CFP Board Taps Insider to Run New Center To Support Young Advisors

The CFP Board has tapped attorney Marilyn Mohrman-Gillis as the inaugural head of its new CFP Board Center for Financial Planning.

The center, created to attract and support the next generation of planners through research, forums and new initiatives, launched in November.

Mohrman-Gillis, who has worked for 30 years in the nation’s capital, began her career as a litigator in a Washington-based law firm. Most recently, she worked as an independent consultant on public policy and governance issues. Since 2008, she has also been the board’s managing director for public policy and communications. Mohrman-Gillis has never worked as a planner and does not hold a CFP.

Read more: A Worrisome Precedent? CFP Board Taps Non-Full-Time Planner as Chairman

HIRED TO TRANSFORM PROFESSION

As the center's executive director, Mohrman-Gillis will oversee strategic direction and work with its advisory council on development and implementation of research to strengthen and diversify the advisor workforce.

“Marilyn is a highly regarded leader within the financial planning community,” the board's CEO, Kevin Keller said in a statement. “With her experience at the CFP Board and extensive background in the nonprofit sector, she brings a wealth of knowledge and proven skills to this critical position.”

The board said it decided to form the center, in part to address a severe shortage of advisors nationwide. With more financial planners over 70 years old than under 30 years old in the field today, says Keller, there simply aren’t enough incoming young planners to replace those who retire.

While at the board, Mohrman-Gillis helped create the Financial Planning Coalition – comprised of the CFP Board, the FPA and NAPFA – which seeks to influence public policy affecting the profession.

“The CFP Board Center for Financial Planning will leverage collective resources to positively impact the financial planning profession for generations to come,” Mohrman-Gillis said.

The board also named another non-planner to a leadership role at the center. Charles Chaffin will serve as the center's director of Academic Home, a newly created position. In this role, Chaffin – who has been with CFP Board since April 2010 – will lead the Center’s Academic Home initiatives, which will include creating an academic journal for financial planning, conducting an academic colloquium and building the body of knowledge for the financial planning profession.

The board's most recent IRS tax filings show it paid Mohrmann-Gillis $388,981 in 2013, up from $366,001 in 2012. Chaffin's compensation is not disclosed in the filings.

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