It doesn’t take long after Labor Day for that end of summer feeling to arrive. Even if you haven’t spent the last few weeks traveling to and from vacation destinations, or helping a loved one prepare to go back to school, there’s still a feeling that it’s time to get back to work and finish up the year with a burst of productivity.

Things at CFP Board have remained productive even throughout the summer. The transition to Washington, D.C. is well underway, with office space being prepared for CFP Board’s new headquarters and new faces being added to CFP Board’s staff. While the company’s operations continue to run from Denver, CFP Board’s new presence in the nation’s capital has already opened doors. We’ve had several meetings with officials who are asking good questions about how they can work with the financial services industry to serve the public interest, and we’ve seen them listen with interest as they hear about the value of CFP® certification for the public. These are just first steps, but steps that hold great promise in increasing public awareness of the high standards of ethics and competence that CFP® certification represents.

The end of summer also signals a new season of professional gatherings. Over the next few weeks, CFP Board representatives will be present at several events, including the 2007 Program Directors Conference, FPA Seattle 2007, and others. The waning of summer isn’t bringing with it a waning of travel plans for CFP Board, but it will bring opportunities for us to meet face-to-face with many of CFP Board’s stakeholders, and that’s something I look forward to. CFP Board values the perspectives of all its stakeholders, and we hope those of you we encounter at this fall’s meetings will take time to introduce yourself and share your thoughts.

Karen P. Schaeffer, CFP®
2007 Chair, Board of Directors
CFP Board

Imagine your life partner of some 15 years suddenly passes away. You try to deal with the shock, you start the grieving process, you console and are consoled by friends and family. You organize the funeral and the wake, and afterwards you return to the house you and your partner shared only to find all your belongings piled up in the street. Your partner’s family has evicted you from your own home.

This is exactly what happened to a client of J.T. Hatfield Smith, CFP®, a financial planner with SPC Financial Inc. in Rockville, Maryland. And it was only able to happen at all because the couple in question was gay, and they had not made the necessary provisions to protect themselves. When a husband or wife dies, the surviving spouse automatically inherits all assets not otherwise directed in a will. Same-sex couples don’t enjoy the same right. Hatfield Smith’s client made equal mortgage payments on the house for most of the couple’s time together, but his partner alone legally owned the property since he had acquired it before they met. The men never got around to changing the names on the title deed. The deceased partner’s family was able to use that fact to claim full ownership of the home. This is just one example of how complex — and fraught — financial planning for same-sex couples can be. “Gays and lesbians are not afforded the same rights as heterosexual married couples,” says Hatfield Smith, “so they must take additional steps to ensure their house is their home.”

There are currently more than 700,000 same-sex couples in the United States, according to the 2004 American Community Survey, a poll carried out annually by the U.S. Census Bureau. (This estimate is considered low since it only records self-identified same-sex couples.) Gay couples can marry, and file joint state tax returns, in only one state: Massachusetts. A handful of other states — including California, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Vermont — award state spousal rights to same-sex couples through civil union or domestic partnership laws. Outside the U.S., same-sex marriages or civil partnerships are recognized in seven countries — Belgium, Canada, Israel, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain and the United Kingdom — though only Canada, Spain and the U.K. accord same-sex spouses exactly the same rights as spouses of different genders.

The U.S. Federal Government does not recognize same-sex relationships, and individual states often do not recognize the civil union or domestic partnership legislation passed in other states. So gay couples face unique challenges when it comes to estate and tax planning — and financial planners face a very complicated task in advising them. (While this article focuses on the special financial planning needs of same-sex couples, many of the same issues apply to unmarried heterosexual couples, too.)

“If you’re gay and not in a relationship, then you can manage your money just like anybody else,” says Judith Woodard, CFP®, senior financial advisor at Christopher Street Financial, a New York City firm specialized in providing wealth management services to the gay and lesbian community. “But if you’re gay and in a relationship in which you want to take care of each other, then how you organize your financial affairs makes a big difference.” Woodard lists just a few of the biggest differences:

• Transactions between a husband and wife — of property, gifts, cash — are non-taxable events; the same transactions between same-sex partners are immediately taxable.
• The joint assets of married couples are taxed after the second spouse dies; there is no such provision for same-sex couples.
• A spouse can roll over the IRA of their deceased spouse into his or her own IRA without any tax implications; the surviving member of a same-sex couple must take taxable income immediately.
• Social Security provides no survivor benefits for same-sax partners, and no joint benefits are available under Medicare and Medicaid.

