Best Certified Financial Planners in New York

Top New York City Certified Financial Planners (CFPs)

New York City’s financial landscape is as diverse and complex as the New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area itself, making personalized financial planning essential.

From Manhattan executives and Brooklyn entrepreneurs to Long Island families and professionals across the region, each client faces different financial priorities and challenges.

The area’s top Certified Financial Planners go beyond investment management, offering strategic planning, tax guidance, retirement support, behavioral coaching, financial education, and personalized long-term advice. Their ability to understand individual circumstances and communicate complex financial concepts clearly makes them valuable partners for New Yorkers navigating an increasingly complicated financial world.

At Digital Reference, we believe professional credibility should go beyond titles and résumés. Our approach focuses on making expertise more transparent, authentic, contextual, and verifiable through research, structured information, professional references, and video.

This philosophy guides our curated lists, helping readers discover professionals based not just on credentials, but on their experience, accomplishments, reputation, and unique approach to their work.

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🗽 Methodology: How We Built This List of Top New York City Certified Financial Planners

Digital Reference uses a research-driven approach to curate New York City-area financial planners based on their credentials, specialties, experience, public work, leadership, and professional impact. This is not a ranking, but a carefully researched selection of professionals whose unique approaches stand out within the New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area. 

Our methodology has several dimensions:

🔎 Research-driven evaluation: We looked beyond job titles to understand what each professional actually does, who they serve, how they describe their methodology, and what differentiates their practice.

⭐ Client-oriented credibility: Financial planning is fundamentally relational. We considered evidence of client focus, communication, service philosophy, testimonials, published perspectives, and the way each advisor frames the client experience.

🏆 Professional achievement: Credentials, awards, media appearances, publications, leadership positions, speaking engagements, and professional recognition were considered where publicly documented.

🧭 Specialization and differentiation: We looked for a clear point of view. Equity compensation, divorce planning, women’s financial empowerment, retirement income, tax planning, multigenerational planning, high-income professionals, and other specialties can meaningfully distinguish one advisor from another.

📍 Location and local relevance: Each professional was evaluated within the context of the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metropolitan area.

🧩 Context and nuance: We don't believe two professionals should be evaluated solely because they both hold a CFP® designation. Their business models, client populations, experience, communication styles, and specialties can be dramatically different.

🔄 Iterative thinking: Digital Reference treats professional credibility as something that evolves. Careers change. Firms grow. Specializations deepen. New accomplishments emerge. This list may therefore expand as additional professionals meet our criteria.

The result is a list designed to give readers more context, not simply more names.

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🌟 Digital Reference's List of Best Certified Financial Planners in New York City

New York’s top certified financial planners bring together expertise, experience, and personalized financial guidance to help clients navigate everything from wealth building and retirement planning to investments, taxes, and long-term financial goals. This curated group highlights professionals who stand out for their credentials, client-focused approach, and commitment to helping individuals and families make more informed financial decisions. 

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🔷 Stacy Francis, CFP®, CDFA®, CES™

President & CEO of Francis Financial

Stacy Francis stands out in New York’s financial planning landscape because her work goes beyond conventional wealth management, with a strong focus on divorce, women’s financial empowerment, widowhood, and long-term financial planning. Her approach recognizes that major life transitions often involve complex financial decisions involving investments, taxes, retirement, housing, and estate planning.

As President & CEO of Francis Financial, Francis brings more than 20 years of financial industry experience and holds CFP®, CDFA®, and CES™ credentials. This combination of financial planning, divorce analysis, and estate expertise allows her to provide a more comprehensive approach for clients navigating significant financial and personal changes.

💎 A multidimensional planning practice: Her professional designations show a deliberate expansion beyond traditional financial planning into divorce and estate-related financial issues.

🏅 National visibility: Francis Financial describes Stacy as a nationally recognized financial expert who has appeared in outlets including Forbes, Kiplinger, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. She has also served on CNBC's Digital Financial Advisor Council.

👩‍💼 Women and financial empowerment: Stacy founded Savvy Ladies, a nonprofit focused on educating and empowering women to take control of their finances. Francis Financial states that the organization has helped more than 20,000 women through free financial counseling, workshops, and retreats.

🎙️ Content and education: She is also the host of the Financially Ever After: Widowhood podcast, giving her practice an educational dimension that extends beyond traditional advisor-client meetings.

