HBKS Wealth Advisors is rated a “Top Registered Investment Advisor” by Financial Advisor Magazine, July 2021; a “CNBC FA 100” by CNBC, October 2021; and among the “Top 100 Registered Investment Advisors” by Barron’s Magazine, September 2021. HBKS is a subsidiary of HBK CPAs & Consultants, a “2021 Best Tax & Accounting Firms” by Forbes Magazine and a “2022 Top 100 Firm” by Accounting Today.
ELITE LIFE MANAGEMENT, AN HBKS COMPANY
OUR TEAM
Founder | Principal, Senior Financial Advisor
Jeremy Shelby is the founder, president, and head of the directors of Elite Life Management, a Sarasota, Fla.-based wealth advisory that merged with HBKS Wealth Advisors in 2022. Jeremy founded Elite Life Management in 2020 with the mission to provide resources, strategies, and solutions that stretch far beyond the portfolio, that is, a holistic approach of goals-based advice for stability, understanding clients’ goals and a focus on their mental as well as financial capital.
Jeremy began his career as a professional baseball player, signing with the Baltimore Orioles organization in 2010. In 2017, he entered the Wealth Management industry as a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch. Wanting to reconnect with his passion and love for professional sports, Jeremy transitioned to Motion Group Sports in Sarasota, where he and his team created tailored life solutions and provided fiduciary services for individuals in the sports and entertainment industry. While Elite serves a broad range of clients in the Sarasota area, Jeremy and his team also offer a platform designed for the non-recessionary industry of professional sports.
Jeremy was born in Los Angeles, California. He graduated from Grambling State University with a B.S. in Sports Management in Kinesiology. Jeremy resides in Sarasota, Florida with his wife, Alysha and their three children.
Senior Financial Advisor
Ryan is a Senior Financial Advisor for Sarasota,Fla.-based Elite Life Management, which merged with HBKS Wealth Advisors in 2022. As a financial advisor, his focus is on providing fiduciary services for his clients and developing lifelong strategies for individuals in the sports and entertainment industries. He uses a family-first approach in developing long-term client relationships, “to comfortably allow clients to understand and comprehend their financial and mental capacities and open a gateway guiding our clients to achieve their lifelong dreams.”
Ryan started his career in financial services at MerrillLynch in Sarasota in 2016. He completed the Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) designation in 2017. His background includes professional baseball in the European Professional Baseball League, and mission work in Africa with his wife Danielle. He has traveled to over 40 countries across six continents and is a published author of travel stories.
Advisor Associate
Stephanie is an Advisor Associate for Sarasota, Fla.- based Elite Life Management, which merged with HBKS Wealth Advisors in 2022.
Stephanie started her career in financial services with Merrill Lynch in Lakewood Ranch, Florida in 2020. She graduated from the University of Mississippi with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics
R. Dean PIccirillo, CFP®, CRPS®, AIFA®
HBKS Principal, Senior Financial Advisor
Dean Piccirillo is a principal and senior financial advisor, advising HBKS® Wealth Advisors clients. Dean currently leads client service teams in both Fort Myers and Sarasota. Nationally, Dean also leads the Retirement Plan Services Unit at HBKS®, where his team helps the firm’s corporate clients establish or enhance qualified retirement plans.
Since the HBKS merger with ELM, Dean has been very involved with the integration of HBKS resources into the ELM practice and has also helped to build out the firm’s sports niche. He is a National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) registered financial advisor and works closely with ELM’s current and retired NFL clients and other professional athletes.
Dean began his career in financial services in 1989 in Pennsylvania working as a Financial Advisor before joining HBKS® Wealth Advisors in 1995. During his career at HBKS, Dean has held a number of senior leadership positions at the firm including chief operating officer and chief compliance officer.
Dean’s background, experience and education, including a Master’s degree in financial services, make him uniquely qualified to counsel affluent families, particularly owners and founders of closely held businesses.
Amy Dalen, JD
HBK Principal, Tax Advisory Chair
Amy is a Principal and the Chair of the Tax Advisory Group at HBK CPAs & Consultants. The Tax Advisory Group is a group of highly specialized professionals who provide tax training to our team members, oversee compliance with tax policies in order to mitigate risk to the firm, and provide tax planning and consulting services for our clients.
Amy specializes in estate, gift, trust, individual, and nonprofit taxation. She is skilled at researching complicated tax issues, consulting on complex estate plans, and providing guidance for our clients to ensure they are in compliance with their tax filing responsibilities.
Amy holds her Juris Doctor from University of Maine School of Law and her Bachelor of Arts in Legal Studies with a secondary major in Sociology: Criminal Justice from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst.
