From left: Strathmore Chief Investment Officer Zach Huneycutt, Director of Tax David Bardin, Summit Financial Partners President Jennifer Luzzatto and Strathmore President John Charles Kernodle. (Courtesy Strathmore Capital Advisors)
In a bid to expand the reach of her one-woman wealth management firm, Jennifer Luzzatto has joined forces with a larger, out-of-state peer.
Luzzatto recently sold her Henrico-based firm Summit Financial Partners to Strathmore Capital Advisors out of Charlotte, North Carolina.
The acquisition, announced earlier this month, means Luzzatto, who is Summit’s lone employee, will add to Strathmore’s 14-person roster and bring over her book of business consisting of $150 million in client assets under management. The addition of Summit brings Strathmore’s assets under management to roughly $780 million as of last month.
Luzzatto founded Summit in 1999 as a part-time gig. After a few years of balancing another job and figuring out regulatory affairs, Luzzatto went full time with the business in 2005.
Based at 5231 Hickory Park Drive in Henrico’s Hickory Park Business Park, Summit offers services like investment management, financial planning, retirement planning and estate planning in the Richmond area.
Having grown the business over the years, Luzzatto said she began recently to look toward finding an acquirer that could take on the business side of running her firm.
“I was either going to have to start becoming an HR manager and hiring and managing more people, or if I merged with a firm that had the resources I needed, I could spend more time with clients,” she said.
Luzzatto said she met team members of Strathmore at a conference earlier this year, and added that the Charlotte firm members told her they had been looking to establish a presence in the Richmond area as of late. Strathmore, founded by firm President John Charles Kernodle in 2005, offers similar services to Summit on a fee-only basis.
Luzzatto said that along with what she sees as similar investing philosophies between the two, the fact that both firms do not sell financial products was one of the most appealing things about an acquisition by Strathmore.
“Clients never have to question, ‘Am I in this investment product because the commission is great, or because you think it’s best for me?’’’ she said. “Having all of that same alignment is what made them the right fit.”
The acquisition closed Oct. 31. Terms were not disclosed. Luzzatto now has equity in Strathmore and is a partner at the firm, and has the new titles as financial adviser and head trader.
Mergers and acquisitions advisory firm Hue Partners advised Summit in the deal, while J.P. Damron of Phoenix, Arizona-based Advisor Growth Strategies represented Strathmore.
With the addition of Luzzatto, Strathmore has 15 employees. Summit previously had two additional employees who decided not to be a part of the merger and are no longer with the company, Luzzatto said.
According to a release from Strathmore, the acquisition is part of the firm’s long-term growth strategy to expand further in the Carolinas and Virginia to offer an “alternative to large, private equity-backed aggregators.”
This is Strathmore’s second acquisition of 2025, after purchasing Maryland-based New Potomac Partners earlier this year.
The Summit name will soon be replaced by the Strathmore brand, but Summit’s Henrico office will remain, Luzzatto said.
Strathmore plans to add new employees at its local office in the future, Luzzatto said, starting with an associate financial adviser. Long-term, the firm also hopes to have an in-house CPA locally, too.
“Strathmore hired a director of tax this past summer, and our vision is to expand what we can do for clients from a tax perspective over time,” Luzzatto said.
And now that she’s no longer in charge of the day-to-day tasks of running a business, Luzzatto said she’ll look to grow the client list for Strathmore in Richmond.
“It really should free up a lot of my time to build new relationships with new clients,” she said. “I’m very interested in growing.”
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