Akiro Capital
Kurt Duane Smith
Wealth Management Advisor|CFA®, CFP®, CEPA®, WMCP®, RICP®
Professional
Kurt has over 20 years of investment management experience. Prior to joining Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management, he was an assistant vice president with Wells Fargo. Kurt also worked as a structured finance associate at Stark Investments, where he traded derivative securities and financed illiquid transactions. He began his finance career in the unit investment trust division of the Bank of New York.
Kurt holds a BSc from the University of the West Indies, Jamaica and an MBA from St. John’s University in New York. He has earned the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and is an active member of the New York Society of Securities Analysts and the CFA Society of Milwaukee.
Memberships
- Member of CFA Institute - A Difference that Matters
- Member of New York Society of Security Analysts
Lending a hand in my community.
As part of Northwestern Mutual, I'm proud to help accelerate the search for better childhood cancer treatments while supporting families undergoing treatment, and survivors from late effects. Here are some of the organizations we partner with:
Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer (ALSF)
ALSF funds cancer research, raises awareness, and supports the families of children with cancer. Since 2012, Northwestern Mutual, its employees, and financial professionals like me have donated more than $20 million to support ALSF and fund over 400,000 research hours.

Beads of Courage
Beads of Courage is an art-in-medicine program that helps kids with cancer tell their unique treatment story through colorful beads that are symbols of their courage.

Here are my areas of expertise
Financial Planning
Insurance Protection Strategies
Life Insurance Strategies
Retirement Planning & Income Strategies
Education Planning & Funding
Disability Planning
Multigenerational Planning
Estate Planning
How Northwestern Mutual helps you live the life you want.
When people feel better about their money, good things happen—they become more confident and feel more secure. For more than 160 years, Northwestern Mutual has helped people achieve the financial flexibility they need to live more and worry less.
Being a mutual company means Northwestern Mutual reports to its clients, not Wall Street. They don't believe in chasing fads or taking undue risk for short-term gains. Instead, they take a long-term approach—both in the way we help people plan to reach their goals, and in the way they do business. This has served their clients (and mine) well through all kinds of economic ups and downs, including wars, recessions, even the recent pandemic.
It's why I'm happy to be part of a company that's in it for the long-haul and prioritizes clients over profit.

Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA®)
There are many reasons why leaders across the investment industry trust their firms’ futures to CFA® charterholders.
- Earning the CFA® charter is a highly selective process. Fewer than one in five candidates become a CFA charterholder.
- It takes an average of 1,000+ hours of rigorous study, along with four years of professional experience and successful completion of the CFA® Program exam, to earn the distinction of being called a Chartered Financial Analyst® charterholder.
- All CFA charterholders are required to annually attest to their compliance with the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct.
- The CFA® credential is the professional standard of choice for more than 31,000 investment firms worldwide.