Future of Financial Advice

Sean Walters: Welcome everybody to the Exceptional Advisor Podcast, once again from the Investments and Wealth Institute. I'm Sean Walters, CEO of the Investments and Wealth Institute. I've had the privilege of serving this profession for about 30 years. I'm not an advisor, but I do know the advice profession and the community of financial planning and financial advice very well. In fact, today my guest is Dane Snowden, the new CEO of the CFP Board of Standards. Welcome, Dane. 

Dane Snowden: Thank you, Sean. It's great to be here.

Sean Walters: So Dane and I have been in the same profession, leading associations for the majority of our careers, and we both come to the table leading credentialing bodies. Investments and Wealth Institute has three certifications, and the CFP Board of Standards has, of course, the CFP certification. So we're looking forward to a really interesting conversation about a variety of topics. Dane, I can't think of anybody better to really talk through how the profession is evolving and heading than the head of the CFP Board. So it's great to have you. Thank you for being here.

Dane Snowden: It's great to be here and great to talk with you, Sean. You have been a leader in this field. I've been involved with CFP Board for now three years, just two months as the CEO, but it's fascinating, the whole ecosystem that we have here in this profession. As you alluded to, I've spent several years, the bulk of my career, in this type of association work. I've got to tell you, the certification piece of it is probably the most rewarding.

Sean Walters: So Investments and Wealth Institute is a community of advisors, and I usually start the conversation asking a question that's very community oriented, and that is, how did you get your start in the association management world? Was there somebody earlier in your career that served as a catalyst or a mentor for you?

Dane Snowden: Well, I was lucky. I spent twenty-five years in telecommunications, and I started at the Federal Communications Commission. I was appointed there by George W. Bush and his administration, and from there I got recruited by a gentleman named Steve Largent. Football fans may know who he is — he's a Hall of Fame football player who played for the Seattle Seahawks. Steve came to see me when I was in government, and he was the CEO of the Wireless Association, and he asked me a question that no other association president had ever asked. He said, “Tell me what we're doing wrong.” I thought that was very interesting. So he and I became friends, and then when it was time for me to leave, he called me and said, “I want you to come on my team.” So that's my first foray into association life, in the wireless business — that's before the iPhone and before apps that we know the world today. From there I went to the cable association. This is right when broadband was really taking off, and I spent about ten years there. And then I went to the Internet Association, representing companies like Facebook and Amazon — those interesting, dynamic companies. So I spent the bulk of my time there, but how I got to CFP Board is that when I was working in the cable business, I got a call out of the blue from a search firm, and they said the CFP Board was looking for a public member. So like you, I'm not a CFP professional, but someone who could come on the board and give a perspective from the public. I went through a very rigorous process — I jokingly say my process to become CEO was a little easier than it was to become a board member. I went through that process and fell in love with the profession. Interesting side story, Sean: my daughter was born during my time on the board of CFP Board, and I got off all the other nonprofit boards I was on, but not this one, because I was so taken aback by all the good work happening here. I just wanted to be a part of it. So that's kind of my journey to the path to where I'm sitting today.

Sean Walters: Well, your path definitely ties into our topic, which is talking about the future of advice — where the profession is heading, how technology is going to either help or hinder the growth of the profession — and we'll get into all of those topics. We'll also talk about trust and the role of the trusted advisor, especially as more noise surrounds the client, the durable human skills that factor into the advice profession, and then we'll get into next gen and career path questions. I do want to tie in one piece of my own history, Dane, which I know you know but most of the audience may not: I got my start at the International Association for Financial Planning in 1997 — that was my first big association job — and moved to Atlanta. That organization was founded in 1969, the same year I was born, and it founded the financial planning profession. Ultimately the CFP program came out of that, and then the Institute of Certified Financial Planners and the IAFP merged in 2000. I was part of that merger process with the Financial Planning Association — don't need to do that process again, mergers are quite mad when you're in the nonprofit world, not the same as a for-profit merger. So Dane and I share this common passion for the advice and financial planning professions and have both worked all over the place in advancing standards. This isn't about which designation is better or which designation does this or that — it's all about putting the profession first and moving it forward. He and I are both committed to that, and that's why it's going to be a really fun conversation today. 

