Why Dovetail Financial Exists
Your life and financial resources affect one another. A shift in your circumstances can change the questions that need attention and the financial steps that follow.
Dovetail Financial provides ongoing retirement planning and investment management for people nearing or living in retirement. Our mission is to help reduce financial worry and support the life each client wants to live.
Human-First Financial Guidance® begins with the people affected by the decisions, what is happening, and what the money needs to support. Your advisor connects that context to the financial facts and analysis. Recommendations and implementation support follow from that work. Monitoring, review, and adaptation continue as life and financial circumstances change.
How Does the Relationship Keep Life and Wealth Connected?
Follow how your circumstances enter the work, shape guidance, and return to the conversation when something changes.
Who Does Dovetail Serve?
Dovetail works with individuals and couples who are approaching retirement, already retired, or facing a change that creates new financial questions. Clients are capable decision-makers who often want the connected financial work handled within one ongoing relationship.
Clients often want one advisor who knows their circumstances and can connect multiple areas of the financial work. Some are preparing for a transition. Others are revisiting decisions after life or financial circumstances have shifted. We begin with what brought you to the conversation and show how it may affect the decisions that follow.
Dovetail is headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina, and has an office in Duluth, Georgia. In-person and virtual meetings are available.
Who Founded and Leads Dovetail?
Ross Marino, CFP®, CeFT®, founded Dovetail Financial and serves as its CEO. He created Human-First Financial Guidance® through more than 30 years as a financial planner, educator, and author.
Ross taught Retirement Planning and Employee Benefits in the CFP® curriculum at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He also co-authored Shaping Change: How to Respond When Life Disrupts Your Retirement Plan.[1]
How Do Other Professionals Fit Into the Work?
Financial decisions may also involve tax filings, estate documents, or insurance coverage. Coordination connects the relevant work while keeping each professional’s role clear. Your accountant and attorney remain responsible for their guidance. Your insurance professional and Dovetail advisor do the same within their roles.
With your permission, Dovetail may coordinate relevant financial facts with those professionals. The information shared is limited to the work that needs to be connected.
What Should You Expect From the Advisory Relationship?
Dovetail’s advisors are paid through advisory fees. Dovetail does not pay its advisors commissions for investment or insurance product sales. Dovetail Financial Group LLC is a registered investment adviser.[2]
Recommendations should explain the relevant facts, tradeoffs, and uncertainties. They should also explain the reasons. You and your advisor discuss how the choices connect to the plan. You retain decision authority, and Dovetail helps carry out the financial steps you select.
The relationship includes ongoing retirement planning and investment management. Your advisor monitors the plan and revisits affected recommendations when circumstances change. These facts describe how Dovetail works; they do not establish that Dovetail will fit every person seeking advice.
Dovetail Financial Recognition
Dovetail Financial was named a 2025 ThinkAdvisor LUMINARIES finalist for the Firm Award for Thought Leadership and Education among RIAs with less than $10 billion in AUM/AUA.[3]
This recognition is not indicative of future investment performance or any individual client’s experience.
Notes
1. “Ross Marino,” Simon & Schuster.
2. “Dovetail Financial Group LLC,” Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Registration does not imply a particular level of skill or training.
3. “2025 Luminaries Finalists,” ThinkAdvisor.
Could Dovetail Be a Good Fit?
An introductory call is a chance to explain what prompted you to reach out and what you want help thinking through. Bryant Lester, CFP®, leads these conversations. If it makes sense to continue, Bryant will introduce you to Ross or another Dovetail advisor who may lead your relationship.
