Alex Ruda, Fee-Only Financial Advisor in Silver Spring, MD

My background is unusual among financial advisors: tax analytics at the IRS and investment research at the Investment Company Institute. That's not a typical path to financial planning, but it's exactly why I think about investing and taxes differently than many advisors.

I studied economics at Princeton under Burton Malkiel, one of the architects of index investing and author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street. That experience gave me a deep, research-grounded conviction about how markets work and what investors can actually control. After Princeton I earned a master's in economics from Johns Hopkins, and spent 15 years as an applied economist at the IRS, Fannie Mae, and the Investment Company Institute.

The tax layer came from my years at the IRS, where I built extensive analytics for a team focused on high net worth families and their business networks. That work gave me a granular understanding of how the tax code actually operates in practice, not just in theory, and how family and business structures create both risks and opportunities that many advisors miss. That experience is the foundation of everything I do for clients.

The ICI years were particularly formative for how I think about investing. Working inside the organization that represents the fund industry, I had an unusually clear view of how investment products actually perform net of costs and taxes, and what the data really shows about active versus passive management. That institutional vantage point hardened my conviction around low-cost, tax-efficient index investing long before I became an advisor.

Over the years, friends, family, and colleagues turned to me for guidance on exactly these questions: tax strategy, retirement planning, investment decisions. That consistent demand for clear, objective advice from someone without a product to sell is what led me to launch Ruda Financial.