Dane Snowden: No, Sean, just picking up on that — it's about the profession and about who the profession serves. I think that's one of the things I was so attracted to in this role, because of what we do for the public and for the American consumer. There's nothing better than that. I spent twenty-five years in telecom, but that was helping billion-dollar companies become trillion-dollar companies. Now what we're doing is actually helping everyday Americans have generational wealth, whatever that means to that particular family. And you and I agree, that's an awesome responsibility and an awesome opportunity as well. 

How Is AI Changing the Financial Planning Profession? 

Sean Walters: Yeah, well, that kind of leads into our first segment, on AI, because that's the one piece of AI that is challenging to replicate: true care and empathy for the end client that a human can possess if they're in that fiduciary role. You guys did some work on the future of the profession and the role of AI — the four quadrants — I reference it all the time. Talk a little bit about that report and the punchline to it. And is there one of those quadrants you think is most likely to play out, or at least which one keeps you up at night? 

Dane Snowden: Yeah, it's interesting. A couple of years ago, we were having a strategic conversation with our board, right when AI really started to become part of everyday conversation. We wanted to make sure that at CFP Board, we were able to give thoughtful guidance to our certified professionals, to our registered programs, to our firms. So we created a working group of about 25 professionals — some CFPs, some not from our profession, some academics, some government officials — to think through four scenarios that could happen. We didn't want to say we were trying to predict the future; we were trying to look at what could happen as AI becomes as ubiquitous as it is today. There were four scenarios. One was the “financial planner's best friend,” where AI becomes a trusted partner. The second was “My AI,” where big tech dominates. The third was “full circle finance,” where there's hesitation around tech and clients begin to distrust AI. And the final one we called “Silicon Valley joins Wall Street,” where there's low trust of AI, but it opens the door for both AI and the human planner. We looked at these four scenarios and went through what would happen if any one of them came true. What's fascinating is, from my point of view, I actually think it's a blend of the financial planner's best friend — AI becomes that trusted partner — and My AI, where big tech will dominate. That keeps me up at night some, but I think the work we're doing will help me and others sleep better, because we're thinking about it now. AI isn't going anywhere — we all know that. The question is, how do we harness it? How do we take advantage of it? How do we make sure this powerful tool is used properly? And we can't forget that there's a role for the human. We have a fiduciary responsibility; AI does not. I always joke: if something goes wrong, who are you going to call? It's important that you know that with a Certified Financial Planner, you know who to call, who to ask those questions to. AI can be a tool for people, much like we saw with the medical websites that first came out twenty years ago, the legal websites that came out twenty years ago — they actually helped consumers understand the field more. But everyone is still going to lawyers, everyone is still going to doctors, and I think everyone will continue to go to financial planners as we go through this AI revolution.

How Can Advisors Stand Out Against Finfluencers and Online Noise? 

Sean Walters: Yeah, and we're going to get into some of that. I do think the counseling professions have a little better path forward than the straight-up knowledge brokers, and trust is the key component there. There's actually some other things — like finfluencers — that keep me up more at night than AI does. The noise and the availability of information that surrounds a competent, ethical, trusted financial advisor — that noise is just getting louder. Finfluencers pop to the top, and I watch just a little too long to see what's out there, financial influencers telling you in fifteen seconds what you should do with your life savings, your retirement plan, your tax money, whatever it is they just want to grab hold of more eyeballs with. So talk a little bit about how you see the noise around financial advice right now, and how advisors break through that as the trusted advisor.

Dane Snowden: Yeah, I think the finfluencers will ultimately help us in our role, because there's a lot of noise, and what's happening already is some consumers are following that and candidly getting burned. The more people see that happening, the more they'll realize they need a trusted, competent, ethical financial planner. So I see a lot of noise, and one of the things we're doing as an initiative here at CFP Board is, when we see some of those outrageous claims on some of the platforms, we're going out there and putting the right message — actually taking the message you see on one of those sites and having someone critique it and explain to the consumer why it's wrong, why it's bad advice, and why it shouldn't happen. We're using CFP professionals to do that. The internet is very big, we know that, but we're doing our part to attack the problem by making sure we get good information, correct information, competent information out in the public domain as much as we can. We call this thing “fiduciary theater” — what we see right now in the marketplace, where systems appear personalized and trustworthy, but they're actually optimized around engagement, product sales, and incomplete information. It's our role not to slow innovation, but to help define what is competent, what is ethical, what technology looks like in helping you versus relying too much on technology. 

