Proffitt & Goodson

Proffitt & Goodson

Founded in 1986 in Knoxville, Tennessee, Proffitt & Goodson was built as a registered investment advisor for families and institutions facing concentrated-wealth events, succession, and intergenerational transfers. The firm structures its relationships around a fiduciary standard, meaning every investment decision and planning move is legally bound to client interest rather than commission-based product sales. Its client base spans multigenerational families, business owners preparing for liquidity events, women navigating financial transitions, retirees, and nonprofit institutions including foundations and endowments. Proffitt & Goodson allocates across public equities, fixed income, private credit, real assets, and hedge fund strategies, with a heavy emphasis on tax-aware portfolio construction. For private clients, this means integrating asset allocation with cash flow planning, trust design, and philanthropic vehicles such as donor-advised funds. For its institutional book — built over more than two decades with foundations and endowments — the firm provides investment policy development, risk management, and board-level collaboration. The firm works with assets across the United States from its single Knoxville office, serving a national client base through a combination of in-person and remote advisory relationships. The firm operates without external sales pressure or proprietary product mandates, a structural choice that keeps portfolio construction flexible. Instead of pushing in-house funds, Proffitt & Goodson selects third-party managers and direct investments — including business-interest valuation and sale preparation — that align with a client's tax position and estate documents. Its team includes CFA and CFP charterholders, and retention statistics cited on the firm's own site point to long client tenures measured over five-year spans. No public information is available on total assets under advisement or recent fund-level commitments, nor on any adjacent vehicles such as a philanthropic foundation, real-asset arm, or peer network membership. What distinguishes Proffitt & Goodson structurally is the combination of a pure RIA chassis with a deliberate institutional-nonprofit practice alongside a private-wealth book. Most RIAs of this size serve either individuals or small endowments; running both under one roof forces the firm to maintain the governance discipline of an institutional consultant while preserving the bespoke service model expected by high-net-worth families. That dual posture — and the absence of brokerage or insurance affiliations — makes it one of the fewer conflict-of-interest-free shops in the Southeastern wealth-management market.