Craig M. Steinhoff, CPA, CITP
HBK Principal-in-Charge of Sarasota
Craig is the Principal-in-Charge of the Sarasota, Florida office of HBK CPAs & Consultants. He began his accounting career in 1999 and joined HBK in 2007. He provides accounting, audit and financial reporting services to a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, wholesale distribution, not-for-profit, governmental, retail and entertainment. He is a recurring speaker, presenting on various accounting, auditing and internal control-related topics internally and for various external organizations. He also frequently authors non-profit articles for several external publications.
Craig holds his Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Capital University.
Brian Sommers, CFA
HBKS Principal, Chief Investment Officer
Brian Sommers oversees the firm’s investment management processes for HBKS® investment advisory representatives. He chairs the firm’s Investment Policy Committee and is instrumental in the identification, evaluation and recommendation of the investments that make up the firm’s client portfolios. He brings HBKS® clients the expertise of more than 20 years managing a wide range of portfolios for both high net worth individuals and institutional clients.
Brian holds an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business, has earned the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and is a member of the CFA Institute and CFA Society of Pittsburgh.
George Sanders, CFA
HBKS Investment Analyst
George Sanders is a Investment Analyst in our Philadelphia, Pennsylvania office working with the Asset Management Group. He will provides research and due diligence for all of the HBKS strategies. He also assists in the rebalancing of portfolios.
George joined HBKS in January 2020. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics & History from Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to joining HBKS, he worked as a Mortgage Underwriter for Freedom Mortgage Corp
Ethan Berkebile, CFA, CAIA
HBKS Portfolio Manager
Ethan Berkebile is a Portfolio Manager in our Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania office working with the Asset Management Group. Ethan supports research and due diligence efforts for all HBKS® strategies. He also assists with trading operations.
Prior to joining HBKS® in April 2022, Ethan spent over seven years in portfolio management and investment research, where he was responsible for sourcing and underwriting managers and strategies across traditional and alternative asset classes.
Ethan is a cum laude graduate of Saint Francis University School of Business where he double majored in finance and economics. He earned the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 2019 and is a member of the CFA Institute and CFA Society of Pittsburgh.
OUR SERVICES
Effective wealth management involves more than overseeing an investment portfolio. We work first to understand: your finances, objectives, challenges. We create and implement a plan that addresses your financial condition and goals — a cost-effective, tax-sensitive and comprehensive strategy.
Financial Planning
Financial planning is a critical first step to achieving your personal financial goals and therefore is at the core of our relationship with you. We believe your needs are best met through a financial planning process designed to determine where you stand relative to your long-term goals. The planning process will help you and your advisor make informed decisions to better control your finances and your future.
Insurance Services
Insurance is a critical component of a comprehensive wealth management plan, and can protect your wealth and minimize the negative consequences of a premature death, significant disability or long-term illness. Elite Life Management insurance professionals are a part of your Elite Life Management team, advising you on a wide array of independent insurance solutions and helping you implement important protections for your family, including life, disability income and long-term care insurance.
Retirement Planning
Achieving your dream of a secure, comfortable retirement is much easier when you plan your finances. Through the retirement planning process, Elite Life Management helps you answer a myriad of important questions.
- Do we have enough to retire?
- How much do we need to accumulate now to retire successfully?
- How much income can we draw from our investments?
- Are we drawing too much?
- Will our retirement assets last throughout our remaining years?
- How might inflation impact the cost of retirement over our life expectancy?
Investment Management
We believe in long-term strategic asset allocation. While neither asset allocation nor diversification can guarantee a profit or insure against losses, we believe a disciplined approach, over time and through market cycles, offers you the best opportunity to achieve your long-term wealth objectives.
Wealth Transfer
We use estate planning so that the transfer of your wealth to your family members, charitable organizations and others, during your life as well as at death, is accomplished with minimum impact from taxes and probate expenses. To help you design an effective estate transition plan, it is important that your advisor understand your intentions: who should inherit your wealth and how it should be divided.
Retirement Plan Services
Through our retirement plan specialists, we assist ERISA plan sponsors in the review and oversight of all plan investments to a high standard of care; with customized participant communications; in understanding, analyzing and taking inventory of all plan fees and expenses; and in the periodic review of the plan’s service providers and platforms.
Business Succession Planning
When planning for succession, an owner must deal with a complex set of business, family, tax and estate issues. Elite Life Management draws upon our substantial expertise as well as the resources of our affiliates and our external strategic partners to negotiate even the most complex and challenging courses of action and to develop a succession plan to optimize your chances for maximum financial and personal satisfaction.
WHY ELITE LIFE MANAGEMENT
1
We are independent.
We are free of the constraints associated with proprietary products — free to serve rather than sell, free to do what’s in our clients’ best interests. Your Elite Life Management advisory team’s recommendations are unbiased and unrestricted in terms of access to investment products. We build portfolios that address your financial circumstances, goals and challenges, using cost-efficient managers to fulfill your core allocations.
2
We work first to understand.
We create a plan that addresses your financial condition and goals, and implement a sound, cost-effective, tax- sensitive strategy. We continuously evaluate and adjust your plan, its elements and initiatives, to ensure it remains relevant to your financial condition and consistent with your objectives.
