Rooted in Relationships

Anthony Perez has been helping people make sense of their money since 2003. In 2011, he took a leap and founded Orchard Financial Group with an assistant and an intern; today Anthony is at the helm as the CEO and it's now a team of eleven, including his sister, who's been with the firm for more than a decade. Ask Anthony about the growth and he'll deflect every time: “I am who I surround myself with,” he says — and he's built a team that cares about your outcome as much as he does.

What lights him up are the moments money makes possible: a family's first home, a child off to college, a client discovering — sometimes through tears — that they have more than enough because they planned well. He's also the person people call for the conversations often avoided, from divorce to business transitions, because he believes there's almost always a path where everyone walks away whole.

An MBA earned in Berlin sent Anthony across Europe and South America during his studies — the start of a wanderlust that has solidified him as the team's go-to for travel advice. That same curiosity carries into how he practices today: Anthony is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional and an Accredited Investment Fiduciary® (AIF®), and he holds the Certified Exit Planning Advisor® (CEPA®) and Certified Divorce Financial Analyst® (CDFA®) designations. These are the specialties behind the business transitions, family finances, and divorces he's spent years helping people navigate.

Community matters just as much to Anthony as his clients do. He's a longtime supporter of local organizations including Project Angel Food and the Downtown Women's Center. Rooted in Los Angeles, he spends his downtime in the garden and at home with the two dogs he calls his daughters.

CA Insurance License 0E05396. Resident State: CA.

Eric Smutko is a Senior Financial Advisor and Senior Investment Officer at Orchard Financial Group, where he also heads the team's internal investment committee and research. Over his 23 years in the industry, he's built his practice around a role not every advisor takes on: the advisor-coordinator, who develops the strategy with the client and then champions the implementation, working directly with a client's accountants, attorneys, and other professionals to see it through. That even-tempered, level-headed approach serves clients well in the best of times, and even more so in the most stressful ones.

His specialty is investment analysis and recommendations, honed since he began his career in 2003 and rooted in an analytical mindset that comes naturally — he grew up in a household of accountants. Finding new investment opportunities is what he enjoys most about the job, and building a plan tailored to each client's specific circumstances is central to how he practices.

Outside of work, Eric heads for the outdoors — a round of golf close to home, or better yet, a day fly fishing on a mountain river. He's also an avid traveler, drawn to new destinations, cultures, and culinary experiences around the world.

CA Insurance License: 0E10146. Resident State: CA

Audrey Schmedes may not have started her career in financial services, but she's found her forever passion in the work she does with Orchard Financial Group. Before advising clients, she spent years in the enterprise software world, working with Microsoft and Microsoft partner organizations across the U.S. and abroad, including four years living in Copenhagen, Denmark in a global marketing role. Looking for work that felt more personal, she made the leap into financial services through Merrill Lynch's advisor training program, then continued on with Ameriprise Financial before finding her professional home at Orchard Financial Group. She's spent the past nine years building a career around exactly what she was looking for: real relationships with the people she works with.

What Audrey loves most is helping clients work toward the goals that matter most to them — whether that's buying a first home, funding a major renovation, planning for a child's education, or preparing for retirement. She's the advisor who wants you to understand your options, investments, and plan in addition to trusting that it's all handled, and she has a knack for spotting the small planning adjustments that add up to something significant down the road. Few things make her happier than a client enjoying the result of the hard work, planning and execution they worked through together. That same instinct to go deeper is what led her to earn her MBA and become a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional — Audrey is committed to continually sharpening the skills she brings to the people who trust her with their financial future.

Audrey is an avid traveler who loves exploring new places and cultures, and closer to home, she treasures time with family and friends — you'll often find her at a live concert, a ballgame, or a play. Family means everything to her: she recently built a granny flat on her property so her 94-year-old mother could live nearby, a project that says as much about who Audrey is as anything on her résumé.

CA Insurance License: 0H68248. Resident State: CA

Kristie Liuag began her tenure with Orchard as a UCLA undergrad — an intern hired for a very specific, very of-the-moment problem: navigate new regulations and new online opportunities to connect with clients. When she came on full-time, she took over marketing, investment plan writing, and investment management — one third of the three-person team. Thirteen years later, as Orchard has grown into a team of eleven, Kristie has grown right along with it, into her current role as Director of Operations and Financial Advisor.

