Profile
Matt Stephens, owner and financial advisor at Willow Chute Financial, has spent his career working toward one goal: building a practice on his own terms. “My single biggest achievement has been owning a highly profitable practice while balancing and prioritizing time with my family,” he says.
Stephens’ plan for his career was set from the beginning, but it came with plenty of surprises. He started in a client-facing role, then spent several years in a home office support position, with the objective of eventually returning to direct client work. “I’ve since built a firm that I can be proud of and where I have full ownership,” he says.
Scale has been the biggest challenge in Stephens’ current role. He ran the practice on his own for its first two years before recently bringing on an assistant to help manage the growing workload. “We’re solving the scaling problem by establishing repeatable systems and processes and assigning respective responsibilities for those tasks,” he says.
Stephens points to clarity as the professional quality he relies on most. He has honed the ability to translate complex financial concepts into two or three clear sentences, a skill he says has been central to building credibility with clients.
This same approach carries into how he manages client relationships day to day, where he believes the experience is stronger when both sides operate with an accurate timeline and clear expectations of what clients can expect from him and what he expects of them.
Stephens attributes much of his early success to the people around him, citing good mentors, patience, and a lot of support from his wife. Without all three, he says, he might have rushed the process, missed important details, or pursued an opportunity without a clear strategy.
Those mentors have stayed active throughout his career. “I have had mentors at every stage of my journey, many of whom still offer good, relevant, and timely advice,” he says. “This has given me context for problems before I face them and has given me an accountability platform to test new ideas and determine if someone else has learned the hard lesson before me.”
Stephens’ inclusion in InvestmentNews’ Rising Stars for 2026 caps years of steady growth, though he isn’t treating it as the end point of his journey. “It is a nice recognition, but it will not alter my current trajectory,” he says. “I plan to continue to work hard for my clients, deepen relationships, and grow my practice.”
227 Fairburn Ave, Ste A
318 327 2960
matt@willowchutefinancial.com
linkedin.com/in/mattstephens730
willowchutefinancial.com
Matt Stephens
President and Senior Wealth Advisor
Willow Chute Financial
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Home
Bio
Milestones
2012
2016
2022
2024
Present
Began his career in financial services with Edward Jones
2012
Joined Avantax as an internal consultant
2016
Earned the Certified Financial Planner designation
2022
Founded Willow Chute Financial
2024
President of Richards, Lathrop & Associates
Present
Milestones
“I know this seems pretty simple, but [my philosophy] is always doing what’s right for clients and not what is best for me”
Collin Bruce,
Dominion Lending Centres
“I had to crawl my way out of debt and build up my mortgage business. I never forget that feeling, and I try to never take a new lead for granted. Every deal counts”
Collin Bruce,
Dominion Lending Centres
The professional philosophy that underpins all of it is strikingly basic – and Bruce knows it. “I know this seems pretty simple,” he says, “but always doing what’s right for clients and not what is best for me. I never have to worry about something coming back to me from a previous client.”
He has helped clients through years-long credit rehabilitation without earning a cent along the way. He has never placed a client in a product he wasn’t prepared to fully stand behind. The result is a practice built on trust generating its own momentum: repeat business and referrals that arrive without prompting, from clients who know the difference between a broker who serves them and one who services a transaction.
In Alberta, where Bruce has built a particularly strong market presence, his name is amplified by a heavy advertising campaign across television and radio – channels he values not simply for reach but for credibility. The ads, he notes, help legitimize him in a market where clients are choosing who to trust with some of the largest financial decisions of their lives. Alongside that visibility, he has cultivated deep relationships with builders and financial planners, creating a diversified pipeline of leads that insulates the business against the inevitable swings of the rate cycle.
The operational side of the business has evolved with equal deliberateness. The appointment of a dedicated ‘Director of Wow’ – a role conceived to ensure every client interaction exceeds expectation – and the adoption of Dominion Lending Centres’ Gold Rush CRM platform have together driven a meaningful uplift in repeat client business over the past year.
The present year of 2026 brings its own complexities. With clients emerging from a period of historically low rates and confronting sharply higher mortgage costs, Bruce has tilted his focus toward refinancing – helping existing borrowers navigate a transition that, for many, has been genuinely painful. He is also investing in AI tools to sharpen lead generation and streamline internal processes, a measured embrace of technology from someone who has never confused efficiency with the thing it is meant to serve.