Woodard stresses that these are just some of the more obvious planning issues that need to be addressed for same-sex couples. There is a host of other financial and legal questions — such as whether to structure home ownership as ‘joint tenants with rights of survivorship’ or ‘joint tenants in common,’ and how to arrange power of attorney for health care decisions — that need to be anticipated and answered. Planning is made even more complex by the unintended side-effects that can attend some solutions. An arrangement that ensures the right of inheritance, for example, can have disadvantageous tax consequences. “Same-sex couples have to look very carefully at how they hold their assets and how things are transferred in the event of one partner’s death,” Woodard says. “The issues are so complex that couples really need to thoroughly think things through. We want clients to understand the upsides and downsides of everything they do.”

According to Hatfield Smith, one key is to get the titling or powers of attorney right. “If one partner in a same-sex couple has an individual bank account from which they pay a portion of the mortgage each month,” Hatfield Smith says, “that account will be frozen immediately should he or she become incapacitated or pass away. Education should be given, and discussions should be had, to determine if titling with ‘joint tenants with rights of survivorship’ or a durable power of attorney could mitigate a challenge such as this. Something as simple as account titling or beneficiary designations is crucial and could save the surviving partner from a financial catastrophe. If a married couple forgot to do this, no problem; the assets go to the surviving spouse upon death. But same-sex couples have to absolutely ensure that they have taken the proper precautions, or they risk leaving their partner in a position where the assets don’t pass in the manner or direction intended.”

To avoid unexpected surprises in the event of a partner’s death, Hatfield Smith urges same-sex couples to plan their estates to “avoid probate wherever possible. Use beneficiary designations and revocable trusts to take away any opportunity for wishes to be contested, either by a judge or a family member.” Hatfield Smith also believes long-term care (LTC) insurance is a must, since few people of any sexual orientation can afford to stop working to care for an ailing partner and because same-sex couples often have no children who might provide assistance: “It doesn’t matter what age you are. You need to be educated about long-term care insurance, and then figure out where it fits into your overall plan.” Hatfield Smith, who is 36, has had LTC insurance since he was 29.

Hatfield Smith is the co-chair of this month’s PridePlanners™ conference in Washington D.C. PridePlanners is a national association dedicated to keeping financial professionals aware of the changing needs of the gay and lesbian community and non-traditional couples and families. This year’s event takes place from September 27 to 29 at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel, and will cover topics such as estate planning and Medicare/Medicaid issues for non-traditional couples as well as the status of same-sex partnerships in various states. The Member Resources section of the PridePlanners Web site has an overview of books and organizations relevant to planners with gay clients. Freedom to Marry, a non-profit group in New York City that works to end discrimination in marriage, also has information on the legal and social issues surrounding unmarried and non-traditional couples.

Alan Goldfarb, CFP®, director of financial strategies at Weaver and Tidwell Financial Advisors, Ltd. in Dallas, Texas, works with several clients who are in same-sex relationships. “My clients are most concerned about estate and survivorship issues,” says Goldfarb, who is also a member of the CFP Board’s Board of Directors. “There is a heightened sensitivity to the needs of the other person in the relationship, since the laws are not there for same-sex couples the way they are for married couples. The same kind of sensitivity needs to be there from a financial planning perspective, so planners can lay out the options and alternatives to ensure the client’s partner will be taken care of.”

- James Geary

Regular readers of CFP Board Report will no doubt remember Saundra Davis. She and her firm, Sage Financial Solutions, were profiled in the November 2006 issue in connection with her CFP Board grant to conduct financial planning training sessions for the employees of community-based organizations in San Francisco. Well, as California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger might put it, Saundra Davis is back — and this time, she has won a grant to create a financial planning incubator to further extend the reach of planning services among low-wealth individuals in the Bay Area.

Davis learned two things from her previous project, which focused on educating non-profit workers about financial planning and enabling them to identify when planning might benefit their clients as well. First, there is huge demand for financial planning information among the employees and clients of community-based organizations. Second, non-profit workers don’t want to provide this information themselves. “Social workers are already swamped, and many of them have their own money issues, so they are not interested in providing planning assistance,” Davis says. “But by having an understanding of the issues, they can identify clients who might benefit — and these clients are sometimes more jazzed than the social workers about learning more.”

