Navigate Private Wealth

Navigate Private Wealth

Navigate Private Wealth launched in 2014 when Scott Bunnell, a Utah State finance graduate, departed a large national advisory firm to create an independent practice. He structured the firm as an LLC with himself as Managing Principal and Chief Compliance Officer, later bringing on Senior Partner Riley Hendrickson in 2014. The firm's Layton office anchors a small-team model that blends advisory, analytical, and client-service roles under a flat partnership. Navigate's strategy rests on three deliberately linked verticals: portfolio management, comprehensive financial planning, and in-house tax preparation via its connected CPA firm, Navigate CPA. The investment committee — which includes Bunnell, Hendrickson, and advisor Stephen Smith — applies a proprietary Risk Allocation framework to construct client portfolios. The firm's website lists asset management, retirement planning, estate planning, tax planning, and insurance evaluation as core capabilities. Spencer, a CFP who joined the Layton office in 2017 after a FinTech exit, underscores the practice's appetite for hiring advisors with operating experience. While no specific equity or fund holdings are disclosed, the firm's marketing emphasizes independence from product commissions and a fee-only fiduciary stance. The team numbers at least nine professionals combining wealth advisors, client-service managers, analysts, and CPA staff. The CPA affiliate, led by Jared Eccles, operates from a separate phone line and tax-focused subdomain but shares the Layton footprint, covering multi-state individual and business returns, real estate, professional services, and manufacturing clients. Senior Partner Riley Hendrickson was promoted to his current role in January 2022. The firm's website lists a free-consultation funnel as its primary prospecting mechanism and does not indicate any philanthropic or club-vehicle adjacent structures. Navigate's structural differentiator is the embedded CPA entity. Few RIAs of this size integrate tax preparation and accounting as a sub-brand, a move that creates sticky, multi-service client relationships and a natural pipeline for wealth-management leads. The firm also maintains an investment committee that designs its own portfolio methodology rather than relying entirely on third-party model portfolios, giving it a degree of intellectual-property control unusual for a practice of its reported scale.