The DiCiaccio Team

Pasadena, CA

Separating out what is meaningful to your portfolio and preserving your lifestyle is our job. When we act as your fiduciary, we help eliminate the many problems associated with commission-oriented, product-focused salespeople. Your success is our success.

The DiCiaccio Team

Pasadena, CA

The DiCiaccio Team

Pasadena, CA

The DiCiaccio Team

Pasadena, CA

The DiCiaccio Team

Pasadena, CA

Our independence enables us to impartially evaluate investment strategies, managers, and investment products. We are first and foremost focused on our clients and act in their best interests.

Who Are We?
The fact you are here probably means you are looking for some answers. We are independent registered investment advisors with more than 100 years of collective advisory experience. In this complex world, you deserve a talented team with deep resources to break down complicated financial challenges with customized, actionable, and honest advice. As your legal fiduciary, we have a duty of undivided loyalty and utmost good faith and are bound to provide investment advice in your best interest. In other words, this is the advice we would give our mother.

Our Value Statement:
We will create a supportive environment where you can feel comfortable asking questions, gaining knowledge to feel confident in making smart financial decisions. This affords you more time to live the life you have earned and helps to reduce stress, which results in more comfort for you and your family.

Our Typical Client:
We work primarily with families and organizations that are at a stage where they need truly independent and unconflicted financial advice. We manage all aspects of our clients’ financial lives, including investment and liability management, and estate, retirement and financial planning. As fiduciaries, we believe strongly this integrated approach is the best way to manage clients’ financial affairs. To maintain our high standard of service, we are selective and only accept 3 new client relationships per year.

Recent Insight

Meet our Team

John DiCiaccio

Sr. Partner, Managing Director
John has an amazing knack for balancing the left and right brain. It explains how he can analyze numbers and technical data critically by day and paint abstract art by night. You can check out some of his art at www.johndicaccio.com. He says discipline and creativity aren’t such strange bedfellows, as he learned as an inquisitive kid in his mother and nonna’s kitchens. They became open classrooms where he could satisfy his hunger for knowledge – and ravioli! Like perfecting a recipe, developing a financial strategy demands a mix of art and science, and John draws on 35 years of experience as a financial consultant and small business owner before that. He has been greatly inspired by his favorite artist, Jackson Pollack, who broke ground with well-composed paintings that reveal order in seeming chaos. In a similar way, John sees the big financial picture and an individual’s place within it. It helps him convey complex information in a way that makes sense to a layperson, which explains how he has built so many long lasting relationships. When clients come to the office that John helped design, they enjoy warm out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies that he bakes using a recipe he has perfected over the last 10 years. John and his wife Evie live in Pasadena. They are active with 2 sons, a daughter, and 5 grandchildren. As Senior Partner and Managing Director, John has received recognition in Baron’s “Top Advisor”, Forbe’s “Best In State Wealth Advisors”, and several L.A. Wealth Magazine Awards, given to less than two percent of financial advisors.

Leah Thomson Snell, CFP®

Sr. Partner, Managing Director
When we say everybody likes Leah, we’re not limiting that to people! In addition to being one of the friendliest, most approachable people you’ll meet, she is a dedicated animal rights advocate. DiCiaccio clients who spend time with Leah always appreciate how easy she makes discussing the information we need for their financial plan. They often remark on how calm, patient and caring she is. Those qualities have made her a valued member of civic groups like the Altadena Guild and local Rotary club, as well as orchestras in which she shares her musicianship on the viola. Under her calm demeanor, however, is a spunky individual who loves to travel and host “game nights” for friends with her husband James. Name an exotic travel destination and if she hasn’t been there already, she’s hoping to get there soon. Senior Partner and Managing Director Leah Thomson Snell joined Snowden Lane from Merrill Lynch, where she began in 1996.

Caesar Cepeda

Vice President, Private Wealth Advisor
The more time Caesar spends in this industry, the more he values the time he spends with the people he meets. The proof is in the number of close friendships he has developed with a wide range of clients who have come to know him and Lauren, his wife of 23 years. Caesar believes the hours he spends in face-to-face meetings with clients are just as important as those he devotes to research and portfolio-building on their behalf. With a quick wit and a happy-go-lucky attitude, he is always easy to get to know. The calming effect he has on people helps them gain perspective, while his sartorial sense and sophistication make visiting the DiCiaccio Team a stylish affair. Going the distance isn’t something restricted to work for clients, however. Caesar has been in 15 Ironman distance Triathlons as well as the Angeles Crest 100-mile run, week-long mountain bike races, and every Los Angeles Marathon since its inception in 1986. With Lauren and another couple, he co-owns CrossFit Monrovia and helps people with their physical conditioning when he’s not helping people with their financial shape. Vice President and Private Wealth Advisor Caesar Cepeda, who began as an Asset Manager in 1986, provides specialized advice for High Net Worth individuals and non-profit organizations.

Natalie Kazarian

Private Wealth Advisor and Sr. Client Relationship Manager
A free spirit who loves nature and camping, Natalie is also one of the most meticulous, detail-oriented people you will ever meet. With “get-it-done” drive she watches out for our clients’ interests with a mothering instinct that spills over from the raising of two young girls and an even younger son with her husband Aram. Advocating for clients and finding answers to their questions and solutions to their problems is deep-rooted in this woman whose world is about family, heritage, and traditions. Her ability to organize and prioritize makes her efficient and effective when it comes to taking care of things. She loves to host friends and family at home whenever possible. She loves good food and company and the stimulation of working with different people to challenge herself to learn more. Private Wealth Advisor and Senior Client Relationship Manager Natalie Kazarian came to Snowden from Merrill Lynch, where she began her career in investment strategy in 2006. She previously worked as a business insurance specialist.

The DiCiaccio Team

225 South Lake Avenue
Suite 650
Pasadena, CA 91101

(626) 521-9801