WisePath Wealth Management is marking its second year in business, having opened in May 2024. While the boutique, private wealth management practice is still young, co-founders and advisors, Sarah Navarre, CFP® and Roy Martin, CFP®, collectively bring extensive industry experience in financial planning and investment strategy, built working on the advisory side of large financial institutions and specializing in private wealth management. It was that experience, and ultimately the limits they encountered in serving clients in a fully holistic and comprehensive way, that underpins everything they set out to build with WisePath.

For both Navarre and Martin, those years inside large institutions provided more than technical knowledge. They offered a clear view into how the financial industry operates — where it succeeds, and where it falls short. Working within structured environments, they built deep client relationships and sophisticated advisory practices. At the same time, they began to recognize the constraints that come with scale: layers of oversight, limited flexibility, and a model often centered on managing established wealth rather than helping to build it.

WisePath is their response to that realization.

It’s not a stretch to see how their lives leading up to meeting each other shaped why their partnership works so well.

They call it “delightfully misaligned.”

Navarre, who grew up in a military family, brings a disciplined, structured approach to everything she does. Her path into financial services began in 2003 on the operational and regulatory side of the business, ascending from sales assistant to Financial Advisor — learning the mechanics, compliance, and detail behind how financial systems function before moving into advisory work. She holds dual degrees from the University of Florida in Business and Criminology, along with the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® designation. That foundation continues to define her role today: methodical, precise, and focused on building the process that creates outcomes clients can rely on.

Martin’s path took a different wave. A true beach kid who grew up surfing on the Outer Banks with family in Virginia Beach and Norfolk, his approach is more instinctive, strategic, and comfortable with calculated risk. He holds a BA in Economics from Hampden-Sydney College and the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® designation. His career in financial planning — spanning more than two decades — was set in motion by his Uncle Will Sessoms, whose early encouragement pointed him toward the profession. What evolved from those early advisory roles into portfolio management and investment strategy has shaped a perspective that looks not only at where a client is, but where they could go.

That work has earned him recognition as a Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisor 2022, a Forbes Next Gen Wealth Advisor 2018, and a Virginia Pilot Top 40 Under 40 honoree 2011.

Where Navarre builds the structure, Martin pushes the vision forward. In a season of wild market fluctuations, Navarre would say: don’t look, stay the course, the strategy will prove the path. Martin would be the one to call to ask what the market change presents as an opportunity to further the goal. Together, that balance becomes the engine of WisePath’s approach. There is no goal they hesitate to engage with. As a team, they say yes — then draw on decades of experience to chart the path forward.

It is also, by their own account, a large part of why their transition to starting WisePath was so successful.

Leaving an established wealth management practice is not simply a career move — it is a structural reset, and a regulatory bar so high it’s more intimidating than inviting. Advisors are restricted from soliciting clients to follow them. Relationships that may have been built over years must, in effect, stand on their own. Navarre and Martin understood that risk. But their desire for autonomy over how they served their clients, who they worked with, and how they shaped the client experience ultimately outweighed the hurdles.

What followed was something few practices experience — a powerful validation of the relationships they had built. When WisePath opened its doors in May 2024, clients were not formally notified of the new practice, nor were they asked to make the move. And yet, within six months, more than 95% of their client base had found them and transitioned on their own.

It was a testament to the trust that had underpinned their work.

That trust is central to how WisePath approaches its work, and it begins with a deliberate departure from traditional industry norms.

Many firms operate with defined asset minimums, focusing primarily on clients who have already accumulated significant wealth. Earlier in their careers, working within a large institutional environment, Martin recalls being unable to work with clients who brought less than $500,000 in total wealth — a threshold that removed the opportunity to serve people who were actively in the process of growing that wealth, or who were inheriting it from a previous generation.

WisePath takes a different approach. There is no minimum threshold to begin the conversation. Instead, the practice prioritizes working with individuals and families who are intentional about their financial future — those who are building toward something meaningful, even if that vision is not yet fully defined.

Often, clients arrive with ideas or hopes, not plans. WisePath’s process is designed to meet them there — helping to bring clarity to those ideas and their broader financial position, then building a thoughtful, structured path forward. That work integrates investment strategy, tax planning, estate considerations, and long-term wealth transitions into a cohesive whole.

