CFP Board’s New Strategic Priorities for 2022–2026

I’m pleased to share that our Board of Directors recently adopted the framework for a new strategic plan that will guide the organization’s operations during 2022–2026 and advance our mission to benefit the public.

Sometimes an outside perspective is just what you need. Tom Sporkin joined CFP Board earlier this year as our Managing Director of Enforcement, and his experience and insights related to our enforcement process have been invaluable to the organization (see Tom’s recent Voices column in Financial Planning magazine). His perspective as someone new to CFP Board has also been valuable. One comment he shared with the executive team really helped open our eyes to CFP Board’s special role. He noted how impressive it was that CFP Board gets the right people in the room.

Tom’s insight is easy to verify. From our Board of Directors to the Commissions, Task Forces and working groups that have advised us on a wide range of issues and initiatives — the list of people who have shared their insights and experience with CFP Board is truly remarkable. Leaders from across and beyond the financial advice ecosystem know and respect CFP Board. And that opens up immense opportunities for us.

In the spring of 2020, we shared with you that CFP Board had convened a Roundtable Forum with nearly a hundred leaders from across the financial advice ecosystem for a facilitated discussion focused on the future of the financial planning profession and the financial advice industry. Last fall, we followed up on that meeting with a series of virtual roundtable meetings with many of those leaders, to begin developing a shared vision for the profession’s future and identify key elements necessary to move the profession forward. We then asked our CFP® professionals to share their thoughts on which of those elements are important for CFP Board’s work and where CFP Board can make the most impact.

Those activities were all part of our work to develop an updated strategic plan for CFP Board. And I’m pleased to share that our Board of Directors recently adopted the framework for a new strategic plan that will guide the organization’s operations during 2022–2026 and advance our mission to benefit the public.

The new framework consists of five strategic priorities:

1. Standards & Certification: CFP Board sets, administers and enforces certification standards that warrant public trust.
2. Access: CFP Board expands access to competent and ethical financial planners by increasing the number and diversity of CFP® professionals.
3. Awareness: CFP Board increases awareness of CFP® certification as the must-have financial planner credential for consumers and advisors.
4. Community & Regulatory Engagement: CFP Board engages the financial advice ecosystem to advance the financial planner profession and influences policy for the benefit of the public.
5. Workforce: CFP Board develops a sustainable and diverse financial planner workforce.

If you joined us for our CFP® Certificant Connection webinar last month, you were first to hear about the new strategic framework from Douglas S. King, CFP®, our Board Chair, who also reviewed how many of our current initiatives fit into the new framework.

Our new strategic priorities build upon the successes CFP Board has achieved under our current strategic priorities of Awareness, Access, Accountability and Authority. For example, our Public Awareness Campaign has contributed to increased public awareness and demand for competent and ethical financial planning, and we’ve worked to meet that demand through expanded access, achieving record growth in the number and diversity of CFP® professionals.

Our new strategic framework also takes our commitment to the public several steps forward by doubling down on setting, administering and enforcing certification standards that warrant public trust. Just as past strategic plans have led us to launch important initiatives such as our Public Awareness Campaign and the CFP Board Center for Financial Planning, we look forward to developing bold new initiatives to support our new priorities.

For more than 35 years, CFP Board has worked to uphold CFP® certification for the benefit of the public. That work has involved all our various stakeholder groups — financial planners, their firms, their educators and the broader academic community, policymakers, regulators, investor advocates and other influencers. With that engagement, the clarity of our mission and our demonstrated ability to execute and take action to advance the profession for the public’s benefit, we have earned a special role and level of influence in the financial advice ecosystem.

We look forward to continuing our work with leaders across the financial advice ecosystem to advance our shared vision for the future of a financial planning profession focused squarely on helping clients.

This article was originally published in the August 19, 2021, edition of the CFP Board Report newsletter.

About the Author: Kevin Keller, CAE is Chief Executive Officer of CFP Board. CFP Board’s mission is to benefit the public by granting the CFP® certification and upholding it as the recognized standard of excellence for competent and ethical personal financial planning.