Chris Jay

Chris Jay is a Wealth Management Advisor and managing partner of The MCNW Group, a Seattle-based team that delivers wealth planning and investment management services for private families and institutional investors around the country.

Chris joined Merrill Lynch’s Financial Advisor training program in 2009 after obtaining his BA in International Business from Seattle University, and ultimately became the first advisor in the Pacific Northwest Region to successfully graduate from the then-new Practice Management Development (PMD) Program. He holds the Certified Private Wealth Advisor® designation from the Investments & Wealth InstituteTM and was named to Forbes’ Top Next-Generation Wealth Advisors list in 2018, and both Forbes’ Best-in-State Next-Generation Wealth Advisors and Best-in-State Wealth Advisors lists in 2019, 2021, and 2022. In 2020, Business Insider named Chris to their inaugural list of Financial Advisor Rising-Stars.

Chris is currently Vice Chair of Merrill’s Financial Advisor Advisory Council to Management (ACTM) — in its 49th year — and a member of the Merrill Executive Council for Diversity & Inclusion. He was a founding member both of Merrill’s NextGen Leadership Council, serving as chair in 2018, and of Bank of America’s Global NextGen Council. In the community, Chris is a Director of KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio where he serves as Board Chair and sits on the Finance & Audit Committee, and a Representative Director on the University of Washington Foundation Board. He also served on the Board of Directors of BlackPast.org — the world’s largest encyclopedia of Global African and African-American history — from 2013–2019, including three years as chair. He remains connected to his alma mater as a mentor to undergraduate and graduate students through the Albers School of Business & Economics Mentor Program.