Our Story
Creative Financial Planning was founded in 1985 by Lisa Hayes.
After leaving Emory Law School, Lisa started a cleaning service in the Hamptons, Helpful Hand, to pay back her student loans. She wanted to invest her profits, and asked a stockbroker client if she could read her mutual fund prospectuses. She found them interesting, and started to read all she could about financial planning.
A friend advised her on how to become a financial advisor:
1. Take the Series 7
2. Get your CFP®
3. Learn how to dress! (This was the 80s…)
Lisa studied on her own to pass the series 7, and went on to receive her CFP® from Adelphi University.
After a brief stint with an estate planning company, Lisa struck out on her own in 1985 as Creative Financial Planning, her own personalization of the CFP® designation. She started out by writing financial plans for free, and asked happy clients to spread the word.
“You do what you say you’re going to do, you treat people fairly, and you honor your commitments,” says Lisa of CFP®’s core values.
In 2011, Lisa purchased a former Christian Scientist church building in Nyack that had been vacant for 2 years, and, after an extensive top-to-bottom restoration, opened Creative Financial Planning in its new home at Baxter Hall (named, of course, after Baxter the dog).
