Category Archives: Society President Letters

A Letter from Our President

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Joshua M. Howard, CFA

Society Members –

I hope your summer is going well. I want to update you on a few items. As you may have noticed we are asking you to perform a few actions this summer – voting on our bylaws, renewing your membership and voting on our board candidates. We sincerely appreciate everyone who has taken the time to tackle all three issues, and I ask (actually beg and plead) the rest of you to make sure you participate in both votes and the membership renewal before our annual meeting on August 17th.

I also want to raise an issue with you that I am sure you will hear discussed soon by the CFA Institute. The topic is Continuing Professional Development (CPD), aka continuing education. Currently as CFA Charterholders we are not required to do any CPD, though we are asked each year to certify that we have performed a minimal amount of CPD. As members who hold other certifications can attest the CFA Institute is one of the few professional organizations in the world that does not require some kind of CPD. That was fine when we were a very small organization and nobody outside of investment management knew what CFA stood for, but now we are a global body of more than 100,000 charterholders, and work in roles that face clients and prospects much more frequently than we used to.  Many of us get asked by clients and prospects to describe the rigor of the examinations, which is equal to or higher than most any other designation, but also to describe our continuing education program, which can be an embarrassing topic to address.

The current President of the CFA Institute, Paul Smith, CFA has stated, on more than one occasion, that he wants to address CPD before he retires from his role. It has been a decade or more since we have addressed continuing education as a global body and it is a good time to revisit the issue. Many of the arguments against CPD in the past, such as the difficulty in recording credits (currently a manual process completed by CFAMN staff) and in finding events that qualify for CPD, are now being resolved by the Institute. The new member app and other technologies will make finding classes, articles and webinars that qualify for credit much easier, and will automatically record credits as you complete the reading or event, which together will make achieving your learning goals much less burdensome.

Please let me know if you have thoughts or suggestions related to CPD and the best way to implement it if we move forward with a CPD requirement.

Josh Howard, CFA
President, CFA Society Minnesota

A Letter From Our Society President

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Joshua M. Howard, CFA

Society Members –

The CFA Society of Minnesota is fortunate to have more than 150 active volunteers that serve on our committees and help with individual events. This allows us to be innovative and try new things while still maintaining our popular events and programs. Although we currently have an abundance of energetic, thoughtful people on our Board of Directors and our committees, we must continually replenish our volunteer base. Every year we have 3-5 Board positions as long-time volunteers roll off the Board, and committees frequently have the need for new volunteers throughout the year.When we prepare for Board transition we look for new Board members and committee volunteers from a variety of industries – some even outside of finance, such as people with experience in human resources, marketing, accounting or law. We seek diversity in all aspects including, experience and viewpoints. We strive to represent the interests of the entire body of local members and of all occupations either directly or indirectly related to investment management. Many people do not realize that you do not have to be a charterholder to be on our Board or to volunteer with one of our committees. Event and committee volunteers technically do not even need to be local society members, though most choose to join once they start volunteering.

Our Nominating Committee for the upcoming fiscal year will begin their work in May, but it is not too early to put out the call for new volunteers. If you have an interest in joining our Board, assisting with a single event (such as the upcoming Intellisight Conference), or helping one of our committees (Employment, Membership and Advocacy have the biggest needs) please let me know and I will get you in touch with our staff or a committee chair. If you want to learn more about volunteering in general please send Diane Senjem or me an email and we can discuss the current opportunities. I guarantee we have a spot for any level of time commitment. If you know of someone who might be a good fit we also accept referrals.

To all our past, current and future volunteers, thank you so much for your contributions to the CFA Society of Minnesota.

Joshua M Howard, CFA
President, CFA Society of Minnesota

A Letter From Our Society President

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Joshua M. Howard, CFA

Society Members –

The Board of Directors of the CFA Society of Minnesota has spent the last few years diligently improving our strategic planning and governance processes. This commenced four years ago with a review and restatement of our mission and vision, followed by the creation of a new 3-5 year strategic plan. I have shared the outcomes of those activities with you in the past, and I will be sending a status update on the strategic plan sometime in May or June.

We are now working on the next step in the process to improve how the Board functions. The Executive Committee and full Board are in the midst of revising our bylaws, which haven’t been updated in many years. Some of the changes are non-material, such as updating our office location, but some changes will have material effects on Board processes and committee structures. We are undertaking this revision to make sure we are adopting best practices in governance, as well as to better align with our current mission, vision and staff structure.

