ALLISON DARROCH, CFA®, Investment Advisor, Portfolio Manager, Richardson Wealth, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Updated: 15 minutes ago
ALLISON DARROCH
"Something will always happen—9/11, a pandemic, or a market crash. I can't tell you what's next, but I can promise you that something is. My job is to build your portfolio so that when it comes, you're ready. In an industry built on returns, I've built mine on something steadier: being the person my clients know they can count on."
Allison Darroch grew up in a numbers family and a household rich with love, experiences, and family dynamic. Her parents were both educators and taught their four daughters the value of a dollar early. As an Investment Advisor with Richardson Wealth, that lesson remains, and is one she passes onto her own kids. She's close with her sisters, talking to them almost every day. "People are always asking how they can become the fifth Darroch girl," she laughs.
With no university in their small hometown, Allison and her sisters moved to Winnipeg to live with an aunt while they studied. Flipping through the University of Manitoba course calendar, "a book the size of a telephone book," she recalls, only one section—the business section—grabbed her attention.
Allison majored in finance and earned her Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA®) designation right out of university while working, a challenging international program with famously low pass rates. "All these textbooks showed up, stacked high, and I thought, what have I gotten myself into?" she says. However, those three letters gave her instant credibility in the industry.
What sets Allison apart, though, isn't her credentials, it's the wide and knowledge-gaining path she took before she arrived in the Advisor's chair. Over the course of a career spent entirely in financial services, she spent a decade at Wellington West gaining experience across capital markets and financial planning, sat beside the CFO through a corporate sale, and has done national sales for a global investment manager. She joined Richardson Wealth as a Branch Manager in 2019, and when a retiring Advisor asked her to take on part of his practice, she found her next calling.
"I've sat in almost every seat in this industry," she says. "I've learned the products, the systems, the operations, and it all comes together now. I understand the whole picture in a way I couldn't have if I'd only ever been an Advisor."
That whole-picture instinct defines her approach. Allison has no interest in being the Advisor who simply tells you what to buy and sell. "That's not where the value is," she says. "The value is in asset allocation, financial planning, looking at the entire situation—tax, insurance, intergenerational planning. Asking 'what do you really want this money to do for you?'" she says.
She starts every relationship with asset allocation, built around a frank conversation about risk. "My job is to understand what you can handle when things change in the market, and build your portfolio so you feel comfortable to live through it. The proof,” she says, “shows up in turbulent markets: nobody panics, because the storm was planned all along.”
As a lifelong saver herself, one of the most rewarding parts of the job is the opposite of saving. Allison spends a lot of time giving retirees permission to enjoy what they've built. "I see clients who saved and saved and saved, and the hardest transition is realizing it's now time to spend," she says. "You've done the hard work. It's okay to buy the new car, to fly business class, to help your kids now, while you're around to see them enjoy it."
One thing she does differently is insist that both partners are at the table. "When I book a meeting, I'm not just booking it with the husband or the wife. I'm contacting both of them," she says. Where one spouse, often the wife, has traditionally stayed on the sidelines of the family's finances, Allison likes to draw her in, making sure she understands the accounts, the tax treatment, the plan. The response has surprised even her: "I've had so many husbands say, 'I'm so thankful my wife is part of this now. If something happened to me, I know she's in good hands.'"
It's not always the starting point, though, especially with longer marriages where those roles were set decades ago. Allison has seen what happens when that groundwork isn't there. She recalls working with a couple where one spouse managed all of the finances, and the other had little day-to-day involvement. Because Allison already knew the full picture when one spouse passed on, she was able to step in and guide her. "I told her, ‘I've got you.’ She tells me I helped her through one of the hardest times of her life.”
One of her favourite aspects of her work is establishing trust with people. She works with many couples, but she has a particular gift for clients navigating life transitions, including those who've been widowed or divorced. "Once someone trusts you, it gets to the point where they say, 'Whatever you think, Allison, I trust you wholeheartedly.' That doesn't happen overnight."
In an Investment Advisor role, Allison draws on all her knowledge, including her CFA® and decades of industry experience, but the real measure of the work is about trust. "Something will always happen—9/11, a pandemic, or a market crash. I can't tell you what's next, but I can promise you that something is. My job is to build your portfolio so that when it comes, you're ready. In an industry built on returns, I've built mine on something steadier: being the person my clients know they can count on."
Allison Darroch, CFA®
Investment Advisor - Portfolio Manager
Richardson Wealth Ltd.
One Lombard Place
Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3B 0X3
T: 204 - 953 - 7853
M: 204 - 510 - 8322
Carmen Morgan is a skilled business writer and storyteller, collaborating with business owners and executives to tell their stories and share perspectives on growth and success, as well as perseverance and adversity. Over two decades she has refined her interview, writing and editing skills to capture the nuggets and captivating details that engage readers and make a story memorable.