Sean Walters: Yeah, that's good, and I think that's pretty much been the way history's unfolded if you look back. That's one of the arguments for AI being adopted by all of us professionals — it's yet another technology. Can you draw a parallel from your past role with the Internet Association and the Wireless Association, Dane?

Dane Snowden: Yeah. Well, I see a lot of parallels. If you look at the technology evolution — even in this profession — when robocalling came out, there was a sense that advisors weren't going to have a role anymore. Clearly that didn't pan out. When ATMs came out, people said banks wouldn't exist anymore — we got more branches. Look at the world of taxi drivers when Uber came out: those same people are driving Ubers now and making more money. The gig economy helped out. Technology will help us evolve. Where we'll find success is how advisors master that technology. So one of the things we tell our certified professionals all the time is: learn this technology, make sure you understand it, make sure your clients know how you treat their information, that you're transparent with them about the use of their information — because the kids in these registered programs we have around the country, they're learning financial planning and they're learning AI. Their future clients are doing the exact same thing. So it's important that we grow as a profession around this technology as it evolves. It's interesting, Sean — I watch those graduation speeches around the country this time of year, and I've noticed a couple where people mentioned the growth of AI and the students booed them. I think that's because there are legitimate questions around this: who's accountable, what happens when something goes wrong, what about the jobs, what about privacy. We're at the tip of an AI evolution and revolution in this country. It may not feel that way, but a lot of questions haven't been answered, so we need to go through this thoughtfully, boldly, and strategically for our profession. 

Why Do Durable Human Skills Matter More as AI Grows? 

Sean Walters: Yeah, a couple of thoughts. When I put on my history hat and look back a hundred years, the Industrial Revolution put labor on its head when robotics came into the field after the Second World War. The Industrial Revolution made workers very nervous, but it turned out to be quite a boom for labor. Then robotics threatened to get rid of labor, but it ended up moving people to a higher level of social mobility by taking higher-level jobs. That's kind of the point we're at now with AI and professions. So I'm going to go a little wonky for a second — for our audience, here's how legitimate credentialing works: we ask professionals what they need to know and do in order to be competent in the job. That's how we set the exam blueprint, the body of knowledge, for the certifications that both Dane and I administer, whether it's financial planning, investment management, private wealth advice, or retirement management. It's not Dane and I sitting in our offices whiteboarding what we think advisors need to know tomorrow — the advisors tell us. So here's where I'm going with this: with the discussion we just had around trust, you mentioned something really critical, Dane. Advisors need to use technology, so they have to invest in learning their practice. They also have to invest in learning enough about their technical body of knowledge that when a client comes in and asks a question they've already looked up with their AI friend, the advisor needs to know enough to get the answer right, or spot that the AI got it wrong. That's the body of knowledge, which is the second big domain. The third — and this was my question for you — is the psychology of financial planning, behavioral finance, the counseling role an advisor plays with their client. How is that going to grow over the next several years, given the emerging trends we're seeing in our profession?

Dane Snowden: You talked about the practice analysis you all do, and that we're actually in the middle of doing right now, looking at our blueprint for the future — we'll have more information coming out on that in 2027. For the longest time, technical knowledge still matters enormously, absolutely, but technical knowledge alone has never been enough. For me, financial planning sits perfectly at the intersection where money, emotion, relationships, and behavior all come together. We were talking about AI before, and I want to be clear — I'm bullish on AI, very bullish. I think a lot of great things can happen from it. But one of the limitations — and you know this as well as I do, Sean — is: you're sitting in a room with a couple, one advisor, and you've got a spender and a saver. That dynamic, just on the surface, is something that has to be navigated. That AI tool is not going to be able to understand that the wife is saying, “I want to make sure we have enough for our three kids who are ready to go to college,” and the husband is saying, “But I really, really want that beach house.” How do we navigate that and get the plan together? I think the bedside manner, so to speak, of that psychology-of-financial-planning domain has become even more critical as we go into this world of AI. 

