Facing the need and cultivating the opportunity: Throughout the world, many hundreds of millions are accumulating wealth and coping with the challenges of more...and more complex...choices of financial strategies and products. Even more significant, they face the necessity of taking greater personal responsibility for their desired outcomes. Even in developing economies, good long term financial outcomes are available, but the risks are poorly understood. In the past, there was little opportunity and thus little expectation. Now, a much more comfortable and liberated financial life is possible for individuals around the world, but employer or government provided security either never existed or is fraying. The results, for good or bad, are up to the foresight, hard work, intelligent planning…and, in truth, in part to the luck…of the individual. Consequently, the need for competent and ethical advice to assist individuals to make better and more perseverant financial decisions is enormous and growing fast.
Certified Financial Planner ( CFP®) certification, with its grounding in requiring appropriate education, examination, experience, and ethical practice (the "4 E's"), is leading the response to this need for qualified advisory talent. But the ranks of those with CFP® certification or on the pathway to it are now only in the hundreds of thousands around the world…in the face of billions of people in need of their help. What's even more troubling is that the supply side of this supply/demand mismatch is aging fast and the rate of net replacement of the advisory profession falls far short of the need. And, further, the firms in which advisors operate are going through their own process of transformation. This is where Kochis Global has roles to play.
A durable business model. So, in addition to not nearly enough competent and ethical advisors, part of what's missing is a broad enough array of business models for consumer choice and a large enough number of firms with the ability to both provide homes for advisory talent and service to clients on a reliably durable basis.
In most developing markets, the predominant choices are very large institutions such as banks, and insurance and brokerage firms. While very resourceful and enjoying brand recognition, these delivery models are sometimes deeply conflicted, motivated heavily by sales commission revenue, focused almost exclusively on their own proprietary solutions, and often requiring the use of their custody and execution platforms to the exclusion of others.
This landscape resembles the situation in the US and other developed economies of 50 years ago. In that meantime, thousands of smaller firms, often just local, and largely independent, but still resourceful and durable, have emerged in more advanced markets to provide an effective alternative. These "independents" have responded to the demand for less conflicted advice, more transparent pricing, access to the broadest possible array of solutions, ease of account management, more intense personal relationships, and greater accountability. But in many cases the founders of those "small" independent firms are themselves aging, often without having adequately planned for the transition of ownership or of the management of their enterprises.
As a result, much consolidation is occurring through sales to larger entities or mergers to become a larger entity. Nevertheless, despite the struggle for resources and efficient scale, many thousands of these firms remain eager to thrive as independent businesses, seeing the independent model as most appropriate to both serve their clients well and provide professional and financial rewards for advisory talent. Still, appropriately, no-one is blind to opportunity and some feel that eventually participating in some form of consolidation may be the best long term option.
Kochis Global's Response. Our mission is to help existing independent firms to perfect their business strategies and long term equity and management succession plans to achieve lasting durability. And, with a global perspective, we assist firms and individuals in the developing markets to rapidly learn how to emulate the success of independent firms in more developed markets. There isn't another 50 years to wait. The marketplace demand for advisory talent and for durable businesses to deliver advisory services is already huge, everywhere.
Kochis Global can't achieve this goal alone, of course, but we can work with select, representative firms. As they pursue their specific pathways to durable success and thus demonstrate proven models, many, many others can follow. The outcomes that we help our client firms achieve range from fierce commitment to permanent independence at one end to avid participation in mergers and acquisition at the other… and lots of approaches in between.
Tim Kochis has over 50 years of experience. He has personally advised a select group of executives, professionals, and business owners throughout the United States and overseas since 1973. Before founding Kochis Global, Tim served as CEO and then as Chairman of Aspiriant and was a founder of Kochis Fitz, one of its predecessor firms. Prior to that, Tim was National Director of Personal Financial Planning for Deloitte & Touche (1985 -1991) and for Bank of America (1981 -1985).
