Our Team
Every Hartwell & Mercer client relationship is led by a partner with at least fifteen years of capital protection experience — not delegated to a relationship manager.
Meet the Team
Hartwell & Mercer has deliberately remained a small practice. We cap active client relationships at a level that allows each partner to know every mandate in detail — the family dynamics, the business history, the succession intentions, the currency sensitivities. Growth for its own sake would compromise that intimacy, so we grow only when we can maintain it. Our Prešov office occupies a warm terracotta-cream townhouse on Hlavná, and the atmosphere there is deliberately unhurried: we take the time to understand before we advise. That philosophy extends to our hiring — every adviser joins with established expertise in EU financial regulation, risk architecture, or insurance law, and spends their first year learning our methodology before leading a client relationship independently.
Three founding partners and two senior associates form the advisory core of the practice.
Richard spent fourteen years at a Vienna-based private bank before co-founding the practice in 2011. His specialisation is insurance-wrapper structuring and cross-border fiduciary arrangements across Austria, Slovakia, and Liechtenstein. He leads the firm's most complex multi-jurisdictional mandates and chairs the quarterly investment committee.
Sophia's background is in institutional risk management — she spent eight years constructing stress-testing frameworks for a Prague-based asset manager before turning her attention to private clients. She leads portfolio construction, scenario modelling, and the firm's FX and counterparty risk review process. Sophia holds the CFA charter and a postgraduate degree in financial risk management from Charles University.
Marek joined in 2016 after a decade as a notary specialising in succession and estate law in eastern Slovakia. His legal background gives Hartwell & Mercer an unusually precise understanding of how financial structures interact with Slovak and EU inheritance frameworks. He leads succession planning engagements and coordinates with external notaries and tax advisers on behalf of clients.
“What set Hartwell & Mercer apart was that Richard himself was in every meeting — from the initial risk review through to the final foundation deed. I never felt I was being passed along a chain. For something as important as how my family inherits what I have spent thirty years building, that continuity was non-negotiable.”
Miroslav Šimko, Bardejov — retired civil engineer
Independence is not a marketing word at Hartwell & Mercer — it is a structural feature. We accept no trailer fees, retrocessions, or placement commissions from any product provider, fund manager, or insurance carrier. Our only income is the advisory fee we agree with you at the outset, reviewed annually and renegotiated if the scope of the mandate changes. This structure means our recommendations are shaped entirely by your risk profile and objectives, never by the economics of a distribution arrangement. We disclose our fee schedule in full at the first meeting, and we publish it on the contact page of this site. If you have ever wondered whether your adviser is recommending a product because it suits you or because it suits them, you should not have to wonder. At Hartwell & Mercer, the answer is always the same: it suits you, or we do not recommend it.
Contact us to arrange an introductory call with Richard or Sophia. There is no obligation, and no junior staff will intercept your enquiry.
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