Ask Kristie what she loves about the job and she won't say "the numbers," even though the numbers land squarely in her lane — she sits on Orchard's investment committee, alongside Chase Johnson, Financial Advisor, Portfolio Administrator, and Eric Smutko, Senior Financial Advisor, Senior Investment Officer, PIM Portfolio Manager , coordinating the market analysis and investment selection behind the practice's growth. What she'll actually tell you is that no two days look the same, and that's exactly how she likes it: one day she's untangling an operations bottleneck, the next she's dreaming up the firm's next marketing plan, the next she's elbow-deep in a client's portfolio. While many days are spent supporting the team in various capacities, Kristie remains passionate about work directly with clients — alongside Claudine Rajah, Registered Client Service Director, she's one of the people Orchard leans on when a client's situation gets complicated, collaborating with the team to ensure even the most complex, highest-touch cases get handled with the same care as everything else. She's most in her element at the intersection of it all: wealth planning, portfolio management, and the range of responsibilities that come with running a small business, where she gets to be equal parts strategist, fixer, and the person who remembers everyone's name.

Kristie is a die-hard Packers fan living happily close to her alma mater, UCLA, with just enough soccer love thrown in to round out her love of collegiate and professional sports. She's the aunt who shows up, whether it's a game, a first day of school, or whatever her nieces and nephews in LA and Utah are up to, and the friend who's always chasing down a new restaurant, hobby, or trip, usually all three in the same month.

CA Insurance License 0K56512. Resident State: CA

Michael Kawase spent his first few years out of UC Santa Barbara at a large U.S. corporation before an opportunity in wealth management caught his eye — and he took it. He's spent the 23 years since as a Financial Advisor, now Senior Financial Advisor, at Orchard Financial Group, drawn to a more personal way of doing this work. Originally from Orange County, Michael is now based across Los Angeles and Orange County working with clients throughout the region he's always called home.

As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, Michael loves getting to know his clients and sharing the knowledge that's relevant to their life. Coming from a big family himself, he has a natural feel for helping other families navigate the biggest financial conversations. Having a team around him who feels the same way has made that work even better. He does his best work face-to-face, or in many cases screen-to-screen, and problem-solving is always more fun, and more effective, when it's collaborative.

At home, Michael's two daughters — both in grade school — keep him busy, and he loves shuttling them to every activity and exposing them to as much as he and his wife can. He's always been the adventurous type — mountain biking, cycling, golf, and both ice and roller hockey keep him moving — and with a big family on both sides, weekends rarely stay quiet.

CA Insurance License 0E34139. Resident State: CA

Chase Johnson might be one of the newest members of the Orchard team, but he's also one of the fastest rising. Before joining the firm in 2023, not long after graduating from Cal State LA, he spent time helping homeowners and architects navigate LA's permit offices. Work there featured tough timelines, tougher situations, and a crash course in problem-solving under pressure. He brought all of that with him when he made the leap into wealth management, and in just three years has gone from industry novice to Financial Advisor and Portfolio Administrator, driven every step by that same problem-solving instinct.

Chase thrives on helping clients navigate their financial lives with real confidence, working with clients to turn the moving pieces of a plan into something that makes sense. He's happiest researching and building investment and trade recommendations and excels at the work, which is exactly why he was added to Orchard's Investment Committee, where he now sits alongside Kristie Liuag, Financial Advisor, Director of Operations, PIM Portfolio Manager, and Eric Smutko, Senior Financial Advisor, Senior Investment Officer, PIM Portfolio Manager, shaping the research and insights behind the team's investment decisions.

Chase's Sports & Entertainment Accredited Wealth Management Advisor℠ (SE-AWMA℠) designation isn't just a credential — it grew out of his own story. Years in competitive sports and the friendships that followed gave him real insight into what collegiate and professional athletes face financially, especially in the NIL era. That same loyalty shows up in his work with savers and retirees, too. Helping his parents navigate their retirement journeys taught him how meaningful good guidance can be, and he brings that same care to every client he works with today. Whether you're building momentum or planning your next chapter, Chase offers steady, personal support at every step.

