In the News

January 1, 2026 by felipe.revuelta

By: W. Kirk Taylor, CFP®

Most professional lists ask a question you could answer with a spreadsheet. Who manages the most assets. Who grew fastest last year. Who bought the most visibility. The survey behind Northern Virginia Magazine’s Top Financial Professionals list asks something harder to answer that way: which financial professional in this region would you refer your own friends and family to?

That’s a narrower question than it looks. Professional respect is cheap to give. You can admire someone’s work from across a conference room and never think about them again. Sending your sister or your father to someone is a different act, because if it goes badly you hear about it at Thanksgiving. I’m grateful to have been named to the 2026 list.

Scale is part of what makes the question meaningful. The magazine’s directory carries more than 800 financial professionals across Northern Virginia, including planners, accountants, estate specialists, insurance advisers, and investment managers. Only a portion of them carry the badge in a given year, and the people doing the recommending aren’t clients. They’re professionals who see this work from the inside.

Which is also the honest limit of it. A referral is a prediction rather than a verdict. The professionals who filled out this survey have never read a plan we built, never sat in a meeting where a couple disagreed about what to leave their children, and never watched a family absorb a diagnosis or a layoff in the middle of a well-organized retirement projection. They’re working from reputation, and in our experience reputation is a slow and imperfect signal.

So use a list like this the way it deserves to be used. It’s a reasonable place to start a short list of advisors and a poor place to end one. Ask about fees and how the firm is paid. Ask whether the advisor is legally required to put your interests first at all times. Ask what happens to the plan when something arrives that nobody put on the calendar, because that’s the part families actually judge us on.

That test doesn’t get published in September.

About the 2026 Award

Northern Virginia Magazine compiles its Top Financial Professionals list by sending surveys to financial professionals across Northern Virginia, asking them to recommend other financial professionals whom they would refer to friends and family. The magazine’s editorial staff then vets those nominated to determine the final list, which appears in the September issue.

No one can pay for inclusion on the list. Kirk Capital Advisors, LLC did not pay to be included.

Portfolio performance is not a factor in this recognition. The recognition is not indicative of future investment performance, is not a guarantee of any client experience, and is not an endorsement by any client or prospective client.

W. Kirk Taylor’s listing in the magazine’s financial professionals directory is available here.

View Disclosure Information here: https://kirk.321staging.com/legal/

About Kirk Capital Advisors

Kirk Capital Advisors, LLC is a fee-only registered investment advisor based in Vienna, Virginia. We work with high-earning professionals, entrepreneurs, and affluent families across the NOVA and DMV region, and our fee-only structure keeps advice free of hidden conflicts. At KIRK, we believe that “family comes first” and that generational planning holds the key to reaching your life goals. That’s why our work routinely extends past the person who signed the agreement to their children and grandchildren, including financial literacy, education, and investment coaching for younger generations. The KIRK Confidence Experience℠ lets you set the terms of the relationship, including the services, communication style, and meeting cadence that fit your life.

If the questions above are ones you haven’t put to your current advisor recently, that’s a reasonable place to start. We’d love to hear about your goals. Schedule a meeting with our team.

Citation: Northern Virginia Magazine, Top Financial Professionals (September 2026): https://northernvirginiamag.com/best/financial-professionals/

January 1, 2026 by felipe.revuelta

By: W. Kirk Taylor, CFP®

Voting for Washingtonian’s 2026 Top Financial Advisers list ran from November into December of 2025. Roughly a month, dropped into the busiest stretch of anyone’s professional calendar.

That detail is more interesting than it sounds. A short window means nobody researches. People answer from memory, between other things, writing down whoever comes to mind without effort. It is a narrower test than a considered one, and in some ways a harder one. You do not stay top of mind for a room full of accountants, estate attorneys, and insurance specialists unless you have spent real time in that room. I am grateful to have been named to the 2026 list.

Washingtonian also recently moved this list from every other year to every year, which means the names on it get re-tested more often than they used to. I like that. An honor that has to be re-earned on a shorter cycle is a more honest one.

Worth saying plainly, though: being remembered is not the same as being right. This list records what professionals in the region recall and recommend. It says nothing about investment returns, and it is not an endorsement from anyone who has actually been our client. Those are different tests, and the second one gets run on us every day.

About the 2026 Award

Washingtonian compiles its Top Financial Advisers list by distributing surveys to hundreds of people working in the local financial industry, including fee-only financial planners, fee-based advisers, estate attorneys, tax accountants, and insurance advisers, and asking whom they would trust with their own money. The magazine also conducts its own research, consulting industry experts and publications. Those named are the people who received the strongest recommendations.

