CFP Board Elects Three New Directors

The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. (CFP Board) today announced that its Board of Directors elected three new members: Marguerita (Rita) Cheng, CFP®, Richard Shaw, CFP® and Steve Wallman. The Board of Directors is the policymaking and oversight body of CFP Board and acts on behalf of the public, CFP® professionals and other stakeholders.

“We are excited to have these three talented and accomplished individuals join the Board of Directors,” said CFP Board chair-elect Dan Moisand, CFP®. “Rita, Richard and Steve bring diverse perspectives and insights to the Board, and I look forward to working with them to benefit the public and uphold CFP® certification as the recognized standard of excellence for competent and ethical financial planning.”

In 2022, the Board’s Nominating Committee conducted a detailed gap analysis that resulted in the identification of three recruitment priorities to ensure that the Board has the diversity of experience, viewpoints and representation necessary for good governance in 2023:

1. Representative from a large national trust company
2. Representative with expertise in fintech and/or digital currency
3. A client-facing CFP® practitioner

In addition to these criteria, the Committee also considered candidates who would increase the diversity of the Board. This marks the second year that such a comprehensive analysis was conducted and then communicated to potential candidates. Using the descriptive profile as a guide, the Board elected the following new members:

• Marguerita (Rita) Cheng, CFP®: Rita is the Chief Executive Officer at Blue Ocean Global Wealth. Prior to founding Blue Ocean Global Wealth, she was a financial advisor at Ameriprise Financial and an analyst and editor at Towa Securities in Tokyo, Japan. An in-demand financial writer and speaker, Rita has contributed her expertise to numerous media outlets including Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Reuters, Kiplinger, Huffington Post, U.S. News & World Report, Time and more. Rita has volunteered with CFP Board since 2007 (when CFP Board relocated from Denver to Washington, D.C.). She is a founding member of CFP Board’s Diversity Advisory Group (DAG), has served on the Planning Committee of the Center for Financial Planning’s Diversity Summit each year since its inception, and has served as a CFP Board Ambassador since 2012.
  
  Rita also served on the Financial Planning Association (FPA) National Board of Directors (2013-2015) and is a past president of the FPA of the National Capital Area (FPA NCA). She earned her Bachelor of Arts in East Asian language and literature and her Bachelor of Science in finance from the University of Maryland. She earned her CFP® certification in 2004.

• Richard Shaw, CFP®: Richard is Principal and Senior Client Advisor at Bessemer Trust, a multifamily office that has served individuals and families for more than 110 years. In this role, he leads a team responsible for providing clients with proactive, highly personalized advice across investment management, wealth planning and family office services, leveraging over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry. Richard serves as Chair of the Organization Investment Committee of the Teatown Lake Reservation Nature Preserve and Education Center, helping to manage their endowment assets. He is also the past Chair of Harlem Commonwealth Council, whose mission is to stimulate the economic development of Harlem, Upper Manhattan and the Bronx through the creation of enterprises, the generation of jobs, the support of business and the education of its residents.
  
  Richard is a CFP® professional, a Certified Trust and Financial Advisor, an Honor Graduate of the Cannon Trust School and a member of the Financial Planning Association of Metro NY and the Estate Planning Counsel of NYC. He earned an MBA in finance from Columbia Business School and a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Boston University.

• Steve Wallman: Steve served as a Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from 1994 to 1997, after being nominated by President Bill Clinton. During his tenure, he was a vocal advocate for individual investors, promoted the use of technology for corporate disclosure and capital-raising, sought the modernization of U.S. accounting rules and fought to decimalize stock prices to encourage competition in equity trading markets. Steve subsequently founded fintech company Folio Financial, Inc. (acquired in 2020 by Goldman Sachs), which innovated in many areas including creating the first platform to allow investors and advisors to create direct-indexed and personalized portfolios using fractional shares, as well as an advisor-centric digital-wealth platform. He also founded Proxy Governance, Inc., which provided automated corporate governance-related voting services for institutional investors, and ViaFolio, which offered a private capital-raising platform for small companies. Steve has approximately 20 patents to his name.
  
  Prior to the SEC, Steve was a corporate partner at Covington & Burling, where he crafted the first state law explicitly allowing corporate boards to consider the interests of other stakeholders, such as employees, customers and the community, in taking corporate action, thereby providing the foundation for ESG investing. Steve earned his J.D. from Columbia University and his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science from MIT.

On December 31, 2022, the terms of current Board chair Kamila Elliott, CFP®, Ron Green, CFP®, Latha Ramchand, Ph.D., CFA® and Natalie Wolfsen will expire. On January 1, Dan Moisand, CFP® will take the helm as Board chair, and Matthew Boersen, CFP® will become Board chair-elect.

“We would like to give our heartfelt thanks to Kamila, Ron, Latha and Natalie for serving on the Board of Directors,” said Moisand. “They have certainly made an impact, and we appreciate their leadership and dedication while working on behalf of CFP Board and CFP® professionals.”

The new Board members’ three-year terms begin January 1, 2023, and end on December 31, 2025. This year’s class will be the second Board class eligible to be re-elected by the Board for a second three-year term. With the three new members elected this month, the Board in 2023 will comprise 15 voting members (10 CFP® professionals and 5 non-CFP® professionals — 3 of whom are public members). CFP Board CEO Kevin R. Keller, CAE will continue as a nonvoting member, bringing the total number of Board members to 16.