Meet Your Trusted Financial Team

Milo F. Hanke, CFP

Founding Partner

Milo Hanke adamantly believes good financial planning changes lives. This mantra derives from four decades helping hundreds of individuals and families. Today, Milo’s essential goal remains to help clients grow and protect wealth as they step into a more abundant future.

The Founding Partner of Hanke & Apolonio Wealth Advisors, LLC (HAWA), Milo leads a team that serves 100 clients. HAWA is a Registered Investment Advisor under the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Legally defined as a fiduciary, HAWA is held to the highest standard of client-centered, fee-only advice.

Milo has a special talent for helping clients break through the “ceiling of complexity” – cutting through the daunting and cluttered aspects of their financial lives. In a grounded process, he assists clients recognize their fuller opportunities, including, for example, earlier retirement, greater travel, or more generosity than they might have imagined.

“With greater financial security, clients come more into their own. They are freer to pursue their own vision of happiness – what they desire for self, family, and community. And they tend to have more fun.”

A Certified Financial Planner, Milo is a self-described lifelong learner in a career renaissance marked by deepening specialization in socially conscious investing, charitable giving, and life coaching. He is active in the Financial Planning Association and San Francisco Estate Planning Council.

A Cincinnati native and English major, Milo first worked in journalism and public relations, including editorial roles at Harvard University and Business Week. Later he was an award-winning PR executive for a Boston life insurance company.

Painfully closeted at the time, he forever soured on Corporate America. At age 27, he drove a rental truck to San Francisco, sight unseen – just one more broke gay refugee determined to build a career on his terms.

The career choice of financial planning began as a simple “what if.” What if his parents had had access to professional guidance? “They both held jobs and owned a little real estate – how much better could they have done with a trusted advisor in their corner?” That question became the driving force behind his career.

Milo’s commitment to financial planning is matched by his dedication to civic leadership. Over the years, he has led successful campaigns to remove hundreds of billboards from San Francisco and Oakland. He also led a fight against AT&T’s installation of 900 oversized utility boxes on public sidewalks. While president of San Francisco Beautiful, he also served as a national board member of Scenic America.

He is a graduate of Leadership San Francisco, a program sponsored by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. He has served on the Board of Governors of the City Club of San Francisco. He remains an active supporter of numerous political and human rights organizations.

His pastimes include writing, piano, woodworking, country-western dancing, travel, history, and vintage cars. Something of a “professional alumnus,” he’s in regular contact with grade school and classmates. At DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, he served on the Alumni Board of Directors, and he continues to provide undergraduates with career guidance.

Rafael Paschoal, MBA

Operations Manager

Rafael is the force that ensures HAWA’s plans come to life. As Operations Manager, he oversees client service requests and supports the firm’s senior planners in preparing written financial plans and managing client portfolios.

Born and raised in Brazil, Rafael moved to the United States in 2011 to attend UC Berkeley where he obtained a Diploma in Investment and Business. He also holds a master’s in economics and an MBA. 

Before joining HAWA, he spent over six years in the investment division of Brazil’s largest private bank, gaining deep expertise in portfolio management and client strategy. Locally, he built on this experience by working with San Francisco wealth advisors before making HAWA his home.

Beyond the numbers, Rafael has a passion for education – both in finance and beyond. His love for teaching has taken him across the globe, from lecturing assignments in Dakar, Senegal, to Zhuhai, China. Whether he’s helping a client understand their investment strategy or mentoring the next generation of financial professionals, he believes knowledge is the key to empowerment.

Now, as he works toward earning his CFP certification, Rafael is deepening his expertise to provide even more comprehensive support to clients.

Rafael met his future wife while studying at Berkeley, and today, they live there with their young son (soon to be joined by twins on the way). When not at work, he can be found playing soccer, cooking, gardening, surfing in Bolinas, or riding his bike over the Berkeley hills. He and his wife are also Ambassadors at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden, a role that reflects their love for nature and community.

Fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, and German, he’s always ready to connect with clients – whether in their native language or through the universal language of smart financial planning.