This is Beyond the Plan®
Where financial planning meets human understanding
Beyond The Plan® has a mission to help you uncover the human side of your clients’ financial decisions
By partnering with a financial behavior officer (FBO) you can give clients the clarity they need to align their money with what matters most, paving the way for you to step in as the trusted advisor to guide them through those big financial decisions faster.
Hi! I’m Ashley Quamme, your Financial Behavior Officer (FBO)
As a therapist and Certified Financial Behavior Specialist®, I've learned something fascinating: It's rarely about the numbers. Even when clients think it's about the numbers, it's not. While you spend countless hours perfecting financial plans and analyzing market data, it's rarely the numbers that keep clients up at night. What keeps them awake are the emotions, beliefs, and family dynamics around money.
See, I made an interesting career move - I went from a profession where people expect to talk about feelings to one where they expect to talk about numbers... and then we end up talking about feelings anyway. And what I've discovered working with advisory firms is that understanding the psychology of financial planning is becoming essential to the work you do.
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As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), therapy was never the only vision I had for my career. After owning my own practice for over a decade, the effects of burnout were setting in, leading to the thoughts of "what else could I do?”
Growing up, finance was always around me—my dad is a CPA, and my husband is a CFP. (Fun fact: my birthday is on April 15th. Coincidence?) And I also began to have an interest in financial therapy due to client struggles I was seeing in my practice working with couples. But I never really connected the dots—until one day, my husband shared something that shifted my perspective: “They don’t teach us how to talk to clients.” That got me thinking—how do advisors handle their clients’ biggest life moments? The wants, needs, and fears their clients bring to the table? How do they navigate those deeply personal conversations?
Realizing that there were very few options for advisors to learn how to engage with clients in a sensitive, meaningful way, was eyeopening. This quickly became my passion.
After earning my Certified Financial Therapist (CFT™) designation and becoming a Certified Financial Behavior Specialist® (FBS®), everything clicked. The demand for this work was incredible, and I finally felt like I’d found my place—not just in therapy, but in the financial advisory world. My background as an LMFT gives me a unique perspective, especially on intergenerational relationships and family dynamics. I get to help advisors tackle complex issues like estate planning and wealth transfers, empowering them to serve their clients in ways that go far beyond numbers.
Expertise and Credentials
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT)
Provides expert guidance to individuals, couples, and families experiencing complex relationship-based issues.
Certified Financial Behavior Specialist® (FBS®)
Address emotions and concerns around money allowing clients to navigate them with confidence.
Certified Financial Therapist™ (CFT™)
Help clients address underlying sources of financial stress and change their relationship with money.
How can we work together?
In-House Partner
By partnering with a Financial Behavior Officer (FBO) you can give clients the clarity they need to align their money with what matters most.
Speaker for Your Event
Presenting to audiences to help with integrating financial psychology into advisory practices including effective client communication strategies, navigating couple dynamics in financial planning, and advisor wellbeing and its impact on client success.