🤝 Professional leadership: Her involvement with organizations including the Association of Divorce Financial Planners, NAPFA, and the Financial Planning Association reflects an ongoing connection to the broader financial planning profession.

Francis Financial itself emphasizes a collaborative team model, with multiple CFP® professionals and specialists working across the organization.

That matters because Stacy's story is not simply about credentials. It is about how financial expertise can be applied to moments when clients need both technical precision and human sensitivity.

Her approach is particularly distinctive for readers looking for a planner who understands that money decisions can be deeply connected to family dynamics, identity, transitions, and long-term security.

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🔷 Gideon Drucker, CFP®, AIF®, ECA

President & CEO of Drucker Wealth

Gideon Drucker brings a specialized approach to New York’s financial planning landscape, focusing on high-income professionals and families seeking long-term financial independence. As President & CEO of Drucker Wealth, he is a third-generation advisor who has built on his family’s legacy while developing expertise in serving mid-career professionals, including clients in big tech.

His Wealth Builder approach emphasizes the critical years when income, career growth, family decisions, and wealth-building opportunities intersect. Rather than waiting until retirement to focus on financial planning, Drucker helps clients make strategic decisions earlier to turn strong earnings into lasting wealth.

💡 The HENRY framework: Gideon is particularly associated with the concept of “HENRY”—High Earners, Not Rich Yet—and has authored How to Avoid HENRY Syndrome: Financial Strategies to Own Your Future and H.E.N.R.Y. Strategies Unlocked.

🚀 Mid-career specialization: His practice focuses on professionals who may have substantial income but still need a coherent system for translating that income into sustainable wealth.

🏙️ Big-tech awareness: Drucker Wealth explicitly highlights planning for employees at companies such as CrowdStrike, Snowflake, Etsy, OpenAI, and Anthropic, while clarifying that the logos do not imply formal relationships with those companies.

🧠 Proactive planning: His philosophy emphasizes building a financial roadmap before major life decisions become emergencies.

📚 Thought leadership: Gideon's public writing frequently tackles practical questions that high earners encounter, including mortgage decisions, financial independence, advisor fit, and fee structures.

Drucker stands out for being clear about who his firm is—and isn’t—a good fit for. He encourages prospective clients to ask advisors which clients they do not serve well, reinforcing the value of genuine specialization. His focus on high earners, particularly professionals approaching retirement, gives his practice a clear niche in New York’s competitive financial planning market.

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🔷 Zachary Brody, CFP®, ChFC®

Managing Partner & Founder of Lumiere Financial Group

Zachary Brody represents the entrepreneurial side of New York’s financial planning landscape, combining wealth management, investment strategy, leadership, and financial-services business development. As Managing Partner and Founder of Lumiere Financial Group, he works with high-net-worth individuals, families, endowments, foundations, and institutions.

Brody’s background includes investment research, portfolio management, and financial-services leadership, including leading the Manhattan office of Prudential Advisors and earning recognition through its President’s Club Conference. His experience at AXA Advisors and Lumiere reflects a career built around both financial expertise and entrepreneurial growth.

💼 Multi-dimensional leadership: Brody leads investment strategy, executive leadership, business development, M&A, and long-range planning at Lumiere.

🏢 Financial-services entrepreneurship: He also serves as Managing Partner and Co-Founder of InsureTech Brokerage, a brokerage general agency serving financial professionals nationwide.

🎓 Advanced credentials: In addition to the CFP® designation, Brody holds the Chartered Financial Consultant® (ChFC®) designation and FINRA registrations including Series 7, 9, 10, 24, and 66.

🌎 Professional engagement: He is an Associate Member of the Economic Club of New York and a member of the Forbes Finance Council.

📣 Financial literacy: Brody volunteers with Junior Achievement, bringing financial education into the community.

Brody’s public work also shows the breadth of his expertise, including co-authored content on the financial challenges facing professional athletes, from financial literacy and sudden wealth to investing and social pressures. His role extends beyond client planning into firm leadership, investment strategy, business development, and public education. For those seeking a New York planner with an entrepreneurial approach and connection to a broader wealth-management platform, Brody stands out. 

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🔷 David Rosenstrock, CFP®, MBA

Founder & Director of Wharton Wealth Planning

David Rosenstrock brings an academic and analytical orientation to financial planning.

He is the founder and principal of Wharton Wealth Planning, with offices associated with New York and New Jersey. CFP Board's professional directory lists his New York location at Columbus Circle as well as locations in Englewood Cliffs and Tenafly, reflecting the firm's connection to the broader tristate area.

