Welcome!
American by birth, Jennifer has personal experience with the life and technical financial planning opportunities and challenges faced by families with U.S. connections. She has lived overseas over half her life, thanks to her cross-cultural marriage, and is the proud mama of two tri-national kids: one applying to universities in various countries, while the other is a budding cross-border entrepreneur.
An industry veteran, Jennifer is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER practitioner (CFP®), Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA™), and a Trust and Estate Practitioner (TEP). She has served in a volunteer leadership capacity for the U.S. based Financial Planning Association, as an international chapter founder for its predecessor organization, the International Association for Financial Planning and for a former associate member of the Financial Planning Standards Board.
About Jennifer Patterson
After a career crisis in her early thirties brought on by her realization that all her industry related training in financial planning and investing—what the textbooks told her was all about helping people achieve their dreams—was in reality perpetuating the status quo of the Industrial Age sparked a life crisis, Jennifer faced what she calls the three core questions for life in the global village: Am I living where and how I want to? What’s my contribution? And can I make a difference through my work or because of it? Her answers to those questions led to her first book, When Families Cross Borders: A Guide for Internationally Mobile People, a groundbreaking work that was the first to address financial planning and wealth management for multinational families, dual citizens and the globally mobile.
She also contributed to “Living Your Best Life Abroad: Resources, Tips and Tools For Women Accompanying Their Partners on an International Move” and “Expat Women: Confessions-50 Answers to Your Real-Life Questions about Living Abroad.”
Her most recent book, “Financial Planning For Global Living: Go Beyond Cross-Border Tax and Legal Complexity to Location Independence, Financial Freedom and True Life Satisfaction” is in bookstores now.
Her career crisis also led to the founding of Patterson Partners Ltd., an independent financial advisory firm specializing in cross-border tax and financial planning for families with U.S. connections, through which she has advised clients whose traditional balance sheet has reflected net worth ranging from negative to tens of millions, across multiple countries.
Jennifer is now a recognized pioneer in cross-border wealth and life design. She founded the Global Institute for Life and Wealth to teach cross-border technical and practice related topics to practitioners and to run events and training for the globally mobile on how to create, grow, and manage financial assets in a way that most supports how we want to live our lives, globally.
She is a frequent speaker and serves as the lead trainer for Life + Wealth Weekend; a weekend planning seminar for cross-border couples.
Crossing Borders
Financial Planning for Global Living
Find out what works, from someone who lives it. Go beyond the legal complexity and cross-border tax planning… and find true financial freedom.