Shawn Wooden, a former NFL player and an advisor with 14 years of financial services experience wants to ensure that clients can build wealth sustainably for their future in his new role at Associated Financial Consultants and Investor Services, a South Florida firm with $926.6 million in wealth management and employer-sponsored retirement plan assets.
Wooden, who is joining the firm with retirement plan specialist Travis Ruane, brings about $125 million in managed assets. According to Associated, Wooden will play a significant role in the Sports and Entertainment Division, and he wants his clients, including those in the sports and entertainment world, to avoid high-risk portfolios not conducive to their goals.
“I was in that locker room for nine years, and have been around sports and entertainment my whole life,” he said. “You see there’s an amount of risk they take that’s unnecessary. Sometimes they’re presented with things that shouldn’t be a part of their portfolios and shouldn’t be a part of their thought process.”
Wooden had a nine-year career in the NFL as a safety with the Miami Dolphins and the Chicago Bears, with 281 tackles, five interceptions and two forced fumbles before retiring in 2004. Shortly afterward, he embarked on a career in financial services, arriving at Associated after being a managing director at Principal.
According to Wooden, the partnership with Associated was not something he’d sought, but it felt like a “natural fit,” with the atmosphere akin to being on a team again. Wooden also drew a comparison between the type of dominance he wants the firm to achieve in the industry and the NFL’s main event coming up on Sunday.
“We want to get to the Super Bowl and we believe we have the championship program,” he said. “I always had a game plan when I played and the game plan is to build on what we already have.”
Evan Vladem became a financial advisor with Associated after a decade in the sports world, which included roles with the NFL, MLB and NCAA. After joining, he helped develop the firm’s Sports and Entertainment Division. While the firm previously had athlete clients, it hadn’t built out a specific division devoted to serving that population (in addition to Wooden and Vladem, the division includes Luana Mobley Corral, who was designated as an NFLPA Registered Player Financial Advisor in 2018).
“We have a number of clients outside the sports and entertainment realm,” he said. “Now, with Shawn joining us, it’ll be more of our focus.”
Additionally, Wooden had a role as a class representative in a lawsuit to help ensure retired NFL players are compensated in the event that their work on the field leads to dementia or other maladies. Wooden specifically represented those players who were currently asymptomatic but could potentially develop complications later in life as a result of concussions they received during their football careers. According to Wooden, he wanted to make sure the NFL would work to compensate players for the next 65 years to be certain that former players who are currently healthy are still covered and compensated if illnesses arrive decades from now.
Above all, Wooden said he wanted the services Associated provides to be a part of the locker room conversations athletes may have about financial advice.
“When a player asks a buddy when they may be having problems, ‘Who are you using? Who do you suggest?’” Wooden said. “We want to be a part of that discussion.”