Expertise

  • Wealth Strategies

  • Benefits Finance

  • Enterprise Risk Management

  • Interest Rate Risk Management

  • Intellectual Property

  • Tax Management

  • Asset Protection

EDUCATION

  • The American University, Interdisciplinary Studies

Our work begins with understanding our clients – their dreams, their legacy and the footprints they want to leave in the sand. Programs we develop in response to a client request or emerging from the intense and ongoing R&D we support all add to a vast array of “arrows in our quiver” that we apply and shape for each unique client engagement. At that point, our work is not done – it is just beginning, as our role is to ensure that the programs we implement continue to evolve as financial objectives and actual situations change.

Membership

  • Association of Life Underwriters, Cleveland and Ohio Chapters
  • National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors
  • Million Dollar Round Table
  • Court of the Table
  • Top of the Table
  • Association of Advanced Life Underwriters
  • International Forum

Selected insurance industry leadership

  • Member of Board of the International Forum
  • Board of Directors of The Hemisphere Group
  • Board of Directors of First Financial Resources

Latest awards and rankings

  • Who’s Who in Insurance
  • Who’s Who in Business
  • America's Select Financial Advisors

Josh Gottlieb is the founder, president and chief executive officer of The Gottlieb Organization, LLC (Gottlieb). The Gottlieb Organization is an amalgam of companies Josh founded or acquired over the past 40 years, each with specific technical expertise in discrete areas of financial planning and wealth management.  The culture of Gottlieb adheres to a routinized path that integrates consulting, tactical planning, design, plan implementation and ongoing administration, regardless of the subject matter or problem that is being addressed.  We adhere to an ethos that each client’s wealth strategy is a living organism, requiring continued support, review and retooling.  Gottlieb protocol is the same whether it involves a proprietary life insurance plan, complex tax planning, wealth transfer or using captive insurance strategies to mitigate enterprise risk management concerns.

As a recognized expert in the areas of estate planning, business continuation, non-qualified benefit planning and wealth accumulation, Josh has produced a wide array of engagements and unique and sometimes patented solutions to financial problems.  For example, he utilizes life insurance as an independent asset class, integrating finance and investment management elements to achieve a myriad of client goals.  Josh’s innovative approach to devising tailored proprietary programs that achieve client objectives has resulted in a national reputation for solving complex wealth management challenges for individuals and their families, as well as for some of the largest companies in the world.  He is often asked to speak on such matters at industry meetings. 

Josh has certified such innovation and creativity through patents, trademarks and service marks, both issued and pending, with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.  Intellectual property has become a mainstay and an instrumental tool in initiatives Josh has developed in benefits finance, asset protection and wealth transfer issues involving processes and technology.  From the initial patent relating to the funding and financing of post-retirement health care obligations (SFAS 106) issued nearly 25 years ago, to a current focus on burgeoning liabilities impacting and sometimes crippling ESOPs, Josh continually finds paths to convert clients’ financial challenges into wealth development and liability securitization opportunities. 

Developing, implementing and administering forward-thinking, solutions-based strategies is a hallmark of Josh’s work.  This is achieved through internal staff and established (often proprietary) processes, as well as through a wide network of strategic alliances across a variety of disciplines and industries throughout the United States.

Josh serves as chief executive officer of acquired companies as well as companies he has founded and co-founded.  These companies provide specialty insurance for life, interest rate and business risk management for companies and for high and ultra-high net worth clients.  Through this work, the companies advise on the design, sale and implementation of specialized programs, and remain intimately involved in the management of client plans at a strategic level as well as granularly.  

Josh’s involvement does not end at the sale. Client expectations and our work continue for generations of family and management of companies.  Niche companies include Management Solutions, Managed Insurance Strategies, Retirement Technologies, The Value Exchange and Benefit Funding Strategies, as well as Forensic Planning Consultancy. A more recent foray into enterprise risk management initiatives with captive insurance companies has resulted in the formation and operation of Advanced Captive Development Advisors and Capital Development Insurance Company.  Josh and his companies have underwritten permanent life insurance coverage of more than $4 billion, insuring more than 35,000 lives with policies owned by corporations, trusts and individuals. The orientation of each Gottlieb company is to manage these long-term programs as part of an integrated plan, ensuring that the plans continue for their intended duration and are managed to adapt to the inevitable changes that will occur.

Josh has long been a leading member of numerous financial industry organizations such as the Cleveland and Ohio chapters of the Association of Life Underwriters, and National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA).  In addition, he has been a member of such organizations as the Million Dollar Round Table, the Court of the Table, the Top of the Table, the Association of Advanced Life Underwriters (AALU) and the International Forum.

In 1987, Josh was elected by his peers to serve on the Board of the International Forum, recognizing his advanced work at a young age.  He has also been a prominent member of industry-leading producer groups such as The Hemisphere Group and First Financial Resources, where he served on its Board of Directors. Josh has been elected to Who’s Who in Insurance; America’s Select Financial Advisors and Who’s Who in Business.

Josh’s entrepreneurialism has spanned many different business interests beyond wealth management services.  He has multiple other companies that he has founded, and chairs or holds meaningful interests in areas such as real estate, agriculture and renewable energy.  R&D is a critical component to the companies he has founded and operated, as well as those early-stage companies in which he has invested.  

Josh’s undergraduate work was conducted at The American University, where he majored in interdisciplinary studies in business, psychology and philosophy. 

He has traveled the world with his wife and three adult children for three decades, often seeking extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime experiences.