One such client is a Latina woman who is part of an Individual Development Account (IDA) program in the Bay Area. She was saving to start her own hair care business when a staff member (who was trained by Davis as part of her first grant project) suggested that some financial planning advice might help her towards that goal. “As we talked,” Davis recalls, “she began to warm to the idea of doing a financial plan. As the conversation went on, she became more and more intrigued by the field itself.” Not only did this woman go on to complete a financial plan; she also enrolled in a program to become a wealth coach. Through her financial planning incubator project, Davis intends to replicate this process of education and inspiration on a much broader scale.

The incubator model gained widespread prominence during the tech boom of the late 1990s, when it seemed that every teenager with a modem and some programming skills had a desk in some Silicon Valley hothouse. The idea was to help start-up firms get off the ground by providing necessities like office space and administrative infrastructure so the entrepreneurs could focus on building their businesses. Davis is doing the same for the financial planning profession.

Individuals who have completed a course of study at a CFP Board-Registered Program will be offered support and services encompassing everything from management coaching to business plan development to mentoring by veteran CFP® professionals. During the three-year program, participants will be involved in workshops as well we one-on-one and group training sessions. They must also demonstrate progress toward completing the CFP® certification requirements and complete a business plan for an individual practice. After three years, participants will leave the nest — equipped with invaluable knowledge, experience to put toward the requirements for initial CFP® certification and, in some cases, their own client base.

Those clients will come from three main target markets: low-income individuals and families, small business owners, and community-based organizations. “The incubator will create a bridge between new planners who want to start a business but have limited capital and prospects who want to work with a planner but need to pay a reduced fee,” Davis explains. “The incubator environment can accommodate the needs of both parties by offsetting the high costs of starting and operating an independent firm.”

The incubator will give fledgling planners a lift by providing a firm foundation from which to launch their own practices, if that’s what they choose to do. The profession as a whole benefits, too, as incubator graduates gradually begin to redefine the ‘low-cost planning for low-wealth individuals’ market. “A lot of new planners can’t make a living from their own practices and may not want to join a big firm,” Davis says. “But they have the heart to work with moderate-income clients. The incubator will allow them to learn to network, to build a client base, and to do a good thing while they’re doing it. Yes, they will have to do more for less. But when you help a small business owner create a retirement plan, or you help a low-income family send a child to college, you reach a whole different level of job satisfaction.”

Davis also hopes the incubator will enhance diversity in the financial planning profession itself. Current statistics are hard to come by, but estimates suggest that 5% of CFP® professionals are from ethnic minorities. “I’m tired of always being the only black woman in the room,” Davis says. “By increasing the demand for financial planning services in underserved communities, we can increase the supply of planners from those communities. When people see a planner who looks like them and talks like them, maybe more of them will start thinking, ‘Hey, this can be a career option for me, too.’ That will let people know that there’s room for the full spectrum of colors in this field and that financial professionals are responsive to the needs of all communities.”

Davis says she’s received “staggering amounts of encouragement” for the incubator idea from the financial planning community. But she’s not putting all of her eggs in one basket. She wants to set up the Bay Area incubator first and then export the model to the rest of the country. Given the success of Davis’ first CFP Board grant project, it likely won’t be long before her plans take flight.

Read more about projects receiving funding through CFP Board’s 2007 Financial Planning Grants program.

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The principle of fairness is an important one for CFP Board’s ethical standards, and CFP Board’s revised Standards of Professional Conduct, which becomes effective July 1, 2008, contains several rules designed to give clients a fair chance to understand clearly the services they can expect to receive and the context in which they’ll receive those services. Two important rules from the new Rules of Conduct describe required disclosures to clients and prospective clients that help them better make informed decisions about the recommendations they may receive.

Rule 2.2 sets forth the disclosures required of all CFP® professionals when dealing with clients and prospective clients. The rule states that a certificant shall disclose to a prospective client or client the following information:

1. An accurate and understandable description of the compensation arrangements being offered.
    
   This description must include:
    
   
   1. Information related to costs and compensation to the certificant and/or the certificant’s employer, and
   2. Terms under which the certificant and/or the certificant’s employer may receive any other sources of compensation, and if so, what the sources of these payments are and on what they are based.
   
