ABOUT THE FOUNDER
Lisa Ditkowsky, CFP®
PLLUSH CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, Lisa Ditkowsky, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™
Wealth & Estate Planning, Baby Boomers & Business Owners, The Aging
Summary
Our Strength - As CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals, we aim to find you wealth that you did not even know you had. We will help you implement growth and protection strategies to try and compound your wealth legacy. In addition to cultivating your Financial Legacies, we are skilled in Financial Planning for Cultural and Philanthropic Legacies as well. We work with Foundations, Endowments and Not-For-Profits, when presented with promising Legacy work. We also have Financial Planning experience and skill in servicing the Family Office Market through offering a Multi-Family Office Practice to families that meet the ultra-high net worth standards of a Family Office. Our tried and true, close-to-in-house professionals' network allows us to service ultra high net worth clients through a collaborative, team approach with the most seasoned, high-level legal, healthcare, eldercare and accounting professionals. We believe in collaborating with your other professionals, and fostering a positive communication loop with your other service professionals. Should you need referrals, we provide our best referrals on a case-by-case basis, as every family or business is different and needs different types of ancillary services. Our Rolodex extends far and wide to best serve you!
Experience
Chicago Financial Planning Firm to Business Owners, Baby Boomers & Aging Parents,
Family Businesses at PLLUSH CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, INC.
February 2007 - Present
PLLUSH CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, INC. and Lisa Ditkowsky, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, focus on wealth-growing and legacy building strategies for Business Owners, Baby Boomers and their Aging Parents. Preventing Financial exploitation of the aging has been our firm's passion since we started in Financial Planning 11 years ago. The more money we accumulate as we age, the more places our wealth ends up, and the more "interested parties" want to get their hands on our hard-earned and hard-saved money. It often takes a lifetime to earn one's retirement savings and retirement nest egg, and if we trust the wrong people, everything we worked our whole lives for can be gone quickly. This is exactly what PLLUSH CAPITAL MANAGEMENT and Lisa Ditkowsky, its President, work hard every day to prevent. Many of our Financial Planning clients are Baby Boomers and Elderly. Often, these Aging Investors are also business owners. Many of our clients are matriarchs and patriarchs of long-established Family Businesses. Our clients’ needs include 1) Proper Insurance Planning through Life Insurance, Disability Insurance, and Long Term Care Insurance 2) Proper Investment Plan Implementation with appropriate risk management for each investor's risk-reward goals 3) Estate Planning and Business Succession Planning Reviews and Check Ups 4) Extensive Written Financial Plans and Consulting Services 5) Tax Planning Strategies to Minimize Taxes and Grow Wealth in the right Investment Vehicles and Types of Non-Qualified and Qualified Investment Accounts 6) Family Meetings to help prepare the next generations for the wealth they will one day inherit. The majority of our clients come to us already having experience using another Financial Planner. Often the Financial Planner, Insurance Agent or Securities Broker is not a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (Consumers can verify this on CFP.net, as well as checking for licenses on FINRA.ORG's "BrokerCheck" and the SEC's (SEC.gov) "Investment Adviser Search".
Pllush Capital Management Inc. - Chicago Financial Planning Firm to Business Owners, Baby Boomers & Aging Parents, Family Businesses
Lisa Ditkowsky, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, President
Wealth Management/Insurance, February 2007 - Present
CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certificants are individuals who have met CFP Board’s education, examination and experience requirements, have agreed to adhere to high standards of ethical conduct and who complete CFP Board’s biennial certification requirements, including continuing education.
Financial Consultant / Financial Planner / AAMS (Accredited Asset Management Specialist) at A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc. (became Wachovia Securities and then Wells Fargo Advisors)
December 2004 - December 2006 (2 years 1 month)
In December 2004, I began one of the most comprehensive and hard-to-get-into Financial Consultant Training programs in the nation. During the years I worked for A.G. Edwards & Sons, the branding and ownership was still A.G. Edwards, and the company had no investment banking operations (neither does my current affiliated firm, LPL Financial LLC). Likewise, similar to my current firm, A.G. Edwards & Sons had NO PROPRIETARY PRODUCTS, so the Financial Advisor was always free to offer 100 percent objective, conflict-free advice. It is through A.G. Edwards professional cold-calling and prospecting training that I uncovered many prospective clients' stories of the many gray areas of Financial Abuse and Financial Exploitation. It is during my numerous training sessions at the company's St. Louis HQ and in-office training in Illinois that I decided to make it my passion and mission in life to protect the great wealth that The Greatest Generation has earned, grown and held onto. I spoke to aging investors with sad stories of exploitation daily. Many Baby Boomers hired me to oversee their Aging Parent's wealth. Even within the Financial industry, there are varying levels of qualifications and integrity. I take the CFP Board's Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibility seriously. My big clients come to me from another Financial Advisor at another name firm. Just because you have a Financial Advisor does not mean you are getting good Financial Advice! I developed a niche in working with Holocaust Survivors and the children of Holocaust Survivors. I inventoried estates of elderly investors AND uncovered assets that even they did not realize they had. Often times, their children were shocked that the estates had hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions more than they thought. To tell a Holocaust Survivor or any elderly investor that due to stock splits, forgotten annuities and insurance policies, bonds, etc. that they often had a million dollars was and is priceless.