It is planning not as a series of transactions, but as an evolving strategy.

The financial landscape has shifted dramatically over the past 25 years, at a pace that has reshaped markets, strategies, and expectations. For many clients, that level of change can feel overwhelming — and on some days, panic-inducing.

At WisePath, it is treated as something to understand and engage with, not avoid. Education is a central part of the practice’s philosophy. By helping clients understand what is happening in the market and why, they are better equipped to make decisions, adapt strategies, and move forward with confidence.

Because while volatility is inevitable, it is also where opportunity often lives. When a change in tax law or regulation feels punitive, WisePath has already digested the change — and shaped its response around the possibilities it presents. What a client first perceives as a loss can often be repositioned as a win.

Both advisors encourage clients, in a moment of uncertainty, to simply pick up the phone. The advice is not limited to formal strategy or planning meetings, but everything in between.

“If you were to Google what to look for in a financial planner,” Martin notes, “the response would likely say to look for a fiduciary.” A fiduciary is a professional legally and ethically obligated to act in a client’s best interest. Yet in practice, the structure of a practice can shape how that obligation is applied.

Within larger institutions, layers of oversight, boards, shareholders, and corporate priorities can influence decision-making from the top down. Independence offers a different path.

At WisePath, strategies are built from the bottom up, aligned directly with client needs and free from the constraints of a broader corporate framework. It allows for a more consistent application of what fiduciary responsibility actually means — not just in title, but in practice.

For Navarre and Martin, WisePath is not simply a new chapter — it is the intentional continuation of a philosophy shaped over decades. Both remain active in the Hampton Roads community they serve. Navarre was named Volunteer of the Year for the region in 2022, sits on the boards of the Hampton Roads Soccer Council, Southeastern Virgina Women’s Soccer Association and Safe House Project, which supports survivors of sex trafficking. Martin received the American Library Association’s Trustee Citation Award in 2015 for his work with the Norfolk Public Library and has served on the Advisory Council for the Virginia Department of Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Navarre has spoken about mentoring the next generation of advisors as part of the practice’s longer-term vision -- carrying forward the kind of guidance that shaped her own early career.

Their focus now is on growing the practice in a way that preserves what made it possible in the first place: thoughtful planning, strong relationships, and a genuine commitment to helping clients build -- not just manage -- their wealth.

It is a model designed not only for today’s clients, but for the generations that follow. And in a financial landscape defined by change, it offers something steady -- a clear path forward, shaped by experience, grounded in trust, and built with purpose in a place they are proud to call home.

[Securities and investment advisory services offered through &Partners, LLC, a broker-dealer and investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and member FINRA, SIPC. Insurance products are offered through our affiliated non-bank insurance agencies.]

[The Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisors rating was presented in April 2022 using data gathered from June 2020 to June 2021 by SHOOK Research, LLC, which does not receive compensation from the advisors or their firms in exchange for placement on a rating. It uses a rating algorithm that is based on the previous year’s industry experience, interviews, compliance records, assets under management, revenue and other criteria. Investment performance is not a criterion. Self-completed survey was used for rating. This rating is not related to the quality of the investment advice and based solely on the disclosed criteria.  

The Forbes America’s Next Gen Advisors rating was presented in July 2018 using data gathered from March 2017 through March 2018 by SHOOK Research, LLC, which does not receive compensation from the advisors or their firms in exchange for placement on a rating. Advisors considered have a minimum of four years’ experience. It uses a rating algorithm that is based on industry experience, interviews, compliance records, assets under management, revenue trends, and those that encompass the highest standards of best practice. Investment performance is not a criterion. Self-completed survey was used for rating. This rating is not related to the quality of the investment advice and based solely on the disclosed criteria.

The Virginia Pilot’s “Top 40 Under 40” list, published through their “Inside Business” section, selects individuals under 40 years old who demonstrate significant professional achievements within their field, coupled with notable community involvement and impactful volunteer work in the Hampton Roads region; nominees.]

[Fiduciary service is for Advisory clients only.]