ROME, N.Y. — With the philosophy that everyone deserves a financial planner, whether they are close to retiring or just starting their careers, Iris Buczkowski founded Birch Wealth Management in September 2019. Since then, she has grown her firm to $40 million in assets under management and recently added a full-time employee. Birch Wealth is […]
ROME, N.Y. — With the philosophy that everyone deserves a financial planner, whether they are close to retiring or just starting their careers, Iris Buczkowski founded Birch Wealth Management in September 2019.
Since then, she has grown her firm to $40 million in assets under management and recently added a full-time employee. Birch Wealth is located at 414 N. James St. in Rome.
While she still has her own business goals, the true focus, Buczkowski says, is providing goal-based planning to her customers.
“I just love what I do,” she says. “I don’t feel like I’m working. I spend my day helping people.” And by people, she means everyone from high-net worth individuals to emerging professionals.
Buczkowski also believes in helping her community. She serves on the board of the Kelberman Center in Utica, which provides services for people with autism, and also the board of the Rome Area Chamber of Commerce. She also works closely with the Golisano Special Needs Center at Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital in Syracuse.
That community involvement and being available to meet with clients throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in whatever way worked best for them have both benefitted her business, Buczkowski says.
“I never shut my doors,” she notes. The pandemic shuttered much of the state just six months after she opened her business, but she felt it was essential to be there for her clients. If they wanted to meet in person, she made sure they could safely do so. If a client preferred to have a Zoom meeting instead, she did that, too.
Buczkowski found that many of her clients, especially new ones, wanted to meet in person and that some new clients chose her over another firm because they could meet face to face.
About 90 percent of Birch Wealth clients come through referrals from existing clients. About 20 percent of clients are people Buczkowski has worked with throughout her almost two decades in wealth management. The other 80 percent are new-to-her clients.
At the end of 2021, Buczkowski added Noah Hartung to the staff. The addition will help her work toward her future goals for the firm.
“When I started this firm, I told myself I wanted to be a $100 million firm by five years,” she says. She envisions eventually employing 10 to 15 people. Buczkowski wants people to know who she is and know the Birch Wealth brand.
She chose birch for the business name after learning that birch trees are a symbol of new beginnings and that to Native Americans, the birch is a symbol of resilience.
“I think a new beginning is great, but resilience is even better,” she says.
Birch Wealth (www.birchwealth.com) offers a full array of financial-planning services including individual retirement planning, small business retirement planning, income planning, tax planning, education planning, estate planning, business-succession planning, portfolio management, wealth-accumulation strategies, and special-needs planning.