Rick Miller’s disciplined and analytical nature served him well as he earned his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Chicago. Now, as Sensible Financial’s founder and CEO, Rick’s strong theoretical background and data-driven nature helps clients realize their financial dreams.
Early in his career, Rick was a business consultant specializing in financial services. He dealt with regulators, industry experts, and senior executives. This allowed him to see financial product marketing from the inside. Later, at Scudder Investments, Rick learned the inner workings of mutual funds and developed a financial planning business plan for one of the investment firm’s largest institutional clients.
Rick’s rigorous academic training in family economics and lifetime planning and his experience in the financial services world prepared him to start his own financial planning and investment firm. In April of 2002, Rick founded Sensible Financial Planning and Management®. At Sensible Financial, Rick combines hard data, thoughtful analysis, and personal attention to present high quality advice and efficient financial products and services to each client. He and his team tailor a plan to every client’s needs.
“My job as a financial planner is to look at the big picture and ask a lot of questions,” says Rick. “Is your human capital correlated with the stock market? Do you like your career well enough to stay with it until you retire? How much are you saving for your childrens’ college versus your own retirement? Do you plan to move to a larger house or buy a vacation home? Does your disability insurance provide sufficient protection? How will changes in your life affect these decisions? Once we understand where each client wants to go, we can build a customized plan to help them get there.”
Rick is a CFP® certificant, and a member of both NAPFA, the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, where he has served as the program director for the Boston chapter and on the faculty of NAPFA University, and the Financial Planning Association. In 2009, Rick was a member of both the Trends in Financial Planning and Job Analysis task forces of The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards. He is a strong advocate for the Life Cycle Planning and Investing approaches within the profession, and conducts professional seminars on those subjects.
Financial planning may seem like a fundamentally intellectual exercise, but to Rick, it’s much more than that. “I started out thinking that financial advising was a purely analytical career. I remember being surprised by how personal it was. Leveraging my technical skills to help people achieve their personal and family goals is very satisfying. I’m honored that people are willing to share their personal stories, their needs, hopes, and fears with me. It’s a privilege to learn what’s important to each of my clients and to help them.”
Rick has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, Businessweek.com, NPR’s Nightly Business Report, and other local and national media, and is a Forbes.com contributor.