Cynthia J. Petzold founded CommonWealth Financial Planning, LLC, located in Roanoke, Virginia, to serve people seeking help with their personal financial planning. She saw a need for the kind of affordable, objective, well-explained financial advice that is frequently sought but often difficult to find.

Insurance agents and stockbrokers may call themselves financial advisors, but their livelihoods (and advice) most often depend on commissions on the products they sell to clients. Wealth managers typically specialize in investments only, and are compensated based on a percentage of the total clients’ assets they manage. Financial planners who work only with “high net worth” individuals do not address the needs of mainstream America. CommonWealth Financial Planning, LLC is different, committed to helping clients identify and achieve their financial goals with an hourly fee structure that is free of commissions and other conflicts of interest.

Well-qualified to assist clients in their quest for financial security, Cynthia has provided fee-only financial planning advice since 1998. She holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration with ten years’ industry experience in marketing and finance. As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional, Cynthia maintains the high level of competency, ethics and professionalism that the CFP Board’s stringent education, examination, experience, and ethics standards require. She is a member of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA), a professional association of fee-only financial advisors committed to working in the best interests of their clients. As a Registered Investment Adviser in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Cynthia takes very seriously her fiduciary duty to put her clients’ needs before her own. Cynthia provides straightforward and thoroughly researched advice for a reasonable cost. With CommonWealth Financial Planning, there are no minimum balance requirements, no long-term contracts to sign, no commissions and no conflicts of interest. Instead, Cynthia offers her professional guidance and assistance on an hourly, as-needed basis.

Cynthia has lived in Roanoke since 1988 with her husband, Lowell. They have two grown children, Meredith and Nicholas. Cynthia also plays the cello and enjoys travel, bicycling and other outdoor recreation in beautiful southwest Virginia.