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Peter Babilla brings 40 years of experience in investment management and fiduciary* financial consulting to Vertex Planning Partners, LLC.
Pete graduated from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana with a Bachelor’s of Science in Finance.
He began his career in 1983 with a focus on institutional fixed-income portfolio management, primarily working with community banks. After a decade serving institutional clients, Pete shifted his focus to working with individuals, families and business owners, providing guidance and education in all areas of Wealth Management. Among his areas of focus are accumulation and retirement planning, investment management, risk management, and estate and wealth transfer.
Pete’s planning philosophy allows him to create a personalized program for clients, based on their own unique goals and circumstances. The extensive investment and planning platform offered by Vertex enables him to create a highly customized program, tailored to each individual client.
Pete and his wife Suzanne have two children, and have resided in Wheaton, Illinois for the past 30 years. He enjoys golf, reading, and traveling with his family. Pete gives back as a past Board Member of the Epilepsy Foundation of Greater Chicago, where his focus is on improving the lives of those living with epilepsy.
Pete works as fiduciary for his clients and holds the CERTIFIED FIANANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®) designation and the Chartered Retirement Plan Specialist (CRPS®) designation.
Justin D’Agostino joined Vertex Partners in 2019 and serves a select group of business owners and affluent families. He specializes in investments, financial planning, and succession planning. His interest and knowledge in providing comprehensive financial planning and wealth management services to clients was sparked when he worked at a boutique tax and wealth management firm in Michigan. He has nine years of experience in the financial services industry, and his mission is to provide every client with targeted, comprehensive financial advice and to help them implement customized strategies designed to move them closer to accomplishing their unique goals.
Justin attended Hillsdale College where he earned his BA in Accounting and Financial Management and was a member and captain of the football team. Justin is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professional, and holds the Tax Planning Certified Professional®, Chartered Financial Consultant® and Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor™ designations.
Justin and his wife, Alexandra, reside in Chicago, Illinois. He is an avid sports fan and enjoys golfing, playing soccer and spending summer weekends with his family.
Scott Sandee brings over 20 years of experience as Managing Partner. He is responsible for leading the firm’s efforts in assisting middle-market business owners and seven and eight-figure families to plan and realize financial goals based on their unique aspirations and situations.
With a privately held family business background, Scott has helped owners prepare for and execute a successful transition. In addition, he works with business owners and their advisors to develop financial strategies to maximize sales proceeds and minimize future taxes.
Before joining Vertex, Scott served in financial planning and investment strategy roles at Oxford Financial Group, Capital Group, and The Northern Trust Company, working with Chicago’s HNW/UHNW families clients.
Scott holds the Certified Financial Planner®, Certified Private Wealth Advisor®, Certified Investment Management Analyst®, and Certified Exit Planning Advisor designations. Scott earned his B.S. in Computer Science from Northern Illinois University, and his family resides in Wilmette, IL.
Julie Hupp, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional, has worked in the accounting and corporate finance field since 1987. She began her career as a CPA with Deloitte & Touche, specializing in the financial needs of small businesses. Then spent the next 13 years in corporate financial planning and business development at Baxter and TAP Pharmaceuticals. Recognizing her passion for personal financial planning, Julie started her business in 2006 where she focuses on comprehensive financial planning strategies and implementation.
Julie graduated from University of Illinois with a BS in Accountancy. She received her Master’s in Management with a concentration in Finance from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in 1994.
Outside the office, Julie is the co-founder of the 12 Oaks Foundation, which has merged with Cal’s Angels, and is a former Board member. Julie enjoys cooking, reading, running, triathlons and doing almost anything outdoors. A great weekend is spending time with her husband and two adult kids boating at their lake house in Wisconsin.
Steven P. Franzen, CPA, PFS, CGMA is a public accountant and consultant with more than 23 years of experience helping individuals and businesses reduce their tax liability. He began his career under the guidance of Patrick M. De Sio, CPA, CGMA and in 1996 became Mr. De Sio’s partner in De Sio, Franzen & Associates, Ltd. Steve’s expertise include entity design, complex tax strategies and multigenerational wealth transfer. As Managing Partner, Steve conducts his practice under the philosophy that the client’s investment in their CPA should yield a return on that investment – most of the time that return is realized when working with clients on planning for their future. In an effort to increase the planning capabilities of the firm, Steve formed Vertex Accounting Partners, LLC to ensure their guiding philosophy will continue well into the future.
Steve is a certified public accountant and has earned the professional designations of Personal Financial Specialist and Chartered Global Management Accountant. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Illinois CPA Society. Steve earned a B.S. degree in accounting from Millikin University. He and his wife Kristie live in Sugar Grove, IL with their three children.
Gregory P. Benner, CPWA®, CFP®, ChFC®, CLU®, AIF®, RMA® has over twenty-two years of experience as a financial advisor. Greg’s practice is based on developing holistic financial plans that help his clients integrate sophisticated retirement, tax, risk management and estate planning strategies into an actionable plan, then stay the course as their behavioral coach.
Prior to founding Vertex Planning Partners, LLC, Greg spent four years as a founding partner of a Registered Investment Advisory firm affiliated with LPL Financial. He also spent seven years with JPMorgan Chase as a Senior Financial Advisor and was a Financial Representative with Northwestern Mutual Life.
