Hello I’m Joanna Blackmore the “UK Girl”, born and raised in the fabulous city of London, England. I moved to Canada in 1987.  I’m a single mother of two very responsible young men.

At 22, I was in a terrible car accident in which I broke my back and suffered a brain injury.  After being in a coma for 11 days I was in rehab for a year.  As part of my recovery, my step father’s insurance company allowed me to assist them with daily office duties and this was my introduction to the industry. I persevered every day and was able to achieve my goal of going back to school and graduating in Business Administration (Finance).

Because I was working around life insurance, my mother told me something very important. When I was 8 and with my family on holidays in Spain, my father drowned while saving a young boy. My mother explained to me that because my father had the right type and amount of life insurance she was able to continue to provide a comfortable lifestyle for our family.  Thanks to my Dad we didn’t have to struggle. This made me understand the importance of life insurance.

Years later, I separated from my husband and found myself in a very scary place, as he had controlled the finances.  Now that I was by myself with my two young boys and had to take responsibility for earning, saving, and investing for the future, I realized that I was not equipped to handle everything and needed to educate myself.

I enrolled in many supplemental financial courses and joined a financial company where I became licensed in insurance and investments.  With the new knowledge I gained in these areas I re-assessed my portfolio and realized that my husband and I had not invested in the right vehicles.  Even though we had been putting money into our RRSPs every year and getting the tax advantage, we weren’t making much money on our money. Our investments, on the advice of the bank, were in low interest GICs.

That’s when I decided I really wanted to help and educate people on their finances, so that they wouldn’t have to go through what I was going through!  I later saw a gap in what we could offer families so I got my mortgage license too, so that now we can help families completely.

I’m a Financial Architect and have a fabulous team working with me.  We custom design, build and rebuild your “Financial House” the right way.  We work with a number of insurance companies, banks, credit unions and other lending institutions including private lenders.

In our industry, it is important that we keep current with products and courses to help our clients as they journey through different stages of their lives. To ensure our ability to help any client, I have taken many courses over the years and will continue to do so as laws change.  We want to continue to be able to educate and help everyone at any age, even when they have more complex financial situations and we will provide them with the right choices for all their financial needs.

We will help you build your ”Financial House” and show you how to financially leverage yourself properly, so you can truly take control of your money and your life.

I’m a member of “GroYourBiz” in Burlington (a peer to peer advisory board for women).  I’m the president of two BizConX Networking groups for Entrepreneurs in Burlington and Hamilton.  I’m also one of the Founders and Chair of the brand new “Independent Women In Leadership Network Group”.  I also support the Women Shelters and food banks in Halton and Hamilton.

My name is Winston Thompson and I am a Financial Architect located in Burlington. I’m a lifelong resident of Burlington and I continue to work and live here with my wife and two children. I’ve seen many changes to Burlington. Lots of new infrastructure and a lot more cars! I recall a friend from my youth who had a real apple orchard and honey bee farm on Orchard Road.

Although there have been many new homes and condos built, which many of my friends and family have purchased, I noticed that many of them had a difficult time when it came to their own financial house. I’d hear complaints about how much various activities for their children cost, their lack of savings or how they were going to put their child through post-secondary school. It was interesting to me as not only were these my concerns, but the concerns of those closest to me. Unfortunately, if you’re anything like me, you weren’t taught in high school how to best use your money to build financial success. This led me to a decision in 2014 to learn about the various financial industries and options available.

For my formal education, I studied at McMaster University and I have a Bachelor of Commerce with a Minor in Economics degree. After graduating, I spent the next 17 years in various roles within the IT industry. Sure, it was fast paced and fun to work in that industry, but my passion was finance. I started a stock trading club after graduation in which the members pooled our money to make stock purchases.

That fed the financial bug for a while, but the desire to learn more about finance, the industry and hearing the many comments from my friends and family, led me to explore the financial industry. In the end, I decided on acquiring my Life Insurance license as I felt this license gave me the greatest options and flexibility to help those who need assistance in building a strong financial house and future.

In 2017, I also completed the necessary courses to become a mortgage agent. This adds an additional component to helping my clients and allows me to provide even greater solutions.I believe in putting my clients first. I listen to their concerns, what’s keeping them up at night and collect their input as to what they want in the future. This allows me to strategize with them and understand what’s important, so I can architect a customized financial solution.

As we all lead ever-changing and dynamic lives, it can be difficult to stay on top of how to manage your financial house. Due to this, I like to stay connected to my clients, review progress and understand if there has been a change in their personal, professional or financial circumstances that may require an updated blueprint.

