Paul Pagnato is the CEO and Founder of PagnatoKarp, a top-ranked family wealth advisory with over $4.8 billion in assets under advisement. In 2019, Forbes ranked Paul as the number one advisor in Virginia (29th in the United States), and Barron’s ranked him at #2. Prior to founding PagnatoKarp, Paul worked at Merrill Lynch for 19 years, where he founded its Private Banking and Investment Office in Washington, D.C. However, Paul’s career had a very unconventional start.