Address by Peter G. Volpé CFP FPSC 2006 Incoming Chair CIFPs Conference Vancouver, May 28, 2006
Being the best you can, for all our sakes
Good Morning.
I am delighted to be here in Vancouver to join a congregation of like-minded financial planning professionals once again. The last time I did so was two months ago when I welcomed a group of about 100 delegates from around the world to this city. At that time, we were about to begin three days of meetings. The international entity that owns the CFP marks outside of the United States, the Financial Planning Standards Board, and its international advisory Council of CFP certification bodies (and aspiring ones) met here for three days to discuss the stewardship of the financial planning profession around the world. They do this twice a year. This time, the staff of the Canadian affiliate, your very own CFP credentialing organization: Financial Planners Standards Council (or to add yet another acronym to our long list in this industry: FPSC) hosted the meetings. The entire FPSC Board of Directors attended.
These proved to be eye-opening days for my fellow Board members and me. I'll tell you why in a moment. But before I do, let me also express my delight in being a part of a community, then and now, that is held in such increasingly high esteem - that is our community, yours and mine. As incoming Chair of the Financial Planners Standards Council Board of Directors, I hope to continue to play a part in the ongoing development of this community - an experience I know will be very satisfying. I'll talk to you about this a little later too.
So let me tell you about being enlightened at the meeting of the global CFP community this past April. During these meetings, my fellow Board members and I enjoyed the opportunity to experience an outsider's perspective of how our Canadian operation is viewed.
As volunteer Board members for the not-for-profit FPSC, we spend a lot of time scrutinizing operations for which we have considerable fiduciary responsibility. And we do it from an inside seat. As a result of this insider's perspective, sometimes we are not fully aware of how the organization may look to those peering in from a different vantage point. It's not unlike our relationships as financial planners with members of the public. Are we always fully aware of how we are perceived as a community of professionals? Can we fully appreciate the "other" perspectives, those of Canadians seeking competent ethical financial planning services, for example? I'll talk about this as well a little later.
During these international meetings, we learned how FPSC is viewed by the over 20 organizations from different countries around the world that are actively engaged in bringing standards of competency and ethics to their domestic financial planning communities through CFP certification. We witnessed and heard just what they thought of our Canadian certification process, our standards development and our domestic promotion of the CFP brand that represents both and much more.
These organizations view FPSC as a leader. Internationally, FPSC is considered to be an organization with the proven talent, experience and track-record of success to lead the globalization of professionalism in financial planning. And during the three days of meetings, as we witnessed the creation of a plan to further the development and adoption of uniform professional standards for financial planners throughout the world, my fellow board members and I began to understand the extent to which the global CFP community looks to Canada's FPSC to guide it. It was a proud moment, certainly. But it was also a moment of renewed recognition of how far we've come in this country - how far FPSC has taken us as a profession. And, also, of how much we have at stake.
Clearly, FPSC's first job is to develop and promote the standards behind the CFP brand in Canada. The most pressing order of business is to ensure that you - the living, breathing ambassadors of the CFP brand in Canada - live up to the made-in-Canada CFP standards during each and every client engagement. And to ensure that the standards keep apace of what you do and how you do it.
However, to ensure there will be no erosion of the integrity of the brand here in Canada, FPSC must also protect the integrity of the CFP brand around the world. Being the role model for the rest of the world is a sure-fire way for FPSC to do just that. The best way to protect the reputation of CFP professionals in Canada is to ensure that the reputations of CFP professionals in other countries are just as solidly based on relevant rigorous professional standards of competence and ethics. Don't you agree?
My guess is that you do. My guess is that you all understand the importance of being good role models, of being the best you can be, of helping your colleagues to aspire to the same level of professionalism that you expect of yourselves in your own engagements. My guess is that you want all your fellow CFP professionals to aspire to the same level of competence and ethics that you and every CFP professional are held to by FPSC. You want to be the best CFP professional you can be. This is probably what has motivated you to attending this conference. And this is in no small way, why CIFPs exists.
My understanding is that CIFPs aspires to be a professional membership organization that makes sure each and every one of you have the support, the tools, the networking and continuing education opportunities to remain at the top of your game. Its staff and those you've elected to its board work hard to ensure you stay in the business of offering unbiased, competent professional financial planning that always puts the client's interest first. And it works hard to ensure that each and every one of you is recognized for it - recognized for being the best you can be.
Please know that FPSC is very pleased that this fledgling organization, CIFPs, is working, and that its working hard. Because we're all in this together.
You see, the more brand equity we earn as individual financial planners representing a new profession, and the more brand equity FPSC creates for the CFP credential, the more we have to rely on each other to maintain the CFP brand promise. The more you as practicing planners rely on the CFP marks attached to your names to define what you do-to distinguish it as an activity or process worthy of being called a profession-the more FPSC must work to sustain the development of standards that keep apace of what is expected of you in your day-to-day work. And as FPSC advances and publicizes the CFP standards to the broader community of clients, employers, regulators and educators, as it has recently with the introduction of the CFP Practice Standards, the more it must rely on each and every CFP professional to uphold them.
