Tom Zachystal is CEO, President, and Chief Investment Officer of Individual Asset Management and oversees the management of each client's account.

Mr. Zachystal has an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona and a BSc. in Engineering from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and is a Certified Financial Planner™ practitioner. He also holds a CIM (portfolio manager) certification from the Canadian Securities Institute, a Series 65 U.S. Investment Advisor license, and qualifications in financial planning from Boston University and from the Canadian Securities Institute, as well as being an Enrolled Agent with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

Prior to starting Individual Asset Management, Mr. Zachystal was Vice-President Europe for another U.S. RIA firm and worked for a major Wall Street investment firm. Our CEO also spent five years as an international business consultant and seven years as an engineer in the international oil industry. During this time he worked in a dozen countries on four continents and it is his combination of international experience and investment knowledge that allows IAM to offer tailored financial solutions to expatriates and non-U.S. investors as well as to American residents and citizens.

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IAM's goal is to provide solutions to any financial concern that a client may have. We provide portfolio management, investment, and financial planning services ourselves and we have a network of trusted professionals who can address our clients' taxation, insurance, and other financial needs.

Our network includes:

• Tax professionals who provide tax strategy services and submission of returns for U.S. residents or non-residents
• An insurance agent who represents a number of leading international insurance companies and who specializes in plans for expatriates
• An attorney who specializes in the setting up of trusts for estate planning purposes and in offshore asset protection services for individuals
• A network of real estate professionals that find and manage U.S. or Canadian income producing properties for investors
• Brokerage firms that can accommodate U.S.-based investment accounts or offshore accounts for non-U.S. citizens and residents

We encourage our clients to come to us with any financial concerns, if we do not immediately have someone in our network who can effectively address the issue, then we will find a solution from a trusted outside provider.

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Registered Investment Advisors

Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) firms differ from brokerage firms as to the way they are licensed and in how they operate. Brokerage firms tend to be larger companies with divisions that may include investment banking, mergers & acquisitions, as well as research and private client services. RIA firms are usually smaller companies that tend to deal only with investment management for individuals or corporations and therefore have no conflicts between serving their private clients and investment banking or M&A departments. An RIA firm will usually not have custody of its clients' investments, the accounts will be held at a brokerage firm and the RIA may only have authority to affect trades in the account in the course of performing portfolio management services.

Brokerage firms are licensed in the United States by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) and their representatives have Series 7 & 63 licenses. RIA firms are licensed either by the state in which they are based or by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and their representatives hold a Series 65 or 66 license. The important distinction between the two types of licensing is that Registered Investment Advisors are licensed to give investment advice and provide portfolio management services, whereas brokers are licensed to sell securities. RIA firm representatives have fiduciary responsibility to their clients, whereas brokers may not.

RIA firms are usually compensated for their investment management or advisory services through a fee rather than through commissions. Often the fee will be based upon a percentage of the assets under management but it may also be an hourly fee or a yearly retainer, or take some other form. Brokers have traditionally been compensated on a commission basis - that is, clients pay the broker each time an investment is purchased or sold for their accounts. This commission based system leads to the potential conflict that a broker is actually being paid to "trade" a client's account, whereas with an RIA's fee-based system there is no incentive for the manager to trade - the incentive is on making the assets under management grow because the fee increases in proportion.