I spent a decade in tech. Then I came back to advising.

A career that began in wealth management

Right out of the gate, I worked in wealth management. Wilmington Trust, then the Private Bank at J.P. Morgan, then an advisory firm here in the area. I learned how real planning is supposed to work. I also saw how much of the industry is built around selling product rather than serving the person across the table.

That bothered me. I filed it away and figured I would come back to it someday, on my own terms.

A decade in tech, six years at SAP

Then tech pulled me in, and I stayed for about a decade. I rose to Vice President of Customer Success at SAP and later led North American customer success at a core banking startup. Real responsibility, good years, and something I did not expect: I became the client I now serve.

RSUs vesting on a schedule I had to plan around. An ESPP decision every period. A net worth that quietly tilted toward a single stock. The tax bill that arrives the April after a big vest and surprises people who should have seen it coming. I lived all of it with my own money.

Nobody handed me a playbook for any of it. So I built one for myself. That playbook is the reason this firm exists.

A layoff, and a decision

In 2023 my role was eliminated. For a lot of people that is a setback. For me it was a door.

I could have chased the next title in enterprise software. Instead I went back to the thing I had filed away years earlier. I wanted long-term relationships with people in my own community, not another quarter of someone else's numbers. I wanted to do the work I respected when I first started, with everything tech had taught me layered on top.

Blackshire Wealth Management

I founded Blackshire Wealth Management in 2024 for the people sitting in the seat I had just left. Tech professionals and SAP employees with equity compensation. Families with real money and real complexity who are tired of disconnected advice.

We are fee-only and fiduciary. No commissions, no product sales, no agenda other than yours. I am not guessing at what your situation feels like. I have been in it.