Sean Walters: Yeah, no — AI is just going to tell them both how wonderful their thinking is and give them great accolades. But navigating them through the disagreement — that's so true, Dane. Our biggest increase in the Certified Private Wealth Advisor (CPWA®) body of knowledge, in the last job task analysis we did two years ago, was family dynamics. Because you have a couple in the room, that's pretty complex — put three generations in there with all the kids and grandkids, and those private wealth advisors need some bedside manner skills, right? 

Dane Snowden: It's tough. It's tough. And I think the financial advisor with the technology, with the AI tool, will spend less time gathering data than they're doing now, and more time listening, helping, interpreting, trying to figure out what they can do to help service the client and make sure they're getting the best advice that's out there. When I go around to colleges and universities, one of the questions I always ask the firm partners and the registered program directors is about the student experience. More and more I'm hearing firms say we have to make sure the young people coming out of these programs have those durable skills — curiosity, empathy, being able to relate — because as technology evolves, those skills become highly, highly valuable. Teaching young people how to do that is going to be very important. I give credit to the people before me who made the decision to put the psychology of financial planning in as a domain — that was a very strategic move that will pay off as time goes on. 

Sean Walters: Yeah, that's one area I want to delve into a little. You work more with universities that are teaching kids as part of their college degree and the beginning of their career pathway, whereas we tend to focus more on mid-career or early-to-mid-career professionals. Are you seeing these programs attract more psychology-based students starting out with a foundation in psychology rather than finance? What are some of the trends you're seeing with the university model pumping new professionals into our profession? 

Dane Snowden: It's interesting — the goal behind this is to help grow the profession. What we're starting to see, which I'm very thankful for, is more and more people going through these programs. We're seeing more students, more women, more people of color going through the programs now versus where they would have entered the profession at a different level earlier. That's the good part. In terms of degrees, you see everything, and I think it's important that someone with a finance degree or an econ degree does well in this profession, as well as someone with a French degree or a psychology degree — because of those durable skills. That's where you're starting to see that blend of durable skills and technical knowledge coming together. We do holistic financial planning, so we need holistic people. I think that's a good way of looking at it. 

Sean Walters: Yeah. So sticking with younger planners and the next generation — any advice for them, either for them or for the firms hiring younger professionals? My daughter is twenty-five, and I've been trying to nudge her in the direction of financial planning, because women do very well in this profession and there aren't enough of them in it. The trends show that more and more of the wealth in the US is being passed along to women, who then want to work with a woman professional. I'll get off my soapbox — what advice would you give younger professionals looking at this as a career path? 

Dane Snowden: I think if you want a productive, successful career where you can do well and do some good at the same time, become a Certified Financial Planner. We're releasing information on our compensation study, which we do every year, and it shows that those who have a CFP certification do better than those who don't in this profession. We also want more women in this profession — as you said, the stat we all see is that when a husband and wife are married and the husband typically dies first, wealth gets transferred to the wife, and the wife says, “Well, that advisor wasn't talking to me, they were talking to my husband — I'm going to find someone else.” Understanding that dynamic is very important. I think anybody — women in particular — wants an advisor they can relate to and trust, who has a lived experience like theirs. We need more advisors who can meet clients where they are. That's the most important thing, and we're taking initiatives to bring more women and more career changers into the profession, because we know this profession, when you enter it, you can do very well for yourself and very well for the people you're trying to serve. So I'd tell your daughter: the water's warm, jump on in. And I should add — we're putting a lot of effort particularly into that college-bound and college-age population. We have a program called “Quite Possibly the Perfect Job,” targeting young people in college, to make sure they're aware of the profession, because that's one of the biggest challenges — we hear all the time, “I didn't know this was something I could do.” We want to make sure people know this is a career path that is so rewarding, so they can sign up, raise their hand, and be a part of it.

What's the Difference Between a Certification and a Certificate? 

