The 10th annual list recognizes Canada’s top financial advisors and professionals under 40
Wealth Professional has released its 2026 Rising Stars, naming 27 financial advisors and professionals aged 40 or under who are reshaping how Canadians receive wealth advice.
The report, now in its 10th year, drew nominations from companies across the country and assessed each nominee on performance and achievements over the preceding 12 months, with eligibility restricted to those aged 40 or younger as of September 30.
What separates this year’s cohort is not a shared technical specialty but a shared conviction that complexity should never substitute for a clear answer. Communication skills, transparency, and accessible client education emerged as the practical differentiators for young advisors overcoming industry credibility gaps.
“Good communication skills and being able to present complex concepts in an easy-to-understand manner are key attributes for successful wealth professionals,” said Tina Tehranchian, senior wealth advisor at CI Assante Wealth Management in Richmond Hill, Ontario, one of two subject matter experts interviewed by Wealth Professional’s researchers for an independent analysis of the report.
Catherine Milum, president and CEO of iA Clarington Investments in Toronto, argued the credibility gap facing younger professionals should be reframed entirely. “There are a lot of people that are doing a lot of really good work; they just can’t articulate it,” she said, describing the ability to state one’s own value proposition clearly as “almost creating a brand for yourself.”
Among the 27 named this year, several notable names stood out.
Jesse Harris, senior wealth advisor at Harris Group Private Wealth Management, leads a Victoria, British Columbia practice under IG Wealth Management serving families, entrepreneurs, and professionals across British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario.
According to the practice’s website, the team has worked in Victoria’s Westshore area for more than a decade and carries over 30 years of combined financial services experience in investment planning, tax and estate planning, business and succession planning, and charitable giving.
Harris holds a BCom and the Responsible Retirement Consultant designation, and entered financial planning after dropping plans to study medicine. His practice draws on IG’s in-house tax, estate, insurance, mortgage, and advanced financial planning specialists.
Ilya Kudzelka, principal and portfolio manager for research and analytics at Westcourt Capital in Toronto, works on the screening, evaluation, due diligence, and ongoing monitoring of the firm’s investment products. His role covers analysis of alternative investment fund performance, including explaining results and investigating discrepancies. Before joining Westcourt, Kudzelka was a manager on the private equity team at a fund administrator, overseeing the fund accounting team evaluating private equity and private debt funds.
Josh Nakesch, a wealth counsellor and shareholder on the board of directors at Kinsted Wealth in Alberta, built his practice around the total elimination of jargon from client conversations. “Jargon should never be used, ever,” he said. “A true demonstration of your knowledge of a subject is to be able to explain the concept in a way that your audience can understand without having previous knowledge of that particular topic or concept.” Nakesch also walks clients through the original rationale behind their strategy when markets turn, framing turbulence as something the plan already accounted for.
Massimo Ianniruberto, co-founder and co-CEO of Cloven, built the Toronto financial advisor CRM out of BluRoot, the technology firm he founded in 2013 after working with insurance, mortgage, financial advisory, and wealth industry leaders. BluRoot moved fully to a product business in 2023, dropping consulting work to concentrate on Cloven and its mortgage broker counterpart, BluMortgage. Ianniruberto now guides Cloven’s growth and vision.
Mordechai Kuhnreich, a wealth advisor and portfolio manager at Lakeview Wealth Management – Wellington-Altus Private Wealth in Toronto, Ontario, built his book from nothing, with no inherited business and no family handoff. “I was never one of the lucky ones who has a parent that has a business to hand to me,” he said. “I started with cold calling. It was the real old-school grind.”
Tom Hall, co-founder and co-CEO of Cloven, leads product for both Cloven and BluMortgage, with responsibility for keeping the platforms usable for the advisors and brokers who run their practices on them. He co-hosts the Mortgage Tech Talks podcast with Ianniruberto, interviewing technology founders, brokerage owners, and lenders.
Also recognized were Adam Bighill, investment advisor at Pejovic Bighill Private Wealth of Wellington-Altus Private Wealth; Bulla Islam, a business development manager at Canada Life in Vancouver, British Columbia; and Gabriel Zitoli, financial advisor at The McClelland Financial Group of CI Assante Wealth Management Ltd. in Thornhill, Ontario.
These professionals are a few of the 27 named to the 2026 Rising Stars list, which is supported by the Canadian Association of Alternative Strategies & Assets and the Canadian Association of Urban Financial Professionals.
Read the full Rising Stars 2026 report to see every winner and the findings behind this year’s list.
