Ben Tisser is the Founder and Principal of Benari Capital, a national concierge fiduciary registered investment advisory firm serving individuals and families, business owners, multi-generational families, non-profit organizations, private foundations, and international clients — people who want their financial lives to reflect not just their net worth, but their values.
Before founding the firm, Ben spent more than twenty years as a Cantor — a career marked by genuine distinction. He served congregations across the country, held leadership positions in the Cantors Assembly including President of its Midwest Region, and performed on stages from Los Angeles to New York, Barcelona to Jerusalem. He completed his Master of Sacred Music and Cantorial Investiture at the H.L. Miller Cantorial School of The Jewish Theological Seminary, and his voice has been featured in permanent collections at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and in special exhibitions at museums including the Art Institute of Chicago. That career demanded everything a great advisor also needs: the ability to earn trust quickly, to sit with people in the most consequential moments of their lives, and to lead with both rigor and humanity.
It also gave him something more specific. Early in his cantorial career, Ben received a notice from the IRS — nearly five figures in back taxes, accrued over four years. That experience made him a serious student of the financial and tax landscape facing religious professionals: the parsonage allowance, dual-status filing, self-employment tax obligations, and the planning considerations that most generalist advisors simply don't know to look for. For years he shared that knowledge with colleagues, helping them ask better questions of their CPAs and approach their compensation with greater clarity. Eventually he realized the people he was helping needed more than better questions — they needed a fiduciary in their corner.
In 2024, Ben left the full-time cantorate to found Benari Capital. The firm is built on a straightforward but often overlooked idea: that real financial planning starts with understanding what matters to a person, not just what they own. Ben works with each client to clarify their goals and values, build a strategy that reflects them, and remain actively involved as life changes — because a financial plan that doesn't evolve with you is just a document.
Ben is a licensed investment adviser representative, registered in Illinois and California, and holds life and health insurance licenses in a number of states. He remains an active presence in the Jewish world, leading High Holy Day services at prestigious congregations, performing, composing, and serving in leadership roles across communal organizations. He lives in Highland Park, Illinois, with his children and Mr. Briggs, the firm's CFO. Outside the office, he is an avid home cook, a collector of wine, and a devoted reader of biography — and can usually be found planning his next trip somewhere worth going, or behind the piano or guitar that rarely go untouched for long.