Our Team
Richard Girgis CRPC ®, LPL Financial Advisor / Owner - Richard brings over 25 years of experience to his clients. He began his career in New York City at PaineWebber where in 1994 he moved his practice to Merrill Lynch on 5th avenue and joined their Private Client Group and earned the title of Assistant Vice President which afforded him greater investment flexibility for his clients. In 2003 Richard resigned from Merrill Lynch and took his clientele and financial practice independent. After the dot com bubble in 2001 and the investment banking scandals and tainted research that followed from the behemoth Wall Street firms, the move to independence was necessary for the benefit of his clients.
Richard holds the following registrations through LPL Financial; Series 7, 63 and 65 registrations. He also holds the designation of Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor, CRPC ® from the College for Financial Planning. Richard graduated from Hartwick College with a BA in Economics.
Richard loves the outdoors and is an avid bicycle racer and skier and continues his studies from the last 25 years in the martial arts. Richard lives with his family in Basking Ridge, NJ.
Richard Dragotta, ChFC, CRPC, LPL Registered Principal - Mr. Dragotta is the founder of the Independent Network of Consultants and Advisors and a Registered Principal of one of the largest enterprise offices of supervisory jurisdiction in the country for LPL Financial Member SIPC/FINRA. He is an integral part of our full service infrastructure, offering operational support, advocacy and compliance oversight through LPL Financial. Rich graduated from Gettysburg College with a BA, and a concentration in Economics & Accounting. In addition to holding multiple FINRA securities registrations
Steven Friedman, Director of Compliance - Steven started his career on the floor of the NYSE as a specialist clerk and later, a Specialist trading in roughly 600 equities. After 14 years, Steven took a position as a Financial Advisor at Wells Fargo Advisors in NJ and spent the next 5 years working his way up from Advisor to Compliance Liaison, leaving as International Operations/Compliance Manager. While at Wells Fargo Advisors, he became a supervisory principal.
His career led him to Prudential where he worked as a Compliance Analyst, working as Brokerage Liaison to monitor employee trading, the migration of compliance systems to a third party vendor, and working on a team implementing the various components to the Large Trader Rule, reporting to the SEC nearly all funds and asset management companies held at Prudential.
Steven was then recruited to work for Northwestern Mutual Insurance/ Northwestern Asset Management as Associate Director of Compliance at a Network agency, overseeing one hundred and forty advisors. After taking a leave of absence for 1 year to spend time with his family, Steven began his search in the compliance field and took a position at INC Advisors, reporting to Richard Dragotta, Principal Owner of the 6th largest network office within LPL.
Steven holds a BA in Economics from Brooklyn College, FINRA 7, 9, 10, 63, and 65 registrations with LPL Financial.