Arielle Minicozzi,  CFP®,  CSLP®

Arielle Minicozzi, CFP®, CSLP®, has a passion for helping individuals and families achieve financial stability and for helping other advisors serve more clients. In addition to her role at Modern Money Education, Arielle owns and operates Sphynx, a consulting firm that helps financial advisors systematize their businesses and implement technology solutions.

Arielle’s journey toward the financial planning profession was not straightforward. She was an art major in college, then joined a major bank as an intern in their mortgage division. She realized she would be able to assist people in making what would perhaps be the most important purchase of their lives, and decided to stay on for nearly six years.

During her tenure as a loan officer, Arielle discovered the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNINGTM curriculum and began her studies at Farleigh Dickinson University. She obtained her marks in July 2016.

In October 2017, she made the bittersweet decision to leave the mortgage industry and launch her own RIA, Sphynx Financial Planning. Her mission was to help millennials achieve financial stability and sustainable homeownership skills. It was around this time that Arielle and Angela met through the XY Planning Network and quickly became friends.

While setting up Sphynx, Arielle realized other advisors could benefit from the same systems and tools she was using and began consulting other firms. In late 2018 Arielle and Angela decided to merge their practices to make use of their complementary skill sets. In August of 2021, Arielle and Angela decided to focus solely on their financial courses through Modern Money Education and shut down their financial planning practice.

Arielle has been quoted as a subject matter expert on home buying in several publications, including US News and World Report, LendingTree.com, Chime, and others. She conducts educational webinars for other advisors and has done non-profit work for various homeownership organizations as well as her local animal shelter.

In her free time, Arielle enjoys hiking, reading, and spending time with her cat, Nigel Sphynx-Barry.

Up Close and Personal with Arielle Minicozzi

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a family with strong financial knowledge, but I learned a two-sided message about money - on the one hand, my mom, who had less money, was very open about money, forcing us to balance a checkbook, opening up CDs in our name and teaching us about interest, showing us her retirement accounts and talking to us about estate planning. On the other hand, my dad, who worked in the mortgage industry and had more money was less open about money to the point where my sisters and I were afraid of speaking about money with him.

When I graduated from college as an art major I needed a job so I took an internship in the mortgage department of a bank. I thought it would be temporary until I could find a job at a photography studio, but six months turned into six years. Clients always commend me on my ability to translate financial information into easy-to-understand language and I still pride myself on that skill today. As someone who grew up with some personal financial knowledge, but virtually no institutional financial knowledge, I know how it feels to enter the world of adult financial responsibility and have no idea what’s going on; I never want my clients to feel that way.

While it was a hard decision to leave the mortgage world, I knew I wanted to impact people’s lives before they committed to a life-altering decision like purchasing a home. My goal for all clients is that when they finally reach those milestones like graduating college, buying a home, getting married, or having children, they already have the foundational skills and the emergency fund to weather financial storms.