Over 900 financial planners and other attendees left the recent Financial Planning Association’s (FPA) Professionals Congress (the Congress) in Adelaide inspired to achieve greatness, armed with the tools and techniques to do just that.

According to the CEO of the FPA, Mark Rantall, the aim of the annual Congress has always been to provide leadership and deliver the latest in education and self-development opportunities to FPA members and other attendees, and this year was no exception.

“The overwhelming majority of our attendees were practising financial planners reflecting the importance of Congress to the financial planning profession. Congress gives the FPA members the means of achieving better outcomes for clients and their own businesses, we continually raise standards in the profession and therefore levels of trust from the community. The number of attendees this year clearly demonstrates how committed our members are to achieving this goal,” he said.

The keynote speakers included Ray Martin, Tara Moss, Ita Buttrose, Jihad Dib, Michael McQueen and Andrew Denton, all of whom left attendees enthused and driven.

“We had feedback from members that the keynote speakers were particularly inspiring and left them motivated to achieve great things for their clients.”

The 2014 program was developed with a focus on what is of most importance to professional practitioners, the workshops were divided into four streams: Best Practice, Leadership, Personal Development and Technical.

The workshop speakers were a combination of independent experts, subject matter experts and financial planners themselves. Aged Care and Estate Planning workshops were particularly well-attended.

“Key industry themes of the past 12 months were incorporated into all sessions, amongst these was the Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) legislation in its many forms, which has been the subject of such vigorous debate of late,” Mr Rantall said.

An additional important focus of Congress is to publically recognise the achievements of outstanding FPA members during 2014 through their prestigious annual awards program.

This year, the national winner of the FPA Certified Financial Planner® Professional of the Year was Randall Stout, from HPH Solutions.

The national winner of the FPA Financial Planner AFP® of the Year was Stephen Godfrey from Visis Private Wealth and the national winner of the Future2 Community Service Award was Kathy Havers from Catalyst Financial Group.

The charitable foundation of the FPA, Future2 received $225,000 from fundraising at Congress and also announced that seven community not-for-profits had been chosen to receive $70,000 in grants. The money is given to programs that support young Australians who are socially and financially disadvantaged. Regional programs aimed at education, training and empowerment were among the recipients.

Mr Rantall concluded by saying he was delighted with the feedback that the FPA has already received from attendees about the benefits of attending the 2014 Congress.

“The FPA Congress is all about education and self-development aimed at raising professional standards across the financial planning industry, so the success of this year’s event is particularly gratifying.

The 2015 FPA Professionals Congress will take place in Brisbane on 18-20 November, 2015.

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