Gary Golden used to rock and roll all night, but now he gives clients advice about their financial plans every day.

An advisor in Winnipeg with Credential Financial Strategies Inc. , a wholly owned division of Credential Insurance Services, is a 16-year veteran of the financial services industry. But from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, Golden was a member of Harlequin, arguably the most successful rock band to come out of Winnipeg not named The Guess Who.

You’d never know Golden had lived out his rock-and-roll fantasy from visiting his office. There are no gold records or autographed posters on the walls, and there’s no guitar and amp in the corner.

“Clients are not there to talk about my past; they’re there to talk about their future,” he says. “And I’m not there to talk about me; I’m there to talk about them.”

That’s not to say Golden’s past doesn’t come in handy when he is dealing with clients. He is often able to impart knowledge he picked up along the way, particularly to the growing number of people in search of instant gratification.

“I can tell them horror stories,” he says.

For instance, Golden tells of a fellow musician in a Vancouver band who was forever living the high life at the expense of his future. That musician never made a fortune, but he had great notoriety.

“He had to file for bankruptcy,” Golden says. “He lost $20,000 worth of gear and was lucky to walk out with his underpants.”

The lesson Golden passes on to clients: “When a cheque comes in, you have to tuck 15% away and keep your mitts off it.”

Golden says financial planning is a matter of setting priorities. When he sees young people who want a big-screen TV and other luxury items, he warns them if he doesn’t think they can afford it: “You have to take a step back.”

He points to the collapse of the subprime mortgage market in the U.S. as a lesson in irresponsible debt management.

“That can lead to absolute ruin,” he says. “Common sense often goes out the window when people’s eyes get wide.”

Golden’s musical past has also helped him hone his social skills, which comes in handy when dealing with clients of all personality types: “I’ve learned to be able to interact with just about anybody. I’ve had to deal with kids stacking albums in record stores, band managers, radio people, heads of multinational record corporations and fans. That takes into account just about everybody from A to Z.”

Golden joined CFS — a subsidiary of Credential Financial Inc. , owned by eight credit union centrals across the country and provider CUMIS Group Ltd. — in 2003. He deals in mutual funds and insurance products. His host credit union is Crosstown Civic Credit Union. Staff at Crosstown refer members with financial planning needs, such as pension transfers, risk-management issues, insurance or improved RRSP performance, to Golden. He says good service has its rewards. Many new clients and prospects come through word of mouth.

Having a compensation package based on a salary plus bonuses rather than straight commission enables Golden to deal with clients in a manner that lets him sleep well at night, he says.

“I can tell people if I think this is the wrong office for them,” he says. “Not everybody can be an investor. You have to have the stomach to be an investor. People shouldn’t be investing if they’re going to obsess about their money.”

He would rather see a prospect walk out the door if he doesn’t think he or she is a good fit. “If the client takes my advice and says, ‘This isn’t the right office,’ I feel I’ve done my job,” Golden says. “There are enough people who do want to invest and have the stomach for it.”



Golden’s musical career began in the 1970s, when his band started playing high-school dances, community clubs and small bars across Western Canada. One rare journey to Toronto in 1978 yielded Harlequin’s big break. The band was playing in a bar on Yonge Street called the Chimney, when a pair of talent scouts couldn’t get into the club one floor below, the Gasworks. So, they decided to check out the band upstairs.

@page_break@“They came in and heard us,” Golden says. “Within a week, we were in New York doing demos.”

With a double-platinum album (Love Crimes) and a platinum album (One False Move) to the band’s credit, Harlequin received a Juno nomination for Group of the Year in 1981. Golden left the group in 1985 to start a family. The band was inducted into the Western Canada Music Association’s Hall of Fame in 2006.

“We were a working man’s band,” he says. “We were an overnight success — after touring for 10 years.”

After Golden hung up his guitar professionally, he worked in real estate from 1986 to 1992. From there he moved to Investors Group Inc., for which he worked as an advisor until landing at CFS. He obtained his certified financial planner designation in 1997. He doesn’t have a formal education; instead, he graduated from “the school of hard knocks.”

Golden, who describes his age as “55 with a bullet,” could have continued a rock-and-roll existence for many more years, but he wanted to start a family.

“I was tired,” he admits. “Being on the road for 11 years straight can do that to you. I’ve seen too many musicians on the road try to raise a family and end up with a train wreck.”

Golden and his wife of 20 years, Monica, have two children, daughter Alyssa, 18, and son, Sean, 15. When he’s not at work, Golden likes to camp with his family, golf and play hockey, although he quickly admits there will be no Hall of Fame call for either of the latter two pursuits.

Golden hasn’t completely retired from music. Once you’ve been bitten by the bug, he says, you have it for the rest of your life. He continues to write songs for himself and performs one gig a year at Winnstock, the annual battle of the bands put on by Winnipeg’s financial services community.

“If somebody calls me up and gives me a good cause to fight for, I’m there. Winnstock was perfect,” he says. (The always sold-out show has grown from a discussion in a coffee shop five years ago to an event that raised $102,500 for charity in March.) “We thought we would raise $5,000 or $6,000 and have a good time doing it. Little did we know.”

Five “top shelf” bands competed at Winnstock. Golden played keyboards and guitar in the wittily named SubPrimal Scream, featuring a singer by the name of Miss Representation.

“The quality of talent is really quite impressive,” Golden says, “considering you take your suit off, put on a black T-shirt and shades, and give ’er.” IE