Roger Gershman, Founder & CEO
Roger Dean Gershman, Founder and CEO of WealthGuard, Inc., is a visionary leader in the financial services industry.
WealthGuard, the nation's premier protection agency for high-net-worth investors seeking background checks, ratings and rankings, is an example of that vision. The firm matches investors' unique requirements to financial advisors.
A second-generation financial advisor, Roger carries on the code first practiced by his father, who also provided financial services to his clients:
The customer's interests - not an advisor's or investment firm's interests - always come first.
Protecting Investors
After serving 25 years as a financial advisor for a Who's Who of investment firms, Roger acted on a dramatic need for a service that gives investors more transparency on Wall Street by creating WealthGuard, Inc. in 2012.
Through WealthGuard, Roger serves investors' interests only, helping ensure that investors buy products and services from Wall Street investment banks that are in their better interests. WealthGuard helps clients determine if:
- Fees charged are fair;
- Risks are minimized; and
- Individual goals, objectives and ambitions are met.
Roger was selected to be a contributing editor to Forbes writing two blogs each month focusing on investor protection, and you can find his Forbes.com profile and article archive on their website.
Roger is also creating the WealthGuard Foundation for Investor Protection (FIP). FIP's mission is to inform and educate high-net-worth investors about the obvious and not-so-obvious conflicts that often accompany investment firms' sales pitches.
An Insider's Resume
Beginning his career at Hambrecht & Quist more than two decades ago, Roger became a Senior Vice President in only three years. Over more than a decade there, he built and managed one of the largest wealth management practices servicing the country's wealthiest families.
Roger also served UBS as a Senior Vice President of Wealth Management. There he was recognized as a Private Wealth Advisor, part of an elite task force catering to UBS's ultra-high-net-worth clientele. At UBS, Roger specialized in trust and estate planning, philanthropic planning, lending services, insurance planning and global investment opportunities.
Roger previously was Director of Private Banking at Credit Suisse. He founded the Credit Suisse Philanthropic Alliance, which serviced donors and such charities as Room to Read, the Global Heritage Fund, Youth Tennis Advantage (YTA), the Asian Art Museum, Stanford University Women's Cancer Center, the Eye Contact Foundation, Theatreworks and Blair Academy.
Currently Roger is an independent franchise owner of his private practice, which clears through the largest financial planning organization in the country Ameriprise Financial.
Roger is the author of the soon to be released book about life as a financial advisor inside Wall Street firms. He also is a popular speaker at industry conferences. Roger was Chief Development Officer for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's 2008 "The Man & Woman of the Year" campaign.
A graduate of Syracuse University, Roger is part of the elite Syracuse University Professional Advisors Network, and he passionately supports his alma mater. He lives in Belvedere, California, with his wife and two young daughters, where he enjoys skiing, soccer and surfing.