FPA chair-elect Griffin builds on his reputation

Respected financial planner Ray Griffin has been named as the next chairman of the Financial Planning Association.

Respected financial planner Ray Griffin has been named as the next chairman of the Financial Planning Association.

The Tamworth-based planner will take over as chairman after the an-nual general meeting in November when current chairman Wes McMaster steps down after two years in the top job.

Griffin has been with the FPA for more than seven years and shared the honour of being the first practitioner on the national FPA board with James Doogue when elected in 1997. At 38, he may also have the honour as the youngest FPA chairman in the history of the associa-tion.

However, Griffin says he is as much a dealer principal now as a prac-titioner, particularly as his business expands.

"I have a strong grasp of compliance issues as well as the very real issues which face a financial planning business," he says.

"Whatever the case, my mandate as chairman is to represent all mem-bers of the FPA," he says.

Griffin has been a financial planner for ten years, having worked for Rob & Glynnis Keavney's Investor Security Group and the Sealcorp owned Securitor business before going out on his own to set up Grif-fin Financial Planning in 1994. He was named Money Management's Fi-nancial Planner of the Year in 1995 and joined the FPA board in 1997.

Griffin says his focus at the FPA has been to raise the professional standing of financial planners in the general community. As part of that, he worked alongside former FPA president Russell McKimm on the Towards Professionalism taskforce which led to the Certified Finan-cial Planner (CFP) designation being embraced by the FPA.

He says he is honoured to be succeeding someone of the calibre of Wes McMaster and admits he has "big shoes to fill".