Our Leadership team

The management team of Independent Financial Group began with a simple premise: Transfer their years of successful financial service experience into a solid broker–dealer framework dedicated to superior services for the independent registered representative.

Scott Heising, Founder

Scott Heising
President, CEO, Founder

David A. Fischer, Co-Founder of IFG

David Fischer
Co-Founder

Sarah Kreisman
Chief Legal Counsel and Vice President, Compliance

Chad Cristo Headshot

Chad Cristo
Senior Vice President, National Sales & Marketing

Lauren Goettsche
Vice President, Operations

scott davis

Scott Davis
Vice President, Finance

Travis Hicks, Vice President of Alternative Investments

Travis Hicks
Vice President, Alternative Investments

Richard Mireles, Vice President of Supervision

Richard Mireles
Vice President, Branch Supervision

Marco Fuentes Headshot

Marco Fuentes
Director, Compliance

Doug Hall, Chief Compliance Officer

Doug Hall
Chief Compliance Officer, Brokerage

Dan-Thomas-CRCP®

Dan Thomas
Chief Compliance Officer, Advisory

Paul Larrabee, Director of Insurance & Annuities

Paul Larrabee
Director, Insurance and Annuities

Scott Heising, Founder
Scott Heising

Scott Heising has worked in the financial services industry since 1991. In March of 2003, Scott founded Independent Financial Group with the help of a small group of dedicated employees who had worked with him throughout his career. He was the Chief Financial Officer of Sentra Securities and Spelman & Co. from 1997 to 2002 and the Chief Financial Officer of SunAmerica Securities Corporation from 2000 to 2002. In addition to founding Independent Financial Group, he has started and managed an accounting practice focusing on “S” corporations.

Scott attended San Diego State University where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration and in 1998, earned his CPA Certificate. He is responsible for strategic planning, financial reporting and the operations of the organization. Scott is a Registered Financial and Operations Principal and an Investment Advisor holding FINRA series 7, 23, and 65 licenses.

David Fischer

David Fischer has over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. In that time, he has worked in a multitude of roles including wholesaling, recruiting, marketing, business development and senior management at companies such as LPL, Putnam Companies and AIG SunAmerica.

In his current role, David is responsible for all recruiting activities, branch development, corporate communications, conferences and marketing for the company.

Prior to joining Independent Financial Group as a partner, he served as Senior Vice President of National Recruiting at AIG Advisor Group, where he was responsible for directing recruiting at all six of their networked independent broker dealers. David graduated from Pepperdine University with a Bachelors Degree in Organizational Communications.

Sarah Kreisman, JD

A three-month opportunity with Pershing after law school has turned into an over 20-year career in the financial services industry. With experience such as helping form Pershing Trading Company and developing the advisory platform, Sarah went to work for SunAmerica Securities, focusing on customer complaints and legal and regulatory inquiries. She then managed advertising, registration, and surveillance. Her final role there was handling the litigation docket and acting as the corporate representative during mediation and arbitration. Prior to IFG, she spent 10½ years in compliance at E*TRADE including running the regulatory inquiries group and as the Chief Compliance Officer.

Sarah graduated with a BA in Art History from Emory University and received her law degree from Seton Hall. Sarah holds FINRA series 7, 24, and 63 licenses.

Chad Cristo, CIMA®

Chad is a seasoned industry professional who has the knowledge and the drive we’ve been looking for to take our advisors’ business to the next level and we’re excited to see what the future holds.Chad comes to IFG after serving 29 years at Putnam Investments as Managing Director and West Regional Director. He is a proven sales and marketing leader that has hired, mentored, trained, and developed a sales team that has resulted in one of the top-performing regions for 14 consecutive years. He has a B.S. from Boston University in International Management and Finance, is a Certified Investment Management Analyst and has obtained Series 24, 7, 65, 6 and 63 licenses.

