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Robert Westley

Senior Wealth Adviser, Northern Trust Corp.

Although he once thought of becoming a physical therapist because he loved sports, a basic high school course hooked Robert Westley on accounting. “There’s a symmetry and beauty to it that just clicked with me,” he said. An undergraduate degree in the discipline followed, and then a job at a major public accounting firm. As a CPA helping to solve tax problems for wealthy clients, Westley saw that total wealth management involved a wide range of non-tax considerations, which led him to become a Certified Financial Planner and obtain the Personal Financial Specialist (PFS) designation from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

An opening for a planner with strong tax credentials brought him to Northern Trust five years ago, where he works on a multi-disciplinary team in New York City and Greenwich, Connecticut. The father of a toddler, Westley, 32, is passionate about financial literacy for young people and serves on the National CPA Financial Literacy Commission and as a media spokesperson for the AICPA promoting financial literacy. He also sits on the committee that oversees the PFS exam and recently joined the Next Gen board of the American College of Financial Services.

Evan Cooper