Plexus Consulting Group    Success Stories

International Certified Financial Planner's Council



Practice Areas
Strategic Planning

The Plexus Team
Judith Stein
Alexandros Chloros

Dates
February to April 2001






Plexus Consulting Group, LLC
1620 Eye Street, NW
Suite 210
Washington, DC 20006
Phone:  202-785-8940
Fax:      202-785-8949
Email:   info@plexusconsulting.com


Established in 1990, the International CFP Council is a forum for financial planning organizations from around the world that seek to advance the profession of personal financial planning. The Council works to establish ethical, competency and practice standards for financial planners, and increase public awareness of the benefits of financial planning.

The Council's 14 member organizations (from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S.) and three associate members (from Bermuda, Brazil, and India) meet twice a year to share information, ideas and research in an effort to develop financial planning as an international profession.

The Plexus team facilitated the Council's strategic planning retreat in Atlanta, GA during which consensus was reached on the organization's strategic directions. One of the key elements of the agreed upon plan was a proposal for the restructuring of the Board of the Council's parent organization the U.S. Certified Financial Planning Board: With the assistance of the Plexus team, the group developed several models for restructuring and expanding the organization's governance and achieved consensus on one.

The impetus for restructuring was so strong among the Council members that Plexus was asked to facilitate the Council's next meeting in Auckland, New Zealand. There, the strategic decisions made at the Atlanta meeting were re-affirmed, the proposed expanded governance model was revisited and a task force was created to formulate a proposal to the parent organization including the following general principles:
  • the operating effectiveness of the expanded entity
  • governance and representation in governance for the expanded entity
  • the establishment of suitable country representation within the expanded entity including the interests of US licensees
  • the general mandate of the expanded entity
  • financial arrangements.

The Council is still exploring appropriate models for rotational representation within the proposed, expanded governance structure. Nevertheless, solid foundations have been laid for the transformation of a U.S. dependent international organization into a truly global one.