Team
Hartwell & Vaughn's advisory team combines actuarial, legal, and portfolio management disciplines under one fiduciary roof in Nitra.
Meet the TeamHartwell & Vaughn is deliberately small. We believe that a senior advisor who knows your file, your family, and your concerns in detail is worth more than a large team where your account rotates through junior analysts. Each client at Hartwell & Vaughn has a named lead advisor with at least fifteen years of financial services experience, supported by in-house specialists in legal structuring and risk analytics. Our collective background spans investment banking, insurance actuarial practice, and cross-border tax advisory — disciplines that, combined, give us an unusually comprehensive view of the risks that genuinely threaten accumulated wealth in Central Europe. The stone-mint tone of our offices reflects our philosophy: calm, measured, and focused on what endures.
Three senior professionals lead every client mandate, bringing complementary expertise to bear on each structure.
Richard Hartwell has twenty-two years of experience in private wealth advisory and portfolio structuring, having previously held senior roles at two major Central European private banks. He leads mandate origination and acts as lead advisor for all family office relationships. Richard holds the CFA designation and is a member of the CFA Society Slovakia.
Claire Vaughn is a qualified actuary with a background in life and pensions insurance, specialising in the design of insurance-based protection structures for high-net-worth individuals. She spent twelve years at a Dublin-based life assurance group before co-founding Hartwell & Vaughn. Claire oversees all wrapper selection, actuarial stress-testing, and product due diligence.
Tomáš Sedlák is a Slovak-qualified attorney with additional qualifications in Austrian and Czech tax law. He coordinates all cross-border structuring work, liaising with notaries, tax authorities, and foreign counsel to ensure each client structure is legally robust across every relevant jurisdiction. Tomáš joined the firm in 2013 after seven years at a Bratislava corporate law firm.
“I have worked with three advisory firms over the past twenty years. What distinguishes Hartwell & Vaughn is that Richard Hartwell still takes my calls personally, even after five years as a client. The relationship is genuine, not managed by a team of assistants. That continuity of attention is rare and genuinely valuable.”
Dr. Jana Kováčová, Nitra
Financial regulation, tax law, and market structure in Central Europe evolve continuously. Hartwell & Vaughn maintains its technical edge through systematic continuing professional development for every team member: annual attendance at the European Financial Planning Association conference, quarterly regulatory briefings with specialist Slovak and Austrian counsel, and ongoing participation in the CFA Institute's investment and ethics programmes. We also conduct an annual internal strategy review where every client mandate is stress-tested against a set of adverse scenarios — including equity market drawdowns of 30% or more, sharp interest rate reversals, and currency dislocation events. The results of these reviews are shared with clients in a plain-language annual letter, giving you direct insight into how your capital protection structures are expected to behave under pressure.
All introductory conversations are conducted by a named partner, not a business development executive. Contact us to arrange a time that suits you.
Contact the Team