   
2. A general summary of likely conflicts of interest between the client and the certificant, the certificant’s employer or any affiliates or third parties, including, but not limited to, information about any familial, contractual or agency relationship of the certificant or the certificant’s employer that has a potential to materially affect the relationship.
    
   
3. Any information about the certificant or the certificant’s employer that could reasonably be expected to materially affect the client’s decision to engage the certificant that the client might reasonably want to know in establishing the scope and nature of the relationship, including but not limited to information about the certificant’s areas of expertise.
    
   
4. Contact information for the certificant and, if applicable, the certificant’s employer.

Certain disclosure obligations in the updated Standards of Professional Conduct are specific to financial planning engagements. Rule 2.2 includes in part (e) that the disclosures listed above must be made in writing when the related services include financial planning or material elements of the financial planning process. The written disclosures need not be a single newly-created document; the written disclosures may be made through multiple documents or through existing disclosure documents, such as Form ADV, that are used to make disclosures in compliance with state or federal laws, or the rules or requirements of any applicable self-regulatory organization.

Rule 1.2 addresses additional disclosure obligations to clients or prospective clients for engagements that include financial planning or material elements of the financial planning process. The following disclosures required by Rule 1.2 may be made in writing or through discussions with the client or prospective client:

1. The obligations and responsibilities of each party under the agreement with respect to:
    
   
   1. Defining goals, needs and objectives,
   2. Gathering and providing appropriate data,
   3. Examining the result of the current course of action without changes,
   4. The formulation of any recommended actions,
   5. Implementation responsibilities, and
   6. Monitoring responsibilities.
   
    
   
2. Compensation that any party to the agreement or any legal affiliate to a party to the agreement will or could receive under the terms of the agreement; and factors or terms that determine costs, how decisions benefit the certificant and the relative benefit to the certificant.
    
   
3. Terms under which the agreement permits the certificant to offer proprietary products.
    
   
4. Terms under which the certificant will use other entities to meet any of the agreement’s obligations.

Rule 1.2 ends with a note that if the information above is disclosed in writing, the certificant shall also encourage the prospective client or client to review the information and offer to answer any questions that the prospective client or client may have.

The updated Standards of Professional Conduct also acknowledges that disclosure is not always a one-time event. As a client engagement evolves over time, perhaps with added or re-structured services, ongoing disclosure is also important. Rule 2.2 makes that clear in its concluding statement: “The certificant shall timely disclose to the client any material changes to the above information.” Rather than follow a periodic annual or semi-annual schedule for repeated disclosures, this provision of Rule 2.2 requires that disclosures be updated on an ongoing basis, allowing a client to make informed decisions based on the most current information.

Questions about the revised Standards may be sent to CFP Board at mail@CFPBoard.org.

About the Revised Standards of Professional Conduct:
On May 31, 2007, CFP Board’s Board of Directors announced the adoption of a revised version of CFP Board’s Standards of Professional Conduct, which sets forth the ethical standards for CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals. The revised Standards become effective July 1, 2008 and apply to the more than 55,000 financial planners in the U.S. who are authorized by CFP Board to use the CFP® certification marks. CFP Board encourages CFP® professionals to begin applying the revised Standards to their daily practice well in advance of the July 1, 2008 effective date.

2008 Board of Directors Announced

CFP Board’s Board of Directors has announced the names of its 2008 members. On January 1, 2008, David G. Strege, CFP® will begin his term as 2008 Chair of the Board of Directors, and Marilyn Capelli Dimitroff, CFP® will serve as 2008 Chair-Elect. They will be joined by four new members: Nancy A. Kistner, CFP®; Terry L. Lister, JD; Charles A. Moran, JD, CFP®; and Charles D. Robinson, CFP®.

CFP Board awards CFP® certification to individuals in the U.S. who successfully complete CFP Board's initial and ongoing certification requirements. The Board of Directors is comprised of volunteers with various experiences and backgrounds that represent different groups of CFP Board’s stakeholders, as well as the public interest. A majority of Board members must be CFP® certificants and, aside from CFP Board’s CEO, who serves in an ex officio position, each serves a four-year term.

