Edward P. Mahaffy, MBA, CFP®, ChFC®

Ed founded ClientFirst in 2007 as a fee-only fiduciary practice. Doing that meant giving up six securities licenses, and he has not held a commission-bearing license since. It is the most concrete version of the claim every advisory firm makes: the only money the firm receives comes from its clients.

Before founding the firm he managed fixed-income portfolios for commercial banks and charitable foundations. That is where the firm's fixed-income discipline comes from: individual bonds, credit reviewed one at a time, maturities matched to when the money is needed.

He has advised through three market crises (1987, 2000 to 2002, and 2008) and has spent more than thirty years on the problem the firm now specializes in: the five years on either side of a retirement date.

He is the author of How to Select a Financial Advisor: The Least You Should Know, has written for Barron's, Retirement Daily and Today's CPA, and has been quoted in dozens of articles.