Ruzanna Queenan, CFA

I grew up in Yerevan, Armenia, in the years just after the Soviet Union dissolved. Independence came quickly. What followed was slower and harder. By eighteen, I was working two jobs, attending school full-time, and contributing to my family's household. That season taught me something that has never left: security is built on purpose, or it isn't built at all.

During those years, I had the chance to translate for an IMF economist who spoke about investing and the long-term power of compounding capital. For someone who had watched financial instability shape the lives around her, the idea that disciplined ownership could work in the other direction was genuinely revelatory. I wanted to understand that world more deeply. Eventually, I built a career inside it.

My academic path ran from Linguistics at Yerevan State University through an MBA at Babson College. I spent the next two decades in institutional finance, holding senior roles at State Street, Affiliated Managers Group, Geode Capital Management, and Sapient, working across asset management, investment oversight, and large-scale financial operations. I earned the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation in 2007.

In 2018, I founded Queenvest LLC. After nearly 30 years in finance, I kept seeing the same gap: highly capable professionals who had spent decades building wealth but had no structured framework for what came next. Retirement is a different problem than accumulation, and it deserves a different kind of attention. That is the work I do now.

I work directly with clients on retirement income design, withdrawal sequencing, Roth conversion strategies, Social Security and Medicare decisions, and investment restructuring. I also coordinate across the advisory relationships clients already have, working alongside CPAs and estate attorneys, so the full picture stays coherent. I am a member of the Boston Estate Planning Council and the Boston Chapter of the CFA Society.

Clients tend to describe me as direct, analytical, and steady. I think what they're really saying is that I don't change my posture when markets get difficult or decisions feel uncomfortable. That steadiness comes from experience, and from a personal history that gave me a clear understanding of what financial resilience actually requires.

I live in Beverly, Massachusetts, with my husband Arthur and our two children, Connor and Abigail. Summers on Cape Cod have become a family tradition, drawn to a place where community runs deep and the pace invites reflection. I play tennis and pickleball, am learning bridge, and find genuine satisfaction in hosting dinners where the cooking is an experiment and the conversation is unhurried.