Mike Salmon

Though he had always been interested in personal finance and the stock market, Mike Salmon didn’t immediately launch his advisory career after graduating with a degree in financial planning and consulting from Purdue University. He was turned off by the internship experiences he heard about from many of his classmates.

“On day one, they would open a phone book and call a bunch of people. That sales culture wasn’t compelling for me,” Salmon said.

While looking for a job that would fit, one financial advisor at a small firm in Florida recommended Salmon attended a meeting of the local Financial Planning Association chapter. Though the advisor didn’t end up hiring Salmon, that meeting introduced him to Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo, the firm where he has worked ever since.

Since joining, Salmon has created a comprehensive suite of services to combine financial planning, retirement account administration, investment management and tax planning for self-employed real estate brokers. Recognizing an opportunity to serve a quickly growing metro, he now leads the firm’s new office in Tampa, where he brought in 16 new clients in just the first two months of 2023.

He also leads the firm’s development of entry-level staff, hoping to create opportunities for future generations that sidestep the commission-based positions that put off so many.

“Once you feel like you’re an expert at something, it really should be your job to teach someone else to be the expert, so you can transition that knowledge to the next generation, so that they can continue down that path,” Salmon said. “Rather than grunt work, day one, people meet clients. The learning curve is shorter because you get to jump in much sooner.”

—Ryan Neal