As we raise Canadians' expectations of you and me - the CFP professional; the more CFP brand equity we earn and the more there is to lose. The more Canadians recognize the benefits to be derived from financial planning as guided by professionals such as yourselves; the more you will be counted on to deliver the goods - not just by your clients, but also by your fellow professional. Because, as I said, we're all in this together, and now more than ever.
You and I don't just represent ourselves anymore, or just our employers and our firms. We increasingly represent our profession.
So your colleague - the one standing next to you - is relying on you. If not today then most certainly tomorrow, you will be counted on to represent your fellow professionals in the best light you can. Because just like the community of CFP-certifying organizations outside our Canadian borders that can affect positively or negatively the Canadian CFP reputation, one we have been building for 10 years, you and the person next to you have the capability to enhance or erode the collective reputation of CFP professionals here in Canada.
FPSC needs you to keep up the good work, and we are delighted you have CIFPs to help you do it. We are very pleased indeed that CIFPs is helping you to help each other be the best you can be.
FPSC does have an excellent reputation abroad, as I said, but it's one that was built here in Canada and is most profoundly manifested in real terms for the benefit of real people by you and me. So what is our reputation? As CFP professionals, we know that we've chosen to take a higher more demanding road in earning and holding the CFP credential, because we have the insider's seat. But what about this "other" perspective. How are we seen as a community of professionals? I'll tell you. Because I can. Because FPSC expends a good deal of effort keeping track of this "other" perspective - the one from the outside looking in.
In FPSC's latest survey of our clients and prospective clients, CFP professionals are described as the professionals to go to and rely on for the necessary breadth and depth of knowledge, the necessary empathy, and the necessary accessibility to serve one's financial planning needs. No other financial services credential is so widely associated with financial planning. No other credential is so widely counted on as one that can be trusted when financial planning services are required. That's how we and our profession are being viewed from the outside.
Is there room for improvement? Of course there is. FPSC surveys also continue to determine that more Canadians should know about financial planning and the professionals who are qualified to assist them with it. Right now, one in three adult Canadians know about the CFP credential. This is actually pretty good awareness for a credential that's only been around for ten years. The CFP standards are only now being represented through sufficient numbers of individuals - about 17,000 - who are offering the CFP brand experience in cities and towns across Canada. However, still of some concern is that even a few of you admit that your clients don't know about the community of professionals you belong to. That's too bad, given the good reputation of the CFP community that exists among those who are in-the-know about us.
But all in all, we're doing a very good job of spreading the word and of being the best we can be so as to serve our clients well. We are representing our profession in a very good light.
So, now there is a lot at stake. There is our growing good reputation to sustain, one for providing a service that requires areas of competence and adherence to practice standards that are distinct from other forms of financial services and advice. And there is the growing recognition of what we do, of professional financial planning as that which will enhance the quality of lives of Canadians now and in the future; we need to re-enforce this, get more people to understand the underlying truth of it.
With CIFPs' help -- through conferences like this one, and other supporting activities and tools -- we can all take-up the gauntlet and do what ever we can to be the best we can be, for ourselves, our employers, our clients and our profession. It's more important than ever that we do.
I mentioned in the beginning that I expected my next year as Chair of FPSC's volunteer Board of Directors to be satisfying. Volunteering to help guide the development of this profession is one of the ways I have chosen to have my say, to make my contribution to a vocation that has been so very good to me in so many ways for over 20 years. We all know it isn't always easy to make a living at what we do, especially when we're just starting out. But when I look across the table at my clients and I see individuals of second and third generations of the same family trusting me to do right by them, to help them find their way to where they want to be tomorrow, next year, next decade-well, that's a very satisfying experience. One that I want to perpetuate and protect for myself and share with others.
I want to play a part in making it possible for others to experience for years to come the kind of satisfaction I experience as a financial planner today. So I get involved. And before I wish you a terrific few days doing what you can to be the best you can be as financial planners for the sake of your clients, your employers and your community of fellow professionals, I want to encourage you to also get involved as volunteers. Get involved with FPSC, with its committees, its community awareness and educational programs and in other ways you can find out about just by calling them. And get involved with CIFPs, its programs and committees at both chapter and national levels. Each of these organizations is doing their part to protect what's at stake. And what's at stake is your futures as successful, satisfied professionals doing what you love to do - helping Canadians live out their lives in control of their finances so that they can reach their goals.
Last night we heard Mr. Don Johnston, founder and President of FPSC. He spoke about the journey FPSC and CFP certification has been on for the past decade. A journey each one of you have joined or are about to join. He spoke about some of the challenges we met, the milestones we reached and the opportunities that lay ahead. And he graciously acknowledged that every step of the way, we've had the help and encouragement (sometimes prodding) of organizations and businesses, educators such as CIFP, professional associations such as CIFPs. And we've had your help - the help of individuals who went and are now going that extra mile to make a personal commitment to be the best financial planner they can be by earning and holding CFP certification.
Thank you for supporting the development of the evolution of a profession in which Canadians have every right to place their trust, and of which you have every right to be proud.
Enjoy the conference. Enjoy the work. Get involved. Be the best you can be, for all our sakes.
CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® and are certification marks owned outside the U.S. by Financial Planning Standards Board Ltd. (FPSB). Financial Planners Standards Council is the marks licensing authority for the CFP marks in Canada, through agreement with FPSB.
are certification marks