Ian Northmark is an entrepreneur who has defied all odds to pursue his career and start down his path of entrepreneurship. Ian is the founder of Northmark Wealth, an asset management, investment consulting, and financial advising business. Growing up, Ian and his family moved around a lot. His mom was, and still is, a public school music teacher, and his dad retired early due to disabilities after owning his own import/export business. Since he didn’t have enough money to go to college at the time and his parents were not in a good financial situation to help him, Ian decided to join the military to help pay for college and gain experience to put himself on the path to success.
Ian Northmark decided to start his own business in February 2019 because he wanted the freedom to work with the people he chose. For the first nine years of his career, prior to starting his business, he worked for a global Fortune 100 company. It was in this corporate environment that he learned the fundamentals of wealth management, which made him feel prepared enough to start his own firm. In the finance industry, people focus on working with high-net-worth individuals and wealthy clients. Instead of worrying about how much money he would make, he wanted to focus on educating the millennial generation.
When a company works with wealthier clients and bigger account values, it makes more money. He didn’t want to focus on that. He wanted to focus on working with millennials and the next generation. Although he may not make the most money now, he believes millennials will become the wealthiest generation of all time, and that the money will come eventually. One of the biggest obstacles Ian Northmark has overcome so far has been starting his own wealth management firm and surviving the Iraq War. He acknowledges that starting any business is difficult, but in wealth management, the startup phase is even more difficult because you don’t have a big brand or company backing you up.
Ian Northmark prides himself on his reputation and quality of work, which has led to his success. Even though Northmark Wealth is not the biggest company, clients choose it because of its integrity, quality of work, and client retention. Ian Northmark is a combat veteran who served on active duty in the US Air Force. He explains that he is blessed to be alive. Overcoming that environment and its obstacles has strengthened his mindset, and he truly believes you can achieve anything in life if you want it badly enough.
