- Benjamin J. Roberts, MBA, AIF®
I have been involved in various aspects of finance for over twenty years. In addition to financial planning, I have worked on Wall Street and as an entrepreneur. I earned an MBA in finance from Columbia Business School in 1991 and also hold the designation of Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF®) from the Center for Fiduciary Studies. I have been an investment advisory representative of First Affirmative Financial Network, LLC (FAFN) since 2006.
I live in Newtown, Connecticut, not far from my office in Sandy Hook, with my wife Kim, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist. We live alone (except for our dog and three cats), but often see our four children, who range from 17 to 28 years in age.
My Background
As an undergraduate at Columbia University, I studied Japanese language, history and literature. That led to my being hired in 1985 by Sanyo Securities, a Japanese brokerage firm, where I worked as a trader and institutional salesperson, covering the US and foreign bond markets. I then moved to Drexel Burnham Lambert for two years, again in foreign bond trading.
In those four years on Wall Street, I had a front row seat to some fascinating economic and financial times, including:
· The original “G5” meeting at the Plaza Hotel, which led to a more than 50% drop in the dollar’s value
· The rise and fall of the Japanese “bubble economy”
· The stock market crash of October 1987
· The decline and fall of Michael Milken and Drexel Burnham, the firm he built into a junk bond power house
After Drexel, I returned to Columbia University for an MBA in finance and real estate, graduating in 1991. Although I had planned to return to Wall Street, the difficult financial environment at that time led me instead to a brief stint managing the financial affairs of Equinox Fitness, which was just opening the first of what would become a small empire of New York City health clubs.
The work I did at Equinox encouraged my own entrepreneurial ambitions. Being obsessed with golf at the time (I am grateful to have since recovered!), I developed the idea for a large scale indoor facility—a sort of “health club for your golf game.” This was a new concept at the time, incorporating a wide array of advanced technology and large artificial turf installations to create a sophisticated indoor environment in which people of all abilities could develop their skills. I found a partner, raised money from outside investors, renovated 12,500 square feet of warehouse space in Norwalk, Connecticut and, in December of 1994, opened The Golf Training Center (link to current website here).
After managing the Center for eight very interesting and challenging years, I decided it was time for a career transition. Seeking work that would be more deeply meaningful to me, I explored a range of fields related to environmental and social justice issues, including green building, affordable housing, the redevelopment of “brownfields” (old, polluted industrial properties) and socially responsible investing (SRI).
Ultimately, SRI appealed to me as a way to act on many of the pressing issues facing us as a society while making practical use of my financial expertise to help individuals to achieve their financial goals. Particularly at this point in history, with an appalling war being fought “in our name” and global crises concerning climate, energy, water and food looming over our planet, I felt that SRI was an idea whose time had very much come.
I began my work in SRI in 2005, partnering with David Bue, a financial planner with offices in Westport, Connecticut. Through David, I was introduced to the First Affirmative Financial Network (FAFN), which I joined as an investment advisory representative. FAFN is one the country’s largest networks of financial planners specializing in SRI and has been a leader in the field since 1988 (for more information on FAFN, please visit their website). David and I worked together for two years before I decided to set up my own practice--Conscious Financial Directions-- in Sandy Hook, a section of of Newtown, Connecticut.
Conscious Financial Directions (CFD) is essentially a DBA for my work as an individual consultant. All financial advice that I offer is provided through FAFN, which is an independent Registered Investment Advisor (SEC File #801-56587). FAFN is not a subsidiary or affiliate of CFD. CFD is not a Registered Investment Advisor with the SEC.
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