Get to Know Feraud!
I’m so glad you’re here! I’m Feraud Calixte, pronounced - Fur-Row, Ka-Licks. It’s a French name; my name is from Haiti. You can read about me professionally in my bio on the “About Us” section of the Fortitude website. I’m writing this post so you can get to know me a little better.
I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. I have two younger brothers. Growing up, my parents stressed the importance of education and hard work. We were active as boys go, we all played sports, mainly basketball. Basketball was a game I loved to play, and of course, I had “hoop dreams,” but thankfully, I did not neglect my academics, because at 5’11 ", my dreams of going to the NBA faded rather quickly. After high school, I attended NYU. This was a great experience. I majored in Liberal Arts, lived in one of the greatest cities in the world – NYC, and got a pretty good education. After NYU entered law school, where I thought I would become a great litigator, I also wanted a change from NY, so I chose to go to Southern University in Baton Rouge. Baton Rouge couldn’t have been any more different than NY. I had a great experience in Baton Rouge, good people, good food, southern charm, and football. It was also where I would meet my eventual wife, who was a graduate student at LSU.
After graduating, I had to decide what I wanted to do as a career. I tried different things, moved around – back to NY, then eventually NC. In a chance encounter at the gym, I met a retired financial advisor named Joel. He would speak to me about how great his career was and how he had the opportunity to help many people as an advisor, making a good living. After many of our talks, I was hooked. He introduced me to a manager at Morgan Stanley, and the rest is history.
I’m excited to be a part of Fortitude. Travis and I have been friends for a few years, and we discussed partnering up in the past, but the timing wasn’t right. When we revisited the conversation years later, we were both still excited about building something together, and we decided to team up!
We wanted to build a firm that charged a reasonable fee, delivered immense value, had client specialties, and included tax preparation, financial planning, and investment management all in-house. While providing these services, we also wanted to maintain the highest ethical standards in the industry by being Fiduciaries and Fee-Only.
Glad you’re here! Thanks for reading.
Feraud Calixte, J.D., CFP®
