Schedule

Description

In Phase 2 of the Financial Planning Challenge, teams will present the financial plans they developed in Phase 1 to a panel of judges who will step into the role of the clients. Presentations will be evaluated on how clearly and effectively each team communicates their recommendations — and how well those recommendations address the clients’ needs, goals, and circumstances.

Description

This CFP Board-approved continuing education course fulfills the 2-hour ethics requirement and has been designed to educate CFP® professionals about CFP Board’s Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct. The course reviews significant changes from previous standards and how these changes affect CFP® professionals. Additionally, the course reviews CFP Board's fiduciary duty, the application of the practice standards when providing financial planning, the recognition of circumstances in which specific information must be provided to a client, and material conflicts of interest. The session will qualify for both CFP and IAR credit.

Learning Objectives

• Recognize when a CFP® professional is providing Financial Advice.
• Apply the Fiduciary Duty.
• Describe when Financial Advice required Financial Planning and the additional obligations that apply.

Description

Standing out in an increasingly competitive marketplace is a challenge for any financial planner. Being able to define who you are, what makes you unique, and the value you bring to clients is no longer a luxury. It’s a necessity. And the best way to stand out is by proactively engaging with the media. While engaging with reporters can seem intimidating, earning third-party media validation is very beneficial for business and personal brand development.
Join us for a high-impact session where you'll learn the ins and outs of working with journalists, how to best set yourself (and your business) up for maximum success, and how to pitch your stories and expertise to the media. You’ll also hear from an esteemed panel of journalists about what they look for in financial planner sources and how to pitch your ideas to them.
We’ll also cover FPA MediaSource, the automated media query platform exclusively available to CFP® professional members of FPA, that has distributed more than 10,400 journalist queries over the past nine years, and how you can maximize the opportunity to become a go-to expert through the platform.

Description

Today's consumers discover and evaluate financial planners long before they schedule a meeting. They search online, compare advisors, ask AI for recommendations, and form opinions through every digital interaction. FPA's reimagined PlannerSearch is designed to help financial planners stand out and connect with consumers through a modern, high-trust discovery experience. But visibility is only the first step. What happens after someone finds you ultimately determines whether they become a client.
In this workshop, you'll learn how to optimize your PlannerSearch presence while creating a lead nurture strategy that builds trust, maintains momentum, and turns interest into lasting client relationships.

Learning Objectives

• Optimize your PlannerSearch profile to increase visibility and trust.
• Understand how consumers discover and evaluate financial planners today.
• Recognize and respond to prospect intent with timely follow-up.
• Build a lead nurture strategy that converts interest into client relationships.

Description

To be successful, leaders from every industry and experience level need to effectively navigate moments of self-doubt, master the role of a trustworthy team player, and embrace moments of personal and professional vulnerability. Using the idea of an aircraft performance envelope as a metaphor, this elite fighter pilot and military leader will share inspiring personal stories and practical tools to ignite individuals and teams to reach beyond commonly-assumed limitations to achieve their maximum capabilities and impact. Nicole Malachowski’s presentation will bolster the ability of individuals and teams to:

Learning Objectives

• Overcome self-doubt that often inhibits personal and professional growth
• Model the selfless trust needed to be an effective teammate
• Practice vulnerability and transparency to build trust and galvanize teamwork
• Build accountability, dependability and reliability that drive performance
• Break down silos to unleash creativity and adaptability

Description

Starting a career in financial planning is exciting, but choosing the right opportunity requires more than simply landing an offer. In this session, NexGen financial planners will learn how to evaluate different career paths, identify the firm structure and culture that best support their long-term goals, approach the job search with confidence, and successfully navigate the hiring process.
Attendees will gain practical strategies for positioning their experience, standing out to prospective employers, asking stronger interview questions, evaluating compensation, and identifying opportunities with meaningful potential for growth. The session will also explore how to think beyond the first job and intentionally build a career path toward finding the right long-term professional home.

Description

Many financial planners spend years mastering their craft but never stop to intentionally design the next phase of their careers. This interactive session helps participants step back from the day-to-day to evaluate where they are, where they want to go, and what's required to get there.
Through guided discussion, reflection, and practical frameworks, attendees will explore strategies for navigating career transitions, overcoming the mid-career plateau, building leadership and influence, and identifying opportunities for continued growth. Participants will leave the first hour with greater clarity about their career direction and the key areas to focus on for long-term success.
This is a two-part session. During the second hour, participants will apply what they've learned in a hands-on workshop designed to help them build a personalized career action plan. Through guided exercises, attendees will take inventory of their unique skills and experiences, define their value proposition as a financial planner, evaluate their current role and future opportunities, and identify actionable next steps to intentionally shape the next stage of their career.