His academic background is particularly notable. Rosenstrock earned a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University and an MBA from The Wharton School, where he majored in finance and minored in entrepreneurial management.

📚 Strong analytical foundation: The combination of Cornell and Wharton gives Rosenstrock a particularly finance-focused academic background.

🎓 CFP® expertise: He has held the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional designation since 2020.

📰 Extensive media contribution: His LinkedIn profile documents contributions and appearances related to investing and financial planning across CNBC, Barron's, NBC News, CNN, CBS News, Forbes, Yahoo Finance, Fortune, MarketWatch, NASDAQ, Morningstar, Business Insider, and other outlets.

🎙️ Thought leadership: He has also appeared on podcasts, including the Retirement Wisdom Podcast, reinforcing his role as an educator as well as a practitioner.

🏙️ Tristate relevance: Wharton Wealth Planning's footprint connects Manhattan with northern New Jersey, making the practice relevant to the broader New York metropolitan financial ecosystem.

“Wharton Wealth Planning” signals an analytical approach, but Rosenstrock stands out for combining his academic finance background with personal financial planning. His work connects investment strategy with real-world decisions involving asset allocation, retirement, taxes, business ownership, and lifestyle goals. That ability to bring these areas together makes his approach particularly relevant for sophisticated clients.

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🔷 Curtis Pope, CFP®, CFT™

Founder & Principal of Pope Wealth Planning

Curtis Pope has built an independent New York advisory practice around a particularly clear idea: financial advice should be personal, transparent, and connected to an actual financial plan.

Pope Wealth Planning describes itself as an independent, fee-only registered investment advisor serving successful tristate families, professionals, executives, business owners, and retirees.

Pope's background spans major financial institutions, including Citi, State Street Global Advisors, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, and Wealthsimple. He says he has advised hundreds of clients since beginning his advisory career in 2008.

💼 Independent practice: Pope built his own firm rather than remaining inside a large institutional advisory organization.

🧠 Financial therapy: In addition to the CFP® designation, he holds the Certified Financial Therapist-I™ credential, signaling an interest in the behavioral and emotional side of money.

🎓 Academic depth: His education includes a BA in Economics from Columbia University, a master's degree from Columbia, and a graduate certificate in financial planning from Northwestern University.

🏆 Professional recognition: He is a two-time recipient of Morgan Stanley's Pacesetter's Club award for “Highest professional standards and first class service.”

🏫 Financial education: Pope volunteers with Cents-ability, teaching financial literacy to students in New York City's five boroughs.

⛳ Community involvement: He also coaches golf at Trinity School in New York City.

Pope’s LinkedIn profile highlights his community-focused approach, including financial-literacy teaching and coaching. His practice emphasizes helping clients understand the “why” behind their financial decisions, from retirement readiness and college funding to managing equity and bonuses. This planning-first approach, rather than a product-focused one, is particularly well suited to New York’s professional population.

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🔷 Gerry Barrasso, CPA, CFP®, PFS

President & Founder of United Financial Planning Group

Gerry Barrasso stands out for his integrated approach to financial planning, combining tax planning, investment management, wealth strategy, and financial planning under one framework. As a CPA, CFP®, and PFS, his background includes corporate finance, taxation, SEC reporting, and investing, including experience at Price Waterhouse and helping startups navigate public offerings.

As part of United Financial Planning Group, a fee-only, fiduciary RIA, Barrasso emphasizes advice that is not driven by commissions or product sales. His extensive tax and corporate finance experience allows him to bring a particularly strategic perspective to clients managing complex financial decisions.

🧾 CPA foundation: His tax and accounting background gives his planning practice a particularly strong technical foundation.

📊 Corporate finance experience: His career includes startup and public-company experience, which gives him perspective beyond personal investment management.

💰 Integrated planning: United FPG combines financial planning, investment management, tax planning, and tax preparation under one roof.

🏦 Fee-only fiduciary model: The firm's model is explicitly designed around eliminating commissions and product sales.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Broad client base: Barrasso works with retirees, pre-retirees, small business owners, high-net-worth individuals and families, and high-earning professionals.

🎓 Education: His background includes a BBA in Finance from Hofstra University, an MBA in Accounting from St. John's University, and a Certificate in Financial Planning from Fordham University.

❤️ Community engagement: Barrasso participates in charitable organizations including Big Brothers Big Sisters of Long Island and St. Jude Children's Hospital.

