Ana Maria Gonzalez Wood, JD, CFP®, CLU®, CHFC® is a financial professional with over 30 years of professional experience in accounting, law and financial services, Ana Maria brings a wealth of unique skills to her practice as a trusted advisor to her clients. She advises small business owners and other high net worth individuals on comprehensive financial planning matters, including risk management, estate planning, retirement planning, and business succession matters to maximize and protect their wealth. As a bilingual financial professional, she advises both domestic and foreign national clients in her practice.
Ana Maria graduated from Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, IN, summa cum laude, with a BBA in concentrations in Accounting and Finance. She passed the CPA that same year and began her professional career at KPMG as tax associate in the oil and gas and financial planning practice group. After obtaining the business experience required to be licensed, she left public accounting to return to school. She graduated with a JD, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Biddle School of Law. She returned to Houston to practice as an estate planning attorney with Fulbright and Jaworski (the current Norton Rose Fulbright). As an attorney she co-authored several speeches and articles with her mentor in the areas of business continuation planning, charitable planning and post-mortem estate planning.
In 1994, Ana Maria left her second career as a practicing attorney to follow her entrepreneurial spirit and join the insurance and benefit consulting business that her mother, a pension actuary, had founded in 1967. Ana Maria continued the insurance and deferred compensation planning practice and expanded it to include a financial planning and estate planning practice ultimately founding AMGWealth Planning Solutions. In 2017 she joined Avidian Wealth Solutions LLC as in-house Risk and Wealth Transfer Specialist. In addition to her role at Avidian Wealth Solutions, she assists other advisors nationally in assessing the life insurance needs of their clients.
To maintain the highest level of professionalism and remain current, she has continued to earn professional designations. She holds the CLU® and CHFC® professional designations from the American College of Insurance. She is also a CFP® practitioner. She has also formed alliances with CPAs and attorneys to assist her in bringing comprehensive strategic business solutions to her clients.
Ana Maria has earned numerous citations and awards from insurance companies for outstanding sales and service. She is a frequent guest speaker for various audiences.
In addition to her professional leadership roles, Ana Maria is passionate about philanthropy and lends her financial and development skills to various nonprofit organizations in Houston.
Ana Maria resides in Houston with her husband, John. They have two children, Carolina (25) and William (23).
Licenses held: Group I, Life and Health; General Lines; Series 65, Law