As I mentioned previously, I’m a lifelong resident of Burlington and have been part of many clubs and organizations over the years. I enjoy a variety of sports including baseball and skiing and I continue to volunteer. My most recent long-term volunteering has been as a rep baseball coach since 2012.

Although my home and office are in Burlington, I do travel around the GTA to assist families and businesses with their financial needs. I’m also available for speaking events.

Having grown up in a very strict European family, I was the first one of my extended family who didn’t get married and start a family right after high school. Instead, I went to McMaster University and obtained my Bachelor of Science degree majoring in math.

I was taught to be independent, work hard and achieve the best. I started working at 14 and had my own money. At the age of 18, I purchased my first investment property and learned a lot about finance and real estate.

My first job after graduating from university was with an investment bank. I learned so much about the world of finance, dealing with major corporations, trading and money. That’s when I realized I wanted to help people with their finances.

I began working with a major Canadian Financial Institution as a Business Account Manager. Managing a diverse portfolio of business clients in the Niagara Region to provide commercial loans, mortgages and cash management solutions, I developed long-lasting relationships by building trust and rapport and finding the best solutions to help my clients grow their business.

After 25 years in the banking industry, I realized that the banks could not provide all solutions for their clients. With so many people becoming further in debt, I realized I could help them with their personal as well as their business strategies, providing them with more alternatives and I began working with a brokerage as a Financial Architect.

I look for the best answers to assist my clients by doing what is right for them and tailoring a financial solution specifically for their needs. Having a strong desire to continually learn and take courses, I obtained my mortgage and insurance licenses, and I share this knowledge with my clients.

As clients’ lives evolve and their goals change over time, I am able to assist them with their financial goals, as well as connecting them to the right people, using my extensive network of contacts.

I love helping people and have built strong relationships with my clients, always striving to provide excellent service and provide value-added financial solutions. This is the most rewarding career move I have made.

I grew up primarily in Burlington and Hamilton and spent all my summer breaks up at the cottage in Muskoka with extended family.  All of my life I’ve approached things with curiosity and I’ve been interested in how things work.  I’ve always liked explaining how things work to others, which my teachers made use of when they had me help my peers.

My love of explaining is why, when I attended McMaster University I worked part-time in the IT department of a computer retail store. Later as a co-founder of my own IT consulting firm in Hamilton, I always made sure my clients understood not just *that* a solution was going to work for them, but *why* it was going to work, and especially *why* that solution was best for them. It’s a great feeling knowing that my clients knew what their options were and why they were happy with the solution they chose.

 In recent years, unfortunately, I know quite a few friends and family members who’ve run into some big life events around death, divorce, estates, inheritance and family finances.  In every situation, my Mom had the best advice and information to give.  I saw time and time again that personal finance is incredibly important and that not many people are well versed in it, and that my Mom was able to save families from a lot of struggling.  In the most extreme cases, I saw firsthand that some of my friends and family had gotten poor financial advice.  So when they were going through a family hardship, during that time of great emotional distress, they suffered even more as a result of that bad financial advice.

When COVID started, my business was greatly impacted, since we primarily worked on-site with clients. Two of us had been running operations full time, and there was only enough remote work for one of us. That’s when I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to take some financial courses and I obtained my Life Insurance and Investment Licenses. While working with my Mom, I’m learning what I need to know, in order to help people in the same ways as my mother and her colleagues do.

 It was clear from early on when the lockdowns started that COVID was going to be causing a lot of financial distress to many and I wanted to be able to help people through that.

 Beyond COVID, money is in almost every aspect of our lives, and I want to help you make sure that YOUR Financial House is Built the Right Way.

 I still love everything to do with computers and I’m still the co-founder of an IT business, however, helping people with their financial future is really important to me!

 When I’m not helping people with their finances, you can catch me geeking out about some niche topic, cooking, singing, listening to podcasts, gaming and playing Dungeons and Dragons with my awesome friends.

I was born and raised in beautiful sunny Jamaica and I moved to Canada at the age of 16 to live with my uncle and his family. I was taught to be independent and to work hard. I started working and investing at 17 years old.

Working as an insurance broker in the property, casualty, and auto insurance departments, I could see people struggling to pay their bills and I decided to expand my knowledge and completed all the necessary courses for life insurance and investments.  Now I can educate families on their personal finances.

As a Financial Architect, I help families by custom designing their Financial House.  We start by explaining why they need a solid Foundation, help them get out of debt all by saving money for their future goals and dreams.  Too many families stopped dreaming!!