About Us

Our Story

We are a financial services company made up of people like you – people who have put their savings and trust in the hands of advisors with the hope that they and their families would have a brighter future.

At Briaud Financial Advisors, we are dedicated to our clients, and we do everything we can to help them in their financial life. In part, this dedication comes from Janet Briaud’s personal experience and harkens back to the reason she became involved in the financial advisory industry in the first place. Janet emigrated from Canada, moving to Texas in the late 70s with her husband, a civil engineering professor. Planning to start a family and wanting to secure her children’s future, Janet, a physical education teacher at the time, engaged a well-known commission-based investment broker to manage her modest savings.

The broker, well meaning though he may have been, invested her money following the pattern so common in commission-based financial service firms. He invested much of Janet’s money in a high cost mutual fund that guaranteed him a generous commission regardless of how well the investment performed. The fund lost money, and between the advisor’s commission and the poor performance of the fund, Janet lost half of her initial investment.

For a short while she was frustrated, but the difficulty of the experience created a resolve in her. Janet began learning everything she could about sound investment practices and began to invest for herself and her family. As her expertise grew, she started an hourly consultation business and then began writing advice columns in the local newspaper. What began as a pastime had evolved into a genuine fascination, and ultimately a career.

Janet opened Briaud Financial Advisors in 1986 and became a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ a short time later. Janet had seen firsthand the conflicts that arise out of the commission-based model, so she established her business from the start as fee-only. This was considered a risky decision at the time, but it has proven to be the right one. Today, Briaud Financial Advisors is recognized nationally as a leading provider of financial planning and asset management services. In addition to Janet, who still sees clients and chairs the investment committee, the company boasts seven other CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ practitioners and a dedicated back office of client service professionals.

Given its relatively humble beginnings, Briaud Financial Advisors has been an incredible success. We attribute that success to Janet’s founding principle that clients should always come first. As we write the next chapter of our story, we will remain dedicated to the idea that our job is to help clients achieve happier, more prosperous and fulfilling lives.