Ben Gordon

Ben Gordon founded Vaquero Private Wealth on a conviction that the families he had spent two decades serving deserved something the wirehouse model could never deliver: an advisor whose only obligation was to them.

Before launching Vaquero, Ben spent more than 20 years at Merrill Lynch, ultimately serving as a Senior Vice President and Private Wealth Advisor within the firm's Private Banking and Investment Group — the division reserved for the firm's most complex, highest-net-worth client relationships. It was an elite platform with extraordinary resources. But it was also a platform with structural conflicts — proprietary products, institutional priorities, and layers of bureaucracy that too often stood between a great advisor and the right answer for a client.

Ben left to build something better.

At Vaquero, he works directly with ultra-high-net-worth entrepreneurs, executives, and multi-generational families to anticipate and address the full range of financial priorities that accompany significant wealth. His approach is defined by two qualities that rarely coexist: deep technical expertise and genuine responsiveness. He is as comfortable structuring a private equity co-investment as he is coordinating a complex trust and estate plan — and he understands that the most valuable thing an advisor can offer is the ability to connect the dots across every dimension of a family's financial life.

Ben brings extensive knowledge of alternative investments, including private equity, private credit, derivatives, and other institutional investment strategies. He has spent his career building relationships with sponsors, operators, and fund managers — and he uses that network to source opportunities, conduct due diligence, and negotiate terms that meaningfully benefit his clients.