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Abound Wealth

Primary Advisor

James Poulsen, CFP®

Our Primary Advisor, James, has a degree in chemical engineering, but his heart was always in personal finance. During his time at Brigham Young University, he realized he wanted a career where he could work with people one-on-one. When his brother introduced him to The Money Guy Show, everything clicked. After earning a master’s degree in financial planning and analytics from Utah Valley University, James made his goal a reality by joining the Abound Wealth team.

James was born on an Air Force base in Japan and grew up in Newburgh, a small Indiana town along the Kentucky border. After starting his studies at Brigham Young University, he returned to Japan to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in southern Tokyo. Back at BYU, he met his wife, Rachel. Outside of work, James enjoys reading, playing the trombone, cooking new recipes, and spending time with friends.

Things You Didn’t Know About James

  • James can play trombone, euphonium, and piano and participated in marching band,
    concert band, show-choir back-up band, pit orchestra for musicals, symphonic orchestra, and several jazz bands.
  • He once performed a concert with former Rolling Stones lead trombonist, Michael Davis.
  • James won a chemical refinery design competition in the final year of his undergraduate degree; too bad he immediately switched into a different field after graduating!
  • He once accidentally covered his entire engineering lab and classmates in water after inadvertently causing a small, contained explosion in his freshman chemical engineering lab.