Barrasso’s integrated approach is especially valuable because taxes can significantly shape the real-world outcome of a financial plan. His CPA background allows him to consider Roth conversions, capital gains, retirement withdrawals, and estate planning alongside investments from the start. This tax-aware perspective helps clients build strategies that are not only sound on paper but more efficient in practice.

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🔷 AJ Ayers, CFP®, EA, CEP

CEO & Co-Founder of Brooklyn Fi

AJ Ayers represents the evolving side of New York financial planning, combining CFP® expertise with Enrolled Agent and Certified Equity Professional credentials and a specialization in equity compensation. Through Brooklyn Fi, Ayers works with tech professionals, founders, and creative business owners navigating complex financial situations.

Her expertise is especially valuable for clients whose wealth is tied to RSUs, stock options, private-company equity, acquisitions, or potential IPOs. By focusing on equity compensation, Ayers brings a specialized perspective to financial planning in New York’s technology and entrepreneurial communities.

📈 Equity compensation expertise: Brooklyn Fi specifically focuses on equity compensation, including RSUs, ISOs, and other complex equity structures.

🧾 Tax expertise: Her Enrolled Agent credential complements her planning work around the tax consequences of equity decisions.

✍️ Communication background: Before becoming a financial planner, Ayers worked as a writer and editor, a background that helps explain her unusually accessible communication style.

🎙️ Thought leadership: She co-hosts The Liquidity Event podcast with Shane Mason and regularly creates educational content around equity compensation.

🏫 Employer education: In 2021, she launched BKFi Academy, an employer education platform focused on financial wellness and equity compensation training.

📚 Author: Ayers is the author of Creative Money: New Financial Rules for Artists, Innovators, and Misfits, scheduled for publication through Penguin Random House in 2026.

🏅 Industry recognition: Her media kit notes that she was named to Financial Advisor magazine's Young Advisors to Watch in 2026.

🎤 Public speaking: Her professional work includes keynotes and panels on equity compensation, building advisory firms, and creating educational content.

What makes Ayers especially distinctive is the combination of technical expertise and storytelling.

Finance can feel intimidating because of its specialized language. Ayers’ approach stands out for making complex financial decisions easier to understand, particularly around equity compensation and its broader implications. That reflects Digital Reference’s philosophy that expertise becomes more valuable when paired with clear communication, context, and evidence of how a professional actually works.

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🔷 Kristen Euretig, CFP®

Chief Planner & Founder of Brooklyn Plans

Kristen Euretig brings a strong focus on financial empowerment and confidence, helping women develop healthier relationships with money and make informed financial decisions. As Chief Planner and Founder of Brooklyn Plans, she combines financial planning with an unconventional career path that began in education and nonprofit financial empowerment before transitioning into financial services.

Her background as a teacher and nonprofit professional gives her a distinct perspective on financial education and accessibility. After entering financial services in 2008, Euretig built Brooklyn Plans around helping clients understand their finances and take greater control of their financial futures.

🎓 Education and communication: Her background in linguistics and teaching is highly relevant to a profession that depends on explaining complex subjects clearly.

👩 Women-focused planning: Brooklyn Plans centers much of its work around helping women become more confident and empowered with money.

🗞️ National recognition: Euretig has been featured by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Forbes as a financial planner and consumer advocate.

🏙️ Brooklyn identity: She moved to Brooklyn more than two decades ago and built her advisory practice around the community.

🌱 Financial empowerment roots: Before launching Brooklyn Plans, she worked at Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners and Microfinance Opportunities, organizations connected to financial empowerment and access.

📣 Public education: Brooklyn Plans has been featured in media discussions involving apartment purchases, budgeting, lease renewals, and everyday financial decisions.

That distinction is important because financial planning isn’t only about managing large portfolios. It can also mean helping clients decide what they can realistically afford, manage lifestyle changes, plan for family expenses, or evaluate major financial decisions. Euretig’s practice reflects this decision-support approach, making Brooklyn Plans a strong fit for New Yorkers seeking a planner focused on communication, confidence, and financial empowerment. 

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🔷 Joe Forish, CFA, CFP®

Founder of Fortrove Partners

Joe Forish has built Fortrove Partners around a highly specialized area of modern wealth management: equity compensation for technology professionals. His practice helps founders and tech employees navigate complex financial decisions involving stock options, RSUs, 83(b) elections, and AMT exposure.

