Tom Lally

As you might expect from the son of an accountant, I’ve always been pretty financially savvy.  Before I was even a teenager, I had my parents open a custodial investment account for me.  But I didn’t always know this was what I wanted to do for a career.  At Stonehill College I majored in English and minored in Political Science, two topics I’m still greatly interested in.  I briefly considered a career as a professor because I thought I would enjoy teaching at the college level.  But professors – yes, even English professors – are expected to publish original research.  And after a summer job assisting an English professor with their research, I didn’t love it enough to pursue graduate school.

It was only about a year before graduation that I decided I wanted to get into financial services.  As a recent college graduate with no industry experience, good jobs were not so plentiful.  I ended up at a big insurance company, where I learned I was a terrible salesman.  But the training was good, and I ended up attaining several insurance and securities licenses, which were necessary for the next step in my career.

That next step was Rope Financial, whose predecessor I joined in 2011.  At first, I handled a lot of back-office duties – operations, compliance, marketing, administrative work.  I eventually took on more client service responsibilities and found that I really enjoyed the client-facing side of this profession.  So, I began preparing for the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ exam.

Some might think of studying for that exam as a necessary box to check, but proud nerd that I am, I really enjoyed it.  The material is incredibly wide ranging, from investments and retirement to tax and estate planning.  I passed the exam, but more importantly, I learned a lot along the way.  In 2015, after completing the other requirements for education, experience, and ethics, I had earned my CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ mark.

So why do I do this?  I enjoy helping people to better understand and organize their finances.  How the decisions they make for one reason can have unintended consequences in another aspect of their financial life.  And how those decisions help them move closer to or further from their goals.  Personal finance is always interesting because no two families and situations are exactly alike.  I really enjoy understanding how each piece comes together to paint the entire picture.

I live in Medfield with my wife and young daughter.  Fatherhood has been a wonderful journey and turned me into something I thought I’d never be – a morning person.  When I’m not working, I enjoy reading, cooking and baking, and watching any Boston sports team.