ASU alumni Todd Bendell and Jonathan Elliott of Optima Capital Management creating and cultivating financial success for themselves and others at Industrious Tempe, a co-working space.
Featured in the photos are Managing Partners and Wealth Management Advisors Todd Bendell, CFP®, a 2012 ASU graduate (BS in Economics) and Jonathan Elliott, CPWA®, CRPC®, a 2002 ASU graduate (BS in Marketing). Todd specializes in Financial Planning while Jonathan specializes in Portfolio Management. Together they make the powerhouse team that is Optima Capital Management. Optima Capital Management was founded in 2019 by ASU graduates Todd Bendell, CFP® and Jonathan Elliott, CPWA®, CRPC®.
“Together, we use knowledge from our 25 years of combined management experience at Merrill Lynch to create a more technologically advanced and efficient solution for clients. In the financial services industry, we felt there were a lot of barriers to entry and jargon to make the average investor seem inadequate. At Optima, we educate and empower individuals to make better investment and retirement planning decisions.
We are constantly reviewing all processes to try to optimize for timeliness and efficiency. Our process for client acquisition typically incorporates 1 or 2 web meetings in order to gauge mutual interest from advisor and client, to save both parties time. This also enables the client flexibility to take the web meeting from their workstation or home. While Todd was at Merrill Lynch, his process quickly became a firm strategy, and he gave seminars nationwide to talk about his innovations.
Being structured as a Registered Investment Advisor, we are able to be progressive in other ways. This includes marketing through a variety of social media channels, while leveraging third parties to help Optima find relevant content. We are a firm of ideas, and we deliver our clients education on a weekly basis either via LinkedIn, mail/email, or our website. On average, Optima employs a staff of five different student interns, all from ASU, with majors ranging from Finance and Economics, to Marketing and English. In an ever changing industry we think it is important to get “outside the box” talent interested in our industry. Some are sophomores, while others are seniors and will be employed full time with our firm upon graduating.
Our investment strategy is very forward thinking especially when compared to large brokerages such as Morgan Stanley or Fidelity. We prefer a custom approach using individual stocks and bonds vs the typical one-size fits all philosophy that other firms recommend using for mutual funds, ETF indexes, and models. Our stock selection methodology is a 5 step process that takes into account company fundamentals, technical analysis, and market relative strength. In short, we are much more active in our equity research and risk management than a typical investment provider which has enabled us to perform quite well for our clients. The technology that we have input into our trading software allows us to be nimble, and react to changes that we see in the market.”
*** Images fully released. Model releases on file in the ASU Enterprise Marketing Hub. ***
ASU alumni Todd Bendell and Jonathan Elliott of Optima Capital Management creating and cultivating financial success for themselves and others at Industrious Tempe, a co-working space.
Featured in the photos are Managing Partners and Wealth Management Advisors Todd Bendell, CFP®, a 2012 ASU graduate (BS in Economics) and Jonathan Elliott, CPWA®, CRPC®, a 2002 ASU graduate (BS in Marketing). Todd specializes in Financial Planning while Jonathan specializes in Portfolio Management. Together they make the powerhouse team that is Optima Capital Management. Optima Capital Management was founded in 2019 by ASU graduates Todd Bendell, CFP® and Jonathan Elliott, CPWA®, CRPC®.
“Together, we use knowledge from our 25 years of combined management experience at Merrill Lynch to create a more technologically advanced and efficient solution for clients. In the financial services industry, we felt there were a lot of barriers to entry and jargon to make the average investor seem inadequate. At Optima, we educate and empower individuals to make better investment and retirement planning decisions.
We are constantly reviewing all processes to try to optimize for timeliness and efficiency. Our process for client acquisition typically incorporates 1 or 2 web meetings in order to gauge mutual interest from advisor and client, to save both parties time. This also enables the client flexibility to take the web meeting from their workstation or home. While Todd was at Merrill Lynch, his process quickly became a firm strategy, and he gave seminars nationwide to talk about his innovations.
Being structured as a Registered Investment Advisor, we are able to be progressive in other ways. This includes marketing through a variety of social media channels, while leveraging third parties to help Optima find relevant content. We are a firm of ideas, and we deliver our clients education on a weekly basis either via LinkedIn, mail/email, or our website. On average, Optima employs a staff of five different student interns, all from ASU, with majors ranging from Finance and Economics, to Marketing and English. In an ever changing industry we think it is important to get “outside the box” talent interested in our industry. Some are sophomores, while others are seniors and will be employed full time with our firm upon graduating.
Our investment strategy is very forward thinking especially when compared to large brokerages such as Morgan Stanley or Fidelity. We prefer a custom approach using individual stocks and bonds vs the typical one-size fits all philosophy that other firms recommend using for mutual funds, ETF indexes, and models. Our stock selection methodology is a 5 step process that takes into account company fundamentals, technical analysis, and market relative strength. In short, we are much more active in our equity research and risk management than a typical investment provider which has enabled us to perform quite well for our clients. The technology that we have input into our trading software allows us to be nimble, and react to changes that we see in the market.”
*** Images fully released. Model releases on file in the ASU Enterprise Marketing Hub. ***