Melissa Rutten serves as a Managing Director of the Accounting and Financial Reporting group working directly with clients regarding their financial lives. She has over 20 years of experience with a financial and international business background spanning personal and business financial planning, accounting, investments, and executive leadership.    

Prior to joining Pathstone, Melissa served as a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch and obtained her AWMA® designation. Melissa also notably served as Chief Financial Officer for a rapidly growing small business in the property and casualty insurance space. She has also managed investor relations at a multi-billion dollar corporation. She led global teams in Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and process improvement initiatives for executive teams of multinational corporations.  She’s versed in driving organizational changes to support business expansion and optimizing processes for cost savings, efficiency gains, and risk reduction. Her experience includes strategizing and implementing financial and operational initiatives.

Melissa holds CPA® and AWMA® credentials with foundational experience at PWC Amsterdam in audit and transaction services.  She has leadership experience in Finance, P&L Management, Recruiting, and Client Development.

Melissa earned her Bachelors in Economics from the University of Georgia, Terry College of Business.

The AWMA® Professional Designation Program is an education program for financial professionals offered by the College for Financial Planning® (CFFP). The program teaches financial professionals how to advise their high-net-worth clients on growing, preserving, and transferring their wealth. Its specialized curriculum contains sections on behavioral finance, working with small business owners, and succession and exit planning.