Remarks by Cheryl Bauer Hyde
FPSC Chair 2007/08 Board of Directors
Opening Remarks for CIFPs Conference Calgary, Alberta, June 2007
"Leaving Your Footprint on the
landscape of a Profession-in-the-Making"
Thank you and hello. What a pleasure it is to address a room full of like-minded professionals. And particularly to do so wearing my brand new hat as incoming Chair of Financial Planners Standards Council. I feel truly honoured to be able to devote some of my time and energy to helping this important standard-setting and certification body for CFP professionals realize its mission.
I want to congratulate CIFPs on the recent acquisition of the Canadian Institute of Financial Planning, and the educational potential that now offers your membership organization. Congratulations to the organizers, CIFPs staff and sponsors for putting together what looks to be an excellent conference.
In case you haven't heard it before, FPSC's mission is to lead the evolution of financial planning toward recognition as a bona fide profession. As financial planning practitioners whose bread and butter depend on the recognition of the value of the services we provide, I know we want it as much as FPSC does. And I know that FPSC's newly appointed CEO, Cary List, will be talking to you later today to bring you up to speed on what its doing to get us there.
So, I'm not going to steal his thunder by telling you what FPSC is doing and plans to do to ensure that every Canadian has access to competent and ethical professional financial planning. Or to tell you how FPSC is ensuring CFP standards define the profession as it evolves. I'm not going to talk to you about FPSC's very large and important role in leading, facilitating and rallying all the multi-stakeholder support necessary to do what it has set out to do, for you, for your employers, for your industry, and for your clients.
What I want to talk to you about is your role. I want to talk to you about what you are doing or what you could be doing to move this evolution along. To borrow a phrase from the environment evolution that is on all our minds right now, I'm here to ask you to consider the "footprint" you want to leave on the landscape of this profession-in-the-making. And I'm hoping you will consider the tremendous benefits to you, of getting involved - not just as a practitioner - but as someone with a vested interest in how your community of colleagues works together. I'm hoping to get you to consider how you and your fellow practitioners, can and should collectively work together to continue to shape a profession you can be proud to be part of. I want you to consider how you collectively work together to influence the evolution of your chosen vocation. To consider how your profession-in-the-making is and will be perceived in your communities - by your employers, by the industry sectors in which you work, by regulators and by Canadians in general. I want you to consider how your profession will evolve, if we all work together.
Speaking from many, many years of experience, let me tell you that the benefits of getting involved in building the profession you have chosen to be a part of, are both personal and professional in nature. And they can be profound in their effect. I was lucky in that very early on in my career in financial planning, I had mentors who persuaded me of the importance of joining a professional association and of getting involved in that association.
I initially joined what was then The Canadian Association of Financial Planners probably for the same reasons you belong to CIFPs. I joined for the learning opportunities, for the opportunities to share ideas, and for the collegial support. But, coming from a long-line of volunteers - that is coming from small-town Saskatchewan - I knew that in many communities, if you want something to get done, or to get done a certain way, in some cases you've got to roll-up your sleeves and do it. In other cases, you have to roll-up your sleeves to get the grass-roots support to ensure someone else does it. One way or another, you've got to get involved to make sure stuff gets done.
Early on, and perhaps because it was so early on in the evolution of financial planning, I realized that in many ways this is also true for our community of financial planning professionals. So, I signed-up to play my part in getting stuff done. Why? Largely because I thought it was my chance to leave my footprint beside, behind, or in front of those of so many others. (And, frankly, of so many others with much larger shoes than mine.) I wanted my footprint along-side theirs on the landscape of the profession that I wanted to be a part of - a profession I wanted to be proud of.
So, I stepped up and continue to do so today.
Many of you have done the same. And all of you have taken the first step toward doing so by being here today. You're here to learn. You're here to share. You're here to network and to garner all the support you can get. And now I'm asking that you also consider what you can give. I'm asking you to consider volunteering to do whatever needs doing. I'm asking you to think about what you can do to help shape our profession-in-the-making.
How? By offering your experience, your perspective, your conviction, your time and your energy, in any way you can. I'm asking you to think about how you might make sure your chosen work is recognized as a profession that reflects who you are, what you do and the value you bring to your community, your employers, your industry and, most importantly, your clients.
You know, FPSC is leading the evolution, but it's doing it much like a coach leads a team. Much like you lead your clients. And like a coach, FPSC tries to help, guide, support and facilitate all the team players to do what needs to be done to win the game. But in the end, people like you, have to step up if we are to win.
And I know that many of you are doing just that. Many of you have stepped up and pitched in. In this past year alone, more than a thousand of you have volunteered for FPSC-directed initiatives. And there have been others - other CFP professionals and other stakeholders. Some of you have volunteered time, and brought your expertise and experience to work on FPSC's Board, on its standing committees and on ad-hoc working groups - all of which have important roles in the development and implementation of CFP standards and of the CFP certification process. Some have helped fill the FPSC website with relevant expert content. Some have spoken to community groups, to students, and to businesses on the importance of financial planning and CFP certification.
Some have spoken to the media on behalf of the community of CFP professionals. And many have participated in FPSC surveys and focus groups to help FPSC test the lay-of-the-land and find out how to do better in some of its activities. Some have mentored. Some have shared opinions in articles, on discussion forums, in books and in person.
Many of you who are here today have stepped up and become involved. On behalf of FPSC, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you. And to tell you that you've already made a profound impact on our work at FPSC, and on the evolution of our profession. We hope you will continue to do so, and that many of your colleagues will follow in your footsteps.
I'm pretty sure that those of you who already have spent some time, like myself, volunteering on committees, working groups or boards and such, will, if you can, continue to. I'm pretty sure of this because, you, like me, have the satisfaction of helping to get stuff done, for sure, but also because we've gained a ton for our efforts, haven't we?
Let me tell you that for all the years of volunteer work I've put into helping shape my profession, I've received, on a personal and professional level, much more than I've given. As a result of my voluntary involvement, I've been given huge learning opportunities. I've acquired mentors, friends and colleagues from across the country. I've been able to share ideas and have meaningful conversations about the practice of financial planning with a much broader network of professionals than I might otherwise have had. I've gained much more knowledge than I've imparted, and in turn, I've been able to share more with others.
Because that's how it works. You begin a cycle of giving, sharing and learning that leads to getting more, sharing more and learning more, and so it goes on. Hopefully, all of it along a path of many footprints, all leading toward recognition of the financial planning profession.
You know, in most definitions of the word "profession" there exists the suggestion of accountability - accountability to those served by the profession, and accountability to society. So to what or to whom are we accountable as members of a profession-in-the-making? I think, at the very least, we are accountable to each other. Don't you?
So look at the CFP professional beside you and ask, "what's the footprint you are leaving on this landscape of the financial planning profession-in-the-making? Then look in the mirror and ask the same thing?
Learn, share and get involved. Our profession is counting on you.
Thanks for giving me this opportunity to learn and share with you.
Have a great conference.
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