A Word from the President - June 2018
At this time last year, you did me the great honour of placing your trust in me when you elected me President of CFA Montreal. Now, one year later, I would like to take a moment to touch on the highlights of the past year.
As a CFA Society, it is our role to not only to maintain a high level of vitality and inspiration within our community, but to provide our members as well as future CFA charterholders with the latest information on key issues that impact our industry. We must also provide them with the necessary tools to navigate through an ever-changing world. As investment professionals, we must perform in an industry where client needs evolve quickly. We must therefore remain at the forefront of this period of change and disruption in order to best accompany our clients in all facets of their investment decisions.
CFA Montreal focuses its efforts on three key strategic drivers: visibility, engagement and diversity.
The first—Visibility—is crucial to our Society, but it’s especially important for our designation.
Through hard work, CFA Montreal has become a beacon in the city’s financial industry. During the past year, we garnered a record number of reviews and mentions in the media.
This is the very definition of positive visibility. It reflects positively on every one of us, and benefits us all.
The second key driver is Engagement
For many years, CFA Montreal has set itself apart through the quality of its events and while we have been the envy of others along the way, none of this would have been possible without our team of dedicated volunteers, who do an incredible job.
We were extremely happy to bring you some world class speakers over the past year, most notably the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz, who attracted close to 1,000 participants; Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group; and Carla Harris of Morgan Stanley as part of our Women in Investment Management event.
We also launched our Fintech series, and I’m very pleased to announce that we will host our first large-scale Fintech conference in early 2019. You asked us to organize events with a focus on soft skills and we responded by hosting two such events and will continue to do so in the coming year.
Our Career Day saw record participation among students and candidates, who joined us to learn more about the investment management industry and the many different career possibilities awaiting CFA Charterholders.
We also continued to grow our presence across various universities in order to encourage students to pursue the CFA charter. I’m happy to report that we have 2,500 candidates who have registered for one of three CFA exams right here in Montreal. As many of you know, pursuing the CFA designation is no easy task. That’s why CFA Montreal supports our candidates in many ways, not only to help them in their preparation for the exam itself but also to bring a human touch to the entire process.
The candidates are our future leaders and, as a community, it is our role to make them feel welcome and encourage them in their development. In fact, on June 23rd, we’ll actually help them decompress after a grueling day, with a post exam event.
Our third key driver is Diversity
As you know, CFA Montreal proudly strives to shake up the status quo, deconstruct prejudice, and debunk the myth that would have you believe the finance industry is reserved for men.
I stress “myth.”
We’re well past having to prove the added value that women bring to the corporate world, whether in finance or the business community at large. This is so obvious that I won’t dwell on the subject. Dozens of studies have shown that businesses that are committed to diversity in their teams and governance win on all fronts. Diversity is fast becoming a requirement, and that’s excellent news.
Diversity is amongst CFA Montreal’s most important areas of focus. In fact, I’d like to use this occasion to invite all of the men in our industry and community to get involved and take part in events like the ones we hold each year, because changing our industry has as much to do with the engagement of men as it does with the mobilization of women.
In closing, I wish to recognize and applaud the dedication of the volunteers who, year-round, help our Society thrive in our industry and community.
I hope you all have a wonderful summer!
View the photo gallery from this year's events.