Greg holds the Certified Private Wealth Advisor® designation and is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Certificant. He also holds the Chartered Financial Consultant®, Chartered Life Underwriter®, Accredited Investment Fiduciary™, and Retirement Management AdvisorSM designations. He earned a B.S. in Finance from Miami University and a Master of Science in Taxation (MST) from the University of Cincinnati.
He and his wife Lindsey reside in Naperville, IL with their daughter and twin sons.
Michael D. Bellis, CFP®, CLU® began his career as a financial planning professional in 1994. His practice is centered on holistic financial planning, astute risk management strategies and empirical, research-driven portfolio construction. He began his career in partnership with his father under the name Bellis & Associates. Together, their practice and reputation for excellence dates back more than 40 years and includes multiple generations of the same families. After his father’s retirement several years ago, Mike continued to build a client-centric, consultative practice before forming Vertex.
Mike holds the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certification and is also a Chartered Life Underwriter. He has been an active member of both the Society of Financial Services Professionals and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors. He earned a B.S. in Business & Marketing from Illinois State University. Mike is a lifelong resident of Naperville, Illinois. He and his wife Tanja have three children.
Is AI Eating the World? A Portfolio Perspective
Fifteen years ago, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen famously wrote that “software is eating the world.” What he meant was that any service that could be written and automated as software, would be. This has proved accurate as cloud computing, software-as-a-service, and digital platforms have reshaped both entire industries and how consumers buy goods and services. As investors, this has important implications and is a major source of recent market volatility.
Today, AI represents the next phase of this transformation, and as with every major technological shift, markets are trying to assess what it means for specific sectors and the overall economy. For long-term investors, maintaining perspective on how these cycles have unfolded in the past can provide helpful clarity.
Innovation and disruption are two sides of the same coin, and the recent broad sell-off and quick bounce back in technology stocks shows how difficult it can be to predict how these trends play out. The release of new automation tools from Anthropic, a major AI company, demonstrated the ability to perform tasks previously handled by specialized software in areas like legal and financial research. This sparked a reassessment of traditional software business models. The stocks of some large technology companies also struggled after reporting over a hundred billion dollars in quarterly capital expenditures on AI infrastructure, raising questions about whether this spending will pay off.
Ironically, this occurred almost exactly one year after the “DeepSeek moment” in January 2025, when a Chinese AI company purportedly showed that AI models could be built at a fraction of the cost. In both cases, markets re-evaluated the winners and losers of technological change but also rebounded quickly once the dust settled. For investors, this is a reminder that maintaining a long-term perspective is important as the market shifts between the opportunities from innovation and the challenges of disruption.
Technological disruption follows familiar patterns
AI has the potential to change how services are actually created, continuing the trend of traditional processes being replaced by software.
However, it’s worth remembering that even the most transformative technologies don’t eliminate the need for specialized expertise and services. AI systems, no matter how capable, will still require access to the best data, the most reliable platforms, and unique domain knowledge.
Similarly, consumers will continue to value trust, personalization, and quality outcomes.
Which companies are most competitive in delivering these services may change over time, but the underlying fundamental needs will likely remain the same. Just as you wouldn’t build a car yourself, or rebuild it every time you needed to drive to the grocery store, AI applications will still rely on existing infrastructure and specialized services. Over time, this dynamic tends to benefit consumers through smarter products, lower costs, and more accessible services.
It’s also important to maintain realistic expectations about the pace of change. While AI companies have predicted the arrival of “artificial general intelligence” or “artificial super intelligence” over the past several years, recent evidence suggests that progress in AI training has slowed somewhat. That said, what current AI systems can accomplish is already remarkable and is clearly enough to reshape investor expectations.
The labor market adds to economic uncertainty
There is no direct evidence yet that these job cuts are AI-related, but these trends
affect the broad economic outlook nonetheless. In the long run, every major technological wave, from the Industrial Revolution to the Information Technology Revolution, has eventually created more jobs than it replaced, but the transition periods as workers are retrained can be difficult for both individuals and society.
In the meantime, a weaker job market has raised concerns among some investors after years of better-than-expected economic growth. This also has implications for the broader outlook and the path of Federal Reserve policy. It’s important to keep in mind that other economic data remain healthy, including ongoing consumer spending driven by household wealth near record levels and inflation which has held steady below 3%. So, while there are some economic challenges, there is also reason to believe the economy could continue to grow at a healthy pace.
What these trends mean for portfolios
The Information Technology and Communication Services sectors, while delivering strong returns in recent years, are also known to experience swings as expectations shift. These sectors are sensitive to long-term factors such as interest rates, and are thus affected by uncertainty around the Fed. So, while groups like the Magnificent 7 have performed well over the past several years, they can struggle in periods like 2022 just as they have over the past two months.
Perhaps the biggest question is around stock market valuations. With the S&P 500’s price-to-earnings ratio near historically elevated levels, investors have been rotating into other sectors such as Consumer Staples, Energy, Materials, and Industrials. This possibly reflects markets becoming more selective and focusing on
opportunities beyond AI. After all, just because AI is the trend capturing investor attention does not mean there are not attractive opportunities across other parts of the market.
Ultimately, today’s AI trends should be viewed in a broader context along with other changes to the market and economic landscape. If past cycles are any indication, markets will likely over- and underreact to these trends in the short run. History shows that those who can stay patient and properly invested will be best positioned to achieve their financial goals.
The bottom line?
While AI is leading to a reassessment of specific stocks and sectors, the principles of long-term investing remain unchanged. Maintaining a portfolio aligned with your financial goals is still the best way to navigate periods of rapid change.
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