Branch Management

The focus is on you, the client. Working with a Richardson Wealth advisor isn’t just about getting financial and investment guidance. It’s about building relationships. To deliver meaningful advice and lasting value, your advisor has to understand you – what’s important to you and your family, what you want to achieve, what keeps you up at night and why.

Our branch management team’s focus is also on our advisors, and we support them as our clients. As a client of the Ottawa office, our promise to our advisors is an environment where they and their clients feel Welcomed, Supported and Motivated to keep growing their practice, their way.

We’re always looking for new clients and welcome the opportunity to speak with you.

 

Sébastien Lacoste
Branch Manager
Tel: 613.788.8054

Seb is responsible for advisor acquisition in our nation’s capital and managing our growing Ottawa office. He has deep expertise in coaching, practice management and branch management honed over two decades in wealth management at bank-owned and independent firms. Seb has a profound understanding of what advisors need to thrive and how to help teams expand and excel. A bilingual leader, he’s an educator at heart and a strong believer in collaboration through sharing best practices.

While working as a Practice Management Consultant, Seb had the opportunity to coach some of the industry’s top investment advisory practices nationwide. He’s always keen to share what he learned as every team he worked with was unique and had different needs to keep growing their practice and achieving their goals.

An all-round enjoyable and friendly guy, Seb draws his energy from being a proud father to Delphine, Jérôme and Florence, and an outdoor enthusiast. You’ll often find him on a bike, whether he’s commuting to work or shredding local trails on his mountain bike.

Alison Tomas
Manager, Branch Administrator
Tel: 613.788.8002

Alison is our Manager, Branch Administrator. She graduated from the Law Clerk program at Algonquin College in 2007. Her interest in pursuing a career in wealth management came shortly after spending time working in the estate and trust department of a financial management firm, her first experience in financial services after completing college.

Alison is instrumental in the office, dividing her time between keeping the office running smoothly, creating a community between all our associates and assistants, and helping keep everyone aware of all system and operational updates. She’s also our quarterback when it comes to ensuring that our new employees have the onboarding support they need, and she’ll pull in all the necessary resources to help them with training.

She also enjoys collaborating with employees to help them succeed and grow in their career while promoting a positive and fun work culture and contributing to growing a successful branch.

Craig Ripenburg
Wealth Compliance Advisor
Tel: 604.640.0322

As our Wealth Compliance Advisor, Craig works closely with each team in the office to provide a second set of eyes and reminders on all things compliance, helping each team stay on top of our industry’s constantly evolving regulations. Over the years, he’s successfully completed several courses in the financial services industry, including obtaining the Certified Anti Money Laundering (CAMS), and Chartered Investment Manager (CIM) designations. He has also held an important advisory role with IIROC’s (now CIRO) Pacific District (PDC) for two terms.

With over 22 years of industry experience, Craig has been with Richardson Wealth and its predecessor firms in various capacities (Macquarie Private Wealth and Blackmont Capital) for more than a decade.

Outside the office, and residing in Vancouver, he is an active supporter of several charities including the Canucks Autism Network, Unicef, and Vancouver Food Bank. Craig’s passions include composing orchestral music and hip-hop beats (he attended Berklee College of Music), growing vegetables, fishing, and athletics. He enjoys spending time with his nieces in California and has volunteered his time at a non-profit organization that teaches beat making and music production to underprivileged and inner-city youth.