Marketing and Business Development at The Digital Service Bureau, Inc.
September 2001 - November 2004 (3 years 3 months)
Business and Financial Journalist at Zone Communications, Inc.
1999 - 2001 (2 years)
I worked as a Staff Business and Financial Journalist for a start-up, venture capital-funded magazine in downtown Los Angeles. The magazine was funded by Zone Ventures (Zone Venture Capital) and DFJ (Draper, Fisher, Jurvetson). The magazine's tagline was "Covering the Entrepreneurial Growth Engine in Southern California - From Santa Barbara to San Diego". My job was to write for the print magazine and author "The Zone Daily File". In authoring a daily business/finance/technology newsletter, I distilled all the news stories in Southern California into an easily digestible e-newsletter format linking to the main source stories. Each day, I sourced all the local business, technology and financial news in Southern California to find the most newsworthy stories relating to local companies and their developments. It was my job to come up with creative headlines and summaries for each newsworthy story. During my tenure at "The Zone News", I was also responsible for a segment of our print magazine called "Entrepreneur's Life". "Entrepreneur's Life" followed tips and advice from the region's top CEOs and business owners. Eventually, our publisher lost his advertising revenue as the dot-com and tech bubble burst. At the time, he had three print magazines in three different states, and the technology and dot-com bubble bursting affected all of the publications. It was after this wonderful experience working for a well-funded start-up publisher that I moved from Los Angeles, CA back to my hometown of Chicago, IL and took a deeper interest in the stock market, world economies and Personal Financial Planning.
Education
Northwestern University
CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, CFP®, Financial Planning - Estate, Tax, Insurance, Investment, Retirement and Employee Benefits Planning, 2007 – 2008
Grade: A+. earned CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designation (CFP®)
Northwestern University
Bachelor’s Degree, Communication and Media Studies, Writing for the Media, 1993 – 1997
Activities and Societies: Dean's Advisory Council, Produced Film Projects, Participated in 2-year, exclusive, invitation-only, famed Creative Writing for the Media Program.
Interests
Personal Interests include family and children (there is no joy like watching children develop, discover, observe and comment on the world!), creative writing, business writing and book writing, professional photography, travel for work and pleasure, nutrition, physical fitness, fashion, arts and culture. Money is a basic need, and money is POWER. So, Financial Knowledge and Passion is the foundation of everything I believe in. My biggest personal interest in life is PROTECTING THE WEALTH AND LEGACIES OF BABY BOOMERS AND THEIR AGING PARENTS. My grandmother was my best friend, and I observed first-hand how a legacy and nest egg takes a lifetime to build, yet can be gone quickly if we trust the wrong people. Therefore, it is my most profound personal interest to protect and grow the wealth of our aging population. The Greatest Generation should be celebrated, respected, and their hard work and diligent investing and saving should benefit their heirs as they intend(ed)!
Skills & Expertise
Financial Planning
Family Offices
Small Business Financial Management
Insurance Planning
Tax Planning
Inheritance Tax Planning
Estate Tax Planning
Estate Planning
Real Estate Planning
Wealth Management
Long Term Care Insurance
Life Insurance
Disability Insurance
Social Security Disability
Social Security
Social Security Law
Family Office Investment and Insurance Planning
Understanding Annuities
Understanding Complicated Life Insurance Products
Bonds
Stocks / Equities
Mutual Funds
Alternative Investments
Financial Plans
Journalism
Writing and Editing
On-camera Interviews
Retirement Plan Consulting
Qualified Retirement Plans
Retirement Income Strategies
Retirement Planning
Retirement Communities
Business Continuity Planning
Continuing Care Retirement Communities
Market Research
In-depth Analysis
Physical Fitness
Nutrition
Parenting and Family Values
Wine Appreciation
Art and Culture
Professional Photography
Book Writing
Distilling Complicated Concepts Into Layman's Terms
Communications
Growing Wealth
Risk Management
Free Portfolio Reviews
Cardio Kickboxing
Divorce Financial Analysis
Publications
Reading Between The Lines of DoubleLine
FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE June 22, 2015
Jeffrey Gundlach (DoubleLine Capital) talks bonds, interest rates, inflation, GDP, quantitative easing and his take on the markets.
Author: Lisa Ditkowsky, CFP®
VIEWPOINT: The Fed - TMZ?
FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE November 3, 2015
LEADING ASSET MANAGERS turned on the TMZ in Boston, talking about "The Fed", its LADY of the LEFT, and what a worldwide defaulting credit bubble means for U.S. consumers and investors.
Author: Lisa Ditkowsky, CFP®
Organizations
Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. (www.CFP.net)
November 2008 to Present
Lisa Ditkowsky, CFP®
PLLUSH CAPITAL MANAGEMENT - Wealth & Estate Planning, Baby Boomers & Business Owners, The Aging
Lisa Ditkowsky, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™
Contact Lisa on LinkedIn