Amit Kukreja of WealthBeing Advisors is among the new breed of fee-only advisors.
Amit Kukreja’s interactions with a relationship manager of a foreign bank proved to be a turning point. Amit realized that the advice offered to him was biased as the RM was churning his portfolio. With extensive experience in consultancy, Amit realized that there was a huge lacuna in the financial advisory space. Amit started exploring this opportunity further and developed a keen interest in financial products, money management and holistic financial planning. He made up his mind to shift to finance & investments consulting.
Having spent 14 years of his career in IT consultancy, seven of them in the US and Singapore, he relocated to India in 2003 and joined an IT company at Gurgaon. It’s during this stage that this encounter with the RM of the foreign bank took place and eventually led to a change in his career path. Amit gave himself some transition time to quit his job and venture out on his own. After quitting his job, he acquired CFP certification.
He started offering fee-only financial advice in 2011 by floating WealthBeing Advisors. That was the time when SEBI had come out with its concept paper on investment advisors. After examining the concept paper thoroughly, Amit realized that the future is in offering advice and not distributing products. Thus, he preferred not to have an ARN. He is not empanelled with any AMC or insurance firm.
He did not have to struggle to acquire clients. His initial clients were corporate employees who were scouting for a Delhi based individual financial advisor. His first client in fact got his contact details from FPSB website, where he is registered as a CFP.
His friends and colleagues then approached him to review their portfolios and recommend changes. Referrals have followed since then. Amit today caters to 70 clients, 30 of who have an ongoing engagement with him. He advices his clients to invest in direct plans, buy online term plans and well-rated health insurance plans. Most of his clients invest on their own after seeking his advice. His clients are predominantly based in Gurgaon with a few in Pune and Bangalore.
Though his home is his office currently, he has big plans for his business. “I want my business to achieve scale. My immediate priority is to grow my client base to 100 who would willingly pay for my services. I want to set up offices in two or three cities going ahead,” shares Amit.
Amit is a member of Financial Planner Guild India, an association of practicing fee-based financial planners. Amit is passionate about financial literacy. He actively spreads awareness about investments on television shows and newspapers. He appears in NDTV Profit shows "Let’s Talk Money", "The Property Show", and "Property India". He contributes to columns in Mint Money, Outlook Money, moneycontrol.com, alterdoctor.in, and Suburb lifestyle magazine. He also teaches CFP and CWM aspirants in NCR.
Amit is a shining example of professionals who are ready to give up their high flying jobs to make a mark in financial advisory despite the skepticism surrounding the industry.