3
We tailor your portfolio to you.
We recognize that markets are unpredictable. History has proven it impossible to predict market tops and bottoms on a systemic basis. We believe the best approach is to develop a global asset allocation and stick with it for the long term. Our personalized approach begins with an initial review to help identify the appropriate asset allocation based on your investment goals, risk tolerance and liquidity needs. Being independent allows us to select those investments within each asset class that our research indicates will provide a high probability of achieving your investment objectives. We manage wealth with a focus on minimizing tax liability.
4
We are not too big to be small.
With the resources and power of a large, national firm, and supported by sophisticated research and investment management technology, we operate with the responsiveness and agility of local businesses, collaborating among our professionals to deliver the precise services you need to achieve your business and personal financial objectives.
5
We live and work where you do.
Our professionals live and work in the cities and towns where our clients live and work. We serve as board members on endowment funds and foundations. We develop and implement financial programs and consult on financial issues for community and charitable organizations.
6
You can count on our integrity.
As a registered investment advisor, Elite Life Management operates in accordance with ethical standards and pursuant to a steadfast fiduciary responsibility. That means we put your interests ahead of our own, and we are morally as well as legally bound by that promise.
Our role is not to convince or coax, but to consult and collaborate, to understand your objectives and develop a holistic solution based on a broad view of your financial challenges.
HBKS Wealth Advisors and Elite Life Management
MERGER FAQ
Why did you merge your firm with HBKS Wealth Advisors?
We were looking for authenticity and scalability. We wanted to ensure we grew with quality, and getting to know the HBKS team convinced us we were making the right move. We could improve the quality and breadth of our services to our clients quickly through this merger as opposed to taking years to build it internally.
To have an opportunity to work with an established firm like HBKS allows us to scale up as we remain true to our culture, that is, to provide the holistic financial support to our clients that we want to in a firm that still feels like us, the way we think about and work with our clients. And in addition to being able to deliver more and better services to our existing clients, our merger will help us appeal to the new clients we want to attract.
Who is HBKS?
HBKS Wealth Advisors provides wealth and asset management services to individuals, families, corporations, nonprofits, and other organizations. The firm is a registered investment advisory (RIA), which means it operates in accordance with the highest ethical standards and according to the strictest interpretation of fiduciary responsibility. HBKS has over $5.5 billion in assets under management, has been recognized as among the top U.S. RIAs by three of the world’s most respected financial publications: Financial Advisor Magazine, Accounting Today, and Financial Times.
HBKS has been a member of the HBK family of financial service companies since 2001. HBK (formerly Hill, Barth & King) was founded in 1949 and offers professional services in a wide range of tax, accounting, audit, business advisory, and valuation, as well as financial planning and wealth management. HBK and HBKS serve their clients out of 17 offices in five states, including Sarasota, FL. And like Elite, they are client-focused. That was a big consideration for us in merging with HBKS.
Will you be providing those services to your clients?
As an Elite client you will continue to have access to all the services and support we provide, but also to the full realm of services offered by HBKS and HBK CPAs & Consultants. The HBK family of companies is built around collaboration, the firm professionals working with each other to bring their clients the services they need with the highest levels of knowledge and experience.
Will the way you work with your clients change in any way?
Elite will continue to operate under the Elite name, and as we have, a client-focused, local, autonomous firm. We will present ourselves as “an HBKS Wealth company.” We remain your first point of contact, but with a greater depth of services and resources behind us.
Will you move into the HBKS office here?
We will continue to serve you from our current offices here in Sarasota.
What does “an HBKS Wealth company” mean?
Our merger with HBKS means that we can bring our clients a much greater depth of services and expertise. HBKS and HBK CPAs & Consultants combine to provide hundreds of experienced, credentialed professionals, many with deep expertise in their financial disciplines. HBKS is expert in financial planning, as well as in composing, monitoring, and maintaining client portfolios. As an independent advisory, they provide clients access to the universe of investments filtered by a robust program of investment manager selection.
Elite Life Management serves high performers with elite careers - athletes, doctors, executives, and business owners - with customized resources, strategies, and solutions that stretch far beyond the portfolio.
HBKS® Wealth Advisors is rated a “Top Registered Investment Advisor” by Financial Advisor Magazine, July 2021; a “CNBC FA 100” by CNBC, October 2021; and among the “Top 100 Registered Investment Advisors” by Barron’s Magazine, September 2021.
HBKS is a subsidiary of HBK CPAs & Consultants, a “2021 Best Tax & Accounting Firms” by Forbes Magazine and a “2022 Top 100 Firm” by Accounting Today.
CONTACT US
Contact INFO
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Elite Life Management LLC
FINERGY TRADE CENTER
2170 Main Street, Suite 401
Sarasota, FL 34237 United States
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Phone Number
833-823-0324 - info@elitelifeteam.com
