Chapter · About
Alex Hilbert
Most people who arrive at this page were introduced by someone they trust. If that is how you got here, this is written for you.
Who I am
My name is Alex Hilbert. I run Life Story Wealth Planning, a small investment advisory firm in Scottsdale, Arizona. I am a Registered Investment Advisor, which in the United States is a specific, licensed role, not a job title anyone can adopt. Being an RIA also means I am a fiduciary. I am legally required to put my clients' interests ahead of my own.
I have worked in this industry since 2012. Most of the people I work with came to me because someone they trust suggested it. If that is how you arrived here, this page is for you, and the fuller portrait of who I work with is here.
Why I built this firm
Before this firm, I was an adviser at Vanguard.
The clients I spoke with there were smart people who had built real wealth over long careers. They read carefully, they asked real questions, and they were paying attention. When markets fell, and they always fall, eventually, those clients would call. They wanted to know what we were going to do about their portfolios. They watched the value of their accounts drop day after day, and they wanted a plan.
The Vanguard answer was to do nothing. Stay the course. Ride it out.
That answer was not wrong for everyone. For a lot of people it is the right answer. But the clients I spoke with were not satisfied with it. They wanted to know why they were paying a management fee if nothing was being managed. They had a fair point.
At Vanguard, we were trained to manage clients, not portfolios.
I do not say that as a criticism. It is true of most large firms, and there is a business reason for it. But it is not the way I want to work, and it is not what the clients I spoke with were paying for.
So I left, and I built this firm to do the other thing. To actually manage portfolios. To reconsider positions every quarter, to move between asset classes when conditions change, and to hold cash when nothing deserves capital. To answer the phone when a client wants to know what we are doing about a market that is falling, with something better than "nothing."
Most clients are not satisfied with an advisor who gets paid to sit on his hands.
What being a fiduciary means, in practice
A fiduciary is legally required to act in your interest ahead of their own. In day-to-day terms that shapes three things about how I work:
- I do not earn commissions on the products I recommend. My fee structure, described on the Fees page, pays me only when your portfolio gains value above a defined threshold. I do not get paid for holding your assets. I get paid when they grow.
- I do not take custody of your money. It is held at a separate, third-party institution in an account in your name. I explain how this works on the Custody page.
- I do not answer to a corporate office. I answer to my clients. That is the point of the firm.
How I manage money
The process has a name, I call it Tzur Magen, from the Hebrew for fortress and shield. It is built around a single idea: managing risk comes first. Before I decide what to buy, I decide what could go wrong and how to guard against it. The full explanation, layer by layer, is on the Philosophy page.
Where I am
Life Story Wealth Planning is based in Scottsdale, Arizona.
I keep the firm small on purpose. It lets me pay attention to each client's situation properly rather than run a book of hundreds.
How to verify me
You can look up any Registered Investment Advisor in the United States through the SEC's public records. My firm's Form ADV, the standard regulatory filing, is linked in the footer of every page on this site. If it matters to you to verify anything before we speak, that is where to look.