About Sheldrake

The perspective behind the practice

“I never built a book of my own. That was the point of the seat, and it gave me a different vantage point on the business.”

For thirteen years at Sun Life Global Investments, my work was to support independent advisory practices across the Greater Toronto Area, Northern Ontario and Vancouver. I wasn’t the advisor in the room. I worked alongside the people who were.

What the seat made visible

A single practice sees its own clients and its own way of working. Moving between many practices, I saw different business models, different client situations, and a great many planning conversations, each shaped by the discipline of the person leading it.

Over time, one pattern became hard to ignore. Most of the advice I saw was sound on its own terms. An investment recommendation could be appropriate. An insurance policy could serve exactly the purpose it was bought for. An accountant or a lawyer could give excellent professional advice. And the questions about how those decisions affected one another could still remain unresolved.

Each professional is responsible for their own part of the picture. For an owner-managed business, those parts are closely connected. Ownership shapes succession. Succession shapes the estate. The estate shapes what the family inherits. Insurance often sits underneath all of it, which is why coordination matters.

Why Sheldrake exists

My career in financial services began in 2008, and my early years included branch banking at TD in Toronto. Every role since has pointed me toward the same conclusion. Most successful business owners don’t have investment problems. They have decision problems.

I established Sheldrake Group as an independent insurance and planning practice to work on those decisions directly: how ownership, insurance, business continuity, succession and family wealth fit together for one business and the family behind it.

The work begins with understanding what needs to be accomplished, before any product is discussed. It is done alongside the accountant and the lawyer already in place, not in place of them. Sheldrake does not provide legal, accounting or tax advice. Its role is the insurance and planning decisions inside the broader plan, and the coordination that keeps them connected to it.

Not every situation calls for an engagement, and the right engagement requires the right fit. Many relationships begin with an introduction.

I’ve written about these decisions in The Decisions Wealth Depends On, and about how advisors work in Straight Talk Selling: Stop Selling. Start Operating.

How We Work

A conversation, not a pitch.

A relationship usually begins with a conversation about the business, the family, and the decision that has become difficult to resolve.

Where it makes sense to go further, an engagement typically includes a review of the ownership, insurance, and estate arrangements already in place, identification of any funding gaps, recommendations developed in consultation with your accountant and lawyer, and implementation once everyone agrees on the plan.

See how this plays out in an illustrative case →

The first meeting costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Its only purpose is to understand the problem clearly enough to know whether there is one worth solving.

Begin a conversation →
The Sheldrake Perspective
A body of work on ownership, insurance, succession, and preserving what a family has built.
i
Decisions Come First
The best outcomes rarely turn on a better investment. They turn on better decisions, made earlier.
Ownership, succession, taxation, and risk decisions are usually deferred longest, because resolving them means handing someone the whole picture. The ones that matter most are rarely urgent until they suddenly are, which is exactly when there's the least room left to get them right.
ii
Strategy Before Solutions
The best financial decisions are usually made before a product is ever discussed.
Products come later. What matters first is understanding the business, the family, and what a recommendation actually needs to accomplish, so the solution fits the situation instead of the situation being bent to fit the solution.
iii
Connection Creates Value
Complexity rarely comes from one bad decision. It comes from important decisions made in isolation.
Sound insurance advice, sound tax advice, and a sound legal structure can each be right on their own terms and still leave gaps between them. Coordinating them, rather than simply getting each one right, is where the real value gets created.
iv
Pattern Creates Judgment
Judgment is built on pattern. It comes from seeing what a single relationship never could.
Years spent alongside hundreds of advisory practices and the business-owner clients they served revealed what tends to work, what gets missed, and which choices become harder the longer they're deferred. That pattern shapes the questions asked in every engagement.
v
Clarity Is the Outcome
The purpose of good advice isn't information. It's confidence.
What clients need is a clear enough understanding of the recommendation, the tradeoffs it involves, and the reasons for proceeding, to make the decision themselves rather than simply defer to it.
Who you work with
Zachary Sikorski, founder of Sheldrake Group

Zachary Sikorski CHS · EPC · CEA

Principal

Before founding Sheldrake Group, Zachary spent his career in financial services, beginning in 2008 and most recently as a District Vice President at Sun Life, working alongside independent advisory practices across Ontario and British Columbia. Rather than building a single book of clients, he watched hundreds of planning conversations unfold, close enough each time to see where sound investment, insurance, tax, and estate advice failed to connect.

That experience informs what he looks for in every engagement: shareholder agreements without the funding to honour them, coverage that hasn't kept pace with the business, and decisions that were never coordinated with the rest of the picture.

Away from work, Zachary spends time with his wife and two children, often at the hockey rink, at dance, or on the golf course.

Credentials and licensing

Zachary holds the Certified Health Insurance Specialist (CHS), Elder Planning Counselor (EPC), and Certified Executor Advisor (CEA) designations. He is licensed to provide life and accident & sickness insurance in the Province of Ontario, and is licensed to transact insurance in Ontario only. Insurance products and services are provided through Sheldrake Group Inc. O/A Sheldrake Group, a licensed life insurance agency in Ontario.

Steven Bacher, Practice Partner at Sheldrake Group

Steven Bacher CHS

Practice Partner

Steven is the principal of Bacher Insurance Agency Ltd., an independent brokerage that has advised individuals, families, and corporations since 1990, building many long-standing client relationships along the way. He works alongside Zachary on wealth and insurance planning, bringing decades of practical experience to every engagement.

Tom Lowden, Group Benefits Strategic Partner at Sheldrake Group

Tom Lowden BA, GBA, PFA, CFP

Group Benefits, Strategic Partner

Tom is the principal of Lowdenclear Wealth Management Inc. and a Certified Financial Planner whose practice centres on group benefits. He holds the Group Benefits Associate (GBA) designation from Dalhousie University. At Sheldrake, Tom is the Strategic Partner for group benefits. When a client needs a plan designed, reviewed, or restructured, he's the specialist who does that work.

Licensing

Sheldrake Group Inc. O/A Sheldrake Group is a licensed life insurance agency in Ontario. Information on this page is general in nature and is not tax, legal or insurance advice.

By introduction

Most of our work begins with a conversation.

Begin a conversation

For accountants and lawyers →

Or work through the question first with Ask Sheldrake.