From Building Products to Building Wealth: One PM’s Career Pivot

Charlotte Jones is a Principal & Senior Wealth Advisor at Compound. She taps into her product management background from her work in tech to advise Directors of Product on their wealth management, guiding them through financial planning, equity, and tax planning.   

Why did you leave product leadership at companies like Microsoft and Intuit to become a financial advisor at Compound?

Wealth management is actually in my blood. 

My dad started Northstar, a wealth management practice in the 90’s. He’d been asking me to join the family business for awhile, but like any headstrong young person my answer was always: no. 

Instead, I took a job at Intuit, working on TurboTax marketing. That job actually taught me a ton about tax planning — I volunteered to prepare tax returns for refugees while I was there through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program.  

COVID-19 changed things for me, as it did for a lot of people. I was working remotely from my parents’ house, my sister got pregnant (with twins) and after six years of fighting cancer, my dad got a prognosis of just three months.

I joined the family business to help out. I thought it would be temporary, until I realized how much I loved helping clients, and designing experiences around their pain points. It really mirrored what I enjoyed about product management.

Product manager tip: Thinking about a career change? Follow Charlotte’s lead and find ways to build expertise before making the leap. 

What excited you about joining Compound Planning specifically?

In November 2024, during a Northstar planning session, we realized that even though we’d built up $130M in assets, we’d still hit a wall. After outsourcing compliance, HR/payroll, and bookkeeping, we were still drowning in vendor management. 

We didn’t want to be bought out — Northstar has been run by three equal owner financial advisors since I joined. Instead, we were looking for a bit of a unicorn — a partnership with a firm who:

• Would tackle operations for us and let us focus on advising clients. 
• Believed that tax and wealth management belong together. 
• Understood our desire to advise clients holistically on both. 

Most affiliate models said no. They told us, "You can't do tax anymore. It's too complicated, and there’s too much compliance risk."

Compound was the only firm that said, "We get it, we're trying to do holistic service too. Let's figure out the tax integration together." 

Like us, Compound is committed to creating a better way to manage and grow your wealth. Innovation is in their DNA. 

What was your first month at Compound like?

I joined in June 2025, and the first few months were super heads-down. We had to migrate our entire system, transition client accounts, and learn new operational processes. Plus, we needed to make sure our clients continued to receive great service and that the transition felt seamless to them. 

In those months, I really felt good about our decision. I saw that what attracted us to Compound was still true once we got in the door. They were actively experimenting and improving to make sure our team was comfortable and could hit the ground running. 

After three months, I felt like I really understood what our future together was going to look like (and I was excited!). It’s a real partnership. 

How do you apply product management frameworks to your financial planning work?

At Intuit, the "Follow Me Home" program makes sure that every employee watches how real customers use Intuit products at home. Literally, the employee sits in a house and watches a customer use TurboTax or QuickBooks. You get to hear what the customers like, don’t like, or don’t understand. 

This was such a valuable lesson: customer immersion is everything. 

From day one at Northstar, I emphasized an immersive approach. For us, that looked like sitting in on each others’ client meetings, calling clients to ask what they thought about service delivery, sending surveys, and having informal conversations to understand their needs. 

Financial advisors are used to having a window into their clients’ life goals. It’s much rarer on the tax side. 

As their Wealth Manager, not just their tax pro, I build touchpoints with clients throughout the year, which means I’m privy to major life events when they happen instead of months later, during the annual tax meeting. Then, I can take action. 

Product manager tip: Be the product manager of your own wealth: build in feedback loops so that you can pick up on new signals, and keep the door open to opportunities as they emerge. When you meet regularly with a wealth management expert, you can be proactive about making a plan and then changing it when life throws you a curve-ball. 

Can you give a specific example of how your product thinking helps with equity compensation planning for high earners?

Understanding your clients’ life goals is critical during something like equity compensation, because those decisions are deeply emotional. A traditional advisor might say, "Your company stock is X% of your portfolio, we need to diversify, how much should we sell? Can we sell all of it and move it into a diversified portfolio?"

But those high earners have worked hard for their equity, and that needs to be acknowledged. Maybe they’ve stayed at a company longer than they wanted to just because of the vesting schedules. They’ve built something. It’s called “golden handcuffs” for a reason — they have complex feelings about their equity positions. 

When it comes to an equity decision, I start off with the emotional reality. I ask questions like: 

• "How do you feel about the amount of stock you have in this company right now (proud, nervous, bitter, etc.)?"
• “What if I suggested you sell all of it — how do you feel yourself reacting to that?"
• “Let’s say you sell all of the stock today and in five years you notice that it’s tripled in value?  How would you feel if that happened?”

If someone says to me, "I don't want to sell any of it, I like having it," I explore why instead of insisting that they change their mind. There are powerful behavioral tendencies behind every financial decision. Reactions can be very revealing.  

If they’re really resistant to selling, we discuss other diversification strategies (like hedging approaches or options strategies). These are more complicated but take the client’s emotions into account so that they feel comfortable with their decision and potential outcomes.

Product manager tip: Feeling strong resistance to diversifying your company stock? Pause and ask yourself: what's driving this feeling? Is it rational risk assessment, or the same loyalty dynamic you recognize in users when they resist change? Sometimes emotional attachment is the real barrier.

What advice would you give to product leaders about approaching their financial decisions?

Figure out what percentage of your total investment portfolio is made up of your company's stock. 

It’s important to pay attention to your concentration risk. Equity compensation can accumulate really quickly and become a big percentage of your overall wealth. 

When you have a big equity stake in your current employer you’re all-in on one company. If it fails, you lose your income and a significant portion of your net worth.. 

Over the years as you advance in your career and receive more equity, it takes up a bigger piece of your portfolio. But now you have less time to manage it. The earlier you can bring in an advisor to help, the better. 

With a long-term strategy, you can build a plan that protects your investment while also preventing major tax bills or significant loss. I’ve seen director-level employees who have significant equity compensation, with no support or understanding for how to manage it. (VPs and C-suite executives often have an equity manager built into their contract. That’s how important it really is.)

Leaders below the C-suite deserve someone in their corner who can help understand the landscape, taking that weight off your shoulders while you scale the career ladder. 

Product manager tip: When your income, your 401(k), and 10-40% of your investment portfolio all depend on one company's stock performance, it brings serious risk. You wouldn't ship a product with a single point of failure. Diversifying in a way that matches your goals and unique circumstances will help protect your future and grow your wealth. 

What's the biggest misconception product leaders have about wealth management?

Equity compensation isn’t a reward. It’s an asset that you can (and should) manage to fit your specific needs.

No matter how much rah-rah loyalty talk there is at your startup, that loyalty isn’t necessarily a two-way street. 

The company is giving you stock as compensation for a job you’ve done. It’s a business transaction. 

If you’re stuck in a loyalty mindset, that’s when you stay at a company longer than you should, work too many hours, or accept less-than-adequate pay. You’re thinking, "I'm an owner, not just an employee."

When you start thinking about your equity as something you earned – one piece of your full financial picture – you can be much more clear-eyed about your career growth. You’ll know when it's time to leave, and when that company doesn't fit your needs anymore – without being clouded by “loyalty.” 

And you can finally say, “OK, it's been great, and you've paid me well, and I've worked hard, time to part ways” instead of feeling guilty about leaving. 

Product manager tip: Product-market fit isn't permanent, and that goes for your career, too. A company that was perfect for you three years ago might not be the right place forever. When you diversify your equity, you can make career moves based on opportunities not vesting schedules.