QM ADVISORS - Key Persons
For over a decade, Andrew has helped clients address their financial concerns and develop sound strategies by focusing on each individual's specific needs while working at several large financial institutions. During that time, he dedicated his career to delivering the personalized investment planning services that his clients and their families deserved. He works with high net worth individuals, families and business owners, focusing on cultivating and managing clients' wealth, not only emphasizing disciplined growth, but risk mitigation to help preserve current accomplishments for their intended purposes and future enjoyment. He likes to work together with his clients to create encompassing investment and planning strategies, specifically tailored towards the achievement of their goals. Andrew came to QM Advisors as he believes there is no true "one size fits all" solution in this industry. QM Advisors encourages finding the solution that fits what the client needs, not shoe-horning the client into something the financial institution has on the shelf.
As co-founder of QM Advisors, Darren Heil has helped develop a firm that fixes what he believes is broken in our industry. At most financial advisory firms, you don't have direct access to the people managing your money. At, QM Advisors you do. At many investment firms, you are either given a Modern Portfolio Theory allocation of money managers by a salesperson with no real access to the money manager or you buy into a "black-box" that you just have to trust will work and have no understanding of what that box really does. At QM Advisors, we are breaking the old business model and introducing a business model for our 21st century, highly transparent and fast-moving world. We give clients full transparency into our process of money management and direct access to the money manager. As co-founder, Darren has helped formulate investment policy, develop models, supervised the management of client portfolios, and most importantly, helped clients understand the investment philosophy so they can understand what is going on in their accounts. However, money management is only one part of the equation. The more important part is YOU and your personal process for making decisions.
Prior to QM, Darren earned two engineering degrees from Cornell University, including a master's in engineering management. While in college, he also founded, raised money, and managed a private investment fund that was designed to take advantage of mispriced options on large technology companies. Seeing the opportunity and using math to solve the "problem", is where his love affair with trading and managing money was born. His time at Cornell provided Darren with a strong foundation for understanding advanced math concepts, computer programming, decision science, and modeling. He was able to take theoretical concepts learned in his courses and put them to use in his private fund. It was this experience that allowed him to jump into a role as a trader with a multi-billion-dollar firm in New York.
Early in his 20-year career, Darren was a successful trader at two financial firms in New York. However, this was interrupted by 9/11 as his office was part of the World Trade Center Complex in lower Manhattan. As you can imagine, this experience caused a lot of soul searching and rethinking of priorities. He decided to take what he thought would be a short break out of the city and away from Wall Street. Darren returned to Atlanta where he co-founded a series of companies in both the management consulting space and travel technology space. Darren's short break would not end up being so short, but in 2010 the money management world was calling again.
In 2010, Darren returned to the financial services industry, working for a large traditional investment company. Most recently before founding QM Advisors, he was on the other end of the spectrum working at a small independent Registered Investment Advisor that focused on a "black-box" tactical money management system. Over the years, Darren has worked with large clients and small clients and most everything in between. In doing so, he has learned a few truths. First, if you have a lot of money, you get access to the money managers who are willing to talk to you and open up their process….pretty much everyone else, for the most part, is in the dark. Second, and probably most important, is that the typical investor does not understand their personal decision-making process and the biases that lead them to make emotion-driven investment decisions (and non-investment decisions). Those emotional decisions often lead to poor investment results, regardless of how good the money management has been.
So, being the engineer and Charter Market Technician (CMT) that he is, in 2018 Darren decided to co-found QM Advisors with a focus on using behavioral finance, coaching, and the money management techniques he has learned over his career to help individual investors compete with the big institutions, and hopefully get where they want to go.
Investing and helping people achieve their goals are only a couple of Darren's passions. Darren has returned to his roots in Peachtree City where he lives with his wife and two soon-to-be teenage children. His family attends Peachtree United Methodist Church. He is active in his children's lives helping with their tennis, gymnastics, and music pursuits. Over the years, Darren has been active in the community and has served on several non-profit boards. He tends to spend his downtime pursuing various sports, playing and enjoying music, learning, and spending time with his family.
As co-founder of QM Advisors, David Simmons has helped develop a firm that he believes fixes what is broken in the financial services industry. At many investment firms, you are either given a Modern Portfolio Theory allocation of money managers by a salesperson with no real access to the money manager, or you buy into a "black-box" that you just have to trust will work and have no understanding of what that box really does. At QM Advisors, we are turning those business models upside down. We give our clients full transparency into our process of money management and provide them with direct access to the money manager. However, money management is only one part of the equation. The more important part is YOU and your personal process for making decisions.
