Dr. Meghaan Lurtz is Chief Behavioral Officer at Couplr, where she designs the behavioral model that matches consumers with financial advisors. She holds a Ph.D. in Personal Financial Planning from Kansas State University, where she is also a Professor of Practice, and she teaches Financial Psychology as a lecturer in the Wealth Management program at Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies. She is a past President of the Financial Therapy Association and holds the Financial Behavior Specialist (FBS™) designation. Her research has been published in the Journal of Financial Planning, Financial Planning Review, and the Journal of Consumer Affairs, and she co-authored chapters in the CFP Board’s Financial Psychology. Her expertise has been cited by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and New York Magazine, and she has presented for the BBC, the CFPB, and MDRT.
The science behind the match
Most of the financial advice industry treats advisor selection as a filtering problem. Narrow by assets, narrow by ZIP code, narrow by credential, and whoever is left is presumably a fit. That approach answers a logistical question. It does not answer the one that determines whether the relationship survives.
Meghaan’s research sits on the other side of that question. The variables that actually predict whether a client stays, trusts, and acts on advice are behavioral and values-based: how a person prefers to make consequential decisions, how they want to be communicated with, what money means to them, and what stage of life they are navigating. Those things are difficult to put in a search filter and impossible to infer from an account balance.
It’s not the numbers game. It’s the match game.
Dr. Meghaan Lurtz, Chief Behavioral Officer, Couplr
That line is the shortest version of her thesis, and it is the reason Couplr Match is built the way it is. Rather than ranking advisors by proximity or production, the model scores compatibility across behavioral and values-based dimensions, so the consumer reaches out to someone who already fits how they think about money.
Role at Couplr
As Chief Behavioral Officer, Meghaan is the architect of the behavioral logic underneath Couplr’s matching engine. Her role is to keep the model honest: to make sure the variables it weighs are ones the peer-reviewed literature actually supports, and to translate academic findings on trust formation and advisor–client fit into something that works in production.
She works alongside founder and CEO Derek Notman, CFP®, whose two decades as a practicing advisor supplied the problem the model was built to solve. The pairing is deliberate. One side of the company knows what it feels like when a client relationship is misaligned from the first meeting. The other side knows why, and what predicts it.
Research and publications
Meghaan studies both the practice of financial planning and the practitioners themselves. Her published research spans financial therapy interventions, client communication, and the psychology of how people relate to money.
- Peer-reviewed work in the Journal of Financial Planning, Financial Planning Review, and the Journal of Consumer Affairs
- Co-authored chapters in the CFP Board’s Financial Psychology
- Financial psychology writing and research published on Kitces.com, where she served as a writer and senior research associate
- Commentary cited by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and New York Magazine
- Presentations delivered for the BBC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Million Dollar Round Table
Teaching and industry leadership
Meghaan teaches on both sides of the profession — the students entering it and the advisors already in it.
- Professor of Practice, Kansas State University, in the advanced financial planning track
- Lecturer, Columbia University School of Professional Studies, Wealth Management program, where she teaches Financial Psychology
- Past President and board member, Financial Therapy Association
- Learning and development work with Shaping Wealth, a global learning platform for financial professionals
- Board service across several fintech and financial-wellbeing organisations
Education
- Ph.D., Personal Financial Planning — Kansas State University
- M.S., Industrial-Organizational Psychology — Capella University
- B.A., Psychology, Philosophy, and Spanish — University of Kansas
- FBS™ — Financial Behavior Specialist
Connect
Meghaan writes and speaks regularly on financial psychology, advisor–client compatibility, and the behavioural science of money.