Founder and Wealth Manager, Cookie Walden has been an investment advisor since 1997. She consistently refers to her experience as having worked through the best of the bulls and the worst of the bears in an experiential 18-year period where the market did just that. “Being able to navigate through those market conditions can only be credited to the application of time-tested investment disciplines that are unadulterated by neither fear nor greed.”

A cum laude Economics graduate of the University of San Carlos in the Philippines, Cookie started out as a representative for Independent Capital Management back in 1997. She was promoted to District Manager within six months but in 1999 decided to move to Trilogy Financial Services, Inc. for its comprehensive and holistic approach to financial planning. She was promoted to Vice of President of Investments within five years and headed the Management Advisory Council for 2 years. She was consistently recognized as one of the top 13 producers of the firm’s Baker’s Dozen for 12 consecutive years. She populated the elite group for a 13th year and was promoted to Senior VP of Investments before deciding to found her own firm, Walden Wealth Management.

Cookie holds Finra Series 6,7, 63, and 65 securities regulations license as well as life and health insurance licences. “With these licenses and my relationships with other professionals, I am able to provide a holistic and comprehensive approach towards financial planning. It is pointless for clients to successfully accumulate investment wealth only to lose most of it to Uncle Sam or even everything to chronic illness, disability, or death.”

Cookie works with her clients to accumulate wealth, manage it, and disseminate it in a tax-efficient manner. She works extensively with business owners, retirees and pre-retirees to ensure an inspired retirement by aligning their values with finances designed to last; and provides tools for business owners to allow their money to work hard for them instead of the other way around.

“I am in the business of teaching people in all walks of life how to use money sustainably and harness its power to achieve the ultimate goal: The net improvement in the quality of their lives.”

On a personal note, Cookie is married to Tom Walden who is a Senior VP of Trilogy Financial Services. They have two wonderful boys Cody (7) and Lance (5) who live and breathe sports and music. The entire family is an active member of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest. In that Purpose-Driven environment, Pastor Rick Warren does not breed comfortable, couch Christians so sent they were, for purposeful ‘discomforts’!

Cookie has done innumerable mission trips locally and globally to Peru, Rwanda, Mexico, and the Philippines. She volunteered at the Saddleback International Ministries for three years and is now serving at an Assisted Living Community in Laguna Woods. “When you see the suffering around the world and the dire need for God in people’s lives, it puts things in perfect perspective and it takes our attitude of gratitude up a notch. It also makes our sheltered, comfortable little lives and the things we agonize over here in the U.S. seem downright frivolous. “Yes, there are more things in life larger than our own, and more things in life that are more valuable than wealth itself.”