Don Reilly

Donald Frank Reilly co-founded Reilly Financial Advisors, a La Mesa, California-based Registered Investment Adviser, in 1999. The firm was built around an integrated wealth-management model combining investment management, wealth planning, and client relationship management.

Before founding Reilly Financial Advisors, Reilly began his career in real estate and later moved into investment and financial services as clients’ needs expanded beyond real estate advice. The Wall Street Transcript profile states that he became an independent representative of LPL Financial Advisors in 1990 and was an early proponent of flat-fee advice instead of commission-based compensation.

At Reilly Financial Advisors, he served as CEO, guided the firm’s proprietary investment-management discipline, and served as co-chairman of the investment committee. Public profiles credit him with more than 40 years of experience in financial solutions, investment management, portfolio design, and financial risk management.

In January 2022, Creative Planning announced its acquisition of Reilly Financial Advisors, then described as having more than $2 billion in assets under management. Creative Planning said the Reilly team would join the firm; Reilly Financial Advisors was described as focused on wealth management, comprehensive financial planning, corporate retirement plans, and international clientele.

• Public sources do not verify the stub claim that Reilly is an angel investor or seed-stage startup investor. The verified record points to wealth management and public-market portfolio management rather than venture investing.
• Reilly’s stated approach emphasizes disciplined diversification and risk control. In a 2012 Wall Street Transcript item, he said: “You have to stay diversified, and you have to keep that discipline.”
• His portfolio-construction comments described diversified exposure across large-growth, large-value, small-cap, mid-cap, international, and cash allocations.
• He also described position-size discipline, saying the firm would keep any one stock to roughly 2% to 2.5% of a portfolio and trim positions that grew beyond target.
• Reilly Financial Advisors’ firm materials emphasized fiduciary, fee-only wealth management and putting clients’ interests ahead of the firm’s compensation.