Soo Yeon Kim

CFP®, EA

BlueSky Wealth Advisors

Wealth Advisor

Soo Yeon Kim

CFP®, EA

BlueSky Wealth Advisors

Wealth Advisor

As a fee-only financial planner, my focus is to offer unbiased financial advice to help you achieve your life goals. - Soo Yeon Kim, CFP®, EA

Fee-Only financial planner located in New Bern, NC, serving clients locally and across the country

Soo Yeon Kim is a New Bern, NC fee-only financial planner. BlueSky Wealth Advisors provides comprehensive financial planning and wealth management to help medical practictioners, small business owners, successful professionals and retirees organize, grow and protect their assets through life’s transitions. As a fee-only, fiduciary, and independent financial advisor, Soo Yeon Kim is never paid a commission of any kind, and has a legal obligation to provide unbiased and trustworthy financial advice.

Soo Yeon Kim is responsible for successfully maintaining client data, scenario building, plan development, and plan presentations. She also formulates and implements financial planning and investment management strategies while managing clients' day-to-day advisory needs. 

Prior to joining BlueSky, Soo worked for GEICO Auto Insurance and GAINSCO Auto Insurance as an actuarial analyst. While she enjoyed her career as an actuary, she wanted to pursue a career helping people on a personal level. Having worked for numerous years in the actuarial field, she had gained significant knowledge of the financial planning field. Soo quickly realized becoming a financial planner would satisfy both her desire to work with people on a fiduciary level, as well as continue her interest of financial analysis.   

Soo moved from South Korea to California when she was 11 years old. She eventually made her way east to attend college. She graduated cum laude from Wellesley College in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in Economics. She also attended the Student Exchange Program at Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduating with a 4.00 GPA. After college, she moved to Washington D.C. where she met her husband who was attending medical school. In 2020, Soo successfully completed all CFP® education requirements and earned her CFP® certification. Later, in October of 2021, Soo went on to earn her IRS Enrolled Agent (EA) designation.

Soo lives with her baby girl, Sloane; toddler, Wells; and husband, Sang, in Bethesda, MD.

Soo Yeon Kim is a Member of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors

The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) is a leading professional association of Fee-Only financial advisors - highly trained professionals who are committed to working in the best interests of those they serve.

NAPFA members live by three important values:

  • To be the beacon for independent, objective financial advice for individuals and families.
  • To be the champion of financial services delivered in the public interest.
  • To be the standard bearer for the emerging profession of financial planning.

As a young man, David L. Blain, CEO of BlueSky Wealth Advisors, was always working hard to earn extra money by cutting grass, delivering newspapers, laying sod, or paving roads. With the help of his father, he invested those hard-earned dollars and, as he watched his money grow, developed a passion for investing. David’s self-guided study of finance continued even as his main focus was on his engineering courses at West Point and later leading soldiers as an officer in the U.S. Army.

Eventually, as he became more financially successful, David looked for assistance from investment, real-estate and tax professionals. To his dismay, he found a world of confusing titles, service models and fee structures. Not only that, David was underwhelmed by the level of expertise and personal service available to someone who wasn’t ultra-wealthy. He simply could not understand why it was so difficult to find a firm that provided honest, high-quality, reliable advice for a fee that was transparent and reasonable.

As soon as David left the military in 1999, he joined the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) and started D.L. Blain and Co., (originally Blain Investment Counsel) becoming one of only a handful of firms in the nation that offered comprehensive financial services on a fee-only basis. D.L. Blain and Co. had its genesis in providing a service to clients in the way David wanted to be served when he was looking for an advisor.

A few years later, after earning the prestigious Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 2003, David and his wife were able to fulfill their dream of living on the water by moving to New Bern, North Carolina. As they began their lives on the coast, David’s passion for offering financial solutions on a fiduciary basis was met with great success. Soon, it was clear to him that he needed to create a plan in case something happened to him so that his clients would not be adversely affected. He knew the best way to accomplish this was to build an elite team of advisors and support personnel who could deliver the same level of service while guaranteeing there would always be more than one person accountable for their needs.

David started by creating a client service department. This ensured that he and other advisors could focus on the clients’ planning and investment needs, not time-consuming paperwork and processes. Then, over the span of several years, he continued to hire highly-credentialed advisors from all over the country, creating an extremely skilled advisory team.

In the summer of 2013, David was presented with an opportunity he knew would position BlueSky to improve the financial lives of many more people; D.L. Blain & Co. would acquire Pleasanton Financial Advisors in Pleasanton, California.  The former owners chose David’s firm over several other offers because they were impressed by the similarities of the two companies, and the unique and distinctive perspectives they shared on advising clients on investment and financial affairs. 

As the firm began this exciting new chapter, David felt he needed a new name that would better describe the optimistic future of the firm, so he changed the name to BlueSky Wealth Advisors. Then, two years later, another incredible opportunity came along allowing the acquisition of a second fee-only firm, LifeStream Financial, in Santa Clara, California.

Today, BlueSky Wealth Advisors continues to thrive, finding new and innovative ways of bringing fee-only financial services to successful individuals and families all over the world. This success is fueled by the commitment we have to helping our clients improve their lives through the application of financial planning and investment strategies while addressing the unique circumstances and goals of each individual and family we proudly serve.

Fee-Only, Fiduciary, Independent: Three Important Criteria to Consider When Choosing a Financial Advisor.

Specialties

  • Comprehensive Financial Planning
  • Retirement Income Planning
  • Investment Management
  • College Education Planning
  • Tax Planning

Ideal Clients

  • Retirees and Near Retirees
  • Growing Families
  • Business Owners and Executives
  • Sudden Money Situations
  • Novice Investors

Working Together

  • In-Office Meetings
  • Virtual Meetings
  • Clearly Defined Fees
  • No Product Sales
  • Complimentary Initial Consultation

Professional Designations & Affiliations

  • National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA)
    Soo Yeon Kim is a NAPFA-Registered Financial Advisor

    The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) is a leading professional association of Fee-Only financial advisors—highly trained professionals who are committed to working in the best interests of those they serve.

  • Certified Financial Planner (CFP)
    Soo Yeon Kim is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professional - Click for Verification

    CFP® professionals are held to strict ethical standards to ensure financial planning recommendations are in your best interest. What’s more, a CFP® professional must acquire several years of experience related to delivering financial planning services to clients and pass the comprehensive CFP® Certification Exam before they can use the CFP® designation.

  • Dimensional Funds
    BlueSky Wealth Advisors is an Approved Dimensional Funds Advisor

    Dimensional believes an advisor can work closely with you to understand your financial needs and provide a range of wealth management services, while encouraging the discipline essential to long-term investment success. Financial advisors who work with Dimensional operate independently from Dimensional and vary in the extent to which they use Dimensional funds.

Contact Soo Yeon Kim

Please enter your name
Please enter a valid 10 digit US phone number in the format xxx-yyy-zzzz
Please enter a valid email address
Please leave a message for the advisor.
Clear Form
Please verify that you aren't a robot.
There was an issue sending your message. If this issue persists, please contact support.
Message Sent! Your message info will be displayed in other advisor contact forms to make it easy to send to multiple advisors. We do not share your message content beyond the advisors you choose.

Office Locations:

  • 2131 S Glenburnie Rd
    Suite 8
    New Bern, NC 28562

Outdated Browser Detected!

If you're seeing this message, it's because the web browser you're using to access our site is much older and no longer supported. Due to privacy and safety concerns, we don't allow older browsers to access our site. In order to access WhyFiduciary.com, please use a newer browser, like Internet Explorer 10 or above, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox.

Download a newer browser