Phillip C. Richards

About Phillip

Phillip C. Richards is the Executive Chairman and Founder of the affiliated companies that comprise North Star Resource Group. North Star represents a fully integrated array of financial services and products for individuals and businesses of all sizes and has over 150,000 clients with offices in 22 states with client assets under administration exceeding $14 billion.

Phil received his Bachelor’s degree in 1962 from Temple University where he served as student body president and received the prestigious Sword Award as outstanding senior classman. A recipient of a four-year wrestling scholarship, he served as team captain and was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2010 and the National High School Coaches Hall of Fame that same year. Phil was elected to the Temple University Board of Trustees in 2009 and was the 2016 commencement speaker for Temple University when he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree. In 2019, Temple University appointed Phil as the vice chairman of the board of trustees and the chairman of the executive committee.

Phil began his professional career in 1962 with the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company in Philadelphia. In 1965, he joined Hartford Life leading the company in sales. In 1969, Phil acquired North Star Resource Group, which has received the prestigious Master Firm Award from Finseca (formerly GAMA International) every year since 1987. North Star is celebrating 115 years in business with origins tracing back to 1908. It was awarded the Charitable Champions award from Invest in Others in 2019; the Finseca Community Impact Leadership Award in 2024; and the Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota’s Torch Award for Ethics Hall of Fame in 2023.

A winner of numerous professional awards, Phil is the 2005 inductee into the GAMA International Hall of Fame and is the only firm leader in the world to have received the International Management Award from GAMA International every year (50 years)⁵ since the inception of that award. In 2007, Phil was named the recipient of the 66th annual John Newton Russell Memorial Award⁶, the highest honor in the insurance industry by the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA). Phil was inducted into The American College of Financial Services Hall of Fame in 2016. Phil’s first book, 25 Secrets for Sustainable Success, was published in March 2007 with the expectation that it will continue to be adopted by many as the gold standard for the industry. He has since co-authored, The Sky Is Not the Limit (2014), Practice on Purpose (2015), Promises Kept (2016), and the revised version of Practice on Purpose in 2022.

Phil is an adjunct professor emeritus for the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and former adjunct professor at Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing and is a four-time chairman of the National Advisory Board of his previous manufacturer. He was inducted as its 19th member into Securian’s Hall of Fame, served on the Executive Board of Directors for the Minnesota Council for Quality and is past president of GAMA International (2003). He is a 45-year arbitrator for the Better Business Bureau, is a two-time past chairman of the Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota Board of Directors, served on the Arizona Quality Council Board of Directors, and served on The American College Board of Trustees in Philadelphia for nine years, inducted into the College’s Hall of Fame in 2016 and was the recipient of its highest honor, the Solomon Huebner Gold Metal Award in 2023.  In addition, he is a past chairman of the LIFE Foundation and currently serves on the Mayo Clinic of Arizona Leadership Council and on the Board of the National High School Coaches Association, and he is the past treasurer of the Arizona Heart Foundation Board of Trustees. He currently chairs the Scott Richards North Star Foundation, which annually receives 10% of all of North Star’s profits and has donated over $7.4 million to charities since 2004². Recently, the foundation funded two seven-figure endowed chairs for Alzheimer’s research at the Lewis Katz Temple Medical Center.

Phil has been a featured speaker in 18 countries on topics including strategic planning, leadership, and alternate distribution systems in the financial services industry in the 21st century. He has addressed the annual meetings of over 150 major companies; was a main platform speaker at the National GAMA International LAMP Meeting in 1998 and its Canadian counterpart in Toronto in 1999; was a main platform speaker in Singapore, Taipei, and Manila in August 2000; and was a main platform speaker at the Asian Pacific Conference in Bangkok (where he co-founded GAMA Thailand) in 2001 and 2010 as well as Turks and Caicos; in Singapore in 2011 and 2015; Crete, Greece, in 2002; Athens, Greece, in 2006, 2010, and 2015; Sydney, Australia, in 2005; and Buenos Aires, Argentina; and spoke in Shanghai and Beijing numerous times as a lecturer at Beijing University and Shanghai University for Finance and Economics. He was a main platform speaker for MDRT in Vancouver in 2010 and in Ireland in 2012, as well as GAMA LAMP Asia in 2014 and 2016. He was a 2016 Asia LAMP main platform speaker in Bangkok and was featured in Vietnam and Singapore in 2016 as well as Jakarta, Indonesia and Kuala Llumpur, Malaysia.