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Category Archives: Society President Letters

A Letter from Our President

24th August, 2020 · CFAMNEB · Leave a comment
Chris May, CFA

Thank you, is all I can say. As we close out the 2020 fiscal year (Sept 1 – Aug 31), I do not need to rehash all of what has transpired over the past 12 months (and continues to plague us daily). However, I do need to say thank you to so many people. While most of you do not think about CFA Society Minnesota (CFAMN) on a daily basis, or even a weekly basis, the staff and volunteers at CFAMN do and continue to make this organization thrive. Like most organizations, we had to unexpectedly shift the way we operate in March 2020. While we are still working on the best way to deliver content and meaningful connections, we have made some serious progress in these endeavors.

Recently, Intellisight was switched to an entirely virtual conference, on top of transitioning to a new platform vendor. At the beginning of the shutdown, the annual Putting Investors First event was both moved to a virtual format and the discussion was changed to reflect what was happening in the world.  We also had near-record attendance at the socially distanced golf outing. The staff worked hard to deliver these events, and many others, while battling the Zoom fatigue that we all have come to know so well.

I’d like to thank several individuals and groups, beginning with the staff:

Mark Salter – joined as our Executive Director in 2012 and has led the CFAMN team successfully since. We are lucky to have him guiding the organization while remaining calm and positive despite the challenges faced.

Diane Senjem – As she entered her ninth month of pregnancy, she was still hard at work preparing events and leading volunteer committees. Her ability to work ahead, gave everyone some breathing room when she went on maternity leave in April. She is now back, and we are grateful for that!

Megan Millett – The newest member of the team and likely the least well known as a result. Megan joined in a part-time capacity in 2019 and then stepped up in a big way (Intellisight 2020) as she moved to full-time earlier this year. She has delivered under pressure with grace and humor despite being the new kid on the block.

Additionally, I’d like to thank all of our volunteers. Whether you have helped at an event, contributed to the blog, served on a committee, or on the board, your contributions are critical to our success. While I won’t name all those that have contributed meaningfully, I did want to thank two individuals.

Sam Somuri, CFA, CFP, CAIA and Mark Traster, CFA both completed their terms as board members after serving eight and seven years, respectively. Thinking back to where our organization was at the time when they joined, we have made incredible strides and they were significant contributors to that success. Thank you both – although neither of you are off the hook yet entirely J

Another component of our success is the support that we receive from our sponsors. While this may not have been the year that any of us were expecting, we appreciate that you have stuck it out with us while we are doing our best to continue to deliver a positive experience for our members. Without you, we would have to cut back on many of the things that our members enjoy most. Thank you for your partnership.

To conclude, I want to thank our members. This has been a wild year and we appreciate the incredible patience that we have received from you all. We know that in many ways we weren’t able to deliver some of what you expected from us this year. We continue to try out ways to provide engaging content and offer opportunities to develop meaningful peer relationships. The latter has been particularly tricky thus far. However, on a positive note there has been a significant acceleration of our plans to offer more digital content (a special thanks to CFA Institute for providing us access to Zoom). This was the swift kick that we needed to get over a few hurdles. Thank you for bearing with us while we continue to refine this. Check out our archived webinars here.

In a year when everyday things were so hard, it feels good to think back on the positive aspects and to fully appreciate them. Be sure to check out our 2019 Annual Report to catch up on other activities. In a world of polarization and division, inclusiveness and gratitude are in short supply. Please join me in spreading the latter by thanking someone mentioned above.

Again, thank you all. We are looking forward to an even better year ahead.

Sincerely,

Chris May, CFA
Society President

PS – If you have not yet completed our short membership survey, please do. I get it, no one loves filling out surveys, but it helps inform our plans and we would greatly appreciate your feedback. Thanks!

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Posted in Hot Topic Commentary, Society President Letters | Tags: Board Service, CFA Charter, CFA Society Minnesota, CFA Society President, CFAMN, Education, Member Value, Membership, Volunteering |

A Letter from Our President

31st December, 2019 · CFAMNEB · Leave a comment

The eve of a New Year is a great time to spend with family and reflect. It is also that time of year when my wife asks about my 2020 resolutions. But, instead of making a list of future broken promises, I would rather reflect on the year gone by. When it comes to CFA Society Minnesota, I often reflect on the same question: what is the value of CFAMN to me?

