On January 1, Lena Nebel officially stepped into the role of Chief Executive Officer of BFG Financial Advisors. After years of helping shape the firm’s culture, operations, and client experience, she’s now leading BFG into its next chapter at a pivotal moment of growth. 

In this Q&A, Lena shares what the transition means to her, how she plans to build on the firm’s success, and why mentorship, collaboration, and continuity are at the heart of her vision as CEO.

After two years as President and COO, you’re stepping into the CEO role. What brought this transition on?

When I joined BFG in 2018, I joined as a lead advisor. That’s what I’ve been doing all of my career. It’s what I know. 

I think Eric and the team quickly realized I had other abilities to bring to the table. I’m very thankful that he allowed me to shine in those areas and put me on a path to build my role and even, in part, the firm as I wanted it built. So I did, making the operations run more efficiently and focusing on creating a better work environment for the team.

I’ll never forget the moment, a few years ago, when Eric said to me, “Well, one day, when you’re the CEO, this is how you’ll do things.”

And I said, “I’m sorry, what?”

And everybody looked at me like, well, yeah, don’t you know that’s what’s going to happen?

I did not know that. And it did take me a little while to fully accept it. Part of that was the need to overcome my imposter syndrome, which I still struggle with but I’m working on. I had to realize that I got this, I can do it. Once I fully embraced it, it was just game on. 

What are your top priorities going to be starting off as CEO?

I’ve put together an outline of what I envision, and it’s mostly building on the success that we’ve already had. I don’t want to rock the boat. I don’t want to change what we’ve already been working towards, because it is working. 

But I want to make sure that we’re continually building on that success and growing and improving in ways that are purposeful.

Will you continue to work directly with clients?

Absolutely! It’s extremely important for me and the team that I continue meeting with clients. I’ll also still mentor and work with the other advisors for clients I don’t work directly with. They know they can pull me in for special situations that would benefit from my level of depth, experience, and knowledge. 

It’s important for me to still be an advisor. That’s where I started my career. But, over time, as I’ve gotten more involved in running the business, I find equal satisfaction on the business side, on mentoring, on leading, on affecting change internally, as I do in meeting with clients.

What’s the biggest change for your role?

I’m becoming one of the main faces and voices of BFG in a new and powerful way. A lot of our decisions are made at the committee level, but in the end, it comes down to me. That’s a level of responsibility I do not take lightly. 

You’re stepping into this role at a very significant time: We’re about to hit the billion-dollar milestone, and we are expanding our national footprint with a second office. How do you feel about taking over right now?

If Eric’s riding off into the CEO sunset, he did it in the most spectacular of ways and now he’s handing me the keys. 

I’m looking forward to crushing it. I’m looking forward to building the next billion! 

What do you see as the firm’s biggest strengths going into 2026?

Culture is a buzzword that gets used a lot. I think people don’t truly appreciate what that word actually means. 

I would say culture is one of our biggest strengths. We’re very purposeful in who we hire. We want to make sure that they gel within the team. We have a group of amazing, talented people. Regardless of all the challenges that they have going on around them in their personal life, they still show up here with a smile on their face. They care about what’s happening in everyone’s world. I think that comes across to clients, and that’s huge.

Every time we get a shout-out for a team member from a client, it just makes me realize we’re doing it all the right way. 

So, first and foremost, our team and who we are to the core is our strength.

I think our next biggest strength is our team’s education. We have a whole list of designations held across the team. We have people with different specialties and areas of expertise, so whatever a client needs, whether it’s tax planning, estate planning, military benefits, legacy planning… we have somebody here who can help. 

I’d also stack our marketing and client relations team up against all of the firms out there. We’re a financial planning firm. We’re not a marketing firm. But we have a healthy marketing budget, and we use it to create the podcast, literacy programs, webinars, and other initiatives that other firms just don’t offer. When clients have kids who are growing up and need to learn about their own finances, we have resources and programs available to them for free. 

We don’t just care about managing money; we care about people.  So again, I would say offhand, those are the top three that I can think of because they all coincide together.

There are few changes being made in the C-Suite. How do you feel about Yanni Niebuhr moving to Chief Financial Officer and Claudia Glover taking over as Chief Investment Officer?

