A conversation with Mai Park, CPWA®, on serving affluent families and executives, coordinating complex wealth decisions and combining boutique attention with the resources of Pence Wealth Management.
Mai Park has spent more than two decades advising clients through changing markets and increasingly complex financial lives. After beginning her wealth-management career at Morgan Stanley in 2003, where she served as a Vice President through 2008, Park spent 17 years at Merrill Lynch and served as a Senior Vice President. In 2025, she founded Mai Park Capital in partnership with Pence Wealth Management. Today, the practice serves clients from Newport Beach and the South Bay, with a particular focus on affluent families, founders and senior executives.
Q: What types of financial challenges are you seeing among the families and executives you work with?
Park: Many successful people reach a point where their financial life becomes less about selecting individual investments and more about coordinating a number of important decisions at once. For senior executives, that can include RSUs, stock options, deferred compensation and a concentrated company-stock position. For families and business owners, the questions may involve cash-flow planning, wealth forecasting, tax-aware investment decisions, retirement strategy and multigenerational wealth considerations. My goal is to know each client’s priorities deeply and help connect those decisions so the overall strategy is working together rather than in separate pieces.
Q: How does Mai Park Capital’s partnership with Pence Wealth Management shape the client experience?
Park: I wanted to create a practice that could provide very personal, family-office-style attention while also having access to substantial investment and planning resources. Together, Pence Wealth Management and Mai Park Capital represent more than $3.2 billion in combined assets under management* and a team of more than 30 financial professionals. Our investment team supports fundamental securities research, macroeconomic and sector analysis, portfolio construction, stock valuation and risk monitoring. That depth can be especially valuable when a client’s wealth is concentrated in a company stock position or tied to a complex compensation plan. The objective is to combine those broader resources with a relationship in which clients know who is advising them and feel that their individual circumstances are understood.
Q: What distinguishes your background and the direction you are building for Mai Park Capital in Newport Beach?
Park: My approach has been shaped by more than 20 years in wealth management, including my years at Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, and by the advanced private-wealth training I received through the Certified Private Wealth Advisor® program at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2018. The CPWA® curriculum addresses sophisticated high-net-worth planning, including portfolio strategy, tax considerations, retirement, wealth transfer and behavioral finance. Today, I am bringing that experience to Mai Park Capital’s growing Newport Beach presence while also serving South Bay clients through our Torrance office. Our practice has developed a particular focus on senior executives and professionals whose financial lives can involve equity compensation, concentrated stock and complex retirement decisions. I have also been honored to be recognized by Forbes as a Top Women Wealth Advisor Best-in-State in 2023, 2024 and 2025, and on the 2025 Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisors list. For me, those recognitions reinforce the importance of continuing to provide clients with thoughtful, coordinated advice and highly personal attention.
Mai Park, CPWA®, is Managing Director and Private Wealth Manager and founder of Mai Park Capital, in partnership with Pence Wealth Management. Mai Park Capital serves clients from Newport Beach and Torrance, California. MaiParkCapital.com
*AUM as of 8/27/26. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a registered investment advisor, Member FINRA/SIPC. Forbes rankings are developed by SHOOK Research using qualitative and quantitative criteria, including due-diligence interviews, industry experience, compliance records, assets under management and revenue. Investment performance is not a criterion. Rankings are not indicative of future performance and may not represent any one client’s experience. Mai Park: Forbes Top Women Wealth Advisor Best-in-State recognition in 2023, 2024 and 2025; 2025 Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisors. This material is for informational purposes only and is not individualized investment, tax or legal advice.