If you don’t know me, you may picture the CFA Society President as a very buttoned-up, 100% professional Kool-Aid drinker who is completely sold on everything we do related to CFAMN. If you do know me, you probably laughed at that image, and instead know that I am a fellow, engaged Society member just like each of you, who has happened to get more and more involved with the organization over the years. So even as president, I need to be able to answer that CFAMN is and continues to be valuable to me (of course, if I find the answer is less-than-ideal, I am in a particularly good position to help do something about it). 

There are three main things that I get out of my membership. 

  1. Education – I had no accounting classes when I sat for the CFA exams. It was in large part CFAMN prep programs that got me through the exams. Since that time, I have attended many events and learned a ton. This year alone I improved my personal organizational habits (Managing Me event) and got a jump start on my goal to learn programming (Python event). However, education is not just the education from any single event, but also what I have learned from the people I have met since I attended my first CFAMN social at Lyon’s Pub more than ten years ago. 
  2. Volunteering/Board Service – I have greatly enjoyed the time that I have spent as a volunteer for the Society and have found that the value I get from CFAMN has grown exponentially as I have become more involved. Whether it was helping set up at an Annual Dinner, developing the mentorship program, or helping to set the strategy for the organization, I love doing my small part to help advance our mission and get the opportunity to work with so many others who are doing the same thing. 
  3. Flexibility to shape the organization as a member – Volunteers do a tremendous amount to shape the society into an organization to which we can be proud to belong; Society members have the ability to have significant influence well. Members often introduce us to interesting speakers and are active in providing thoughts about what is or is not beneficial to them. Without that valuable feedback, volunteers could not be nearly as responsive or effective in shaping the organization into a truly meaningful society.  

However, the true value of CFAMN membership for me, and many others, is often less tangible – relationships. Not networking. Real relationship-building and CFAMN provides a forum for this to occur. The Society is comprised of a wide range of people, but we are connected in a way that many groups are not. Where else can you interact with a group of people that really get you in a way that most friends or neighbors cannot?
There is something that unites us, as a group of people that have faced the same challenges in preparing for and taking the exams and ultimately earning our CFA Charter designations. I imagine it is much the same way that a group of actuaries would feel, if actuaries had feelings. Kidding. I know an actuary and he is awesome. CFAMN acts as the clearinghouse, not for transactions, but for discussions – a place where relationships can begin. 

In the future I’d like to share more about how others have benefited from the people they have met through CFAMN. For today, I’ll share a story from a friend. 

“I met a person 4 years ago at a CFAMN event. Afterward, I sent them a short note and asked them a somewhat inconsequential question. They responded with a two-page email going into great detail to answer my question… Not only was I touched by the amount of care the person took to be helpful, I still have that e-mail, I still reference it. This person has had a material impact on my life because of one small thing they did.” Regarding the value of his membership he continued, “This may not do anything for most people, but I’m sure for most involved members, they have their own version of this story.”

If you have a story like this, or anything else that you would like to share about your experience as a society member, please let us know. Also, I will reiterate the call out from my last letter – please reach out if you are interested in meeting with me, or if you prefer, introduce yourself at an event. As an introvert, I am not always the best at going out of my way to meet new folks, but I would really like to meet you. Please feel free to say hello. Or maybe meeting new people should be my 2020 resolution?

All the best to you and Happy New Year!

Chris May, CFA
President, CFA Society Minnesota

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Posted in Hot Topic Commentary, Society President Letters | Tags: Board Service, CFA Charter, CFA Society Minnesota, CFA Society President, CFAMN, Education, Member Value, Membership, Volunteering |

A Letter from Our President

25th July, 2017 · Joshua M. Howard, CFA · Leave a comment

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

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Posted in Society President Letters | Tags: annual meeting, board candidates, Bylaws, CFA Charterholders, CFA Institute, continuing professional development, CPD, CPD requirement, member app, membership renewal |

A Letter From Our Society President

17th April, 2017 · Joshua M. Howard, CFA · Leave a comment

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

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Posted in Society President Letters | Tags: Board of Directors, CFAMN, charterholders, Committees, Diversity, Volunteers |

A Letter From Our Society President

1st March, 2017 · Joshua M. Howard, CFA · Leave a comment

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.

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Posted in Society President Letters | Tags: A Letter From Our Society President, Bylaws, CFA Society Minnesota, CFAMN, Governance, Member Engagement, Mission, Vision, Voting |
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