Voting for the 2026 list took place between November 2025 and December 2025. The list was presented in December 2025.

Portfolio performance is not a factor in this recognition. This award is not an endorsement by any client or prospective client, and it is not a guarantee or indicator of future investment results.

W. Kirk Taylor’s listing in Washingtonian’s financial advisers directory is available here.

View Disclosure Information here: https://kirk.321staging.com/legal/

About Kirk Capital Advisors

Kirk Capital Advisors, LLC is a fee-only registered investment advisor. We provide comprehensive wealth management services to affluent families, entrepreneurs, and business owners. At KIRK, we believe that “family comes first” and that generational planning holds the key to reaching your life goals. Our approach to wealth management takes into consideration the unique needs of all members of your family and includes financial literacy, education, and investment coaching for younger generations. At Kirk Capital Advisors, each and every interaction with our team is extremely personal and unique to you and your family.

If we have not been top of mind for you yet, that part is fixable. Schedule a meeting with our team.

Citation: Washingtonian, Top Financial Advisers, 2026 list (presented December 2025): https://washingtonian.com/best/financial-advisers/

January 1, 2026 by felipe.revuelta

By: W. Kirk Taylor, CFP®

Appearing on a list like this once can be a good year. Appearing again is a slower kind of signal. Another twelve months went by, the survey went back out to the region’s financial community, and the answer came back the same. I am grateful to have been named a 2025 Top Financial Adviser by Washingtonian.

What I appreciate about how this list gets built is that it does not stop at counting votes. Washingtonian surveys hundreds of people working in the local financial industry and asks whom they would trust with their own money, and then the magazine does its own research, consulting industry experts and publications before the final names are set. A pure popularity count rewards whoever knows the most people. A survey with an editorial filter behind it is harder to game, and I think that makes the result worth more to the people on it.

None of which makes it a performance measure. It is a reputational survey among professionals. It is not a client review and it is not a forecast. The verdict that actually matters tends to arrive quietly, when a family calls about something difficult and finds the plan already accounts for it.

About the 2025 Award

Portfolio performance is not a factor in this recognition. This award is not an endorsement by any client or prospective client, and it is not a guarantee or indicator of future investment results.

W. Kirk Taylor’s listing in Washingtonian’s financial advisers directory is available here.

View Disclosure Information here: https://kirk.321staging.com/legal/

About Kirk Capital Advisors

Recognition is a snapshot. A financial plan should not be. Schedule a meeting with our team and we will start with where you actually are.

Citation: Washingtonian, Top Financial Advisers, 2025 list: https://washingtonian.com/best/financial-advisers/

January 1, 2026 by felipe.revuelta

By: W. Kirk Taylor, CFP®

Washingtonian asks a blunter question than most award surveys do. Not who is impressive, not who is growing fastest, but whom you would trust with your own money.

The people answering are not only other wealth managers. Washingtonian surveys hundreds of people across the region’s financial industry, including estate attorneys, tax accountants, insurance specialists, and fee-only planners. These are the professionals who see an advisor’s work from the outside, in the middle of an estate transfer or a business sale or a messy tax year, and who watch how that advisor behaves when a plan meets something it did not expect. I am grateful to have been named a 2024 Top Financial Adviser.

One detail about this list has stayed with me. Washingtonian notes that most of the advisers who make it are at smaller, independent firms, because the surveying process simply does not surface as many names at large banks and brokerages. I do not read that as a knock on scale. I read it as a statement about proximity. When your name is on the door, the people you work alongside know exactly whose judgment produced the result.

That said, a survey is a survey. It records the opinions of professionals in the region. It does not measure investment performance, and no client should read it as a promise about their own outcome.

About the 2024 Award

The 2024 list was published in January 2024.

Portfolio performance is not a factor in this recognition. This award is not an endorsement by any client or prospective client, and it is not a guarantee or indicator of future investment results.

W. Kirk Taylor’s listing in Washingtonian’s financial advisers directory is available here.

View Disclosure Information here: https://kirk.321staging.com/legal/

About Kirk Capital Advisors

If you would like to know whether we are the kind of firm your accountant or estate attorney would point you toward, ask them. Then schedule a meeting with our team.

Citation: Washingtonian, Top Financial Advisers (January 2024): https://washingtonian.com/best/financial-advisers/

January 1, 2026 by felipe.revuelta

By: W. Kirk Taylor, CFP®

There is something slightly odd about this particular recognition, and it is the part I find most meaningful. The people who fill out Northern Virginia Magazine’s Top Financial Professionals survey are, in commercial terms, my competition. They are the other advisors working in this region, the firms a prospective client might be interviewing alongside us. The survey asks them to name someone other than themselves.

