Lynn Phillips-Gaines, CFP^®, CLTC

When Lynn joined the financial services industry in 1982, she quickly recognized that the best way to help clients was to serve them with the objectivity and freedom that comes with independence. By 1984, she had opened her own independent practice, one that has lasted for nearly 25 years and manages more than $100 million in assets for its clients. Today, Lynn believes her major achievements still lie ahead, helping her clients meet and potentially exceed their goals.

A graduate of Mississippi State University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree, Lynn went on to receive a master’s from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Her commitment to education has grown along with her career, and she holds several professional certifications including CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ practitioner (1987), Certified Financial Retirement Counselor designation (1999) and Certified in Long Term Care (2006). She has also earned the Investment Management Consultant designation, which signifies her competence in investment management theory and consulting practices through Raymond James Investment Institute.

Over the course of her successful career, Lynn has been recognized by Money magazine as one of the top 200 financial planners in the United States and inducted into the CFP Board’s Registry of CFP Practitioners, which includes only those planners who have met the board’s highest standards. In 1995, she was named in Sunburst Bank’s Top 40 Under 40, an honor recognizing her as one of Mississippi's top emerging business leaders who would help shape the state’s economic future. In addition, Lynn was named one of 50 leading business women and a nominee for Top Businesswoman of 2002 by the Mississippi Business Journal. She was recently selected for the Forbes.com Intelligent Investor Team.

An active member of the community, Lynn has served as past board member or officer of the Starkville Rotary Club, Business and Professional Women, MSU Oktibbeha County Alumni Association and Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway Authority. She also believes in “contributing to the world’s work in the community where I am placed, because of the joy of service thereby bestowed and the talent of leadership multiplied,” by supporting the Oktibbeha County Humane Society, Mississippi State University, Alpha Gamma Delta, The Episcopal Church of the Resurrection and Starkville Area Habitat for Humanity.

Her commitment extends to the church as well, and she currently serves as women’s chaplain at the local jail. She has studied religious studies at Oxford University’s Wadham College and will complete her training as a postulant for Holy Orders ordination within the Episcopal Church in 2011.

Outside of work and community, Lynn enjoys spending time with her very own “Cheyenne Bodie,” her husband, Russell. Her other passions include the outdoors, her animals, reading and learning about the people she meets.