A Los Angeles native, Chase can often be found enjoying a sporting event and picked up a new hobby in 2025 — joining a bowling league, as much for the game as for the camaraderie — and he makes time to volunteer whenever he can, always looking for ways to give back to the community he grew up in.

CA Insurance License 4440821. Resident State: CA.

Devin Marshall brings a steady, reassuring presence to his role as Financial Advisor and Client Relationship Manager at Orchard Financial Group. Starting his career in financial services in 2017, he built his foundation at Ameriprise, beginning as an executive assistant at an advisor practice in Michigan, before growing into a client-focused role at Orchard centered on coordination and relationship management.

Devin is often the steady hand behind Orchard's most complex, highest-touch client relationships. He works closely with and on the advisory team, and just as often reaches beyond it — coordinating directly with a client's other trusted professionals, from tax preparers to estate attorneys, so every moving piece of a sophisticated financial picture stays in sync. He's the point of contact clients turn to with a question, a next step, or a life event that needs immediate attention, and he takes pride in making sure nothing falls through the cracks.

Outside of work, Devin's a lifelong tennis player who still plays regularly, and a gardener whose love of the hobby started as a kid alongside his mother — today he keeps an indoor jungle of some of the trickier plants to grow. He's also drawn to nature-focused travel — he's already covered plenty of ground, with the Amazon rainforest and Australia's Great Barrier Reef topping what's next on his list.

CA Insurance License 4201371. Resident State: GA

Aprile Poag is Orchard's Registered Wealth Planning Director and the team's puzzle-master when it comes to a client's financial picture. Over her 10 years with the team, she's built a role around taking in a mountain of information — tax opportunities and risks, stock options, retirement income planning, major purchase decisions, lending, insurance, estate planning strategies — and collaborating with the advisory team to create a clear, tailored strategy that can be put into action. She holds the Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor (CRPC®) designation, reflecting the specialized focus she brings to retirement readiness and income planning.

What sets Aprile apart is that she never lets the numbers crowd out the person behind them. She listens closely to the purpose and weighs priorities and goals alongside the analysis, keeping the process personalized. Guiding clients through the wealth planning process and helping them evaluate their readiness for retirement and other goals is what she finds most rewarding about the job, and she takes real satisfaction in spotting opportunities, building tailored strategies, and watching clients make meaningful progress.

Her professional background spans budget planning, bookkeeping, financial reporting, and stock option analysis, and her favorite part of the job is exactly what that background prepared her for: taking a client's full situation and building the specific strategy that gets them where they want to go.

Outside the office, Aprile is a leader and singer on her church's worship team. She's also deeply committed to service in her community, volunteering with Partners Against Violence in the Coachella Valley as a survivor advocate for assault victims, and working with the Everyone Initiative at Coachella festivals to help concertgoers stay safe and enjoy themselves.

CA Insurance License 0M63131. Resident State: CA.

Claudine Rajah is one of the longest-tenured members of the Orchard team, having spent the last 20 years building her career here — starting in an administrative role after earning her B.A. in Mass Communication, obtaining her Series 7 and 66 securities registrations in 2014, and growing into her current role as Registered Client Service Director. Over two decades, she's come to know some clients longer than anyone else on the team, and along the way, they've watched her grow into the client service specialist she is today, just as she's watched their lives evolve.

On a team of specialists, Claudine is at the forefront of both everyday service needs and the moments when a client's situation gets complicated. She coordinates the service side of estate settlements, business exits, business formation, trust and multigenerational planning, lending, and more, working closely alongside the advisory team to make sure every detail is handled. As the leader of Orchard's client service team, she brings warmth to the role that makes clients love working with her: she takes the time to really get to know each client — their life, their priorities, how they like to work together — then turns that into a genuine, personal experience. She's also the one who trains every new team member in client service, passing on two decades of know-how along the way.

At home, Claudine's world is her husband and two young children — cooking together, cheering them on at little league, and following along with the children's theater program. She's also a regular volunteer at her kids' school, one more place where her steady, attentive style shows up.

CA Insurance License 0K56283. Resident State: CA.