CFA Institute President and CEO John Rogers: Time for Action
From the 65th CFA Institute Annual Conference in Chicago, John Rogers, CFA, President and CEO, called today for all investment professionals to restore trust in the investment industry. Below is a transcript of his remarks.
Welcome.
We’re about to enjoy a great day of investment insights, and fellowship with new and old friends. But first thing this morning, I want to carve out a few minutes to talk about what we can do to restore trust in our profession. Now, I promise this won’t be as bad as retaking a CFA exam!
This year, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the CFA Program. Let’s remember that our history is one of bold, brave men and women who had the vision and backbone to speak and to act. These trailblazers took personal responsibility for the young profession. They created the Chartered Financial Analyst Program and they established our code of conduct and standards of practice. That was 50 years ago this year. A new profession was created, and it flourished.
Time for action? I bought a house in early 2007, in part, because of what I learned through being a CFA candidate (and passing two levels). Your institution was force feeding “lessons” about personal integrity, ethics, and reporting inappopriate behavior to proper authorities. In turned out to be smoke and mirrors campaign for crooks in the mortgage/underwriting departments of Bear Stearns, Wamu, Wachovia, Lehman, Merrill, GE, etc, etc. etc. Remember the part about Fed Reserve and SEC oversight? There was none. The time for action is now but it involves apologizing, finding guilty parties, and returning cash to those who were duped into believing your industry has any integrity whatsoever. At the moment, CFA is merely an anacronym for “analyzing” and selling Crap Financial Assets. If you want to change my mind, a minimimum requirement would be a CFA charter. After all, I aced the ethics portion.