Wealth accumulation plays out differently when career trajectories span four years instead of forty. College student athletes with NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) deals manage income streams during a window so brief that many barely have time to grasp financial fundamentals before graduation looms.
Corporate executives, however, wrestle with compensation mechanisms deliberately engineered toward complexity—stock options, RSUs, and deferred packages that might require an advanced degree to fully understand. Standard financial advice can crumble under such extraordinary circumstances.
Jeffrey Fratarcangeli, who established Fratarcangeli Wealth Management, recognized these specialized needs years ago. His team has crafted tailored strategies that address both the technical aspects of unusual income patterns and the psychological factors that come with them.
Managing NIL Athletic Fortune
NIL deals allow college athletes to profit while still in education—a reality that demands financial approaches wildly different from conventional planning. Fratarcangeli Wealth Management tackles this head-on through customized planning frameworks, accounting for potentially compressed earning timelines.
“The more sophisticated the financial situation, the more we’re needed, in that more money means more problems,” Fratarcangeli explains when discussing high-net-worth clients including student athletes with NIL deals.
NIL prosperity arrives abruptly and demands immediate wisdom most college students haven’t developed. Young professionals entering conventional fields have the luxury of gradually building financial acumen, but student athletes must quickly master sophisticated concepts—their financial mistakes occur under tighter timelines with minimal opportunity for recovery.
“There are so many blind spots and training that needs to be done for the next generation that you just can’t take these things for granted,” Fratarcangeli notes.
Fratarcangeli Wealth Management structures its NIL athlete-focused services around this compressed timeline reality. They focus on creating disciplined spending limits that reflect the brief nature of collegiate athletic careers, alongside tax and investment strategies that help sustain wealth after graduation.
According to Jeffrey Fratarcangeli, NIL athletes comprise a significant portion of their client base, allowing the firm to develop specialized expertise handling the unique tax scenarios, sudden wealth management needs, and identity transitions these students face.
The psychological component proves equally important. Many college athletes struggle with identity transitions when their collegiate careers end—something Fratarcangeli understands from personal experience. This perspective informs how Fratarcangeli Wealth Management approaches client relationships with NIL athletes—addressing both financial planning and the psychological dimension of educational and career transitions.
Decoding Corporate Complexity
Executive careers often span decades, which brings a different set of complexities. Corporate compensation packages often include elements that make straightforward financial planning nearly impossible without specialized knowledge.
Fratarcangeli Wealth Management has positioned itself as a resource in this domain, helping executives optimize what often becomes the majority of their compensation.
“The debt, the liability side, obviously the asset management, the utilising [of] all the different beneficial vehicles on the investments that range in retirement planning as well as estate planning, all sort of work together,” Jeffrey Fratarcangeli explains regarding their comprehensive approach to executive wealth management.
This expertise goes further than just understanding compensation structures—it includes strategic planning, such as knowing when to exercise options, how to manage tax implications, and how corporate benefits align with personal financial goals.
Modern executive packages incorporate restricted stock units, performance shares, non-qualified options, deferred compensation arrangements, and supplemental executive retirement plans, each carrying distinct tax implications, vesting requirements, and optimization opportunities. Fratarcangeli Wealth Management guides executives through intricate decisions surrounding these vehicles: optimal exercise timing, tax-efficient liquidation sequencing, and integration with broader wealth objectives.
Executives encounter unusual liquidity paradoxes—substantial net worth on paper coupled with significant restrictions on accessing that wealth. Vesting schedules, trading windows, and holding requirements create planning complications absent from conventional financial scenarios.
Financial Education Before Fortune Arrives
Among Fratarcangeli Wealth Management’s most distinctive offerings is its preventative educational programming—intervening before financial mistakes occur and avoiding the need for later correction.
Their work with the University of Michigan’s M Power program exemplifies this philosophy – providing student athletes with fundamental financial knowledge before NIL deals materialize. Jeffrey Fratarcangeli contributes directly to these educational initiatives, understanding that financial literacy delivered prior to wealth acquisition creates dramatically better outcomes than remedial education afterward.
“That’s part of our intrinsic programme as well because many of our clients’ children work for us for a period of time so they can understand wealth management from the inside and then become intellectually prepared for what they’re going to be facing,” he explains.
The firm’s educational methodology covers practical fundamentals often overlooked in standard financial education: budget construction, accounting for income variability, tax planning fundamentals for unusual compensation structures, and expectation calibration for long-term financial realities.
For more insight from Jeffrey Fratarcangeli, visit www.fratarcangeliwealth.com.
Lynn Martelli is an editor at Readability. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and has worked as an editor for over 10 years. Lynn has edited a wide variety of books, including fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, and more. In her free time, Lynn enjoys reading, writing, and spending time with her family and friends.
