So who is Kevin Keller?

Author: Michael Kitces

Team Kitces

Michael Kitces is Head of Planning Strategy at Buckingham Strategic Wealth, which provides an evidence-based approach to private wealth management for near- and current retirees, and Buckingham Strategic Partners, a turnkey wealth management services provider supporting thousands of independent financial advisors through the scaling phase of growth.

In addition, he is a co-founder of the XY Planning Network, AdvicePay, fpPathfinder, and New Planner Recruiting, the former Practitioner Editor of the Journal of Financial Planning, the host of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, and the publisher of the popular financial planning industry blog Nerd’s Eye View through his website Kitces.com, dedicated to advancing knowledge in financial planning. In 2010, Michael was recognized with one of the FPA’s “Heart of Financial Planning” awards for his dedication and work in advancing the profession.

Read all of Michael’s articles here.

Kevin Keller was hired by the CFP Board as the CEO to replace Sarah Teslik (and more immediately, to replace interim CEO Don Tharpe) last May. Certainly, the hire of a new CEO in-and-of itself is a tremendous change for any organization to go through. But the reality is that the start of a new CEO was only part of the changes underway at the CFP Board.

At the same time (and in fact, also in May of 2007), the CFP Board also announced its relocation to Washington D.C., to occur by the end of 2007. This ultimately led to the turnover of more than 95% of the CFP Board's staff - many of whom had instituted the process, procedures, and policies of the organization for upwards of a decade or two - who were not willing to relocate themselves to the D.C. area.

Operating in tandem to all of this is the CFP Board's ongoing transition to the Carver Policy Governance Model. The CFP Board's then Board of Governors decided to adopt the Carver Model back in 2005. Its essence, the Carver Model directs the Board to be responsible for setting broad organization-wide policies and goals, and delegates and empowers the CEO of the organization to implement the necessary tactics. The result is that the Board decides the "ends", and the CEO determines the "means" to accomplish them.

Thus, we have an interesting confluence of changes underway. The CFP Board leadership has been in the process of implementing the Carver Model, which delegates wide-ranging authority to the CEO to implement the broad policy goals of the Board. The CEO role itself turned over last May, and virtually the entire staff of the organization turned over in the past 6 months (with the responsibility laying ultimately on the CEO's shoulders to re-staff the organization and its internal leadership).

This represents an absolutely incredible amount of power that falls in the hands of Kevin Keller. The focus of the Board of Directors is ostensibly to empower him to run the organization and implement the board's goals, and he has had the opportunity to hire an entire staff from top to bottom to achieve this. (Have you EVER heard of a CEO who had the opportunity to take over an existing successful organization and freely turn over the ENTIRE staff to replace with his own selections!?) This leaves us at an interesting juxtaposition - a brand new CEO, who has the opportunity to staff the entire organization from top to bottom to fulfill the mission of the board as conveyed to him.

I don't mean to suggest that Kevin Keller has abused his power, or done anything wrong whatsoever. However, all of this power has some people nervous, as evidenced by the recent incident where the majority of the members of the Discipline and Ethics Commission resigned over the realization of new powers that the CEO would have in selecting future committee members. Of course, the CFP Board had a very different perspective on the issue, and the former DEC members in return have written a White Paper to provide their perspective on why they resigned.

I haven't yet taken a position on the recent DEC controversy, and again the concerns here were not in response to people that the CEO did appoint as members, but merely the fact that he would be vested with the power to do so. So I don't know if Kevin Keller is doing a good job or not. In fact, I haven't yet had the chance to meet the man, or have a conversation with him. I really don't know who he is at all. But after realizing all of the responsibility, power, and opportunity for change that rests on his shoulders, I'd certainly like to get to know him a little better now. Wouldn't you?