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Banking | Finance 2025: KARP, DAVID W.
CO-FOUNDER AND SENIOR MANAGING DIRECTOR, CRESSET, FAIRFAX COUNTY
Virginia Business //September 2, 2025//
Banking | Finance 2025: KARP, DAVID W.
CO-FOUNDER AND SENIOR MANAGING DIRECTOR, CRESSET, FAIRFAX COUNTY
Virginia Business //September 2, 2025//
In 2011, Karp and Paul Pagnato left Merrill Lynch to launch their own firm: PagnatoKarp. Initially, the outfit was part of Hightower Advisors, but PagnatoKarp dropped the affiliation in 2016. Four years later, Illinois-based investment firm Cresset Asset Management announced it had acquired PagnatoKarp, which then had $2.3 billion in assets under management.
At Cresset, Karp works with family office clients as well as business owners. He ranked No. 3 in Northern Virginia on the 2025 Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisors list, which noted his team manages assets of $5.5 billion. Karp also made Barron’s 2025 list of Top U.S. Financial Advisors.
In Tony Robbins’ 2016 book “MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom,” Karp is quoted in a discussion about the fiduciary standard. “It doesn’t matter who benefits more, the client or advisor,” Karp explains. “As long as an investment is suitable … at the time it was placed for the client, the advisor is held free of liability.”
