Brian Farkas
Biography
Brian Farkas started working for the New York Times in 1971, and then the New York Daily News in 1972. He graduated High School in 1972 and went to Nassau Community College, followed by SUNY at Farmingdale, graduating with an Associate’s degree in Business Administration. Brian then attended one semester at Hofstra University, but quit after the first semester, as his job made it difficult for him to continue. In 1978, while still working for the New York Times, he was asked by two pressmen from the New York Daily News if he would take a look at their Disco. After he did, he took on the challenge of running it and turned it around from a losing business to a profitable business.
In 1979, while working part time for Collector’s Corner, his friend’s father’s gold, silver and jewelry store, he was told that the Manhattan Pennysaver was for sale, and he bought it for his 25th birthday. After converting that from the smallest of five local weekly publications into the largest of three, Brian decided to sell out and went into Financial Planning.
Brian worked at a small bond brokerage firm, and after a year he joined a wire house called Thomson McKinnon Securities which was bought in 1989 by Prudential Bache. That wasn’t the right fit for him, so he joined a small broker-dealer as a partner and trader, where he sat on the desk and placed orders for other brokers. Brian was only there a year when he started receiving phone calls to join Invest with Chemical Bank’s Investment Services. Brian eventually said ‘YES’ and the next five years he accomplished becoming #1 at Chemical in 1992, #1 for Invest in 1992 and #1 in the country for Putnam Investments in the Banking Division. Brian maintained his #1 position for Putnam for three years in a row, 1992-1994, a country record.
It was in 1995 that Chemical and Chase Banks merged, and he was asked to help with the merger on the Investment side. He went to Chase as a VP in charge of High Net Worth clients in all of Suffolk County, New York. A year and a half later, he started Barons Financial Strategies, Inc. where he could help everyone.
The rest, as they say . . . is History.