We don't just provide a service
- we’re on a mission.

My life and career were inspired early by my father, a New York City police officer, and my mother, a teacher, both of whom served as role models and influenced my desire to work hard to help people cultivate their financial lives, and to educate them about the kind of decisions that serve them best.

I had a vision of sharing a process that I created 20 years ago with clients and also teaching other advisors. The process puts people ahead of plans and assets appropriately linked to goals.

My team and I created an approach we call The Purpose Driven Process and the Portfolio of Goals and train other advisors in an effort to help others go from asset managers and investors to true stewards of their clients' life goals.

For me, it was never just about investing. Anyone can invest—and does, now that the investing has become commoditized.

But the one thing you can’t scale? Human connection.

There's a new emphasis on cultivating wealth, and helping clients achieve their goals. I've provided this for decades, and the industry is just beginning to learn this.

To me, it’s not enough to just do a good job or check some boxes. Never has been. I’m driven to improve the industry I’m in, not just work inside of it. I have long understood that wealth plans can’t sit on a shelf; they must evolve. They must be as dynamic as the lives we live.

I’m a Managing Director - Investment Officer and Senior PIM Portfolio Manager with over 25 years experience in financial services. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Business from Fordham University, I began my career at Chemical Bank and subsequently worked at Merrill Lynch as a Financial Advisor, and as a Wealth Advisor, and then as a Family Wealth Director at Morgan Stanley.

I offer specialized knowledge and analyze every aspect of my clients’ financial lives – including assets, liabilities and cash flow, current insurance coverages, and investment, estate and philanthropy plans, and raise tax issues – and execute client plans designed to help achieve their well-defined objectives. This also encompasses benchmarking progress toward reaching their financial and life goals and making necessary adjustments to recommendations to help clients stay well-funded toward the goals they value most.

I continue my practice in the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, and Napa Valley, and now where I live in Berwyn, PA, with my wife, Jeanne, and three children, Alexia, Maia, and Bennett. I’ve had a great time coaching my kids’ sports for 14 years. In addition to leading a faith sharing group at my church, I’m also a huge music fan and love a live show.


CA Insurance License Number: 0B95710
Resident State: PA

Wells Fargo is not a tax or legal advisor.

Aileene Ariosto heads up client services in our East Coast office, and has more than 20 years experience in the financial services industry. She’s organized and efficient, and still has time to listen in the way that few do.

I’m a First Vice President - Investment Officer with The Rootstock Financial Consulting Group of Wells Fargo Advisors.

And while I’d love to tell you that I was always inspired to help clients reach their own financial goals, fact is, I kind of stumbled into it.

When I was in grad school for Theoretical Linguistics, my parents started coming to me for financial advice. I was puzzled. Why were they coming to me when they already had an advisor?

I hadn’t realized it yet, but what I’d done was stumble upon a big problem in the financial services industry—the elephant in the room—and the reason that many clients end up leaving those rooms with more questions than answers, and sometimes, never coming back.

There had to be a better way. . .and, as it turns out, there is.

The fact is, there’s no shortage of people who know some things about investing. But what there’s a shocking lack of is quality financial professionals that prioritize asking good questions over pretending to have all the answers.

I found I enjoyed asking questions, actually, and helping find the right answers for my parents, and anyone else who asked. So I started at the bottom, and worked my way up so that I could not just work in the industry, but change it. And I’ve been hooked ever since.

I’m a questioner. A big one. And since I had not been a finance or business major, I came to this work without any preconceived notions or built-in bias—and I believe it’s served me and my clients well.

My favorite thing to question is the one we all should—the status quo. I always want to make sure I’m making decisions for myself and my clients based on what I know to be true—and not just because it’s what everyone else has always done.

What I love most about this work? Being able to sit down at a client’s kitchen table and talk about what’s most important to them. And that never feels like work. Sharing insights, exploring possibilities, and watching my clients succeed never, ever gets old. It’s why I started working in this industry. It’s also why I stay.

My office is in the San Francisco Bay Area, but I fly all around to kitchen tables all over the country. And when I’m not doing that? I’m enjoying vacations with my family in Hawaii and Pennsylvania.

Kim Shearer heads up client services for our West Coast office, and has spent 20 years in the financial services industry. She’s incredibly proactive and effective, and loved by everyone who meets her.