Member Minute: Kacy Gott, CFP®
2012 winner of the Heart of Financial Planning Award
By Linda Jo Fitz, Co-founder of Aspiriant’s predecessor Kochis Fitz, and wealth manager along with Kacy.
When your wine cellar has gridlock, throw a party! Kacy Gott, our recently heralded San Francisco Heart of Financial Planning, will someday be as famous for his Inventory Reduction Parties (IRP) as he is as a first rate, dedicated financial planner.
Kacy’s wine life is certainly influenced by his being a native Californian surrounded by wine drinkers, including for the past 18 years, his financial planning colleagues at Aspiriant, formerly named Kochis Fitz.
Before discovering his love of wine, Kacy was never much of foreign language guy, but now he’s fluent in Barolo, Brunello Riserva and Montefalco. And then there’s Rustico Prosecco. After learning that Chianti Classico is from sangiovese, he went on to the famous French ones: Bordeaux from cabernet sauvignon, Bourgogne from pinot noir.Not being a snob, he still enjoys his syrahs from Santa Maria, and his zinfandels from Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley. Thanks to his friend Jeffrey, the Italian winemaker, Kacy also learned the delicious and obscure, and a few white wines, too.
The great thing about the IRPs, is that Kacy gets out the really good and often old wines—lots of it. After all, what good is an IRP, if the cellar still has gridlock afterward!
Aspiriant’s holiday lunches, annual all-hands retreats, owners’ dinners, and client events are all made more memorable by Kacy’s sommelier duties, resulting in carefully coordinated wine selections.
This interest in wine has made up for the fact that Kacy dislikes and avoids any costume party (except black tie!), and that he thinks modern art is a ruse that could be done by any 5-year old.
Not wanting to give the impression that Kacy is a hedonist,it’s important to mention that gives time and financial support to his favorite charities, most recently EARN that helps low-income San Franciscan’s break the cycle of poverty and establish new cycles of prosperity. He’s on committees for The Arcof San Francisco, the resource for people with developmental disabilities.He is also a member of the Tech Museum Professional Advisors Council.
And, he received San Francisco’s Heart of Financial Planning award because of his incredible dedication to our profession. Active in the profession, Kacy served on the national Board of Directors of the 28,000 member Financial Planning Association (FPA) from 2004 - 2006. He was on several national FPA task forcesand chaired the 2008 FPA Diversity Summit.He also chaired the Board of Directors of the Financial Planning Association of San Francisco where he has served as its Chairman, President and the Director of Public Relations. He served on the CFP Board’s Council on Education from 2008 through 2011. The Council advises the CFP Board on the development and clarification of all educational policies of the CFP® certification process. In 2011 he served as chair of the Council.
Kacy is an active educator of financial planning students and professionals.He has served as an instructor for the Certificate Program in the Personal Financial Planning Programs at the University of California-Berkeley and Golden Gate University.Kacy has also served as a mentor at FPA Residency programs in Lake Arrowhead, DePaul University, and Texas Tech University.He has presented at various regional and national conferences for financial planning practitioners.
Kacy has been a frequent contributor to ABCNews.com and has been quoted by the Associated Press,The Wall Street Journal, theLos Angeles Times,theSan Francisco Chronicle,Men’s Health, Marketwatch.com, Investors.com and SmartMoney.com.
And, Kacy is a solid contributor to the success of Aspiriant, which has grown to about $6.8B AUM with 120 employees. Besidesbeing on the firm’s Management Committee where all the hard decisions are made, he supervises six wealth managers, has direct responsibility for serving about 45 clients, and attracts new clients, some with wineries.