The annual process of selecting new members to a board of directors for a non-profit in the financial planning world is rarely news. But given the size of the CFP Board, and the diversity of their stakeholders, changes to the CFP Board's Board of Directors can be an exception. And in fact, the CFP Board's latest 2017 additions include a number of notable new members, from a (former?) asset management and large broker-dealer, to several media-related executives, to a former state securities regulator.
In this week’s #OfficeHours with @MichaelKitces, my Tuesday 1PM EST broadcast via Periscope, we explore the background of the new members of the CFP Board's Board of Directors, and what these new additions may signal regarding the CFP Board's upcoming new initiatives in the next few years.
The first noteworthy newcomers are Doug King, CEO of Cetera Advisor Networks, and Jack Brod, head of the Financial Advisor Services Group at Vanguard. These gentleman are significant because they represent the interests of "large firm financial planning" (i.e., firms that are so large that they look nothing like the independent advisory firms that comprise the majority of the CFP Board's current Board of Directors). The increased engagement of this segment of the industry with the CFP Board is particularly relevant to independent advisory firms, and in the case of Vanguard in particular signals that the firm is substantially pivoting from "just" being an asset manager, into a more full-service advisory firm that competes with independent advisors as well.
Also new to the CFP Board's Board of Directors are Susana Duarte de Suarez, who runs a global communications firm called Media Moon Communications, and Dane Snowden, who is the Chief of Staff for the NCTA (which was the National Cable Telecommunications Association, and is now the Internet & Television Association). Coming from the areas of media and communication, the addition of these new members may be a sign that the CFP Board is gearing up for a new stage in their (thus far, very successful) public awareness campaign.
And the final addition to the board is Denise Voigt Crawford, who previously was the Texas State Securities Commissioner for 17 years, and is also a former two-time president of the NASAA (the North American Securities Administrators Association, a membership group for state securities regulators). Given Crawford's connections to state securities regulators, and the CFP Board's limited success in lobbying for Federal regulation of financial planning under Dodd-Frank, her addition to the CFP Board's Board of Directors may be a sign that the next stage of CFP Board and Financial Planning Coalition advocacy is a switch to start lobbying for state regulation of financial planning in the coming years!