COVER STORY | 2026 YOUNG ADVISORS TO WATCH
Uchechi Kalu
Founder / Greenlight Financial Planning / Los Angeles
Uchechi Kalu didn’ t stumble into founding her own fee-only registered investment advisor firm. She built toward it intentionally and strategically from her first industry job.
Raised in rural South Carolina as a first-generation Nigerian- American, Kalu saw firsthand how financial illiteracy can ripple through communities. Even among the most successful people she knew, investing and wealth-building were often mysteries.
So when she returned to the U. S. after working abroad in China, she made a deliberate pivot— choosing financial planning as a career with impact. And she entered the profession knowing that she would eventually launch her own firm, not just so she could control her business, but because she wanted to shape whom she could serve.
She got her start at a Santa Monica-based RIA, where she quickly moved from intern to associate to lead advisor, working with hundreds of clients. The experience gave her technical depth and direct client experience. But it also clarified for her what was missing in the planning experience.“ I knew I wanted to serve a more diverse group of clients,” she says. In 2025, she launched Greenlight Financial Planning, a boutique, fee-only firm. Today, about 95 % of her clients are women— primarily entrepreneurs, professionals in law and tech, retirees, and a growing base of U. S. expats. Many are women of color seeking an advisor who understands both the technical and personal dimensions of money.
Kalu’ s model blends high-touch planning with a broader educational mission. Roughly 30 % of her work comes through partnerships with organizations, including arts groups that sponsor programming for their members and communities.
Kalu is herself an accomplished poet and performed her work at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. She currently participates in an international artist residency in Morocco and continues to serve clients remotely while pursuing her writing.
“ I want my clients to see that they don’ t have to wait to live the life they want,” she says.
Less than a year after launching Greenlight, Kalu is on track to match her prior six-figure salary. But growth, for her, isn’ t about scale alone. She plans to keep the firm intentionally smaller while eventually mentoring and training new advisors, reflecting how important that support was early in her own career.
“ I knew from day one how I wanted this firm to work.” she says.“ Now I’ m building it.”
Lauren Oschman
Co-Founder, Partner and CEO / Vestia Personal Wealth Advisors / Nashville, Tenn.
It was an opportunity Lauren Oschman couldn’ t pass up. In April, one of her daughters asked her to talk about being a financial advisor at her grammar school career day. It was familiar territory for Oschman, who as cofounder, partner and CEO at Vestia Personal Wealth Advisors in Nashville, Tenn., has made education a key component of her work.
But in this instance, Oschman sought the attention of one particular audience.“ I made sure the displays skewed pink,” Oschman says.
Oschman says she didn ' t know financial planning was a career until entering college and was determined to ensure that wouldn ' t be the case with her daughter ' s classmates.
“ My thought was if I can have some of the girls look at me and think,‘ That sounds cool and I might want to do that,’ that’ s a win for me because that’ s not generally something I see girls doing,” she says.
Oschman has seen the obstacles women can face in her maledominated profession. After graduating from Vanderbilt University in 2010, for example, there were the awkward job interviews where recruiters would ruefully note that, if hired, she would not only be their firm’ s youngest advisor, but the only woman.“ I remember them saying,‘ Well, our advisors are all men, so we’ re not quite sure how that would work,’” she says.
When she was finally hired, it was as the firm ' s first woman advisor. When she left seven years later to start Vestia, she was still the firm’ s only female advisor.
Since co-founding Vestia in 2018, Oschman and her three partners have grown it into a national firm serving physicians, managing over $ 1 billion for nearly 600 families in 46 states. As CEO, Oschman splits time between operational and client-facing duties while maintaining a book of business focused on female surgeons.
She has also been an advocate for her female colleagues, starting a Facebook group for advisors who are also mothers. The group has more than 200 members.( Oschman co-founded Vestia shortly after giving birth to her first of three children.)
Oschman says she hopes to expand her advocacy activities as her children grow older.“ My belief is that women have strengths that are very well suited to this career,” she says.“ They ' re good listeners, empathetic, problem solvers and believe in putting people and values first. Women are very good at those things.”
MAY / JUNE 2026 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | 39