The firm, its founder, and the team built to one standard.

Founder & Managing Partner, Senior Wealth Advisor

Zak Gardezy works with people whose success has created financial complexity that conventional wealth management was not designed to solve. As the founder of Wealthstone Private Wealth Management, he advises affluent families, technology executives, concentrated stockholders, business owners, and successful professionals facing decisions that can shape their wealth for decades.

With more than a decade of experience in financial services, Zak began his career in private banking and later served on a multibillion-dollar wealth management team recognized by Forbes as a Best-in-State Wealth Management Team. He founded Wealthstone to combine the investment capabilities and intellectual rigor of a leading institution with the discretion, responsiveness, and personal accountability of a boutique advisory firm.

Wealthstone is an independent, fee-only fiduciary practice built for clients who expect more than generic portfolios and standardized financial plans. Zak begins with the complete picture: family dynamics, career trajectory, business interests, equity exposure, tax position, estate structure, liquidity needs, personal values, and the ambitions the wealth is ultimately meant to support. Every recommendation is designed around the client rather than a model, sales agenda, or institutional constraint.

Zak has developed particular expertise in advising technology professionals and concentrated stockholders. He works with executives and employees at some of the world's most valuable companies, including Magnificent Seven and Fortune 100 firms, on equity compensation, tax-aware diversification, portfolio construction, and the risks that arise when extraordinary wealth is tied to a single company. This work is the foundation of Wealthstone's concentrated stock discipline and the subject of his book, Secrets From a Wealth Advisor: 4-Stage Methodology for Diversifying Concentrated Stock Tax Efficiently. He has also spoken publicly on equity compensation planning and the financial decisions facing corporate leaders.

For business owners, Zak helps coordinate the years leading up to a potential sale and the critical decisions that follow it. An entrepreneur may sell a company only once. The structure of the transaction, the taxes created by it, and the investment and estate decisions made afterward can influence a family's wealth for generations. Zak's role is to help clients approach that moment with preparation, leverage, and a strategy that extends well beyond the closing date.

He also advises affluent individuals approaching retirement who have already succeeded in building wealth and now need to convert that success into lasting independence. His work integrates investment management, retirement income, tax planning, risk management, Social Security, Medicare, estate strategy, and legacy planning into a coordinated roadmap. The objective is not simply to reach retirement, but to enter it with clarity, confidence, and control.

Zak's investment philosophy combines a disciplined portfolio foundation with active risk oversight, sophisticated tax management, and selective access to private market opportunities when appropriate. He has a particular interest in the forces reshaping the global economy, including artificial intelligence, intelligent robotics, energy infrastructure, autonomous systems, quantum computing, and the expanding commercial space economy. Client assets are held at Charles Schwab, supported by advanced financial planning, portfolio analytics, and risk technology from leading industry providers.

Zak is a CFP® professional and completed his financial planning education through the Boston Institute of Finance, with training across investment management, tax, retirement, insurance, estate planning, and personal finance. He also holds a B.A. in Political Science from Arizona State University's School of Politics and Global Studies. His background shapes how he evaluates the world, connecting geopolitics, public policy, technological change, and market structure to their practical implications for client wealth.

Outside Wealthstone, Zak brings the same intensity and discipline to how he lives. He trains in the gym nearly every day, practices Muay Thai, plays golf, and is pursuing his passion for aviation through flight training. He is also an author, an enthusiastic traveler, and a serious home cook who enjoys preparing cuisines from around the world. He spends considerable time perfecting pizza, artisan breads, desserts, and other baked goods, while exploring different coffee origins, espresso styles, and the craft of making exceptional lattes.

Whether he is studying markets, working through a flight plan, refining a recipe, or training in the gym, Zak is driven by the same principles: preparation, discipline, curiosity, and continual improvement.

For Zak, exceptional wealth management is not simply about earning returns. It is about giving accomplished people the structure, insight, and confidence to make better decisions, protect what they have built, and use their wealth to live an extraordinary life.