Chris Royer is a financial advisor at Creekside Financial Advisors, based in the firm’s Pepper Pike, Ohio office. He joins Creekside after a nearly 25-year career at Merrill, where he spent much of his time coaching advisors and leadership teams on how to serve families well. That approach — listen first, then build the plan around the person — is what drew him to Creekside. Today, Chris helps families build and preserve their wealth across generations, and works closely with business owners on both their business plans and their personal financial plans.
Over nearly a quarter century at Merrill, Chris worked across management, operations, and client-facing roles. Most recently, he served as a financial advisor and senior portfolio manager, helping clients bring their accounts together in one place, simplify their financial lives, and build long-term strategies designed to grow with their families. Before that, he was a strategy lead and executive coach with the firm’s Practice Management Group, traveling the country to coach market executives, resident directors, and office leadership teams, and presenting at national conferences for managers and advisors. Earlier in his career, he served as an administrative manager and vice president in the Chicago Metro market, where he oversaw compliance and business operations, guided wealth management teams toward stronger processes, and mentored administrative managers across the Mid-America division.
Chris graduated from Ashland University with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics and a minor in computer science. Chris holds his Series 7, 9, 10, 31, and 66 securities registrations through LPL Financial.
Community involvement has been part of Chris’s work from the beginning. Early in his career in Cleveland, he started a charitable committee within his office to organize employee volunteering and coordinate the team’s charitable giving — an effort rooted in the belief that a firm should be a genuine presence in the community it serves.
Chris and his wife, Sarah, have been married for more than twenty years and have three children, ranging in age from middle school to college. Outside the office, he makes time to exercise, enjoys the beach with his family, and is usually a few books into a stack he’s working through. One of his favorite ways to spend a day is a round of golf with friends, family, or clients.