The Professional Me

Frank founded Planned Financial Services, LLC, in 1994, to make a difference in the lives of families, business owners, and community leaders. After experiencing events that impacted his own family and friends, he made a commitment to help clients pursue financial freedom and independence so they could experience the life they desired, through access to specialized advice and a robust offering of financial consulting services.

Return on Life^® Wealth Partners is the wealth and investment management division of Planned Financial Services. The firm is committed to helping clients pursue their individually defined Return on Life^® through an approach that focuses first on each client’s definition of a life well lived before focusing on their financial assets. This helps to ensure that family values, career and business goals, and the family’s personal goals remain at the core of the planning process.

401(k) Prosperity^® is the firm’s corporate retirement plan division, which focuses on elevating financial outcomes for employees who depend on their 401(k)/403(b) plan to retire on their terms with dignity, while helping companies ease the burden of managing these complex plans. For many retirement plan participants, these holdings represent their second largest financial asset behind their pension or Social Security benefits.

Frank began his career in 1987 with the international accounting firm Arthur Andersen, where he became a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in 1988. He honed his tax and financial planning skills during his years in the organization’s tax and wealth management division. He earned the AICPA’s Personal Financial Specialist (PFS) designation and a Master of Science in Taxation (MST) from The University of Illinois.

Frank is also an Accredited Investment Fiduciary^® (AIF^®). In 2015, he was named a top U.S. Retirement Plan Adviser by the Financial Times. He is involved professionally with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), where he is active on its tax and financial planning subcommittees, as well as the International Association for Financial Planning (IAFP), the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts (IDFA), Fi360, Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), and the Entrepreneurs Master’s Program. In 2022, his passion to help business owners view exit planning as a business strategy led him to obtain his Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) designation.

He is a sought-after speaker on a variety of financial topics and his insights and opinions have been featured in the media by outlets, including Fox Business News, CNBC, USA Today, Reuters, Wall Street Journal Radio, The New York Times, Dow Jones Newswires, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. For more than 15 years, he has hosted the firm’s Annual Cleveland Economic Summit, an educational event attracting regional community and business leaders.

Frank is involved in a number of civic and community-based organizations and boards, including LifeAct^®, Northeast Ohio’s suicide education and prevention program, which he helped brand. He served as Chairman of the Board and was later named a Lifetime Director. Frank was also the recipient of the Medical Mutual Northeast Ohio 2018 Pillar Award for Community Service and was named a Nonprofit Board Executive of the Year for his service as Chairman of the Board of Directors for LifeAct^®. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Marymount Hospital, a Cleveland Clinic Regional Hospital. Frank is a member of the Entrepreneurs Organization, Business Volunteers Unlimited (BVU), the Northern Ohio Italian American Foundation (NOIA), and the Brecksville, Broadview Heights, Ohio and Beverly Hills, California Chambers of Commerce.

He is the founder, former director, and a travel soccer coach for the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Soccer Organization. He also established and seeded the funds for the annual Brush High School Soccer Award at his alma mater, and continues to manage the award process, endowment, and Alumni Soccer Social and Game at no cost. He supports the Christian Children’s Fund, the Wounded Warrior Project, Defy, and other organizations focused on helping children and veterans.

Frank recently secured a bid for the rights to the World Series of Rock name, which was a recurring, day-long multi-act summer rock concert held at Cleveland Stadium in the 1970s. He looks forward to bringing events featuring legendary performers back to further showcase Cleveland’s place as the Rock Capital of the World.

Frank lives with his wife Paulette in Brecksville, Ohio, and has two daughters, Nicole and Natalie. Born and raised in Cleveland, Frank is proud of, involved in, and committed to Cleveland’s future and its surrounding communities.

Awards & Recognitions

• Crain’s Cleveland Business Notable Leaders in Finance (2024)
• Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisor (2024)
• Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Management Team (2024) 
• Weatherhead 100 Enterprise Award (10-time recipient)
• SME Distinguished Marketing and Sales Award
• Financial Times Top 401k Retirement Plan Advisors
• Power Players of Cleveland Customer Service Award
• 300 Most Influential Defined Contribution Plan Advisors by 401kWire
• Northeast Ohio Pillar Award
• NEO Success Award COSE Ten Under 10 Award

Professional Designations & Credentials

• Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
• Master of Science in Taxation (MST)
• AICPA’s Personal Financial Specialist (PFS)
• Accredited Investment Fiduciary^® (AIF^®)
• Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA)
• Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA)
• Life, Disability, Long Term Care & Health Insurance licenses
  
  

2024 Crain’s Cleveland Business Notable Leaders in Finance honorees do not pay to be included in the list. Their profiles were drawn from the nomination materials submitted. This list is not comprehensive. It includes only individuals for whom nominations were submitted and accepted after a review by editors. To qualify for the list, nominees must have met certain criteria, including being based in Northeast Ohio, being in the profession for at least 5 years and the must be employed at investment banks, commercial banks, institutional money managers (including private equity and venture capital firms), exchanges, trading firms, institutional asset owners, mutual funds, hedge funds, or in corporate finance departments.

The Forbes Best-In-State Wealth Advisor 2024 ranking, developed by SHOOK Research, is based on in-person and telephone due diligence meetings and a ranking algorithm that includes: client retention, industry experience, review of compliance records, firm nominations; and quantitative criteria, including: assets under management and revenue generated for their firms. Portfolio performance is not a criterion due to varying client objectives and lack of audited data. Neither Forbes nor SHOOK Research receives a fee in exchange for rankings. Wealth Advisor, Frank Fantozzi, ranked No. 40 in Ohio in 2024.

The Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Management Teams ranking was developed by SHOOK Research and is based on in-person, virtual and telephone due diligence meetings and a ranking algorithm that includes: a measure of each team’s best practices, client retention, industry experience, review of compliance records, firm nominations; and quantitative criteria, including: assets under management and revenue generated for their firms. Investment performance is not a criterion because client objectives and risk tolerances vary, and advisors rarely have audited performance reports. SHOOK’s research and rankings provide opinions intended to help investors choose the right financial advisor and team and are not indicative of future performance or representative of any one client’s experience. Neither Forbes nor SHOOK Research receive compensation in exchange for placement on the ranking. Neither Return on Life Wealth Partners nor any of its financial advisors or RIA firm pay a fee in exchange for this award/rating.

2015 Financial Times Top 401 Retirement Plan Advisers minimum criteria: financial advisors managing at least $25 million in defined contribution (DC) plan assets and for whom DC plans represent at least 20% of total AUM. Selected based on several criteria, including assets under management in defined contribution (DC) plans, degree of specialization in DC plan advising, growth in DC plan assets under management, growth in number of DC plans advised, average participation rate in advised DC plans, years of experience as a DC planner, industry certifications, and compliance record.

Third-party recognitions are no guarantee of future investment success and do not ensure that a client or prospective client will experience a higher level of performance results. These recognitions should not be construed as an endorsement of the advisor by any client nor are they representative of any one client’s evaluation.