Lauren Slater

Lauren Slater is IFG’s Director of Operations. With IFG since May of 2019, Lauren has been instrumental in streamlining processes related to account opening, maintenance, and closing. She has worked diligently alongside Branch Supervision in driving the adoption of Straight Through Processing and was able to launch IFG’s remote cashiering platform.

Lauren earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Iowa State University. She started her career in financial services working for Genworth Financial. Prior to working for IFG, Lauren worked as the Operations Manager of Advisory Billing and Reporting for Cetera Financial in Segundo, CA. While at Cetera, she also spent time on the Transitions team and as Supervisor of the Cashiering team.

Scott Davis, CPA

Though newer to the broker-dealer industry, Scott Davis comes to us from Acadia Healthcare where he was CFO of their Comprehensive Treatment Division. Prior to that he was Controller of Technology & IT for YP (formerly AT&T Interactive) and held various financial leadership roles at Discovery Communications.

Scott holds an MBA in Finance from American University and is an active California CPA. He enjoys spending time with his family, playing guitar, running and cycling.

Travis Hicks, MBA

Travis started with IFG in 2007 as an intern. Now the Vice President of Alternative Investments, he oversees due diligence on all alternative investments and works closely with the firm’s representatives in enhancing their knowledge of the products on the platform.

Mr. Hicks received his MBA with a concentration in Finance from San Diego State University and a B.S. in Economics with a concentration in Finance from California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo.

He currently holds the following licenses: FINRA Series 22, 7, 24 and 66, CA Real Estate Broker and CA Insurance Agent.

Richard Mireles, Vice President of Supervision
Richard Mireles

Richard Mireles joined Independent Financial Group as a Compliance Analyst in 2010. Later he was promoted to Supervisory Principal in the Branch Supervision Department. Prior to IFG, Mr. Mireles’s experience in Financial Services included the position of Client Planning Manager at Millennium Wealth Management under the umbrella of WFP Securities, a local San Diego Broker-Dealer in addition to sales as a Registered Representative/Investment Advisor Representative.

Richard has Bachelor’s degree in Finance from Cal State Long Beach and completed the Personal Financial Planner Program at UCLA. He holds Series 7, 66, & 24, California Life & Health, California Real Estate licenses and is certified by the California Tax Education Council for tax preparation (CRTP).

Marco Fuentes Headshot
Marco Fuentes
Doug Hall, AIF®

Doug Hall has worked in the financial services industry since 1993. Over the course of Doug’s career, he has had various roles at SunAmerica Securities, HD Vest, and United Planners’ Financial Services of America. At United Planners, Doug was the CCO for over ten years where he cultivated a culture of compliance while providing positive solutions for representatives.

Doug graduated from The Ohio State University with a BA in Business Administration majoring in Accounting. Doug is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary and holds FINRA series 4, 6, 7, 24, 53, 63, 65, and 66 licenses.

Dan Thomas, CRCP®
Dan Thomas is the CCO of Advisory Compliance at Independent Financial Group, LLC. He joined IFG in May of 2018 as a Supervisory Principal. Later, he was promoted to Director, Compliance and is now the CCO of Advisory.

Dan brings more than 20 years of industry experience that includes various roles at both wirehouses and independent broker dealers such as Prudential Securities and LPL Financial. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management from Western Governors University and is a graduate of the FINRA Institute at Wharton, University of Pennsylvania where he earned his Certified Regulatory and Compliance Professional (CRCP)® designation. Dan holds the FINRA series 4, 7, 24, 53, 63, 65 and California Life & Health with Variable authorization insurance license.
Paul Larrabee

Paul Larrabee is the Director of Insurance and Annuities at Independent Financial Group, LLC. Prior to joining IFG, Paul spent 21 years with Crump Life Insurance Services, Inc. He has been providing consultative services to financial advisors since 1997.

Paul’s insurance career started with Inter-Mark Financial providing point-of-sale solutions. In addition, he has also held positions at Transamerica Financial and Railroad Employees Insurance Group.

Paul holds FINRA series 6 and 63 licenses and earned his BS in Business Administration from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah.