Meet the Team

Christopher N. Brown, MBA^®, CFP® AIF®, is President of Ivy League Financial Advisors LLC located in Rockville, Maryland. Ivy League Financial Advisors LLC provides comprehensive financial planning and investment advisory services on a “Fee-Only” basis to individuals and small businesses. Chris specializes in retirement planning, investment management, college planning, estate planning, and planning for small business owners.

Ivy League Financial Advisors LLC is compensated solely by its clients and does not receive commissions based on the sale of any investment or insurance product. In addition, the firm does not accept referral fees.

Chris is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) licensee, having completed his coursework from the College for Financial Planning in Denver, Colorado. He holds a B.A degree in Economics and a B.S. degree in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from Cornell University. He also holds a Masters of Business Administration (MBA^®) Degree from the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College, repeatedly ranked by both the Wall Street Journal and Forbes Magazine as the country’s best business school. Chris is also a former instructor with the College for Financial Planning. In addition, he has received the designation of Accredited Investment Fiduciary® (AIF®) from the Center for Fiduciary Studies.

Chris is a member of the Financial Planning Association and the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA), the “Fee-Only” financial planning association. He is one of more than 2,000 NAPFA-Registered Financial Advisors® nationwide. NAPFA and Fee-Only Financial Planning have been endorsed by organizations such as the AARP, the Consumer Federation of America, Jane Bryant Quinn of Newsweek, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine, Money magazine, and former SEC Chairman, Arthur Levitt. He was co-chair of the 2002 NAPFA Northeast/Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference held in Baltimore, Maryland and is currently Dean of NAPFA University’s School of Investments. He has also headed NAPFA’s partnership with Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine to bring retirement help to consumers in Kiplinger’s annual “JumpStart Your Retirement Days”. Since 2004, tens of thousands of consumers have received objective advice from NAPFA-Registered Financial Advisors® working through this initiative. He is also Dean of NAPFA University’s School of Practice Management.

Chris has been quoted in numerous publications including the Washington Post, the Washington Post Magazine, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine, Money Magazine, BusinessWeek Magazine, the Baltimore Sun, Mutual Funds magazine, Forbes on-line, and Investment Advisor Magazine. In December 2002 and again in 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2014 he was named by Washingtonian Magazine as a financial advisor you can “Trust with Your Money”. Ivy League Financial Advisors LLC was also named as a top Investment Advisory Firm in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 by Financial Advisor Magazine and Wealth Manager Magazine.

Chris lives in Gaithersburg, MD with his wife, Denise, their sons Jeffrey and Andrew, and their two dogs, Pepper and Casper.

To contact Chris, please call him at (301) 258-1300 ext. 301 or email at cbrown@ivyfa.com.

Lisa Crivella has been with Ivy League Financial Advisors since January of 2006, starting out as an intern during college and moving up all the way to our Director of Operations in February of 2012. Lisa graduated from the Certified Financial Planning program at Virginia Tech where she was also a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma and served as both the Treasuer and Marshall for that organization.

Lisa's main responsibilty here at Ivy League is to guide our clients through the financial planning process beginning with the very first meeting, to then gathering all of the necessary data and documents and preparing the actual financial plan, and finally to presenting the plan to the clients for review. Lisa is essential to making sure that no stone goes un-turned and that each client is fully engaged throughout the entire process.

Lisa is also usually the person our clients call when they have a question about their account or need assistance solving a problem. She also generates our quarterly performance reports, rebalances our client's portfolios and she also maintans the different financial systems that we use such as our portfolio reporting system, our customer relationship management system and of course our custodian, TD Ameritrade Institutional.

Lisa is a native of Rockville, MD where she attended Holy Child for high school where she played varsity basketball and softball. She is currently a volunteer for Junior Achievement, she coaches a girls basketball team, and also plays on a few adult softball leagues. She enjoys spending what is left of her free time with her family in Bethany Beach, Delaware.

To contact Lisa, please call her at (301) 258-1300 ext. 302 or email at lcrivella@ivyfa.com.

Kristin Bushong has been the Director of Marketing and Public Relations here at Ivy League Financial Advisors since February of 2012. She has a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication with a concentration in Public Relations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as well as a varied professional background that includes both the financial services industry as well as the marketing and public relations industry.

Her day to day responsibilities at Ivy League includes managing all of our out-going client communications, engaging with our clients and potential clients via our social media channels, updating this website, working with the local and national media on behalf of the firm, as well as representing the firm at various local community and networking events.

Her lifelong obsession with personal finance and frugality led her to financial services in 2008, and that's where she's been ever since. Working on both sides of the spectrum - financial sales to financial industry marketing and public relations - serves her well in her current role at Ivy League.

Kristin has a passion for educating others about the basics of personal financial responsibility as well as how to organize and maximize their available financial resources. She is also a staunch advocate for the "Fee-Only" financial advisor model and the fiduciary standard, a belief she latched onto early in the industry, and firmly believes that every client should know how their advisor is being paid.

She served as a Staff Writer for her college newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, as well as contributed monthly financial articles for young professionals to The Charleston Mercury newspaper. She has spoken on financial topics to various groups and is one of the few who actually enjoys speaking in public.

Kristin resides in the Glover Park neighborhood of Washington, DC with her husband Matt, their dog Gracie and their cat Callie. She spends her free time exploring the city, training for marathons and other long distance races, as well as traveling to see family in North Carolina and Kentucky.

To contact Kristin please call her at (301) 258-1300 ext. 303 or email at kbostic@ivyfa.com.