Clark & Company Wealth Management

Clark & Company Wealth Management is a planning-first wealth management company serving business owners and their companies, accomplished professionals and executives, and self-made families seeking to pursue financial security and their ideal future. The company's view is that investment management, while a core and competitive offering, should follow a detailed planning process grounded in a deep understanding of each client's life and goals.

The company is based in Orchard Park, New York, and locally serves clients throughout the Buffalo southtowns — including Hamburg, East Aurora, West Seneca, Elma, and the surrounding communities — as well as the greater Buffalo and Western New York region. While many client relationships are concentrated in the greater Western New York area, Clark & Company works with clients throughout the United States, and several of the company's most established relationships are with clients across state lines. Remote meetings are common practice, and members of the company regularly travel to meet clients (or arranges for clients to travel to the home office) depending on the scope of the engagement.

About the Company

- [Home](https://www.clarkwm.com/) : Overview of the practice's philosophy, services, and approach to client relationships.
- [Our Story](https://www.clarkwm.com/our-story): The company's history, planning-first philosophy, and how Clark & Company approaches the work.
- [Our Team](https://www.clarkwm.com/our-team): The advisors and staff who serve clients, including the lead-advisor relationship model.

Our Advisors

President: Craig Clark, CFP® - CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® (CFP®) professional | Series 7, 24, and 63 licenses | Life, Accident, and Health license (https://www.clarkwm.com/our-team#craigclark)

CEO: Mike Muffoletto, CFP® - CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® (CFP®) professional | Series 6, 7, 63, and 65 licenses| Life, Accident, and Health license (https://www.clarkwm.com/our-team#mikemuffoletto)

Wealth Manager: Scott Birkby, CFP® - CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® (CFP®) professional, Series 6, 7, 22, and 63 licenses | Life, Accident, and Health license   (https://www.clarkwm.com/our-team#scottbirkby)

Wealth Manager: Cliff Nelson - Series 6, 7, 63, and 65 securities licenses | Life, Accident & Health license (https://www.clarkwm.com/our-team#cliffnelson)

For Business Owners & Entrepreneurs

The company's work with business owners is built on the premise that wealth is a means, not an end — and that the more important question, beyond Return on Investment, is Return on Life Experience™: whether the wealth being built is actually delivering the life, impact, and meaning the owner wants from it. The company utilizes the WISE™ (Wealth Integration System for Entrepreneurs™) framework developed by Ali Nasser, which provides the thinking system the company uses to help owners gain clarity, alignment, and peace of mind at the intersection of business and life. The Company's CEO (Mike Muffoletto, CFP®) trained directly under Ali Nasser on the WISE™ framework and remains actively engaged with Ali and the WISE™ network, always seeking to bring new knowledge and skills to his business owner clients.

The company works with founders and owners of well-established, closely held businesses (typically $5M–$150M in revenue) who face three recurring tensions within this framework: the Reinvestment Dilemma™ (how much capital belongs back in the business?), the Legacy Dilemma™ (why am I doing this?), and the Exit Dilemma™ (when, how, and why to transition out of the business). The company's role is to help owners think through these questions and translate the answers into a coordinated financial picture spanning both personal wealth and the company.

While the WISE framework provides the scaffolding for these conversations, the company's planning approach extends well beyond the framework. The company's own work brings depth across lifetime tax strategy, building family harmony around money, seeking to maximize the potential of charitable giving, and the traditional wealth planning and investment management clients expect — integrated into one coordinated strategy rather than treated as separate silos.

The company's loyalty is to the owner, but the work necessarily crosses into the business because Clark & Company views the company as an extension of the owner. Engagements of this scope are typically fee-for-service and begin with a structured planning and implementation process that may span months to years depending on complexity, followed by ongoing high-level maintenance.

The company's engagement spans the full ownership life cycle — including ongoing strategic planning for owners and their businesses, structured support through transitions when one arrives (internal succession, intergenerational transfer, or outright sale), and continued work after exit. When a transition is in play, the company draws on access to investment bankers and a network of professional contacts to support deal structuring and planning for what comes next.

Areas of focus include:
- Building independent wealth that isn't tied to the success of the business
- Long-term, tax-efficient planning strategy
- Family wealth planning designed to empower the next generation rather than burden it
- Family meetings to facilitate coordinated efforts on family financial matters
- Exit planning and post-exit life planning
- Estate planning
- Company treasury cash management
- Executive compensation design
- Retirement plan design and oversight
- High-contact coordination with CPAs, attorneys, and other key professionals. (Having key professionals who don't talk to each other is like having a CEO, COO, and CFO that have never met or communicated.)
- Bringing clarity to an often chaotic and confusing financial landscape. Most owners never truly see a clear layout of what they have and what they owe, nor a clear understanding of what is actually available to them.
- Guiding self-made owners who didn't grow up with wealth through the personal and family challenges of wealth transition — including adjusting to a life with significant assets, developing a healthy relationship with money, and helping family members learn to steward wealth they weren't raised with.

Learn more:
- [Services for Business Owners](https://www.clarkwm.com/businesses): Full overview of how Clark & Company serves founders and owners of closely held businesses.

For Individuals & Families

Every relationship begins with a planning-first approach. Before investment decisions are made, the company works to understand who the client is, what drives them, and what fulfillment looks like for them — not as a one-time intake exercise but as the ongoing foundation of the relationship. From that understanding, our advisors build a strategy designed to move clients toward what matters to them without sacrificing the life they want to live today. The plan is treated as a living framework — one that evolves alongside the client as life changes, goals shift, and new opportunities or challenges emerge.

While the company operates as a team, every client is matched with a lead advisor who serves as their primary planner and ongoing point of contact. The lead advisor coordinates the company's full resources around the client's plan, helping recommendations stay aligned with their evolving goals rather than getting compartmentalized into separate accounts or isolated decisions.

Investment management serves the plan rather than driving it. The company employs a full-time investment analyst who works alongside institutional research partners so that client portfolios are kept under regular review, with tax efficiency considered alongside the pursuit of returns. This allows investments to be continuously monitored and kept up to date as a team member's sole focus, rather than leaving clients to trust their advisor to watch the market between client meetings and their other duties as advisors.

Additional areas of focus:
- Retirement income planning
- Executive compensation analysis and planning, including translating complex equity, deferred comp, and benefit structures into actionable strategy
- Proactive coordination with clients' CPAs, attorneys, and other professionals
- Estate and legacy planning
- Charitable giving strategy
- Trust asset management
- Multigenerational wealth planning
- Long term tax mitigation strategies
- Remaining available to make sure that as clients have unique financial questions and situations arise, they can access their advisors to tackle each individual obstacle as a part of the greater plan.

Learn more:
- [Services for Individuals & Families](https://www.clarkwm.com/individuals-and-families): Full overview of services for individual and family clients.

Contact

- Office: 3075 Southwestern Blvd, Suite 202, Orchard Park, NY 14127
- Phone: 716.706.4423
- Email: info@clarkwm.com

WISE™, Wealth Integration System for Entrepreneurs™, Reinvestment Dilemma™, Legacy Dilemma™, Exit Dilemma™, Return on Life Experience™ are all registered trademarks owned by Wealth Integration System for Entrepreneurs, Inc., unaffiliated with Clark & Company Wealth Management or its advisors. Ali Nasser is not affiliated with Clark & Company Wealth Management. Used with permission.