Marie C. Winters, CFA
I am proud to report that thanks to the efforts of our volunteers, sponsors, and staff, CFA Society Chicago had a very successful FY2017. During the year, we hosted over 150 events to advance educational knowledge, professional excellence, and high ethical standards, and also to enhance the greater good of our community. We also finished FY2017 in a solid financial position with reserves of approximately $2.1 million, up 11% from the prior fiscal year end.
Highlights of our key accomplishments in FY2017 include the following:
Our education programming spanned a variety of large and small events. Our popular monthly Distinguished Speakers Series drew top leaders, including Liz Ann Sonders, Charles Evans, Richard Driehaus, and Gary Brinson, CFA. Taking advantage of our new office location, we launched the Vault Series where we invited experts to speak on niche topics, including market signals for capital flows. At our 2016 Annual Dinner featuring keynote speaker Cliff Asness, we celebrated over 1,000 registrants for the second time. Investing in Innovation and Investing for the Long-Term consisted of panel presentations that also drew a large number of attendees.
We culminated our year with our largest Society event outside of the Annual Dinner: Active vs. Passive, featuring a discussion between Nobel Laureate, Dr. Eugene F. Fama and Dr. Robert Litterman. Over 400 people attended the event in Chicago and more than 200 additional attendees registered for the live webcast. Subsequently, over 2,000 individuals have watched the archived webcast, showcasing the value your Society brings to CFA charterholders globally.
Two years ago we committed to invest in our members’ careers. Our member-only program offerings have expanded greatly, focusing on development of soft skills and opportunities to explore alternate career paths at our Annual Career Fair and the Industry Roundtables event. During FY2017, we launched a new entrepreneurial series, Starting an RIA Firm. This has proved to be a big success with our members and we will continue to build on this series in the current fiscal year. Finally, we provided our members frequent occasions to expand their professional networks across our educational, professional development, and social events.
The Society launched a financial literacy initiative that reached over 900 high school students in under-privileged neighborhoods by partnering with the Economic Awareness Council (EAC). The program experienced a strong start, attracting more than twice as many volunteers as we had targeted. Interest among our members in this program continues to grow and has already nearly doubled from last year’s volunteers.
- September 26 : Education Seminars is hosting Water’s Impact On Investing;
- September 27: Networking with Leadership;
- October 3: Our next Distinguished Speaker is Ronan Ryan , President of IEX Group;
- October 4: Starting Your Own RIA (Part 2): Tips for Marketing and Business Development; and
- November 1: Our 31st Annual Dinner featuring Keynote David Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Carlyle Group is at the Hyatt Regency.
Please visit our website at www.cfachicago.org to register for these events.
Recently, I and the rest of the Executive Committee had the pleasure of meeting with several leaders of CFA Institute to further plans for the current fiscal year. CFA Institute is pleased with the Society’s efforts and will continue to provide solid support for us to pursue a variety of initiatives for education, branding, and technology enhancements, including a new website in the near future. We came away feeling that clearly, CFA Society Chicago is considered a leader among societies globally – we are well-recognized for our leadership and innovative thinking in education and ethics initiatives.
Over the coming year, you can expect to see efforts focused on preparing our members for the future. Many dynamic shifts are impacting our industry, including evolving investor preferences, technological change, and financial regulations, to name a few. These secular trends make it imperative that we have greater professional dexterity in meeting our clients’ expectations as well as in managing our careers. Our volunteers will continue to play a key role in helping all of us prepare for the future and thrive.
I am truly honored and excited to serve as chairman of the oldest and sixth largest CFA Society in the world. With over 4,700 members, CFA Society Chicago is well-positioned given our abundant resources – talented volunteers, dedicated staff, and financial position.