About
A client-service career built on follow-through.
My work sits at the intersection of people and process. Clients rarely need more information — they need someone who can turn a complicated situation into a short list of clear next steps, and then make sure those steps actually happen.
Chicago, Illinois
The path here
Law school, then a decade of getting the details right.
Today I serve as Associate Director, Private Wealth Client Services at Cresset, supporting private wealth and family office relationships.
Before that, I spent five years as Director of Client Services at a Chicago-based financial planning firm, where the work centred on individuals and families preparing for retirement. A great deal of it was the same problem in different clothing: people making consequential decisions at a moment when they were least able to hold all the threads themselves.
I trained as a lawyer at Loyola University Chicago, and that background still shapes how I work — read carefully, ask the question nobody has asked yet, and write things down in language a client can actually use.
How I work
A few things I hold to.
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01
Read carefully Most avoidable mistakes in this work are sitting in a document somebody skimmed. Reading properly is the cheapest form of diligence there is.
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02
Ask the question nobody has asked There is usually one, and it is usually the one that changes the shape of everything else.
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03
Write it down in usable language A decision a client cannot restate is a decision that will be relitigated. Clarity is part of the service, not a nicety.
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04
Follow through Everything else is preparation for this. If it was agreed, it gets done, and somebody knows who is doing it.
Background
Credentials and education.
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Now
Associate Director, Private Wealth Client Services Cresset · Chicago, Illinois — private wealth and family office relationships.
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Prior
Director of Client Services Five years at a Chicago-based financial planning firm, focused on clients preparing for retirement.
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FPQP
Financial Paraplanner Qualified Professional College for Financial Planning.
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J.D.
Juris Doctor Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
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B.A.
Political Science Roosevelt University.
Service is not a department — it is the sum of a hundred small decisions, most of which nobody will ever notice unless you get one of them wrong.
Beth Otero
Beyond the day job.
I write occasionally about client service, retirement readiness and the operational side of advisory work. The articles are collected on the writing page.
Read the writing