We Think Beyond Wealth

We prioritize the financial safety of your assets and family legacy to ensure responsible growth that enables effective wealth, estate and retirement planning.

We believe everybody deserves great financial services and we’ve built a community of clients that rely on our advice.  

Being part of one of the most awarded independent financial services firms in Canada has its perks. Echelon Wealth Partners provides our clients a strong platform of services without biased advice.  

Success starts with a plan. Click here to start your plan today.

We take the complex and make it straight forward.

Our core philosophy is to provide independent financial advice to our clients in a manner that provides a full range of services BEYOND WEALTH, to ensure every person has access to the right financial plan that fits with their life.

 

We work with each client to determine a disciplined strategy based on independent financial advice best practices, and your preferences and circumstances. Our investment plans are based on client goals, market conditions and client tolerance for risk and activity based on where you are in life.

 

We are from the community. Our clients are from our community. We focus on services that benefit our community.

Learn More

Our Services

Wealth Management

Portfolio Management

Wealth and Estate Planning

INSURANCE

Expertise & Experience Matters

Our Ottawa-based wealth management team, part of the venerable independent Canadian-owned and operated Echelon Wealth Partners firm, is client-focused, providing complex investment services in an accessible, easy-to-understand format to our community of investors.

Breaking into the investment industry in 1992 with Midland Walwyn Inc, Shelly Lairar became immersed in the world of investment as a sales assistant for 21 investment advisors. She continued her journey working as an investment advisor with Merrill Lynch & Co and BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. before striking out on her own with partner Tom Gougeon in 2012 and joining Echelon Wealth Partners in 2016.

Learn More

Community Leaders Who Care

The standard of living in Ottawa is ranked one of the highest in Canada and the world. Our vibrant city boasts beautiful architecture, a bustling downtown core, and a diverse range of vibrant neighbourhoods. This is our community. We support our community.

Learn More

Our Team

Our team is an experienced group of investment professionals and risk management experts. We are a team of two senior advisor partners with with assistants in our Ottawa office. We provide customized service to over 100 families from high net worth, retired, young families and young professionals. We believe that everyone in our community deserves to receive the best financial advice, no matter their portfolio size.

Meet the Team

Photo of Shelly Lairar by Dave Chan

Shelly and Tom are active community leaders giving their time to causes important to their hearts. Shelly has been an Arnprior Volunteer Firefighter and spent five years on the Arnprior Regional Health Foundation Board.


Tom has a long history of supporting and volunteering his time in support of mental health initiatives. He served on the Board of Directors for Operation of Come Home for many years.

BEYOND WEALTH INSIGHTS

What is Beyond Wealth?

In its essence our core principle of Beyond Wealth, is not only our service promise to our clients but a philosophy of how to inform and educate our community on all aspects of financial intelligence. Our Beyond Wealth resources include what we find is the very best blogs, articles, research, case studies, videos and other content that can inform and educate our clients about making smart, socially responsible financial decisions in every part of their life.

Is It Time for Emerging Markets

13 May, 2024
The normal narrative for encouraging investors to look at emerging markets typically goes like this: The valuations are cheap, the demographics/rising incomes are supportive of growth, and they offer diversification. Perhaps this is more the marketing narrative. Kind of how, like for infrastructure strategies, they always talk about how many bridges need repairing. We are not refuting any of the above reasons, as they have been rather perennial for many, many years. And yet, for those who know us, we have been rather negative or at least cool on emerging markets for a long time. How long? Well, this negative view persisted for well over a decade. This is us giving ourselves a pat on the back since Emerging Markets (EM) have done roughly nothing for the past 12 years as Developed Markets (DM) have charged higher (chart).

Lots of Bulls & Bears

06 May, 2024
Take your pick. There is no shortage of both good and bad news floating about the financial markets. To be fair, this is always the case. The hard part is understanding which side is stronger today and which side will be stronger tomorrow. With markets up low to mid-single digits following a very strong Q4 finish to 2023, most would agree the optimists are carrying the day at the moment. It is not just rose-coloured glasses; there is good news out there. Economic growth signs or momentum appear to be improving year-to-date. Dial back a few quarters, and the U.S. economy remained resilient while other economies softened or were rather lacklustre, including Canada, Europe, Japan, and China, to highlight some of the biggies. Today, while Canada is struggling, momentum in the U.S. has moved even higher, and there are signs of improvement in most jurisdictions.

Earnings Optimism

29 Apr, 2024
There are three things you should rarely ever bet against: the Leaf’s opposing team in the playoffs, the American consumer’s ability to spend, and corporate profits. As we are now about halfway through U.S. earnings season, once again, positive surprises remain the norm; 81% have beaten. It's a bit better than the 20-year average of 75%. The fact is that companies are good at managing analysts’ expectations. At least enough to beat them when the numbers hit the tape. The size of the positive surprises have been encouraging as well, at just under 10%. The highest surprise magnitude in some time. One of our reservations on the sustainability of this market rally over the past couple of quarters has been the flat earnings revisions. In other words, global markets are up over 20% but earnings estimates have remained flat or tilted down slightly. More often than not, markets trend in the same direction as earnings revisions. Earnings get revised up when companies raise guidance and/or analysts become more encouraged about growth prospects. That is a good thing for markets. Obviously, downward revisions are bad. Yet estimates have remained very flat as markets marched higher, a challenging combination.
Share by: