Brian Mallette, CFP®

Principal, Senior Financial Advisor

Brian Mallette is a senior financial advisor in the Naples, Florida office of HBKS® Wealth Advisors (HBKS®). He joined HBKS in June of 2008.

Brian works closely with his team members, Dan Baer and Brent Wauterlek, servicing client relationships and asset management. Because each client’s portfolio is customized to meet their unique individual needs, Brian also focuses on the construction of customized asset allocations as well as portfolio analysis and risk management. In addition, he handles the trade executions for the team.

Brian has a background in real estate finance. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Whittemore School of Business at the University of New Hampshire. Brian is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™.

Have you always wanted to be in finance?

The more I think about it, yes. Growing up, my father ran a community bank in Norwood, Massachusetts, a small town of about 25,000 people. I always enjoyed seeing what he did, how he operated the bank, making decisions on things like how they were going to finance a real estate deal. Even as president he would sit down with the people looking for capital for their business and work with them one-on-one to help them get the funding they needed. He was very involved in the community and earned a lot of respect for that as well. In college I ended up majoring in economics and took various business classes, but didn’t get into finance as a job until I met Dan Baer and Brent Wauterlek here at HBKS. What I’m doing today is very similar to what my father did at the bank, taking care of people, helping them with their finances and to deal with their financial challenges.

What do you like most about working at HBKS?

The people, that is, the clients and the people in our firm that I get to work with every day. I’ve been very fortunate to work with really great people. We have very low turnover, so I’ve worked with the same group for the last 10 years – and I look forward to working with them for the next 30. My personal as well as professional relationship with Dan Baer and Brent Wauterlek is I guess best described as “easy.” We share the same values. We challenge each other but with the same goals in mind at the end of the day. That’s a mix that makes work enjoyable and rewarding. We have an outstanding practice, serving very high net worth individuals and families, and our focus on that one distinct client group is what characterizes our practice. It makes us the right advisors for those people and has allowed us to refine our services over the years to cater to that group.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

I would say that I’m proudest of being named a partner, but also of every step along my way to becoming a partner. Getting that recognition from Dan and the firm and their support along the way to help me grow and make partner. It’s hard to describe the feeling when that happens, when you’re put on the level of the people who were your mentors. And now you’re going to be a mentor. Another thing we’re all proud of is the trust our clients put in us – people of ultra high net worth putting their trust and family matters in our hands. You have to earn that. They might give you the opportunity at first, but you have to prove yourself. When you see them put more and more trust in you, when you see that they’re comfortable with you, that’s extremely rewarding.

To what do you attribute your success in your career?

It starts with the way that I was raised. My family has been super-supportive of me all along. The commitment I saw my father bring every day to his family and his job: that was easy to see and respect. It makes you want to do the same thing, to build a life and a career similar to how I was brought up. Athletics, playing college football and being a part of that, also gave me a framework for understanding how to rely on people and have people rely on me. And my mentors: they made it easy to understand and know what I needed to do to be successful. I’ve benefitted from that throughout my years here.

“We have an outstanding practice, serving very high net worth individuals and families, and our focus on that one distinct client group is what characterizes our practice. It makes us the right advisors for those people and has allowed us to refine our services over the years to cater to that group.”