CFP Board’s 2008 Board of Directors will include fourteen members:

David G. Strege, CFA, CFP®, 2008 Chair
Marilyn Capelli Dimitroff, CFP®, 2008 Chair-Elect
Dan Candura, CFP®
Theodore R. Daniels
Robert J. Glovsky, JD, LLM, CFP®, CLU, ChFC
Alan Goldfarb, CFP®
Nancy Johnson Jones, CFP®
James A. Kaitz
Kevin R. Keller, CAE, CFP Board’s CEO
Nancy A. Kistner, CFP®
Terry Lister, JD
Charles A. Moran, CFP®, CEBS, JD
Charles D. Robinson, CFP®
Virginia M.K. “Ginny” Stanley, CPA/PFS, CFP®, CVA

“I look forward to working with the 2008 Board of Directors,” said David G. Strege, CFP®, 2008 Chair. “I’m confident each member of the Board of Directors understands CFP Board’s important purpose in establishing rigorous standards for financial planning professionals and promoting the public benefits of competent and ethical financial planning.”

Strege is a senior wealth coach at Syverson Strege & Company in West Des Moines, Iowa, and has more than 20 years of experience as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ practitioner. Worth and Money magazines have named him one of the nation’s top financial planners, and he has been quoted in financial publications and appeared on television and radio. He has taught personal financial planning courses and has been actively involved with professional financial planning organizations, including serving on the inaugural board of the Financial Planning Association in 2000 and acting as its liaison with CFP Board during the development of CFP Board’s Financial Planning Practice Standards.

When Strege assumes his duties as chair on January 1, 2008, Marilyn Capelli Dimitroff, CFP® will become chair-elect for 2008 and will become chair in 2009. Dimitroff is president of Capelli Financial Services, Inc., in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and has held CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certification since 1982. She has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the New York Times and was named one of the nation’s top financial planners in Worth and Money magazines. Dimitroff was past chair of CFP Board’s Board of Practice Standards and recently chaired the Ethics Task Force that developed the revised and strengthened ethical standards for CFP® certification that become effective July 1, 2008.

The Board of Directors also recently appointed the following individuals to four-year terms on the Board, beginning January 1, 2008:

Nancy A. Kistner, CFP® is head of the Financial Planning Group of the Citigroup Private Bank in New York, N.Y., where she has also served as a fee-based financial planner in the retail bank operation. Prior to joining Citicorp Investment Services, she directed Financial Planning Training for MetLife Financial Services. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Financial Planning Association and as FPA’s career development liaison. Kistner holds Series 7, 63 and 65 registrations and is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional.

Terry L. Lister, JD, is Chief Regulatory Officer with Waddell & Reed, Inc. in Shawnee Mission, Kan., and brings to the Board 30 years of experience as a regulator, private practice attorney and financial services firm executive. He served previously as General Counsel and Director of Government Affairs with the Financial Services Institute, an advocacy organization for independent broker-dealers. Lister has also served as Regional Counsel to NASD District 3 and Chief of Enforcement with the Missouri Securities Division.

Charles A. Moran, JD, CFP® is President of Strategic Financial Advisors, a consultancy firm in for international corporate governance and financial and benefits planning issues. Moran is also Professor of Business Administration and Accounting at State University of New York Cobleskill, where he directs the university’s CFP Board-Registered Program. Previously, he served as founding President of Government Securities Clearing Corporation. Moran holds the Certified Employee Benefits Specialist (CEBS) credential and is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional.

Charles D. Robinson, CFP® is Senior Vice President of Investment Products and Services at Northwestern Mutual in Milwaukee, Wis., where his responsibilities include oversight of the company’s broker/dealer division, Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, and its registered investment adviser division, the Wealth Management Company. Prior to joining Northwestern Mutual, he held senior executive positions with VALIC-American General and AIG, where he was Chief Marketing Officer of AIG’s Global Retirement Services Division. Robinson is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional.

“We are extremely pleased with the caliber of the four new members selected for the 2008 Board of Directors,” said Karen P. Schaeffer, CFP®, 2007 Chair. “2008 will be an important year for CFP Board as it settles into its new headquarters in Washington, D.C. and works to become a more vigorous advocate for the public’s interest.”

CFP Board Announces “Task Force on Continuing Education and Competency” at Senate Hearing

CFP Board re-affirmed its strong support for the protection of consumers at a hearing on September 5, 2007 before the Senate Special Committee on Aging. In a statement to the Committee, Kevin R. Keller, CFP Board’s chief executive officer, formally unveiled the details of the Task Force on Continuing Education and Competency, the purpose of which is to undertake a comprehensive review of CFP Board’s continuing education (CE) standards and the enforcement of standards related to CE courses currently registered with CFP Board.