Learning Objectives

• Taking inventory of your unique skills and experiences.
• Discovering your ideal value proposition as a Financial Planner.
• Identify existing role compatibility and mapping out next steps to take action.

Description

Rick spent eleven years building a succession plan. He gave himself runway. He found values-aligned successors. He held his integrity through every negotiation. And he was still blindsided twice before the sale that finally closed. Five black swans. Two failed successions. One sale he didn't see coming. And one loss that surprised him most: not the culture, not the control, but the version of himself that built the firm. This is not a cautionary tale. It's a first-person account of what succession actually costs, what it gives back, and what no operating framework or consultant prepares you for. Advisors leave with six takeaways they can use before, during, and after the close.

Learning Objectives

• Identify the emotional and psychological costs of succession that operational frameworks do not address.
• Recognize the difference between succession planning and succession passage and why confusing the two leaves founders unprepared.
• Apply a grief-informed perspective to leadership transition that distinguishes loss from failure.
• Evaluate personal non-negotiables before entering succession negotiations.

Description

There's Levels to This
Jon Panning
What got you here won't get you there and Jon Panning learned it not in business, but by walking away from trumpet, an instrument he'd mastered at an elite level, to teach himself to sing from scratch...and somehow land a role in a full stage production that demanded 35 hours a week of rehearsal. Each leap meant voluntarily becoming a beginner again, where his hard-won skill at the last level counted for almost nothing and the rules of the game had completely changed. In this fast-paced session, Jon draws the direct line from that unlikely path to the stages of a financial planning career, helping early- and mid-career planners recognize which level they're really playing and what breaking through to the next one will actually demand.

Powering ON the Career and Life You Want
Joel Steele
While many speakers quote inspiring stories about other people, Joel shares his own. From near-death experiences to building businesses across finance, fitness, and professional sports, Joel brings a rare perspective forged through firsthand breakthroughs, not borrowed ones. He's helped start and grow winning organizations spanning personal wealth (finance), personal health (fitness), and professional sports, where he's a member of the ownership group for two professional teams. Along the way, he's learned what it takes to break through personal and professional plateaus. Through unfiltered storytelling, mindset rewiring, and his signature Life Switch framework, Joel helps audiences stop overthinking and start acting with clarity, conviction, and momentum.

Learning Objectives

• Jon Panning: Recognize the level you're playing at right now—and get clear on what "winning" actually looks like at that stage, instead of competing by last level's rules.
• Jon Panning: Execute against the real demands of your current level, putting in the focused work each stage requires rather than coasting on the skills that got you there.
• Jon Panning: Identify the next level before it forces your hand—spotting the signals that you've outgrown where you are and what breaking through will demand.
• Joel Steele: Reinvigorated to be in this business.
• Joel Steele: Motivated to see what your potential can be in financial services.
• Joel Steele: Renewed conviction for genuinely helping clients achieve their goals, while simultaneously achieving your own.

Description

Building on the strategies explored during the first hour, this interactive workshop will help NexGen financial planners put those concepts into practice. Attendees will evaluate career opportunities using a structured scorecard, compare job offers with different trade-offs, and discuss the factors that contribute to a strong long-term fit.
Participants will then assess their own career stage and develop a personalized action plan with three concrete next steps. Through individual reflection, small-group discussion, and peer accountability, attendees will leave with practical tools and a clear plan for intentionally moving their careers forward.

Description

Building on the concepts introduced in Part 1, this interactive workshop gives participants the opportunity to apply what they've learned by creating a personalized career action plan. Through guided exercises, attendees will take inventory of their unique skills and experiences, define their value proposition as a financial planner, evaluate their current role and future opportunities, and identify actionable next steps to intentionally shape the next stage of their career.

Description

About 40% of financial advisors are projected to be retired in the next decade, and nearly three-quarters of financial planners don't have a succession plan. This session explores why planners put off succession planning, why the number one exit strategy among practice owners is having no plan at all, and starting points to think about your own succession plan. This session will be set up as a facilitated conversation and group coaching experience, helping advisors work through not just the business and valuation questions but also the deeper aspects, including identity, legacy, and purpose.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the basics of succession planning and its importance.
• Identity your own attitudes, values, and biases when it comes to your own retirement.
• Experience a facilitated coaching conversation that can help you work through not only the business and valuation aspects of succession planning, but also deeper aspects, such as identity, legacy, and purpose.