In late spring, we will be sharing our proposed revisions of the bylaws with the full membership, as well as highlighting the material edits. Changes to bylaws require a 75% vote from our entire membership, a very high bar, so I strongly encourage everyone to take a minute to review the changes and provide any feedback before we put the bylaws out for a vote. When the proposed revisions are released to Society membership, please take time to vote yes or no. We have more than 1,300 members, which requires us to get consent from almost 1,000 members before the new bylaws can be approved.

The Board and staff have worked very hard on making sure your local Society is operating efficiently while still providing value-add programming and fellowship. We also care deeply about putting in place proper governance procedures along with the right amount of oversight of staff and Society finances. The bylaws revisions, which may seem modest at first glance, will help us be an even more effective organization in the future.

Josh Howard, CFA
President, CFA Society of Minnesota

P.S. Please take a few minutes today to log in and update your CFA Institute profile – especially your email address, which we’ll need for voting.

A Letter From Our Society President

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Joshua M. Howard, CFA

Society Members –

I write to you at the end of a very eventful year, especially for economies and governments. There were unexpected results in many elections and referendums, and the extent to which markets and pollsters misjudged major votes was astounding. Brexit, the Columbian Peace Deal, the US presidential election, the Italian constitutional referendum – the models and analysis that seemed to work so well in the past were upended by new trends and patterns that will require a major revision to the way political scientists, economists and investment professionals model the world. It is a good reminder to those of us who rely on quantitative models to continually test our assumptions, be skeptical of small sample sizes and not rely too heavily on historical data when predicting the future.

Another theme in 2016 was the dismal reputations that bankers and asset managers have in society right now. Each candidate in the presidential primaries and the main election seemed to get the loudest cheers when bashing Wall Street and hedge fund managers. But members of the CFA Society are helping to counteract this reputation. Besides our adherence to a Code of Ethics we have Society members providing financial education in high school classrooms with BestPrep, a partner program of CFA Society Minnesota. Other charterholders mentor younger colleagues through our professional mentorship program. Some help develop CFA curriculum through the Program Practice Analysis process, or teach our Level I, II and III prep classes, or do a myriad of other volunteer activities that help determine the future of finance and its reputation in the country.     

I sincerely appreciate all of the volunteers who support CFA Society Minnesota initiatives. I also want to thank each and every one of our members for the work you do each day for your clients, and for adhering to the highest ethical standards despite the turmoil that sometimes surrounds us. I am constantly impressed and inspired by the work being done by charterholders in the region, and I appreciate your commitment to our Society and the industry.

As 2016 comes to a close, I want to wish all Society members and their families a very happy New Year.

Josh Howard, CFA
President, CFA Society of Minnesota

A Letter From Our Society President

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Joshua M. Howard, CFA

Society Members –

One of my favorite events of the year is the CFA Society Minnesota’s New Charterholder Dinner. There is an excitement in the air that equals or exceeds all of our other events, for reasons that those of us who have completed the three exams can easily understand. The excitement extends beyond just the honorees – the guests in attendance are usually just as relieved as the new charterholders that their partner or spouse is finally done with all that studying.

As I handed out charters at the dinner I couldn’t help but wonder what these new charterholders will be doing ten or fifteen years from now. My fifteen-year-career in the industry has seen the explosion of fundamental indexing and smart beta strategies, the rapid growth of ETFs, the slow bleed of actively managed assets and the massive shrinking of employment in traditional equity trading and investment banking. The next 15 years may continue some of these trends, or be upended and taken in a new direction by big data, increased regulation, demography or some unforeseen events (which seem to be happening a lot lately).

In 2013 CFA Institute launched an initiative called the Future of Finance. This initiative is an effort to “shape a trustworthy, forward thinking financial industry that better serves society.”  I do not discount the challenge of taking the time to be “forward thinking,” given the time demands placed upon us to complete our regular day to day tasks and the constant short termism we face from markets, investors and clients.  But, it is useful to step back every once in a while and really contemplate the future of the industry.

  • How will new and developing technologies such as block chain and artificial intelligence affect investment management and wealth management?
  • Will passive continue to take asset from active, or is there a limit to the amount of money that can be invested passively and still have efficient markets?
  • Are defined contribution plans an effective way to provide retirement security, or will they need to be reimagined or replaced?
  • How will states and companies fund their huge pension deficits in a world of low returns and expensive assets?

These are important questions that will need to be answered, some sooner than others, and hopefully by people with financial expertise. In the meantime, I want to once again congratulate our 70 new CFA charterholders and 34 Level III Pass Candidates in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, and to the others around the world.  It is a tremendous accomplishment to get through all three exams while working in the industry, and I look forward to seeing you at future CFAMN Society events and programs.

Josh Howard, CFA
President, CFA Society Minnesota