Joe Freeman

Joe Freeman is the senior managing director of Family Office Services at Abbot Downing. In this role, he coordinates an integrated cross-platform strategy to ensure that family offices can access Wells Fargo’s broad array of products and services. He is responsible for Abbot Downing’s custody products, internal partnerships and CEO offering. Prior to this role, he was the regional managing director for the Mid-Atlantic region. He worked to cross-pollinate ideas and skills throughout his cross-functional team of relationship managers, planners, private bankers and investment specialists. Joe enjoys the challenge of building teams, and he has learned to hire slowly, give clear direction and then let people do their work.

Before joining Abbot Downing, Joe worked with Wachovia for 20 years, holding a variety of roles including: managing the company's family wealth practice in Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Raleigh and Washington, DC; serving as a director of client management; delivering customized asset management solutions for multigenerational families as an investment management advisor; and serving as a new business officer in Wachovia’s trust department with responsibility for developing estate and financial plans. He joined Wells Fargo Family Wealth in 2008 as part of the Wachovia and Wells Fargo integration.

Joe graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in accounting from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. He earned a master's degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is a Certified Trust and Financial Advisor (CTFA) and a CFP® professional.

After living in Winston-Salem's suburbs, Joe and his wife, Sue, moved their family to a ten-acre hobby farm outside of town. They wanted to show their two teenage daughters the pleasures and hard work of country life.