Keith McConkey, CFP®, Financial Advisor, CFP, Investia Financial Services, President, NXS Financial Strategies, Welland, Ontario

Keith McConkey

"My goal in life has been to try to be a little bit better tomorrow than I was today. It’s not really about competition but about trying to be the best I can be.”

Before Keith McConkey was building investment portfolios, he was calling balls and strikes at the highest levels of his sport. For most of his twenties, he worked as a professional baseball umpire, grinding through the minor leagues with his sights set on the majors. When he was released in the fall of 2005, he found himself with a résumé that didn't provide an obvious next chapter. "I had a ton of life skills that didn't translate to a resume very well," he recalls.

He first took a job in a call centre, worked hard, and was promoted to a management role he held for about four years. It was decent money, but not a life-long job for Keith. Having grown up around aviation, he turned to training as an air traffic controller with NAV Canada. “I lasted about two years,” he says. “There was problem-solving, but I needed to be out in the world, interacting with people.”

It was his wife, a long-time bank manager, who suggested he write his mutual funds exam. He moved from a financial services representative to Financial Advisor, then eventually took a management position at a local credit union, which gave him a broader view of the business. In January 2020, he stepped out on his own as an independent advisor with IG Wealth Management.

“The timing was brutal,” Keith admits. “By March 2020, I was sitting at my dining-room table with two kids in kindergarten and grade one, building a business from scratch, while the world was closed for business. “My wife and I set a goal that if I wasn’t successful in the first year, it would be important to our family for me to get a job with guaranteed income.” Keith made it past the first year.

The pivotal move came in 2023, when Keith was introduced to a respected local Advisor who was planning his retirement. There were synergies in their local commitment, so Keith made the move from IG Wealth Management to Investia Financial Services, and many of his clients followed. “I began working with that Advisor’s clients almost immediately,” he says. “In 2025, we finalized the transition, and I now have a team of three, and we are growing.”

Keith never really left the elite-sport mindset behind, despite the career change. He holds a CFP designation and works hard to differentiate his money management approach. “We believe in risk-adjusted growth and pursuit of strong returns, but never by putting at risk what a client has already built,” he says. Keith is keen on:

Planning first. Most people arrive at NXS with investments but no plan. We start with the plan, the one that's never actually been done for them, and let the money decisions follow from it. Not the other way around.

Money matched to purpose. Investments should do a specific job. For clients approaching or in retirement, that job is usually protecting what took decades to build, not chasing the last percent of return. For clients who want their money to reflect their values, we offer a low carbon strategy.

Service that doesn't slip. Markets move, staff gets busy, life gets loud. None of that changes how fast you hear back from us. Nobody at NXS waits days for an answer.

"Nobody leaves their Advisor when their money's growing," he says. "It's the down markets that test the relationship. We spend a lot of energy protecting what people have already saved, because that's the part they can't earn back."

The discipline shows up in small places. His team rebalances portfolios on a set schedule twice a year, so drift gets corrected on a rule rather than a reaction. And he pushes to make advice tangible, showing clients in concrete numbers what planning does for them beyond rate of return.

Keith’s entrepreneurial spirit is ideal for who he serves best. Keith has been deliberately expanding into mid-sized business owners and farming families. With business owners especially, he believes lived experience is the differentiator. "Until you own a business yourself, and you've got to worry about making payroll and dealing with the CRA, how can you properly help a business owner?" he says. For Keith, the logic is simple: "We need to be smart business people, not just great Financial Advisors.” And he is keen on future-proofing his business.

NXS is built to serve families across generations, not just the person who signs the first agreement. That shows up in who the firm takes on. Most advisory firms are looking at the Boomer generation as ideal clients. Young families are the least profitable clients in the business today, and Keith takes the ones that are a good fit, anyway. "Right now, nobody's giving them guidance."

It also shows up in how the firm plans for its own future. Keith is building a second certified planner into the business, with client relationships transferring gradually over years rather than in a single handoff at the end. "The last thing I want is for a client to get a phone call telling them their Advisor is gone. That's not continuity. That's a disruption with a nice letter attached."

Further out, he pictures something broader: one office where clients reach additional Advisors, and other industry professionals such as an accountant. "I want it to be a single, reliable place where people find the financial help they need."

Outside the office, Keith umpires at the highest level of international baseball. In 2023 the World Baseball Softball Confederation named him its Umpire of the Year, the only Canadian ever to receive the honour. The same year, Baseball Canada named him its Umpire of the Year and awarded him the Dick Willis Memorial Award.

He has worked six WBSC assignments, among them the 2024 Premier12, which brings together the top national teams in the world, and the U-18 Baseball World Cup in Taiwan, where he was given home plate for the gold medal game. That assignment rarely goes to a Canadian. At home, he has umpired five Canadian championships and supervised at four more. He is also a Master Course Conductor, training the next group of amateur officials.

The connection to his day job isn't as far off as it sounds. Both roles are judged on the same thing: whether you stay steady when everyone else is reacting. "Nobody's watching the umpire in the third inning of a blowout," he says. "They're watching in the ninth, tied game, bases loaded. It's the same in this business. Anyone looks good in a bull market. You find out who your Advisor is when things go sideways."

For all the moving pieces, the engine underneath stays the same. "I think that's an attractive quality to our clients, that we're always trying to do better," he says. "We're not complacent with their money or their planning." Or, as he puts it more simply: “we try to be a little better tomorrow than we were today.”

Keith McConkey, CFP®, RIS®

CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER®

NXS Financial Strategies | Investia Financial Services

449 Thorold Rd. Welland, ON, L3C 3W7

Phone: 905-735-5555

Email: keith.mcconkey@iainvestia.ca

Website: www.nxsfinancial.ca

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.