Profile

Lifan Shen, CFA, has been advising select high-net-worth families, businesses and non-profit institutions for over 20 years.  At Merrill, he is supported by a team with over four decades of experience in investments, estate planning, philanthropy and lending.  Since 2000, Lifan has established a strong and consistent track record of serving clients, helping them to grow and preserve their wealth through multiple challenging economic and market cycles and major life events. He has leveraged his deep investment experience to develop a disciplined and sustainable process that prioritizes prudent risk management, long-term growth, intelligent planning, tax minimization and transparency.  Lifan has also worked closely with clients to design financial education programs tailored to meet their needs, often to instill financial literacy and accountability in the next generation.

PHILOSOPHY

Lifan has developed a thoughtfully structured approach to wealth management that is guided by a deep understanding of each client's goals and risk tolerance.  He and his team actively engage with a client’s key advisors – investment, legal, tax, business – coordinating them to create a system of financial checks and balances that helps to ensure optimal outcomes for the client and their family.  Lifan firmly believes that the only way to build a customized strategy that is both financially optimal and sustainable is to develop a genuine understanding of what the client hopes to achieve, what causes they care about and what keeps them up at night.  He seeks an open and collaborative relationship with every client, actively listening and learning in order to gain insight that extends beyond their balance sheet to their values and their financial and emotional decision-making processes.

EXPERIENCE

Prior to joining Merrill, Lifan advised clients in the private wealth management groups of Goldman, Sachs & Co. and the J.P. Morgan Private Bank.  As a financial advisor at Goldman, his primary responsibilities were to advise over fifty senior Goldman partners on their personal investments and to design and implement their financial planning strategies.  Lifan led a team of six analysts and traders, actively managing equity, fixed income and alternative investment portfolios for a group of clients that included Goldman’s Chief Executive Officer, Co-President, Chief Financial Officer, Co-Heads of Trading and other members of the Management Committee.

Lifan is a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts and the CFA Institute, and is a holder of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.

EDUCATION

Lifan earned an MBA in Finance and Accounting from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an AB in Economics from Dartmouth College where he rowed on the Men’s Crew team.  He is an active alumnus for both institutions, serving as an MBA and undergraduate admissions interviewer, as well as having led his Dartmouth class as Reunion Co-Chair, among other philanthropic and mentorship activities both on and off campus.

PERSONAL

Lifan and his family immigrated to the United States, arriving in New York City when he was one year old.  A product of the city's public education system, he now passionately supports programs that help other low-income immigrants build a productive life.  Lifan is a founding Trustee and Finance Committee Chair of Brooklyn Independent, a non-profit private school that seeks to close the education opportunity gap in New York City by making a rigorous, private school education available to a socioeconomically diverse student body through a unique sliding-scale tuition model.  He is also a Pipeline Member of charity:water, a non-profit organization focused on providing clean water resources to people in developing countries.

Lifan resides in New York's Tribeca neighborhood with his wife and daughter.  In his spare time, he is an avid boxer and runner who recently completed his first New York City Marathon and is training for his second.