Alex Armstrong, CFP®

ALEX's impact

Alex Armstrong, CFP® has helped define the conscience of the financial planning profession. Among the first women to earn the CFP® certification, she broke barriers in the 1970s and went on to found one of the earliest woman-led financial planning firms. 

Her leadership has always been tied to service. As a founding Board member of the Foundation for Financial Planning, Alex championed pro bono advice as a professional responsibility, not a charitable afterthought.

Over three decades as Development Chair, she helped grow the Foundation’s endowment to $30 million, mobilize 30,000 CFP® professionals and extend free, ethical advice to more than 765,000 underserved people, including military families, widows, cancer patients and survivors of abuse.

She also gave voice to women at a time when few were heard in financial services. Inspired by her mother’s experience as a widow, Alex became a lifelong advocate for empowering women to take control of their financial futures. She co-authored “On Your Own: A Widow’s Guide to Emotional and Financial Wellbeing” and “Your Next Chapter: A Woman’s Guide to a Successful Retirement,” along with decades of columns that educated women, widows, and retirees across the country.

Her influence is both structural and personal: She built a firm that mentored new leaders, and, as the first woman to chair a national planning association, helped shape the profession’s organizational and regulatory framework. But her legacy is most visible in the values she models: treat your clients as you would like to be treated; be responsive, stay informed, be ethical and be patient.