Remarks by Cheryl Bauer Hyde
FPSC Chair 2007/08 Board of Directors
Address at FPSC Board Reception
Calgary, Alberta, June 14, 2007
Stepping It Up in the Evolution of a
Profession-in-the-Making
Listen Here
(10 minutes)
On behalf of all of my colleagues on the Board who are here today, welcome to Financial Planners Standards Council's 6th Annual Board Reception.
I want to take a moment to introduce the Board members for the past year, and the incoming Board members. Please hold your applause until they are all introduced:
Margaret Koniuk, outgoing Past Chair
Peter Volpe, 2006/07 Chair and now Past Chair
Jim Kraft, Vice Chair
Debbie Ammeter
Keith Costello, completing his term on the board
Paul Isaacson
Ted Jordan
Amin Mawani, completing his term on the board
Alan Munro
Lisa Pflieger
New to the board for 2007/08:
John Charrette
Randy Reynolds - unable to be with us this evening
Sally Rycroft
This is the second reception we've held here in Boom-Town Calgary. And booming it is! Calgary is not new to me. I've worked here, lived here and still visit quite often. It's a wonderful and dynamic city, and I love coming here. Everytime I do, I notice more changes.
The Calgary Tourism Website, not surprisingly, refers to several aspects of what makes this city so special by celebrating many of these changes.
But it also celebrates the continuing co-existence of all that hasn't changed. It seems to be looking to the future and the past simultaneously, celebrating the reality of today — all that is different now — while acknowledging the past upon which today's reality is being built. I like that, and it got me thinking about the nature of change. How sometimes we embrace it and how sometimes we resist it. How sometimes we just cope with it. And how sometimes we make it happen.
Sometimes change is a result of our well-thought out decisions - decisions that create methodical shifts in directions toward specific goals. In other words, change is sometimes managed with the knowledge of the past, and an understanding of what we want the future to look like.
And sometimes change is devastatingly swift and surprising. Like the changes experienced in this city by the unfortunate families who are coping with the wreckage left by the rainstorm of a couple of weeks ago. And these changes, the unexpected ones and the inevitable ones, we try to prepare for as best we can.
As financial planners, we are very familiar, indeed expert, at managing change. We prepare our clients for the inevitability of changes that can be sudden and unpredictable or slow and inevitable. And we help them to make change happen, deliberately and with informed forethought, so that they can achieve their goals.
At Financial Planners Standards Council there is kind of change that is our mission to lead and to manage. It's a kind of change that is a result of the two most powerful forces that cause change to occur in the first place. Things that happen around us and things we make happen. It's these two forces working together that direct what will happen in the future. That direction is called "evolutionary change". Without evolutionary change, we would not survive as a species. And without evolutionary change the practice of financial planning will never be recognized as a bona fide profession. And it is our mission, FPSC's purpose, to lead the financial planning evolution and to manage the changes that will direct it. The evolution of the species, we'll leave to some other force.
In biology, evolution is the change in a population's inherited traits from generation to generation. Evolution occurs when the differences in these traits become more common or rare in a population. So, you might say that in the world of building a profession, FPSC, through CFP certification, is feeding the gene pool with traits that will ensure the outcome we are striving for. That is: consistent excellence in the provision of financial planning by competent ethical individuals who are recognized for the value they bring to those they serve.
Today we are honouring individuals who are bringing some of the best genes to the genetic pool of financial planning. Today we present the President's List. In this presentation we honour those whose performance on the CFP Examination was nothing short of outstanding.
But as I said, evolutionary change is a result of two forces: things that happen around us and things we make happen. So today we are also celebrating and honouring the contributions made by individuals and organizations that are influencing what's happening around us, so that what's happening around us creates an environment that favours the evolutionary path we are trying so hard to stay on. Maybe create an environment that actually nurtures it.
Today, the second Donald J. Johnston Award is being presented to an individual whom we believe deserves special recognition for his efforts, and for his contribution in affecting change that we might not otherwise have any control over. And his contribution, you will learn, has also been nothing short of outstanding.
