By the time this edition of Professional Planner reaches you, Jo-Anne Bloch will be in the final days of her tenure as chief executive of the Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA). Bloch announced her resignation on February 10.

The FPA board will be well advanced in its search for Bloch’s successor, if that successor has not been named since the magazine went to print. It’s not overstating it to say that the board’s decision may be the most important in the FPA’s relatively short history.

Bloch and the board have manoeuvred the FPA to the cusp of something really significant.

They have, supported by the
tireless staff at the FPA, taken the association and its membership through a
process that might have seemed unthinkable a few short years ago. Back then,
there seemed little likelihood that much would change in the financial planning
industry. The status quo was entrenched; the powerful vested interests had no
interest in changing a nice, cosy little set-up; and, when it came to financial
advice, consumers would basically take what they were given, and be grateful
for it.

The very first FPA national
conference, in 1992, was striking in how little things had actually changed
from the year before, at the final national conference of the International
Association for Financial Planning (IAFP) – before it merged with ASIFA to
form the FPA.

At the IAFP conference, a
group of fund managers sat around the pool and played a game of “spot the
adviser”. Advisers were outnumbered by representatives of fund managers to such
a degree that whenever an adviser was unwise enough to wander into the pool
area, the BDMs set upon him (or her, but mostly him) like piranhas taking down
a capybara.

At the first FPA conference
there was optimism that the merger would create a powerful, united front to
represent the interests of financial planners, work on raising standards and on
convincing the public of the worth of the industry.

But otherwise, it was pretty much business as
usual. Clearly, it was going to take more than a change of name to effect a
change of culture.

Successive CEOs have
had varying priorities – including ensuring the FPA actually survived as a
commercially-viable entity – but it is under Bloch that the greatest strides
towards credibility and true professionalism have been made.

Whomever replaces Bloch has the task of
maintaining the association’s momentum. It would be nothing short of a tragedy
if it were to stall at this point, or cave in to various vested interests that
oppose some of the association’s PLANNER positions on key issues.

As an aside, it’s curious that just as
Bloch announces she’s heading for the exit, talk of a merger between the FPA
and the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) should surface. It’s particularly
curious because many of the AFA’s members are advisers who have quit the FPA in
protest at its stance on issues such as remuneration and the concept of
putting the clients’ interests first. Why they’d then willingly rejoin the FPA
is an interesting question. However, the FPA’s announcement that its members
should be free to continue to accept commissions on risk products may help
explain it.

Bloch’s successor must also
stamp their personality on the organisation – and in this respect, Bloch will
be a hard act to follow. Any organisation undergoing significant change needs
strong leadership – the FPA particularly so because, as mentioned, its
membership is not unanimously behind some of the changes taking place, nor the
positions taken by the association on a number of critical issues.

It’s going to require a strong personality to
stand up to those FPA members who most vocally criticise the association and
its leadership. Bloch’s successor must be prepared for some personal attacks -
Bloch herself has had a few over the years – but remain focused on the ultimate
objective.

The guard might be changing,
but the battle must continue to be fought.

***

On
the subject of departures, in this edition of Professional Planner we
bid farewell to Garry Weaven. One of the financial services industry’s true
original thinkers, a co-architect of Australia’s compulsory superannuation
system and a driving force behind the rise and rise of the industry super fund
movement, Garry has been a loud and persuasive voice in the quest to raise
standards in financial planning. Garry
has been a contributor to this magazine since its inception in October, 2007.
As he notes in his final column, some readers will be pleased to see him go.
Personally, I’m not so happy.

Garry’s consistency, logic and insight into the
issues has been an invaluable element in helping to develop Professional
Planner’s voice.

Garry can depart as
a columnist satisfied with a job well done, and with our thanks.