For the fourth year San Diego Magazine has partnered with Crescendo Business Services, an independent research firm, to find out which wealth managers have earned the trust of their clients and have most consistently wowed their clients.

Satisfied clients choose San Diego's FIVE STAR Wealth Managers.

The Selection Process
In June, Crescendo surveyed by mail and phone 40,000 high-net-worth residents in the San Diego area and subscribers of San Diego Magazine. An additional 7,000 surveys were sent to leaders of financial service industry companies.

On the surveys, recipients were asked to evaluate only wealth managers whom they knew through personal experience, and to evaluate them based upon nine criteria: customer service, integrity, knowledge/expertise, communication, value for fee charged, meeting of financial objectives, post-sale service, quality of recommendations and overall satisfaction.

Only original surveys--no copies--returned in their specially designed envelopes were accepted as valid. By August, stacks of surveys had arrived and Crescendo began carefully scoring each wealth manager. Both positive and negative evaluations were included in the scoring. Only wealth managers with five years of experience in the financial services industry were considered.

Next, each wealth manager was reviewed for regulatory actions, civil judicial actions and customer complaints as reported by FINRA (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) and other regulatory agencies.

Then, before finalizing the list, wealth managers were reviewed by a blue-ribbon panel. The blue-ribbon panel comprised individuals from within the financial services industry. Although panelist comments were incorporated into the final score, safeguards were built into the review process to reduce the ability of panel members to influence the composition of the final list on the basis of company affiliation.

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