Tim Kochis founded Kochis Global in 2012 to foster wealth management and investment planning services that are both best in class and are provided by firms with reliable staying power. For many years he has had a special interest in the developing world, particularly in rapidly growing markets in Asia, and serves firms both in the US and overseas.
Tim has long been recognized as one of the key leaders of the wealth management and investment planning profession and has had an unparalleled influence on its development, worldwide. He has deep and pervasive expertise through his long and extensive direct client service, his success in building and growing leading organizations within the profession, service in professional and educational organizations, and extensive writing and very frequent speaking engagements to professional audiences around the world.
He is also a consultant to and investor in several fintech and other companies providing innovative solutions, especially focused on portfolio risk management, compliance, and management of stock concentration risk.
Professional responsibilities have included:
- Board of Directors of the Financial Planning Standards Board, the international certification authority for the CFP® credential (2012-2015). He was one of its founders in 2004 and served as its Chair in 2005.
- Chair of the Board of Governors of the Foundation for Financial Planning (2004). The Foundation supports pro bono advisory services and education for underserved communities.
- Chair of the International CFP®(Certified Financial Planner) Council (1996).
- President of the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, the US CFP® certification authority (1995).
- Chair of the Board of Examiners of the CFP® Board (1985-1991).
As chair of the Board of Examiners, Tim was responsible for supervising the creation of the first comprehensive examination now used throughout the profession to qualify CFP® candidates. In addition, he was a co-founder of the Personal Financial Planning Program at University of California-Berkeley, one of the first accredited financial planning programs in the United States, where he taught for eighteen years. Many hundreds of currently practicing wealth management professionals have been his students.
For eight years, Tim served on the Board of Trustees of the ETF and Mutual Funds business unit of the Charles Schwab Investment Management organization. Tim has also been a Special Advisor to DeVoe and Company, supporting its work with US-based firms, particularly on matters relating to management and equity transition.
Tim also devotes considerable effort to philanthropy and civic involvement. Early in 2026, Tim completed a 20 year tenure (with the last 4 as Chair) on the Board of The Asia Foundation. Tim currently serves on the Boards of the University of San Francisco and of The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. He is a member of the Investment Committee of The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco where he finished a 12 year term as Trustee in June, 2017.
Tim earned a BA in Philosophy from Marquette University (1968), a JD degree from the University of Michigan (1973), and an MBA from the University of Chicago (1979). Tim served in the US Army from 1969 to 1971 including a tour of duty in Vietnam where he received a Purple Heart for wounds received in action.
Publications Tim edited, and along with his colleagues at Kochis Fitz, co-authored the book, Wealth Management, A Concise Guide to Financial Planning and Investment Management for Wealthy Clients (now in its second edition, 2006). www.cch.com. Tim is also the author of the book Managing Concentrated Stock Wealth: An Adviser's Guide to Building Customized Solutions (now in its second edition, 2016). www.wiley.com. With Co-authors Eric Hehman and Jay Hummel, Tim wrote Success and Succession, Unlocking Value, Power, and Potential (2015), www.wiley.com. And with Co-author Zhang, Bei, PhD, Tim wrote Financial Planning for China's New Elite (2015), University Press, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. He has also written chapters of several books published for student and professional audiences in Europe.
He is frequently quoted in US and overseas financial publications and is a sought-after speaker for financial and investment forums throughout the world.
Recognitions. In 2010, the US Financial Planning Association conferred on Tim Kochis the profession's most prestigious recognition, the P. Kemp Fain Award for exceptional career-long contributions. In 2006, he was awarded the inaugural Charles R. Schwab Impact Award for outstanding individual leadership in the independent advisory profession and the University of California Berkeley Business School Extension created an annual award for teaching excellence in his name. In 2013, Tim was granted the inaugural Leadership Award by Bob Veres' Insiders' Forum and was also inducted into the Estate Planning Hall of Fame.
Barron's has ranked him among the "Top 100 Independent Advisors" in the US, and the San Francisco Business Times ranked him first among the top independent Wealth Managers in San Francisco . Financial Planning Magazine has twice listed him as one of the profession's "Movers and Shakers".