Today we’d like to introduce you to Heather Townsend.
Hi Heather, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I grew up watching money do real damage. My mom’s lifestyle completely disappeared overnight. One day it was country clubs and fancy cars, the next it was gone. My dad never saved. He spent every dollar they made, lived beyond his means, and waited on an inheritance dangled over his head like a carrot that never came through the way he expected. So many lessons in that alone. I never wanted that to be me. So when I went off to college, what a surprise. The first book I bought was How Women Finish Rich by David Bach. I opened a Roth IRA at 19 and never looked back.
I built my career at Ernst & Young in San Francisco and New York preparing tax returns for high net worth individuals and Fortune 500 companies. From day one I kept seeing the same thing: major opportunities being missed because none of the advisors (CPAs, financial planners, attorneys) were talking to each other. I wanted better for clients.
When my husband’s job took us to London I built and led an accounting team as Finance Director for a luxury real estate development firm, where I got to advise the owners and solve the same problem on a different continent. When we came back to the US I had seen enough. I launched Townsend Financial to finally fix it.
Today I coordinate my clients’ complex financial worlds and tie their money to the life they actually want to live. I work with business owners, high net worth individuals, and retirees across the country who deserve comprehensive advice, not just an investment manager.
I have twin girls who keep us very busy, a Bernese mountain dog named Peanut, and a thing for fast cars. Life is full and I genuinely love what I do.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Absolutely not! The first few years of running a business is a roller coaster. You feel every high and every low.
During COVID a few clients left. They were fearful and honestly so was I. I was only 2 years into the business at the time. I remember feeling small. My best friend had stayed in corporate America and was making significantly more than me, what I would have been making if I stayed. One day she looked at me and said “You are going to make more than me. Trust me, just keep going. Where is the Heather that sasses me? Start being yourself in your business.”
That stopped me. I had been playing small and not showing up authentically to my clients and she saw it before I did.
I got a mindset coach and a business coach and both changed me in ways I did not expect. The mindset coach helped me work through the fear and get out of my own way. The business coach helped me focus. As a visionary you get a hundred ideas and a great coach looks at you and says “that goes on the whiteboard. This is what you need to focus on right now to get you where you want to go.” Between the two of them I started showing up differently. In my business and in myself.
Year three and year four everything shifted. Clients started pouring in because I was established, but also I think because I believed in myself. I did the work. But I will be honest…I still struggle with worth. Pricing myself is something I wrestle with even today. It is my coach who pushes me and reminds me what I bring to the table. I still doubt myself sometimes. I think a lot of business owners do. We just don’t say it out loud.
Running a business pulls out everything you need to work on. If you don’t do the work your business won’t grow to it’s fullest potential. Mindset is everything.
As you know, we’re big fans of Townsend Financial. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Townsend Financial was founded on a simple belief: everyone deserves a fiduciary, someone bound to put their best interests first. In an industry where many advisors earn commissions and have conflicts of interest baked into how they get paid, we chose a different path. We are independent, fee-only, and fiduciary. Our only loyalty is to our clients, how it should be for every client.
Throughout my entire career I kept seeing the same thing: advisors, CPAs, and attorneys all working in silos with no one connecting the dots for the client. Major opportunities were being missed. This needed to be coordinated to be done right. That is why I founded Townsend Financial.
We specialize in coordinating our clients’ complex financial worlds and tying their money to the life they actually want to live. We serve business owners, high net worth individuals, and retirees with net worths between $5M and $30M who want every piece of their financial life working together to ensure strategy is maximized. We intentionally keep our practice small to provide exceptional ongoing care for every client.
What makes us different is a rarity: a CFP® and CPA under one roof. Most advisors hand you off to your CPA and hope for the best. We speak that language fluently. For clients with complex business returns we work alongside your CPA as the quarterback making sure every tax strategy is identified, coordinated, and implemented. For retirees we typically prepare their tax return directly, targeting the exact tax bracket and determining distributions accordingly. Tax planning is not an afterthought. It is built in from day one.
We believe in transparency on pricing. Our annual minimum fee starts at $20,000 and is based on complexity and net worth. Our mission is simple: helping good people get wealthier. We believe money is powerful and does a lot of good when put in the right hands, creating a domino effect of good spanning the globe.
How do you think about luck?
Luck has played a real role and I will be the first to admit it. The stock market has performed incredibly well over the years and my clients have benefited enormously from that and so has my business.
When I launched Townsend Financial, fee-only fiduciary advice was not the norm. It was a movement just getting started. I was one of the early adopters and one of the first firms on the beta of AdvicePay, a payment platform built specifically for fee-only advisors that allows clients to pay transparently via bank account or credit card. No commissions, no hidden fees. I bet on the right thing at the right time and watching it grow into a movement has been incredibly rewarding.
And then there are the people. The very first clients who took a chance on me when I had no big firm name behind me. My friends who believed in me before I fully believed in myself. My mentors who showed up and poured into me when I needed it most. I do not take any of it for granted.
I am also someone who does not really believe in bad luck. I believe in lessons. What looked like bad luck at the time, clients leaving during COVID, doubting myself, always turned out to be the thing that pushed me to grow. I would not be who I am without those moments.
Pricing:
- $20,000 minimum annual fee
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.townsend-financial.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heather.townsend.financial/
- Other: https://www.playbookotw.com/
