An influential advisors group that advocates exclusively for fee-only compensation will have a new top executive next month overseeing its work to recruit members and shape the way planners make money.
The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, a nonprofit group representing more than 4,500 fee-only advisors, announced on Feb. 13 that it has picked Kathryn Dattomo as its next CEO. Dattomo, who will start in her new position on March 13, comes to NAPFA from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, where she was chief development officer in charge of industry relations, marketing and the Neurosurgery Research & Education Foundation. Before that, Dattomo was executive director of the American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Foundation for 15 years.
"The profession I'm serving may change," Dattomo said. "But what it means to lead a member organization — delivering educational content and programming that is valuable to membership and shepherding communciation efforts and public awareness initiatives — is something I've been doing for nearly two decades. So there is a little bit of a learning curve with the world of fee-only financial advisor. But the work that I do translates."
That long experience with membership organizations played a big role in Dattomo's selection for the top spot at NAPFA, Jeff Jones, NAPFA board chairman, said in a statement.
Dattomo said she was drawn to the position in part because of the NAPFA board's recent adoption of a three-year plan setting priorities such as increasing diversity in the planning industry, maintaining standards of professional excellence and promoting the benefits of fee-only advice to the public.
"Any time a board adopts a new strategic plans, it's always exciting to be able to help execute it," Dattomo said.
NAPFA distinguishes itself from other membership associations for financial planners by its insistence that advisors should be compensated almost exclusively by fees that are either charged at a flat annual rate or are calculated as a percentage of the assets under management for individual clients. The system is meant to eliminate the sorts of
NAPFA's strict standards call for advisors to eschew all brokerage affiliations, to take a fiduciary oath and to agree to a
Carolyn McClanahan, a Jacksonville, Florida-based certified financial planner who has been a member of NAPFA for 20 years, said the group's advocacy for the fee-only model has helped transform the industry. The number of fee-only
McClanahan said NAPFA has made progress on other fronts, as well.
"They've really pushed comprehensive planning," she said. "Too much of financial planning is basic investment management. Because of NAPFA, we are seeing more people doing comprehensive planning. And you really can't do good investment management without having a good comprehensive plan."
NAPFA was founded in 1983 and has its headquarters in Chicago. Its previous CEO,
Since Brown's departure, NAPFA has been run by an interim CEO, Leslie Stokes, a vice president at the recruitment service Vetted Solutions. Vetted Solutions helped the NAPFA board bring on Dattomo.
NAPFA's advocacy work has focused on the fight for strict interpretations and enforcement of the fiduciary standard governing the conduct of RIAs. In general, the standard calls on advisors to always put their clients' interest first and to eliminate all but the most unavoidable of conflicts, which then must be disclosed.
It's a standard that's often contrasted with the weaker Regulation Best Interest rule for broker-dealers. That regulation, called Reg BI for short, merely forbids brokers from putting their own interests above clients' and requires the disclosure of unavoidable conflicts.
NAPFA joined the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards and the Financial Planning Association in 2010 to form the Financial Planning Commission, a group that has argued for stricter regulation of the planning industry. The FPA left last year to pursue its priority of making financial planning a
In 2020, NAPFA had more than $2.8 million in revenue and $95,216 in profit.