Yanni was built to be the CFO, and I know he’s going to be great. He’s going to be looking at the budget, the numbers, and the financial statements, not just for our firm, but also for clients. 

He brings the level of expertise and education that each advisor can pull into. He also provides a different perspective for the leadership team. Yanni has been with Eric for quite some time, and we’ve all seen a lot of growth and development in him. I’m ecstatic that he’s going to be by my side through this transition. I know he’s one of my biggest supporters.

When we brought Claudia on a few years ago, we quickly realized she’s the CIO-in-training. What’s amazing about Claudia is just her knowledge on the investment side and being able to chat with clients about it. You can just see her level of passion when she goes through investment strategies. 

It is fantastic for clients to be able to easily pick up the phone and speak with her. With her joining our executive team this year, it brings a fresh perspective. Claudia is not shy about using her voice, but she does so in a very productive, constructive, and respectful way, which I am a huge fan of.

You are a woman in finance. You were the president, and now you are going to be CEO. What does that mean to you? What does that mean for the industry?

I think it’s amazing for the industry. The more female CEOs we can get in the financial industry, the more it shapes the path forward for the next generation. When I was in college, I had no exposure to female CEOs. It wasn’t popular. It wasn’t the norm. When I go to conferences now, I am seeing more and more female CEOs, and I love that I can be in the ranks. 

Personally, I didn’t go to school thinking I’d be a boss one day. That was not my plan. My plan was to be an advisor to help clients. 

I think it’s important to be able to say we have a female leader. We have a firm that doesn’t look like many other financial firms out there. We have a variety of different colors, ages, sexes, and nationalities. This allows us to meet people where they are. That’s what’s important to us. It’s nice to be able to kind of pick and choose who can be the best advisor for you, regardless of those things. All of us have different personalities and everything. 

Females do bring a different type of empathy and I think it’s important for all firms to have female representation. We do have to hear women, we have to listen to them, and we have to realize that they make up a large part of our market, and they cannot be ignored.

Are you seeing any changes in the industry regarding gender equality and inclusion?

We are very fortunate to have won quite a few awards over the past few years for our work empowering women. Our C suite is now 50/50. And while I don’t always want to kind of wave the female flag, it’s so crucial to do so and to announce it, given the industry we’re in. The day when I don’t actually have to say I’m a female CEO and I can just say I’m a CEO, that’s when I know things have changed.

I’d say that within the past five years is when I’ve seen the most change. People are more sensitive to the fact that there are females in the industry. I think the biggest thing that’s changed, quite honestly, is going to the conferences. I now lose count of the women that are there, whereas before I could count them on one hand. 

I’m happy to see that in all levels of management, there’s more female representation. I am seeing more women come into the field. But we still have a ways to go. 

What advice would you give to other women who want to go into finance or leadership?

Find a mentor. Find somebody that you can shadow, that you can talk to, you can vent with, and can talk about different types of career paths with. I think having a mentor is crucial for learning the rules of the road in our industry: what you encounter, how to deal with certain things, what’s acceptable, and what’s not. It helped me early on in my career. And a mentor does not have to be female, by the way. It can be male or female. 

If you’re interning, intern at a firm that covers all areas of wealth management. Meet with a firm that is diverse within the industry so you can get a feel for all the different positions. If you are past the internship stage and you’re looking for a career, I would say try to find a firm that has exposure to all those areas. Don’t just pigeonhole yourself into a firm that only does one thing. They may do it extremely well. But if you decide in a few years that maybe that’s not the career path that you want. They don’t have any other opportunities at that firm for you. Trying to find a firm with a more diverse range of jobs is helpful.

What’s the most important thing you want clients to know right now?

We want clients to know they shouldn’t see anything noticeably different. It’s the same firm. It’s the same people. We’re just all embracing the strengths we have, which should only help further the relationships we have with clients as well. 

Many of these clients I’ve worked with for over 20 years. They have seen me get married. They have seen my children grow. I mean, they’ve been with me from the beginning. And the same thing is true with Eric.

Clients who have been with us for so long are just so excited to see how this company has grown and to learn about the next steps. 

And so far, the feedback we’ve gotten has been overwhelmingly positive. There’s been no panic, which is what we were hoping for. Our clients are happy for us because of the relationships we’ve built with them. 

It is not a transaction. They were part of the decisions. They’re part of us.