Sean Walters: Yeah. Well, let's talk a little about certifications, and I'll start you with a softball question about licensure versus certification — something you and I both talk about a lot individually. I'm curious how you position the role of CFP certification alongside, at least within our field, the licensure foundation we have to work with. Why is that distinction — voluntary certification versus licensure — such an important one for people to understand? 

Dane Snowden: I think it depends on what you want to do. My view is CFP® certification is essential if you want to become a financial planner. What we do is holistic financial planning, and when you're involved in that kind of work, it's important that you have all of it — the experience of investments, retirement, taxes, estate planning, risk management, psychology, ethics — all of that comes together for the whole client. Some of the licenses look at pieces of the client's life. We look at it as: the experience clients are asking for is their whole life, because it's all connected. From our point of view, that's why if you want to do holistic financial planning, financial planning with fiduciary standards behind you, you become a CFP professional. 

Sean Walters: Yeah, and that was absolutely the vision in 1969, right, when IAFP was founded by those professionals — licensure hasn't really changed a lot. We could probably spend a whole podcast on regulatory, but from the perspective of what's best for the client, and what's best for the professional trying to navigate which licenses to get in order to better serve the client, it's really an insufficient foundation. I'll say it, you don't have to — you work with regulators more than I do. CFP has become the dominant model: if I want to talk to a client about their problems — tax, investment, retirement, whatever — I've got to know this stuff. I think that's the CFP advantage over licensure as a simple structure in our space. 

Dane Snowden: And Sean, I think when I look at it, the licenses are one part of that — a specialization, as well as some of the specialty designations. All of that deepens expertise, for sure. I believe CFP certification provides the holistic planning framework that ties all the specialties together — so you have that framework to start from, to grow and serve the client. 

Sean Walters: Yeah. Now another question I'll ask you, which we both get: how would you describe the difference between a certificate program — even one that offers a designation — and a certification? How do you answer that, Dane? 

Dane Snowden: That's a good one. I think for certification, it's the rigorous standards behind one versus the other. Everyone knows this: for our certification, it's a journey — a long journey for people to take. There are certain requirements, as you know — the experience requirement, you have to have 6,000 hours, the education requirement, and you have to take the exam. That's all different from a certificate of some sort. When I look at the work behind our certification, it's grounded in so much effort, to make sure you're ready to practice independently and advise clients. When I see certificates — and by the way, we support the idea of certificates as well — you have to start with the framework, the foundation of the certification requirements, to become a financial planner, a Certified Financial Planner. 

Sean Walters: Yeah, I certainly — we work with education providers like Yale and Chicago Booth that issue a certificate, so we support them as well. But I do think a lot of our industry, a lot of practitioners, get confused about the difference between going to an online or in-person course, passing a test that basically tests the knowledge from that course, and then earning a designation they can essentially hold in perpetuity, regardless of ethics or continuing-competency standards, right? 

Dane Snowden: Right. And that's a key part of this as well — with CFP certification, you have to do a certain number of CE hours, I'm sure you do too, and that continual-learning part of the process matters. At the end of the day, we have to make sure the consumer knows what we're talking about. They want to understand — someone may have alphabet soup after their name, but the consumer may not know what any of that means or how it relates to them. That's why we're spending a lot of time, effort, and money to promote CFP certification, so people know to ask that question of anyone they're working with — so they know what they're getting. That's the key part, and sometimes it's missing when you have certificates around. 

Sean Walters: Yeah, no, I know — having worked for the Financial Planning Association in the late nineties through the early two thousands, there was hand-to-hand combat just to get the advice profession to recognize one predominant mark as the standard for financial planning, and CFP emerged from that, I think, quite healthily. I know you also, as CFP Board, recently made the decision to recognize CIMA® — our certification — as an educational approach, with the certification marks as an exemption. So are you seeing, instead of the old days of one profession, one designation, more openness at CFP Board and the board of directors, as the profession matures, to specialty certifications layering on top as advisors gain more expertise? 

How Does the CIMA Certification Connect to the CFP Certification? 

