Contributor

Christian Ortez
Christian H. Ortez (born August 22, 1979) is an american wealth manager and CEO best known for representing numerous professional athletes in American Football and Mixed Martial Arts as well as notable Hollywood entertainers and Fortune 500 executives. He is also a known philanthropist involved with prominent charities and foundations.

Early Life
Ortez grew up in Redwood City, California, a suburb of San Francisco. the son of Marta and Horacio Ortez, a high ranking law enforcement official rumored to be involved in multiple covert international agencies. He has 2 siblings: Erick, a wall street financial advisor and Marlon, a professional boxer.

Ortez attended Woodside High School near Atherton, CA, one of northern California’s most affluent neighborhoods and home to NFL hall of famers, other sports figures, and notorious venture capitalists. In high school, Ortez was an honors student and an avid athlete lettering in football and track & field. He qualified to the California State Championship Track & Field Meet (The biggest, most competitive track meet in the state) in the 400 meter race as only a sophomore. He graduated with multiple scholarships, most notably, he won the “U.S. Army Athlete of the Year” award and was a finalist for the “Wendy’s High School Heisman Award”, awarded by the same entity that awards college football’s most prestigious award “The Heisman Trophy”.

College Years
Christian attended San Jose State University following on the footsteps of NFL stars and SJSU Alumni Jeff Garcia, Jeff Ulbrich, and Rashied Davis. In his sophomore year, Ortez made the switch from Football to Judo where he went ahead and earned his brown belt under Yosh Uchida’s program boasting over 25 national Judo titles. Ortez originally majored in criminal justice to follow in his father’s footsteps of a law enforcement career. In the summer of 2000, he changed his major to Business Administration and Marketing to focus on a career involving business and professional athletes.

Career
At the age of 21 and in his junior year at SJSU, Ortez was hired by a wall street powerhouse. He served there through 2006 as an Investment Management Analyst working in a Private Wealth Management group that manages over $2 billion in clients’ assets. During his tenure he worked with the CEO and executive team of a major high-end women’s clothing corporation based in Beverly Hills. With his new found exposure to the L.A. fashion and modeling world, Ortez made contacts with individuals in the entertainment industry, movie stars, writers, athletes, renowned rock bands, and entertainment agents.

In 2006, Ortez left his mentors to run his own practice at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. During the financial crisis and near collapse of Wall Street in 2008, Ortez left Merrill Lynch to a corporation free from the conflicts of interest inherent to Wall Street and the major banks.
Since early 2010, Ortez has been running his Wealth Management practice through LPL Financial (ticker symbol: LPLA), the largest independent broker/dealer investment house in the nation with over $280 billion of clients assets under management. He runs his practice with institutional-level wealth management principles resembling those used by the Harvard and Stanford Endowment funds and other successful investment entities. Like Nick Murray says, "I'm my clients' financial doctor" he says. When interviewed and asked about his clients by Entrepreneur magazine, Ortez refused to release any names citing that his Client/Advisor privacy policy prevents him from releasing specific names. He did mention that his practice is composed of some of the most intelligent and creative corporate executives, entertainment stars, and just great all-around people; “my clients are my second family” he said in his interview.