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Josh Black works with individuals and families who have accumulated significant retirement and investment assets and want sophisticated, personalized financial planning and fee-based asset management.
Many of Josh’s clients are career savers—people who have spent decades building wealth through their careers, businesses, retirement plans, and investments. As that wealth grows, so does the complexity surrounding it. The questions are no longer simply about how much to save or where to invest. They become questions about retirement, taxes, family, risk, and ultimately what the wealth they have built can accomplish.
Josh helps clients bring those decisions together.
Investment management is a central part of many of Josh’s client relationships. He provides customized, open-architecture asset management for clients who want more than a generic investment solution.
Portfolios are built around the individual client, with careful consideration given to taxes, investment costs and fees, risk, income needs, and the role each investment plays within the broader financial plan. Diversification is important, but Josh does not believe diversification has to mean owning everything or settling for a portfolio without conviction. Strategies can combine broad diversification with more focused investment opportunities where appropriate.
Many clients come to Josh after having worked with another financial advisor. They may be questioning the fees they are paying, the performance they have experienced, how their portfolio is constructed, or simply whether the advice and investment management they receive are sufficiently personalized for the complexity of their financial lives.
Josh believes clients should understand what they own, why they own it, what it costs, and how it fits into what they are trying to accomplish.
For many clients, decades of disciplined saving eventually create a different question: What do we want this money to do?
Making it last through retirement is important, but that is often only the beginning. Many of the families Josh works with also want to enjoy what they have built, provide opportunities for their children and grandchildren, support their communities and organizations they care about, and ultimately transfer wealth in a thoughtful and intentional way.
That part of the relationship is particularly meaningful to Josh. He enjoys working with families to think beyond a single retirement and consider how their wealth can benefit the people, institutions, and communities that matter to them. That may include involving adult children in financial conversations, planning gifts during a client’s lifetime, coordinating with estate planning professionals, or helping the next generation become thoughtful stewards of family wealth.
The goal isn’t simply to leave money behind. It’s to put wealth to work in the right way- for yourself, your family, and the things you care about.
Tax planning is an important part of that process, particularly as income changes before and during retirement.
Josh frequently helps clients map out multi-year Roth conversion strategies and evaluate opportunities created by changing income levels. Rather than treating a Roth conversion as a one-year decision, he considers how a series of decisions over time may interact with future income, required minimum distributions, Social Security, Medicare premiums, investment taxes, and the assets ultimately passed to heirs.
This same long-term perspective applies throughout the planning relationship. Investment decisions, retirement withdrawals, pension elections, Social Security, taxes, insurance, estate planning, and family wealth decisions are interconnected. Josh’s approach is to evaluate them that way.
Josh has extensive experience helping clients navigate complex retirement decisions, including pension elections and survivor benefits, employer retirement plans, Social Security, Medicare, and military benefits. His work has included business owners, executives, professionals, FedEx and commercial airline pilots, and families with substantial retirement and investment assets.
Pension and survivor-benefit decisions are an area in which Josh has developed significant experience. These decisions can affect both retirement income and the long-term financial security of a spouse, and Josh helps clients evaluate them in the context of their other income, investments, taxes, and estate planning.
Josh also works extensively with business owners. His background in corporate finance and 17 years as a business owner gives him firsthand experience with many of the issues entrepreneurs encounter as their business and personal financial lives become increasingly intertwined.
Josh and his team coordinate with clients’ CPAs, attorneys, and other professionals when appropriate so that investment, tax, estate, retirement, and family wealth decisions can be considered as parts of one financial picture.
Josh was raised in Chattanooga and is an 18-year resident of Memphis. He resides with his wife Lindsey, owner of Lindsey Black Interiors, and their three children in East Memphis. He is a former President of the Board for Greater Memphis Greenline and a member of Chickasaw Country Club.
He enjoys travel and is currently applying for Italian citizenship by descent. A former Division I walk-on soccer player, Josh now spends much of his time outside the office coaching his children in soccer, golf, and tennis. He has also attended Porsche Performance and Masters driving schools and participates in an annual pheasant hunt in South Dakota.
His resume can be found here.
Michael attended The University of Memphis, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BBA and concentration on financial planning and services. He has since also obtained a Master of Science with a finance concentration.
Michael is also Memphis’ only Chartered SRI Counselor®, which supports our team with unique insights in the areas of sustainable, responsible, and impact investments. He also holds the CIMA® (Certified Investment Management Analyst) and
CFP® (Certified Financial Planner) designations in addition to passing Ed Slott’s Elite IRA training.
Michael possesses the Series 66 and Series 7 and provides investment management support for our custom and model client portfolios. He embraces the challenge of individual stock research, creating tax-efficient stock strategies, and managing risk with fee-conscious investments.
Michael is a lifelong resident of Memphis and enjoys designing and painting 3D-printed models for his 11 younger siblings. He is a parishioner of Nativity.
Kelsey grew up in Collierville, TN and attended Christian Brother’s University as a scholarship athlete. After obtaining her degree in Marketing in 2014, she began her career in financial services on Josh Black’s team. She possesses life and health licenses and has her series 7. She currently runs the daily operations of MPW and ensures the satisfaction of our clients.
She continues an active lifestyle as a runner and volunteer for CBU’s cross country team while residing in Collierville with her husband, James and two daughters.
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