Bold leadership and strong engagement will propel financial planning into a new era

My association career started when I landed a job with an agri-business trade group in Ohio just after I graduated from college. Almost immediately, I discovered the tremendous power of associations to reach remarkable achievements that would be impossible for any person or company to pull off alone. These achievements shape industries, strengthen communities and improve the lives of millions of Americans.

This is my 40th year working in associations and my 17th year as CEO of CFP Board. That power of the collective and achieving more together has always drawn me to this work.

While there are dozens of associations that represent the spectrum of financial services firms, focuses and business models, CFP Board is unique among them. Beyond certifying and upholding standards for CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER^TM professionals, CFP Board is a conduit for progress across the entire financial advice ecosystem. Because we are business-model and compensation-model neutral, we can bring together sometimes disparate voices to pursue meaningful advances for the entire profession and the public.

CFP Board has leveraged our unique position to convene advisors, firm leaders, academics, students and many others through our Diversity Summit, Academic Research Colloquium, Firms Summit, CFP Board Registered Programs Conference and other events across the country each year. But we’ve only just begun to tap into the ecosystem’s collective strength.

Financial planning will reach a momentous milestone this spring and cross 100,000 CFP® professionals. As the number of CFP® certificants continues to grow to meet the increasing public demand for financial planning, so will CFP Board’s focus on harnessing the power of our community to address critical challenges.

The profession is at a crossroads. The demand for financial planning has never been greater. Financial services firms of all sizes are responding to that demand by embracing financial planning as a core service. This shift is driving the expansion of their advisor workforce and creating opportunities within the profession. But there is a paradox: CFP® professionals enjoy rewarding careers and report high satisfaction with their career choice. Yet many firms are struggling to fill financial planning positions. This disconnect between supply and demand is something we must address collectively.

The task is daunting: to build a diverse, sustainable financial planner workforce that provides access to competent, ethical financial advice for every American. It requires bold leadership, new thinking and engagement from every corner of the profession. But what is impossible alone is possible together.

The colleges and universities that train the next generation of advisors, the firms that employ them and the membership organizations that support ongoing learning and engagement all have a role to play. And CFP Board will continue to propel us all toward a vibrant future for the profession.

We are laying the groundwork for the ambitious Future Financial Planner program, a bold initiative aimed at expanding interest in financial planning careers among college students and college-bound high school students. Last year, CFP Board announced an extensive program realignment that prioritizes Workforce Development. In this realignment, we established a new Managing Director of Workforce position and named Jason Gudenius to lead Talent Pipeline, Future Financial Planner and Student Engagement efforts.

As CFP Board continues to maximize our unique role as a conduit, we are also expanding programming that provides value across the financial advice ecosystem for the benefit of the public, advisors and the profession. To this end, we’ve established a new Chief Program Officer role and named seasoned not-for-profit leader Lisa Davis to oversee program development and amplify our efforts through strategic partnerships and coalitions.

From September 29 to October 1 the inaugural CFP Board Connections Conference in Washington, DC will bring together all segments of the profession for what we expect will be one of the largest gatherings of financial planners on the East Coast this fall. The conference continues the traditions and combines the best features of our signature events with special programming geared toward specific communities and new opportunities to collaborate across the entire financial planning landscape.

There’s an old proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” The world is smaller than it has ever been because we are all more connected. It’s time to capture the electricity and momentum of those connections to propel the profession forward. We hope to see you at CFP Board Connections Conference this fall as we enter a new era in financial planning.