John Faircloth, CIO, Riverwalk Wealth Advisors

July 2026 — Invest: spoke with John Faircloth, CIO of Riverwalk Wealth Advisors, about planning-driven client engagement, market risks, AI, personalization in wealth management, and Tampa Bay’s economic growth. “We are seeing younger and new families navigating wealth for the first time,” Faircloth said.

What have been some of the key milestones or changes for Riverwalk Wealth Advisors over the past year?

We have seen a clear shift from performance-driven conversations to planning-driven engagement, especially around taxes, longevity, and succession. Clients are far more intentional than they have been historically. Market volatility has reinforced the value of having a disciplined strategy rather than reactive decision-making.

Over the last 18 months, there have been two periods where markets were volatile for a short time, specifically volatility down, and then those losses, plus some, were made up in rapid succession. That has educated investors to be more disciplined and remain calmer when markets get volatile.

It has also allowed us to deepen client relationships. We coordinate across investments, tax strategy, and estate planning. Where we have delivered value is engaging with families navigating this complexity for the first time. We are seeing a lot of new wealth, especially from investments in artificial intelligence over the last three or four years. People who may not have had much investing experience prior to COVID have seen strong returns in some sectors and specific stocks. We are seeing younger and new families navigating wealth for the first time.

What are some of the risks you are monitoring?

The biggest risk we have been communicating is the similarity between the current market environment and the dot-com bubble. I started working with clients in 1998, close to the peak of the dot-com bubble. There are similarities, but there are also significant differences. The similarities should not be ignored.

There is not a day that goes by where we are not having that conversation with people who have concentrated stock positions, individual stock positions, or concentrated positions in a particular sector, whether that is AI or something else. We want to make sure they understand the risks involved, including single-stock risk.

Aside from that, we are starting to see complacency. Over the last 18 months, we saw significant market pullbacks followed by quick rebounds. Now, some people think that is normal and that every time the market is down 15% or 20%, it will just be back in six weeks. It does not always work that way. People who may not have been very willing to take on risk five or 10 years ago are now more willing to roll the dice. As planners, our role is to seek out that risk and mitigate it wherever we see it.

How is Riverwalk evaluating AI-related opportunities and using AI internally?

AI is helping with idea generation in terms of what we want to communicate to clients. If you are responsible for creating marketing material, blog material, or social media material, coming up with new ideas someone has not seen before can be difficult. The purpose is to get eyes on you, have someone read your content, and hopefully engage with you down the road.

We are finding interesting ways to reword things and generate ideas, but not to write everything. One weakness I have found is that when I ask AI to write something for me that is market related, and to include recent public data, that data is often wrong – that’s a significant weakness with current AI models. There are concerns with that.

On the operational side, we have used AI to streamline some internal procedures and cut down on time. There are definitely some benefits to it.

How do you think AI will affect the workforce over the long term?

There was a great analogy drawn at the investment conference. If you had interviewed the average American 100 or 150 years ago, they probably would have been a farmer and scared to death about the automation of farm equipment. If you had told them that, in 150 years, someone could have a pet psychologist, they would have thought you were crazy.

The point is that no matter what technological innovation has happened, there have always been new jobs people could not even fathom before the innovation. I think AI is going to follow that path as well, in terms of people being creative and finding their inner human spirit again.

Understandably, there will be friction, especially in the early years. Some jobs may be eliminated, but there will be many more jobs created after this. It just may take time.

How important is personalization in today’s wealth management environment?

Personalization is critical, especially for higher-net-worth individuals. No two family dynamics are ever the same. There are mixed families, blended families, and families that live 3,000 miles apart, if not more.

Personalization goes far beyond investments. Twenty or 30 years ago, it was common to run into somebody who did not want a particular sector in their portfolio. They were against natural resources, oil, gas, or defense contractors. Now, personalization goes far beyond that. We are seeing trusts created that are multigenerational, accounting for grandchildren and great-grandchildren who are not even on the Earth yet but are expected to be in the future.

The customization of legacy planning and family financial planning varies from family to family. Having that level of customization is no longer a specialty; it is a mandatory requirement in our industry.

A lot of firms are still operating by the same rules they were 30, 40, or 50 years ago, in a cookie-cutter environment where everybody gets the same thing. We are finding success because once we show people how cookie-cutter their existing plan is, and what we are capable of doing, it becomes an easy transition for us to work with that family and truly make a difference in their financial lives.

What role can financial institutions play in improving financial literacy and long-term wealth creation across communities?

In a market like Tampa Bay, community engagement is essential to building credibility and long-term trust. Many of our clients live, work, and invest locally, so understanding the region’s economic and civic landscape is critical to advising them.

Active involvement in local nonprofits, business organizations, and civic initiatives allows us to build deeper relationships, gain insight into regional growth trends, and support the long-term vitality of the community.

For us, community engagement isn’t transactional. It really reflects a commitment to the same place our clients are building their lives and businesses. Over time, those shared commitments strengthen trust and reinforce the client-advisor relationship.

What are your key priorities for Riverwalk moving forward?

Growing for growth’s sake is common in our industry, but for us, when we have internal meetings and team-building exercises, it is always about helping families.

It is not getting from $1.4 billion in assets under management to $5 billion or $10 billion. That will come naturally if we are doing the right thing for families. The question is always, how many more families can we help today, and how do we grow to help even more families?

People often ask why I got into this business. One of the things I saw growing up was that people who were not financially literate often got taken advantage of because they did not know. They trusted someone across the table, and that person was a salesperson, not a true fiduciary.

We act as fiduciaries in our relationships, where the client always comes first, above our business interests and certainly above our interests. When we approach it from that perspective, everything else falls into place. That includes talent development and improving the client experience. It all starts with how many families we can help.

What is your outlook for Tampa Bay’s economy?

The growth here is amazing. I live slightly north of Tampa, where a lot of new development is coming in. There are new businesses popping up every day and new people moving into the Tampa Bay region every day.

I have been in the area for five years, and the changes I have seen are super exciting. The possibility of having the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team within walking distance from my office is also exciting. I have lived in downtown areas like Denver and Seattle, and I have seen what cities do when they put sports teams in a downtown area, let the city build around it and embrace those teams.