Also outstanding, I think, is our new Strategic Plan, the outline of which you will find on tables around the room for your perusal here and to take home with you. This Strategic Plan, I think is outstanding in that it perfectly exemplifies and leverages where we are today in the evolution of financial planning.
It's a plan that builds on past successes to ensure future ones. It's a plan that acknowledges the need to recognize and understand the external forces that might be harnessed or influenced to our advantage. And while it's a plan that recognizes the evolutionary nature of building a profession, it's also a plan that recognizes that all evolutions experience significant "boosts" that direct change more decidedly and more firmly down one evolutionary path or another. And it recognizes that these "boosts" occur at strategic moments.
This Strategic Plan recognizes that the evolution of financial planning is primed for just such a "boost". That now, is one of these strategic moments.
You'll remember another such strategic moment happened more than ten years ago. That moment was ripe for the birth of an organization that would develop and promote uniform standards of competency and ethics represented by one certification for all individuals who wanted to hold themselves out as qualified financial planners. That moment was primed for the birth of FPSC. And with it, the development of CFP standards and CFP certification that would begin to define the professional practice of financial planning in Canada.
That moment delivered one heck of a boost to the evolution of the profession of financial planning in Canada. Now, is another such moment. Now is another perfect time to give this evolution another major boost.
It's a time of readiness. It's a time of need. It's time to step — it — up, again.
We've spent the last 10 years getting ready to give this profession-in-the-making its next major boost. Now we can build on the solid foundation of rigorous relevant CFP standards and leverage a growing community of CFP professionals now numbering more that 17,000 as well as a growing number of FPSC champions and FPSC supporters in all industry sectors, in academia, in the regulatory arenas and among other professional groups. We're ready with an army of volunteers and a small battalion of staff — all of whom are committed to and able to serve the best interest of Canadians by leading and managing the evolutionary change that will nudge financial planning toward recognition as a bona fide profession.
We're ready. And it's a good thing, because we need to be. We need to be ready to broaden and deepen understanding of the value CFP professionals bring to their clients, to their employers, to their industry, to their communities and to Canadian society as a whole. It's time for all of us in the industry to step-up what we are doing to ensure there is value in financial planning and that that value is recognized. We need to collectively pool our efforts to create an environment in which professional financial planners can thrive, so that the practice of professional financial planning can become more viable as a business offering and more accessible to clients and, that the financial planning profession-in-the-making can continue to evolve in a way we're more than happy with -so it can evolve in a way we're ecstatic about!
Let me tell you that FPSC is ready to lead these efforts, to facilitate them, to spur them along. And I very much look forward to the months ahead when our new President and CEO, Cary List and I travel the country to talk to groups of CFP professionals, industry representatives, regulators and other key stakeholders about how we at FPSC are stepping-it-up. And to talk to you about the role each and every one of you are playing in this exciting evolution.
Ladies and Gentlemen — Let me introduce you to the man who is charged with much more than just talking about the plan. Here is the man who is charged with putting it into action. Let me introduce you to FPSC's recently appointed President and CEO, Mr. Cary List.
I know I speak for the entire board when I say there is no one more prepared, more able, nor more passionately committed to doing so.
You know it took us, the Board, a good year to formulate this Strategic Plan, and we did so with considerable input and leadership from Cary, who then was acting President and CEO, and from his executive team. By the time we came out the other end of the planning sessions, it was wonderfully obvious that Cary was the one to lead his team in making the Plan real.
He's no stranger to FPSC or to the financial services industry, having amassed almost two decades of relevant experience that proves his dedication to the advancement of the profession. The last five of those years he's had responsibilities for the ongoing development and integrity of all aspects of CFP certification. If you haven't read his CV yet, take a look at the Announcement Ad in this room or visit the FPSC web site. More importantly, talk to him, here today or sometime in the near future so that you, like every member of the Board of Directors understand why we have such faith that what FPSC will accomplish with Cary at the helm, will move this evolution along very nicely indeed. Cary will be stepping-it-up, for sure.
Ladies and Gentlemen, here to present the 2006/07 President's List is Mr. Cary List, President and CEO of Financial Planners Standards Council.
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