918: How to Break Into Financial Advising With Paul Pagnato, PagnatoKarp [Espresso Shots]

Paul Pagnato is the CEO and Founder of PagnatoKarp, a top family office with over $4.8 billion in assets under advisement. Recently, Forbes ranked him as the number one financial advisor in Virginia (29th in the United States), and Barron ranked him at #2. Prior to founding PagnatoKarp, Paul worked at Merrill Lynch for 19 years, where he founded its Private Banking and Investment Office in Washington, D.C. However, Paul didn’t start his career in finance.  Instead, he began as a microbiologist working with NASA and McDonnell Douglas collaboratively to search for alien life. Lastly, Paul is the author of the book Transparency Wave: Exponential Changes That Will Transform Our World, which shows why those who fear transparency are doomed to remain in the past. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT IN THIS EPISODE: What entry level jobs to look out for (4:23) What are top hard and soft skills needed to excel in this field (6:09) Why majoring in finance is not a dealbreaker (8:50) Why we should embrace failure (12:40) How important is graduate school to enter this field (14:22) What extracurricular experiences are useful for someone pursuing a career in finance (15:50) What is the best and worst part about being in financial services (18:32) The most surprising part about being in financial services (26:33) If you want to learn more about what a financial advisor does and how Paul built his career check out his main T4C interview #511