Northern Virginia is not a small market for this profession. The magazine’s own directory carries hundreds of financial professionals across the region. Being named by people who compete for the same families we serve is a narrow sort of compliment, and I have come to think it is the honest sort. I am grateful to be on the 2025 list.

The caveat matters as much as the recognition, so let me state it plainly. A peer survey measures reputation. It does not measure results, and it is not a client endorsement. What the families we work with judge us on is harder to put in a survey: whether the plan still held up when something in their life changed without warning.

That is the standard I care about, and it does not get published in September.

About the 2025 Award

Northern Virginia Magazine compiles the Top Financial Professionals list by surveying financial professionals across Northern Virginia and asking them to recommend other financial professionals whom they would refer to friends and family. The magazine’s editorial staff then vets those nominated to determine the final list. The 2025 list was published in the September 2025 issue.

The nomination period for the 2025 award ran through the year. Some Top Financial Professionals choose to advertise in the magazine, but placement on the list cannot be purchased, and the list and the advertising section are separate. Kirk Capital Advisors, LLC did not pay to be included.

Portfolio performance is not a factor in this recognition. This award is not an endorsement by any client or prospective client, and it is not a guarantee or indicator of future investment results.

W. Kirk Taylor’s 2025 listing in the magazine’s financial professionals directory is available here.

View Disclosure Information here: https://kirk.321staging.com/legal/

About Kirk Capital Advisors

If your own plan has not been tested against a change in your life recently, that is a reasonable place to start a conversation. Schedule a meeting with our team.

Citation: Northern Virginia Magazine, Top Financial Professionals (September 2025): https://northernvirginiamag.com/best/financial-professionals/

January 1, 2026 by felipe.revuelta

The survey behind Northern Virginia Magazine’s Top Financial Professionals list does not ask who the best advisor in the region is. It asks something narrower and, I think, harder. If a close friend or relative needed financial planning help and you could not take the case yourself, who would you send them to?

That constraint is what makes the answer worth something. It removes the option of naming yourself. It forces the person filling out the survey to think about someone they would trust with a relationship they actually care about. I am grateful that enough of my peers in Northern Virginia wrote down my name to place me on the 2024 list.

I want to be clear about what that does and does not mean. It is not a measure of investment performance, and it is not a client endorsement. It is a reputational signal from people who understand this work from the inside, and it is one I intend to keep earning.

About the 2024 Award

Northern Virginia Magazine compiles the Top Financial Professionals list by surveying financial professionals across Northern Virginia and asking them to recommend other financial professionals whom they would refer to friends and family. The magazine’s editorial staff then vets those nominated to determine the final list, and the professionals named are those who received the most recommendations. The 2024 list was published in the September 2024 issue, which reached newsstands on August 30, 2024.

The nomination period for the 2024 award ran from [NOMINATION START] through [NOMINATION END]. Some Top Financial Professionals choose to advertise in the magazine, but placement on the list cannot be purchased, and the list and the advertising section are separate. Kirk Capital Advisors, LLC did not pay to be included.

Portfolio performance is not a factor in this recognition. This award is not an endorsement by any client or prospective client, and it is not a guarantee or indicator of future investment results.

W. Kirk Taylor’s listing in the magazine’s financial professionals directory is available here.

View Disclosure Information here: https://kirk.321staging.com/legal/

About Kirk Capital Advisors

If someone you trust would send a friend to us, it may be worth a conversation of your own. Schedule a meeting with our team.

Citation: Northern Virginia Magazine, Top Financial Professionals (September 2024): https://northernvirginiamag.com/best/financial-professionals/

March 14, 2024 by Steve Tomisek, CFP®

By: W. Kirk Taylor, CFP®

Kirk Capital Advisors is honored to be recognized in the 2024 Best Financial Adviser List for the Washingtonian magazine!

This recognition is a testament to our firm’s core values: integrity, excellence, connection, and vision while highlighting our passion for helping you and your family achieve your life goals.

You can view the January 2024 Washingtonian issue called “Hidden Gems” via the link: https://www.washingtonian.com/2023/12/21/january-2024-hidden-gems/.

The 2024 Award: The nomination period for the 2024 award was July 18th – August 25th. The 2024 award list was released on October 27th. The 2024 Award was published in January 2024. Kirk Capital Advisors, LLC did not pay to be included in this list.