The Senate hearing, which addressed the topic of “Advising Seniors About Their Money: Who Is Qualified - and Who Is Not?”, explored the marketing tactics used by individuals with questionable financial designations whose purpose is to mislead elderly Americans into purchasing unwise or inappropriate investments. CFP Board, which has established the most rigorous standards in the financial planning profession, has a mission to safeguard the integrity of the CFP® marks for the benefit of the public. To further that mission, CFP Board has appointed a task force to ensure that the CE requirements for CFP® certification promote ongoing professional competency for financial planning professionals and that CE courses registered with CFP Board are not used in ways that might cause confusion for the public, especially our elderly citizens.

“CFP Board’s Task Force on Continuing Education and Competency is the first of its kind in the financial services industry,” said Keller. “Working in partnership with the Committee on Aging, CFP Board is committed to doing everything in its power to ensure that America’s senior citizens have access to the most competent financial planning advice possible, and I am grateful to the members of the Task Force for their dedication to this important endeavor.”

The Task Force’s mission is three-fold: 1) To determine if the CE requirements for CFP® certification adequately encourage the availability of quality financial planning training and professional development opportunities appropriate for CFP Board’s high standards; 2) To review the marketing and end use of CE courses registered with CFP Board, with special attention given to those CE courses connected with credential-granting programs; and 3) To recommend any changes to CFP Board’s continuing education requirements that might be necessary to better protect the public interest and minimize public confusion about credentials other than CFP® certification.

The Task Force will be chaired by Dan Candura, CFP®, a current member of the Board of Directors and the former Chair of CFP Board’s Board of Professional Review. Additional members include Alan Goldfarb, CFP®, Board of Directors member and the 2006 Chair of CFP Board’s Board of Professional Review; Terry L. Lister, JD, an incoming member of CFP Board’s Board of Directors; and Charles D. Robinson, CFP®, also an incoming member of CFP Board’s Board of Directors.

Emil S. Mara, CPA, Named as CFP Board’s Chief Financial Officer

Emil S. Mara, CPA has joined CFP Board as its Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Mara possesses twenty years of financial experience that spans various industries and includes expertise in nonprofit institutions and other corporate entities, including managing multi-million dollar budgets for large organizations, program development and implementation, and organizational development. Most recently, Mr. Mara served as Controller for the American Petroleum Institute in Washington, D.C., where he oversaw financial operations for an organization with a budget of nearly $200 million.

“Emil Mara has an impressive range of professional experience that will make him a key member of CFP Board's senior leadership team,” said Kevin R. Keller, CAE, Chief Executive Officer of CFP Board. “We take pleasure in welcoming him to CFP Board as the organization continues to build a team of professionals that will move CFP Board to the next phase in its development.”

CFP Board is in the process of moving its operations to the nation's capital from its current location in Denver, Colorado. The organization expects the move to help it become a more vigorous advocate for the public's interest, and to facilitate a more influential voice in public policy debates during a time when more Americans than ever are in need of ethical financial planning options.

“I am excited to be part of this new team,” said Mr. Mara. “As the standards for CFP® certification have increasingly been embraced by financial planning professionals and the public, CFP Board has made great strides in establishing quality operations and prudent financial management. I look forward to assisting CFP Board's efforts to reach operational excellence as it moves to Washington, D.C.”

Mr. Mara began his career as a senior auditor at Arthur Andersen & Company in Washington D.C. and continued to assume progressive responsibilities at various companies, including Deltek Systems and the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association. Mr. Mara holds a Bachelors degree in Accounting from Georgetown University and is also a Certified Association Executive (CAE).

Employment Opportunities at CFP Board’s Washington Headquarters

Key positions at CFP Board’s Washington, D.C. headquarters still remain open, including Managing Director, Examinations and Education, Director of Examinations, Director of Education, Director of Professional Review and Director of Public Policy. If you are interested in sharing your talents to help shape the ongoing development of CFP Board’s mission, and if you have a solid understanding of the value of financial planning, we invite you learn more about available employment opportunities at www.CFP.net/aboutus/jobs.asp.