This focused expertise is particularly relevant in New York’s growing technology and entrepreneurial ecosystem, where wealth is often tied to company equity rather than traditional investments. Forish’s approach helps clients better understand and strategically manage one of the most valuable parts of their financial lives.

📊 CFA + CFP®: Forish combines the Chartered Financial Analyst and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designations.

💻 Technology specialization: Fortrove is explicitly built around founders and technology employees.

📈 Equity compensation: His practice focuses on ISOs, NSOs, RSUs, 83(b) elections, AMT, and the planning decisions surrounding equity ownership.

🧭 Fee-only fiduciary positioning: Fortrove describes its model as providing technology professionals with a fee-only fiduciary advisor.

🧩 Technical translation: Rather than simply managing investments, Forish's role is to help clients understand what their equity actually means and how individual decisions affect their broader financial plan.

🚗 Entrepreneurial roots: Fortrove's biography notes that Forish grew up working at his father's auto dealership, where he learned early about client service and the rewards and challenges of building a business.

Forish’s LinkedIn profile reinforces his role as a New York-based financial professional with Fortrove Partners. His key differentiator is specialization in equity compensation, an area that can bring significant wealth while also creating concentration risk, tax exposure, and complex timing decisions. His practice helps clients navigate these challenges with greater structure, making the specialization especially relevant to today’s equity-driven professional economy.

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🔷 Jeffrey Lewis, CFP®, ChFC®, CLU®, RICP®, LUTCF, RHU

Founder & President of Planning Financial Futures

Jeffrey C. Lewis is the founder of Planning Financial Futures, which he established in Melville, New York, in 1995. His current firm biography describes a practice centered on helping clients navigate retirement income, investment management, insurance, estate planning, and long-term care.

Lewis's profile is particularly notable for the way his experience connects financial planning with retirement, insurance, healthcare, and long-term care considerations. His background as a former medical underwriter gives additional context to the insurance and healthcare-related areas of his practice, while his decades of operating Planning Financial Futures provide a long-term perspective on working with clients through significant financial transitions.

🗓️ Long-standing practice: Lewis founded Planning Financial Futures in 1995 and says he has worked with Long Island families and clients across the country since then.

🎓 Economics background: He earned a B.A. in Economics from SUNY Binghamton. His biography notes that an economics course there influenced his decision to move away from a pre-med track.

🏦 Insurance and underwriting experience: After graduation, Lewis joined Mutual of Omaha, where he spent five years, including time working as a field medical underwriter. He says that experience continues to inform his work with clients considering long-term care, healthcare costs in retirement, and insurance decisions.

📊 Broad financial-planning focus: His current practice covers retirement income, investment management, insurance, estate planning, and long-term care, with a particular focus on clients experiencing major financial transitions.

🤝 Direct client relationships: Planning Financial Futures emphasizes a highly personal service model. The firm's website states that Lewis answers his own calls, responds directly to clients, and handles his client relationships without layers between the client and advisor.

🧭 Planning philosophy: Lewis says his approach is based on explaining what he knows clearly, acknowledging what cannot be predicted, and prioritizing clients' understanding of their own financial situations.

🏠 Long Island connection: Planning Financial Futures is based at 1895 Walt Whitman Road, Suite 6, in Melville, New York, placing Lewis firmly within the Long Island financial-planning community.

📋 Securities licenses: The firm's current biography lists Series 6, 63, 7, and 66 securities licenses, along with a multi-state insurance license.

One of the clearest themes in his current biography is simplicity. Lewis says clients often appreciate that he keeps financial matters straightforward and responds quickly. That emphasis on direct communication fits with Planning Financial Futures' stated model of maintaining a personal relationship between the advisor and client.

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🍎 Using Digital Reference to Find the Best Certified Financial Planner in New York City for Your Needs 

New York City’s financial planning landscape is diverse, with specialists addressing everything from retirement and taxes to equity compensation, wealth management, financial education, and major life transitions. Today’s CFP® professionals do more than manage investments—they educate, communicate, listen, and provide personalized strategies.

At Digital Reference, we believe credentials are only part of professional credibility. Experience, specialization, communication, context, and demonstrated impact all matter. Our research-driven approach helps readers identify the right expertise while giving professionals a more transparent and authentic way to showcase their reputation.

👇 Learn more about Digital Reference, our mission, and our approach:

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Ultimately, the goal is not to identify one “best” advisor, but to highlight the different kinds of expertise available across New York and make professional credibility easier to understand, verify, and trust.