David earned degrees in Economics and Human and Organizational Development (HOD) at Vanderbilt University. The economics degree has given David the basis to understand how the economy and markets work and are woven together. The HOD degree has given him the skills to find solutions to human problems in organizations and communities and the importance of connecting academic knowledge to personal and professional practice.
Early in his 20-year career in the investment industry, David worked at several large traditional investment companies that focused on Modern Portfolio Theory. Most recently before founding QM Advisors, he was working at a small independent Registered Investment Advisor that focused on a "black-box" tactical money management system. While David believes that there are merits to every system of money management, he can often be heard saying, "every system works until it doesn't…you just have to know when it is going to stop working." Over the years, David has worked with clients with investable assets at both ends of the spectrum, in doing so, he has realized a few truths. First, regardless of the size of the account, very few people actually understand the investment process into which they are buying. They view it as a commodity (it is all the same everywhere), they don't have access to the money managers to understand it and they don't care to understand until it is too late. Second, and probably most importantly, is that they do not understand their personal decision process and biases that lead them to make emotion-driven investment decisions that often lead to poor investment results. Lastly, investment managers will often hold onto a process that is flawed because it worked in one particular set of circumstances and, because of their own emotion and decision biases, they do not change as the market structure evolves.
In 2018, David co-founded QM Advisors, a firm that blends behavioral finance theory, goals-based planning, and proprietary investment strategies that seek to take emotion out of our rules-based investment process. We take the time to explain our process and investment strategies, we provide direct access to the money managers, and we have a process to deal with your personal decision process and biases. Our investment process is constantly evolving as market structure changes, but one thing always rings true: We will always have a mathematical rules-based process that takes emotion out of the equation. At QM Advisors, we don't claim to have the silver bullet for investing. We simply believe we have an investment process that is solid and that takes emotion out of the equation. We believe if you are aware of how you make decisions, what your biases are, have the tools to deal with them, and if you can take emotion out of the equation, you will have more success, less stress, achieve more goals, lead a happier life. Your emotions will follow as you achieve your goals. Simply put, we give you the tools to deal with and make better decisions when the inevitable ups and downs of the market come. If you understand, buy into the process, and are comfortable with it, your emotions and results will follow. We believe, emotions should be your caboose, not your engine.
Investing and helping people achieve their goals are only a couple of David's passions. David lives in Dalton, Georgia with his wife, Leslie, and their two boys, Sye and Grant. Their family attends Rock Bridge Community Church. David is active in his children's lives leading or helping lead/coach their stock market club, Scouts, various sports teams, being a chauffeur, and indulging their crazy ideas. Over the years, David has been active in the community serving on nonprofit boards. When not working David enjoys heading to the great outdoors, traveling, skiing, and spending time with friends and family.
Job Titles:
- Financial Advisor
- in - House Counsel
Jeff brings a unique set of skills and experience to QM Advisors. You see Jeff is a recovering attorney. During his 25 year career, he has done everything from working in the District Attorney's office to working in house for 2 major insurance companies as the Chief Compliance Council and Internal operations Control. As you can imagine he has developed an expertise in everything from Criminal Law, Commercial Litigation, Insurance Law & Compliance, Consumer Fraud, Sarbanes-Oxley Regulations, Foreign Corrupt practices, RICO & Money Laundering and just to name a few.
Jeff has always had a passion for the financial markets (having managed his own money for many years) and a desire to help other people achieve their dreams and live a better financial life. Jeff joined QM Advisors in 2019 to pursue his passion, as a financial advisor.
John has always had a passion for the financial markets and helping others achieve their goals. John has had a 20+ years career in the healthcare industry with experience as a project manager and business analyst. In addition, John has experience in the investing world having worked at a small Registered Investment Advisor that focused on tactical money management. During his career, he has developed the skills and ability to develop a clear, concise, and actionable plan from large amounts of information and complex problems as well as putting the plan in place and coaching individuals and companies through the process. His time at the tactical money manager deepened his understanding of the financial markets. It is this unique set of skills that will allow John to help individuals with their unique and complex financial lives develop a plan of action, implement the plan, and coach them through the process.
Josh was first exposed to investing as a child while sitting at the dining room table with his grandfather and pouring over stock symbols and closing prices in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It wasn't obvious in the moment, but his love of investing and thinking about the future is something that would never go away.
Ty works with clients individually to understand their personal and financial priorities, and then he constructs financial plans designed to help them build, manage, preserve and transition their wealth in accordance with their objectives. He appreciates the QM Advisors philosophy that allows him to get away from a "cookie-cutter" approach to investment management, preferring instead to customize clients' plans based on their goals, risk tolerance and biases.