View Disclosure Information here… https://kirk.321staging.com/disclosures/

October 3, 2023 by Steve Tomisek, CFP®

By: W. Kirk Taylor, CFP®

Kirk Capital Advisors is honored to be named to the 2023 Top Financial Professionals list for the Northern Virginia magazine!

This recognition is a testament to our firm’s core values: integrity, excellence, connection, and vision, while highlighting our passion for helping you and your family achieve your life goals.

You can view my profile on the Northern Virginia magazine website at Top Financial Professionals.

The 2023 Award: The nomination period for the 2023 award was March 6^th – April 7^th. The 2023 award list was published in September 2023. Kirk Capital Advisors, LLC did not pay to be included in this list.

View Disclosure Information here… https://kirk.321staging.com/disclosures/

March 14, 2023 by Steve Tomisek, CFP®

By: Cassidy Smith

Each year since 1976, we recognize Black History Month as a time to celebrate and reflect on the notable contributions of Black figures of the past and present. The celebration of Black history month began as a time to be “aware of [this] struggle for freedom and equal opportunity” [1] and since has become a chance to put aside differences to take pride in the success of one another. Going beyond who and what history books define as important allows us to have a say in the kind of boundless future we as a people want to build together.

However, supporting the Black community is not limited to the month of February. There are countless meaningful events that continue to promote a sense of togetherness in our own backyard. Join us as we round up and highlight some of the best ways to celebrate all year long.

Annual Festivities

For the eighth successful year, the Orlando Mayor’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. commission presented their annual “MLK Concert: I Am Enough, You Are Enough, Together We Shall Overcome” at The Dr. Phillips Center in Orlando. In this formal night of tribute over 400 singers, poets, conductors and more gathered in song and performance from across the country to honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This event is perfect for music lovers of all ages and admission is on a first-come, first-serve donation basis. For more information on events like this throughout the year be sure to visit the Dr. Phillips calendar here.

Throughout February the DC Public Library hosted their “34th Annual Black Film Festival”. Each Tuesday in the main auditorium the Central Library in Northwest DC showcased cinema that celebrates the triumph, freedom, and history of the Black community. With blockbuster titles like Disney’s “Black Panther” and Ava DuVernay’s “13th”, it’s no wonder that this event has been such a hit. Be sure to stay connected with the DC Public Library to discover next year’s films.

Getting connected in your community

Food creates community as it showcases culture from all walks of life. And with the free mobile app “Black Foodie Finder” locating local Black owned catering services and restaurants is just at your fingertips. “BFF” partners with small owned businesses to curate over 6 unique categories of dining and speciality foods. There’s more to explore as in app forums connect connoisseurs to discuss their experiences sampling some of the best local cuisine. Uncover your new favorite go-to fare here.

Museums put preservation into motion and perspective as we interact with collective heritage. Visiting historical treasures of the past remind us of discoveries that once brought community together. While DC boast the largest museum “documenting and showcasing the African American story and its impact on American and world history” at the The National Museum of African American History and Culture [2], many museums across the US have exhibits dedicated solely to Black history. Notable locations include the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center in Chicago, Illinois, the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee and the Museum of African American History in Boston, Massachusetts.

Making an Impact From Home

Leading an active life can allow for little down time to physically travel to observe and celebrate Black history, however education can happen from anywhere. Podcasts as well as audio books make for a great way to learn new things with minimal time commitment. Can’t miss podcasts include Code switch, Black History Buff, and Brown & Black.

Can’t make it to the DC Public Library’s film fest? Consider streaming an award-winning documentary or docu-series on a major platform like Netflix, YouTube, or Hulu. Documentary style films can be a great way to gain clarity while enjoying purposeful storytelling. Titles that highlight more modern topics in the Black community include:

High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America – Netflix

Good Hair – YouTube

Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans – Kanopy

Being intentional in efforts to support diversity and inclusion allow us to better comprehend the perspective of our colleagues and peers while amplifying their voices. By maintaining momentum in uplifting the Black community, we recognize and pay homage to one of the most extensive and foundational cultures in our country. Although Black history in America has been a tale of trials and tribulations it is as important as ever to understand that by celebrating diversity we are celebrating that each and every one of us has something unique to contribute to our great nation and the connections we make with our fellow citizens each and every day.

Footnotes:

[1] Black History Month: What is it and why do we need it?, Alex Tedeneke January 27, 2022, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/01/black-history-month-what-is-it-and-why-do-we-need-it/

[2] https://www.si.edu/unit/african-american-museum