Canadian elected to head up CFP

THE Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB), a new international body being set up to oversee the global Certified Financial Planner (CFP) qualification, has announced Canadian John Carpenter as its first ever chairman.

Carpenter, a former chairman of the Canadian Financial Planners Standards Board, was elected to the new role at the FPSB’s inaugural board of directors meeting in Denver, Colorado, earlier this month.

He will be joined on the board by Americans Maureen Tsu, Elaine Bedel, Joanne Bickel, Louis Garday, Timothy Kochis, as well as Switzerland’s Nicolas Koechlin, South African Ian Middleton and Australia’s own Ray Griffin.

Noel Maye, who has worked for the American CFP Board for the past seven years, has been appointed chief executive of the FPSB.

The appointments mark another major milestone in the bid to have the American CFP Board relinquish its control over the internationally recognised CFP mark.

When fully operational, expected to be in the early part of this year, the FPSB will take over all responsibility for the CFP mark from the American CFP Board.

Other topics discussed at the inaugural board meeting include the governance structures and financial underpinnings of the new group, as well as the role to be played by the existing International CFP Council, which will become an advisory council to the FPSB.

“FPSB’s inaugural board meeting was the culmination of two years of intense effort by CFP Board and the International CFP Council to develop a structure to establish, maintain and enforce consistent standards for CFP certificants worldwide,” Maye says.