Dane Snowden: Well, let's start with the designation of CIMA® becoming part of our accelerated path. We had a commission that looked at this for two years, and they decided we would add CIMA® to that list of accelerated paths, which means you can bypass the education requirement if you have a CIMA® designation. That was a thoughtful approach — one nuance is you still have to have a college degree to become a CFP professional or sit for the exam, and I'm not sure that's a requirement of the CIMA® designation, but we think it's a great way for folks to have an accelerated path into the profession. We also don't think you should duplicate a lot of the work you've already done. Looking at the standards you all have for CIMA® and our standards, we said it does make sense that someone with that can move faster through the process, through that journey to sit for the exam. The exam is the great equalizer, though — no matter what you come to, you still have to pass the exam, whether you come through the normal path or the accelerated path with a CIMA® designation. 

Sean Walters: Yeah, and so much goes into developing those exams. It's similar for us — almost half now of our CPWA® candidates have a CFP before they come to CPWA®. A lot of those who go through it say the foundation provided by the CFP makes CPWA® so much more relevant, and they're just more successful candidates. I won't get into pass rates and all that, but they typically have a better foundation to start with. So I do think that's absolutely the pathway, and I think we both agree — lifelong learning is just a constant journey. And that leads me to my wrap-up question for you. 

Dane Snowden: Can I add one thing before you do the wrap-up question? Because I think it's important as it relates to CPWA® and CIMA® and all the other designations — the future of the profession isn't necessarily fewer specialists, it's more professionals whose specialized expertise is grounded in the holistic, ethical framework that CFP certification provides. It's a different way of saying what you just said, but it really is the foundational piece of that framework — to either build upon if you want to go down a certain path, or use if you're going down a holistic path. They all work together. It's all connected. 

Sean Walters: Yeah, a hundred percent agree, and that's been proven out with a lot of the success rates for candidates. The better the foundation you have, the better you're going to do taking on bigger, more complicated, sophisticated client issues — sometimes those become a lot easier if you understand the basics. We still teach people how to calculate duration and geometric means in the CIMA® certification, even though you could ask an AI tool to do it for you, because now you understand what goes into it. 

Dane Snowden: Well, sometime over a cocktail you'll have to show me how to do that, but I'll take your word for it. 

Sean Walters: Don't ask me to — I'll pull out my AI friend for that as well. So, yes, this is — we covered a lot of ground, and just to wrap up: this podcast is called The Exceptional Advisor for a reason. Our goal is to help advisors take their practice to the next level. What do you think it means for financial planners today to become an exceptional advisor, an exceptional financial planner? 

Dane Snowden: It's all about adding value — adding value to the client, to their practice, to an understanding of the skills they can upskill. What I love about the profession, and what makes an advisor go from good to great, is that they're constantly learning. That's the key differentiator in our profession — we're always learning, always growing, and that allows us to serve more clients more effectively and become truly a trusted companion to families around the country. That makes all the difference in the world. We started with AI, and I'll end with AI: the more advisors look at AI as a tool to help increase their value to the client, the better advisor they'll be. 

Sean Walters: Well said, Dane. Thank you for joining me, my friend — it was really good to spend time and talk with you. I also want to thank you for the work you're doing personally and within CFP Board. As I said at the beginning, I've been watching this profession for almost thirty years now, and the evolution of the advice profession from a brokerage mindset to one that's really putting the client first — fiduciary, advisory, consultative — has been due to work like CFP Board, Investments & Wealth Institute, IMCA, the Financial Planning Association, CFA Institute, the American College, and so many organizations that have all been pushing to professionalize this workforce. Thank you for all the work you guys are doing on that. 

Dane Snowden: I appreciate it, and it is a partnership. The work we do with you, FPA, NAFA, all the organizations in the ecosystem — we all grow together, and I think we all serve the American public. The more we do things together, the better we'll all be, and the better the public will be served. I'm excited for all of what we'll do together, and for working with you more closely. I really appreciate the opportunity to be with you today. It's a great podcast. 

Sean Walters: Thanks, Dane. Well, thank you all, our listeners — this is exactly the kind of conversation we try to have on this podcast. To everyone listening, please tune in, follow us, and share us with your friends. If you want more information like this from the Investments & Wealth Institute, please visit our website. Until next time, let's be careful out there and keep raising the standard. Thank you. 

Dane Snowden: Take care.