Your career built this wealth.
Now build the plan it deserves.
You earned the equity. The complexity becomes ours. A fee-only firm built around equity compensation — for professional women earning it at scale, open to anyone who needs the same depth and expertise.
CFP® Certified·Fee-Only·Fiduciary·Chicago
Founded & led by Jessica Merino, CFP®, CIMA®Your equity comp is often a significant share of your wealth, and a complex piece to plan around.1
Generic financial plans tend to treat it as a line item.2
You’ve built a career at a company that pays you well: salary, bonus, and equity compensation that could be worth hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions.
But equity comp comes with complexity that requires specialized planning:
- Vesting schedules and exercise timing
- AMT exposure on ISO exercises
- Concentrated stock risk
- Tax decisions that can cost you six figures if you get them wrong
And the stakes feel high, because they are. This isn’t money you inherited. It’s money you earned. A once-in-a-career opportunity you don’t want to screw up.
We start with your equity comp. Then we build the financial plan around it.
Merino Wealth is a boutique, fee-only advisory firm that specializes in equity compensation, with a particular focus on professional women earning it at scale.
We don’t just manage your RSUs. We connect your equity comp to the rest of your financial life: goals that matter most to you. Career break. Starting a business. “Phase 1” retirement in your 40s. Or simply the confidence that comes from knowing your money has a plan.
Our process
The Merino Equity Method
A structured process for mapping your equity comp and building the financial plan around it.
Who we work with
We specialize in working with professional women, but we welcome anyone who fits this profile:
- Built $1M+ in investable assets
- Earn equity compensation (RSUs, stock options, ESPP) from pre-IPO startups to big publicly-traded companies
- Want an ongoing advisory relationship grounded in trust and expertise
- Value having someone handle the complexity so you can focus on your career and life
Many of our clients are women at companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Chime who were looking for an advisor with real equity comp depth. But we work with anyone at this level who wants that same depth across the full plan, not just one piece of it. The expertise is what matters.
Your advisor
“Every client deserves to feel that the most complicated part of their financial life is finally in steady hands.”
Jessica Merino
CFP® · CIMA® · Founder
Jessica founded Merino Wealth for a client most firms aren’t built for: the professional woman whose equity comp has outgrown generalist advice. She was the nine-year-old asking about stocks; after a finance degree and twelve years inside a large advisory firm, she left to build the practice she kept wishing existed — equity-comp depth, fee-only, and built entirely around the person across the table.
Our Process
The Merino Equity Method
I.
Equity Audit
We start by mapping your complete equity compensation picture: what you have, what’s vesting, what decisions are ahead, and what’s at risk. Most clients are surprised by what we find.
II.
Your Complete Plan
We build a full financial plan around your equity comp, connecting vesting schedules and exercise timing to your tax strategy, retirement goals, investment portfolio, and the life you’re building.
III.
Ongoing Partnership
Your plan isn’t a binder that sits on a shelf. We manage the ins and outs of your finances on an ongoing basis, adjusting as your comp changes, your career evolves, and your goals shift.
Your advisor’s compensation should never influence their advice.
Merino Wealth is 100% fee-only. We don’t take commissions. We don’t receive kickbacks. We don’t sell proprietary products. Our only incentive is doing what’s right for you.
This matters with equity comp. A commission-based advisor is paid when a product changes hands, which can shape the recommendation. A fee-only advisor isn’t paid to steer you toward one option over another.
How we approach the work.
The following are illustrative scenarios describing the kind of equity-comp planning work we do. They are not testimonials, not case studies, and not based on specific clients.
Pre-IPO. ISO. Tender offer.
The pre-IPO product manager with a tender offer on the table.
A senior product manager at a late-stage private company with four years of ISOs vesting and a company secondary tender offer open for the next six weeks. Her 30-day post-separation exercise window means any job change starts a clock on exercising at her own cost. We work through the AMT math on any exercise, what portion to sell into the tender versus hold for a hypothetical IPO, and what her all-in tax picture looks like across the decision.
Public stock. Multi-grant. Diversification.
The newly-promoted healthcare SVP with doubled equity.
A VP at a publicly-traded healthcare company just got promoted to SVP. Her equity comp package doubled, and she now holds RSUs, performance shares, and stock options across five overlapping grants vesting over six years. The question isn’t whether to diversify, it’s how, in what order, and how much, without triggering an avoidable tax bill or holding more of her own company stock than makes sense.
Job offer. Vesting cliff. Forfeit math.
The senior tech director weighing a competing offer.
A senior product director at a publicly-traded tech company received an offer from a competing company. His current employer holds four years of vested RSUs plus a significant unvested grant that forfeits on departure. The new offer has a sign-on bonus and performance-based equity that looks generous but cliff-heavy. We model the real comparison: what he forfeits, what vests or accelerates, what the performance tranche is actually worth, and which path leaves him better off in five years.
Consolidation. Tax sequencing.
The physician consolidating after selling her practice.
Seven figures scattered across old 401(k)s from two hospitals, a Roth she stopped contributing to during residency, a SEP IRA from her practice, and three separate brokerage accounts. No equity comp anywhere. We consolidate the picture, sequence withdrawals for tax efficiency across accounts, and rebuild the estate plan for her current life.
Representative situations, not specific clients or outcomes.
Your equity built the life you have. Now plan for the one you want.
It starts with a short intake. Tell us about your financial situation, and we’ll let you know right away whether we’re a fit. If we’re not, we’ll point you to someone who is.
Notes & assumptions
- For senior employees at public and pre-IPO tech, biotech, and finance firms, equity compensation frequently represents a multiple of base salary in realized value. Actual magnitude varies by company, role, vesting stage, and exercise decisions. ↩
- Observation based on our founder’s 12 years at a large financial advisory firm and recurring intake conversations with prospects coming from generalist advisory relationships; generalist financial planning typically allocates limited practice time to equity-comp tax mechanics (RSU withholding, ISO/AMT, QSBS, 10b5-1) due to broader client scope. ↩
- Illustrative scenario assuming a 28% AMT rate (IRC § 55(b)(1)) applied to approximately $700,000 of ISO preference income under IRC § 56(b)(3). Actual amounts vary with state of residence, AMT exemption phase-out, and other income. ↩
- The vesting schedule shown in the hero is a generic four-year-with-one-year-cliff industry pattern, not a Merino Wealth projection. ↩
Nothing on this page constitutes tax, legal, or investment advice. Consult your tax advisor and a qualified investment professional before acting on any of the planning concepts discussed.