Eric Nikles, CFP®

I grew up around this business, and with my father, our president, Tom being very successful leader and financial advisor himself throughout his career, I always had access to the highest performing advisors.

While at Kutztown University, I interned with Keystone Financial Management and observed how successful advisors assisted their clients, and the way they communicated. In 2010, I graduated from KU of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, and passed the required licensing exams to join KFM. Honestly, at the time I was not confident that I had what it took to be a successful Financial Advisor, but I focused on being a good listener, and relied on my ability to empathize with others. I relished the opportunity to have a substantially positive impact on other’s lives, my community, and the family business.

I hit the ground running consulting with individuals and families both locally and throughout the Lehigh Valley. In those early years, I would meet with anyone that would set an appointment with me! I jumped at every opportunity to gain experience and potentially build a long term relationship with a new client.

For both 2011 and 2012, I was awarded with the John Hancock Financial Network’s Best-In-Class Award for Achieving Client Excellence. In 2013, I made a decision to expand my capabilities by joining the Signator Investors Corporate Registered Investment Advisor program – which meant I could act as a true fiduciary to further prioritize and formalize acting in my client’s best interest. At that point, I realized that in order to more effectively serve my clients, I needed to expand my knowledge of financial planning, so in 2014 I started my journey toward earning the Certified Financial Planner® designation.

2018 marked a huge turning point for me. Monica my fiancé left the healthcare industry to assist me in supporting my clientele, I passed the CFP® final examination and we were married in September. When we returned from our honeymoon, our broker dealer of 36 years was merged into Royal Alliance. To top it all off, we also moved the KFM office to our hometown of Nazareth.

In my free time, I enjoy many forms of physical activity including running, padding, yoga, and hiking. I particularly appreciate running and yoga for the focus they require. If you find your mind wandering to anything but the task at hand, you are likely to get off balance. In pursuit of this focus, I ran both the 2012 and 2014 Boston Marathons, straddling the bombings of 2013 which had a big impact on me as our broker dealer’s home office was in Boston, and my personal connection many of the staff.

Both Monica and I love to travel, but might enjoy planning our adventures as much as actual trip. It is extremely rewarding to do all of the research, do your best to build a balanced itinerary, while still leaving room for the spontaneous, and then living the experience. We absolutely love the broader perspectives and cultural grounding of discovering somewhere new.

As I move my business forward, I intend to continue to expand client support and offer more technology solutions, resources, and tools to collaborate in addressing my client’s needs. In particular, I want to be able to service the next generation of investors, and build my practice around clients that are interested in a mutual long term relationship. The needs of my generation are different from our parents and grandparents, and unfortunately we have been underserved by both the market and the financial services industry. I am an entrepreneur who is in for the long haul and look forward to having a lasting impact on my client’s lives. I started out loving this business, and I still do.

Third-party rankings and recognitions are no guarantee of future investment success and do not ensure that a client or prospective client will experience a higher level of performance or results. These ratings should not be construed as an endorsement of the advisor by any client nor are they representative of any one client’s evaluation.