more flexibility in achieving what you want to do.”
What are some of your favorite aspects of working with new clients?
“I truly enjoy conversing with new clients and learning about their financial goals, successes, and families. Building trust and connection is the foundation of a strong financial planning relationship. With new clients, I view our work as an open book—it’s the early stage of learning about each other and how they think about finances. This leads to how we can best operate together, setting the stage for a long-term partnership built on trust on a personal level.
One of my favorite aspects of the work is educating clients and simplifying their finances. The more complicated, the easier it is to feel overwhelmed and delay decisions. By breaking topics down and offering different options, I help clients not only understand what’s available to them but also determine which path best fits their situation. I especially enjoy exploring the “why” behind financial decisions, since that context makes the strategy more meaningful and easier to follow through on.
I also find it rewarding to work with clients in different stages of their lives—whether they are starting a family, purchasing a home, advancing in their careers, focusing on wealth accumulation, or preparing for retirement. Each stage brings unique opportunities and challenges, and I enjoy helping clients navigate these transitions with clarity and confidence. For me, it’s about providing the right strategies at the right time, while also recognizing the emotions tied to each milestone.”
Do you have an exciting client success story you can share?
“One of my favorite client success stories was assisting a client through their new stock options received from the company. As an early employee of the company, this client received millions of stock options that had a strike price in the cents. Since this was the client’s first time working at a private company and receiving options, it was great helping the client understand the different types of options, the tax implications in exercising, and different scenarios on how we would attack this.
One of the items discussed was potentially early exercising the options and whether this was even an option or not. While the company didn’t allow for early exercise, I was able to communicate with the client the benefits of having this early exercise ability while also understanding the risks of early exercising. This resulted in a conversation with the CEO and their legal team to eventually add this option into their Option Agreement.
After discussing how much we were comfortable with investing in this company since it was still in the early stages, we ended up exercising early and starting the long-term capital gains clock. After only a few years, luckily, the company went through an acquisition, which resulted in many of the options being long-term capital gains, ultimately saving about 15% in taxes. The initial investment paid off and opened doors to other conversations around primary home purchase, investment strategy, and wealth protection.”
