Wealth Architects

Mark T. Johnsen Chief Wealth Architect, CEO & Founder Email Mark When you are adopted at birth, there are a lot of ways it can go. I won the lottery with my parents, who gave me an idyllic middle-class childhood of playing in the woods and snow, growing up with strong Midwestern values. After my father lost his job, we moved to California. He died soon after we moved, and I had to grow up fast. I was proud to be accepted at UCLA, to walk on to their soccer team and put myself through school, which was a huge challenge. After college, I joined a brokerage firm, married my college sweetheart, and started building a life. I was scheduled to fly to New York for a meeting in 7 World Trade Center when the towers came down. That same week I found out my wife was expecting our first child. The stock market was closed for the week and I noticed clients were not talking about their money — they were talking about what really mattered – their true wealth. I started to think deeply about purpose and what I really wanted from life. After going through the boom and bust of the dot-com bubble, I saw there was a big difference between being rich and wealthy: I wanted to help people be wealthy. I wanted to provide people with objective advice, not based on selling financial products, but based on really listening, helping them figure out what is most essential, architecting the dream they had for their lives, and building a plan to make it happen. I wanted to start a wealth advisory firm to do just that. I had also been inspired by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, who helped people do well by being transparent, telling the truth, and taking the long view. And I loved the idea of building a business that could do well by doing good and have a strong value system, like Hewlett-Packard. In that spirit, my colleague Lois Cole and I launched Wealth Architects. Building this company and our team has been deeply fulfilling, and I feel a great sense of satisfaction when I have a meaningful impact on our clients’ lives. Areas of focus — Inspiring others to design and build wealthier lives; Working with owners of concentrated financial wealth in privately held and public companies, as well as real estate Experience — 24 years in wealth management Education — B.A., Political Science & Business Administration, UCLA How I give back — Serving on the board of directors of the YMCA of Silicon Valley (Chair Project Cornerstone) and Children Now (Treasurer)