FPA turns over a new leaf
A change in the Financial Planning Association's leadership may be for the better, writes Mike Taylor.
It is axiomatic of the diversity of views surrounding the Financial Planning Association (FPA) that Jo-Anne Bloch’s announcement that she would be departing as chief executive attracted both bouquets and brickbats from readers of Money Management.
Bloch should not have been surprised. In her time at the helm of the FPA she would have come to understand that the organisation could best be described as a “broad church” — an organisation that seeks to accommodate the needs of small, independent financial planners alongside those of major institutional interests.
Few people will argue that leading the FPA to a united position is as easy as leading the Investment and Financial Services Association (IFSA).
The challenges inevitably encountered by successive FPA chiefs are attributable to the organisation’s origins, diverse make-up and consequent vested interests.
While the chief executive of IFSA may only need to gain a consensus among a dozen institutional heads, the chief executive of the FPA must seek to balance the needs of a small business constituency against the views of major institutions.
In short, Bloch was not only required to represent the interests of the industry on the national political stage, but to do so only after having distilled the sectional interests of her own members into a single, viable policy position.
The challenges confronted by Bloch, her executive and the FPA board were made obvious in the debate and processes that surrounded the FPA’s strategy to make the transition away from a commission-based remuneration environment.
A question has been asked with respect to whether Bloch’s departure leaves too much unfinished business for the FPA. It can be equally argued that Bloch, in leaving, will be removing much of the personal bitterness that developed around the planner remuneration issue.
If the FPA recruits astutely, it may be in a position to make a fresh start with a new chief executive unencumbered by an accumulation of political baggage.
Who knows, when the dust finally settles, Bloch’s successor may find themselves in a position to lead a united organisation for longer than four years.
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
Recommended for you
In this week’s episode of Relative Return Insider, AMP chief economist Shane Oliver joins the show to discuss Australia’s stagnating productivity ahead of the government’s economic reform roundtable, and how picking all the “low-hanging fruit” for reform in the ’90s helped kick off a surge that has since stalled out.
In this episode of Relative Return Insider, host Keith Ford is joined by Cyber Daily deputy editor David Hollingworth to take you inside the evolving landscape of cyber crime, how even huge companies can be at risk of breaches, and what that means for anyone trying to understand the risks.
The latest episode of Relative Return sees host Laura Dew chat with Richard Ivers and Mike Younger, co-portfolio managers at Prime Value Asset Management, on their newly launched Microcap Fund and opportunities in small and mid-cap shares.
In this week’s episode of Relative Return Insider, hosts Maja Garaca Djurdjevic and Keith Ford dive into the week's top news, from investors remaining blasé about tariff announcements to bitcoin surging and unemployment numbers.