Description

When clients face a financial crisis late in life, they don't need a dense, confusing 100-page report; they need clear direction. This session delivers a real-world case study on how extreme simplicity can rescue a financial future and drive significant results.

Based on the journey behind the Amazon #1 Hot New Release One-Page Wealth Compass, this presentation explores how focusing on a single page of clear direction can transform client anxiety into action. Furthermore, attendees will see how the same philosophy of simplicity can be applied to their own practices. Discover how to implement a "set it and forget it" approach to digital marketing and operations, cutting out the noise so you can focus entirely on helping clients achieve massive turnarounds.

Learning Objectives

• The Psychology of the Turnaround: Understand the emotional reality of clients starting over late in life, and learn how to replace financial panic with a clear, calm path forward.
• The One-Page Advantage: Learn how streamlining client communication down to a single page increases trust, execution, and real-world results compared to traditional, overwhelming documentation.
• Automate the Noise: Discover how to apply a "set it and forget it" model to your firm's social media and daily operations, using automation to free up valuable time for direct client relationship building.

Description

This Business of Giving workshop equips financial and wealth advisors, as well as other financial professionals, with the frameworks, vocabulary, tools, and hands-on practice needed to confidently integrate philanthropic planning into their client service model. The session combines instructor-led content with practical application.

Learning Objectives

• Articulate the business case for integrating philanthropic planning into their client service model, including its impact on client retention and referrals.
• Apply the Philanthropic Equation™ (Values + Resources + Strategy = Impact) to structure meaningful charitable giving conversations with clients.
• Identify and assess client profiles using the 3 P's of Philanthropy™: Philosophy, People, and Process, to determine where clients are in their philanthropic journey.

Description

Long-term care is one of retirement’s most under planned risks, often reduced to a single insurance decision despite the unpredictable way care needs unfold. Many clients, however, hold substantial home equity that can transform planning. This session will show advisors how reverse mortgages can complement traditional funding methods to help manage care-related cash flow and support aging in place. Through practical guidance and case studies, participants will learn about eligibility, costs, and safeguards, as well as how housing wealth can generate contingent liquidity, reduce portfolio strain, and improve retirement flexibility within a best-interest framework.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze how home equity strategies, including reverse mortgages, can be integrated with traditional LTC and hybrid insurance to manage care-related cash flow and support aging-in-place goals.
• Describe the fundamental mechanics of reverse mortgages, including eligibility criteria, cost structures, and consumer safeguards, to accurately assess product suitability for clients.
• Demonstrate, through case study analysis, how housing wealth can generate contingent liquidity to reduce portfolio strain and enhance retirement flexibility within a best-interest framework.

Description

The S&P 500 is more concentrated today than at any point in modern history. Seven stocks now account for roughly one-third of the index, and most "passive" client portfolios carry that risk silently. SPIVA data confirms that active managers broadly fail to outperform, but that doesn't mean concentration risk should be ignored. This session presents a rules-based, Bloomberg-indexed alternative: a concentrated equal-weight structure that enforces sector diversification across all 11 GICS sectors while systematically capturing the documented rebalancing premium. Attendees will leave with a clear framework for identifying hidden concentration risk in client portfolios and a practical, index-benchmarked tool for addressing it without abandoning indexing discipline.

Learning Objectives

• Quantify the current magnitude of cap-weight concentration risk using SPIVA Year-End 2025 data and S&P 500 index composition analysis, and explain to clients why a portfolio that tracks the index is not inherently "diverse."
• Describe how systematic equal-weight rebalancing generates a structural return premium relative to cap-weighted peers, and explain why a concentrated equal-weight structure (22 holdings, two per GICS sector) captures that premium more efficiently than broad equal-weight funds such as RSP.
• Evaluate a rules-based, Bloomberg-indexed SMA structure as a complement or replacement for traditional large-cap passive exposure in client portfolios using back-tested and live performance data to assess risk-adjusted return characteristics.
• Apply a client communication framework for discussing concentration risk, rebalancing methodology, and index benchmarking in a way that builds trust and supports informed portfolio construction decisions.

Description

What does it mean to be resilient when the path forward is uncertain, and how does our relationship with risk shape the way we lead, advise, and make decisions?
Join the FPA Women & Finance Knowledge Circle for an interactive conversation with Steve Alexandrowski, author of The Edge of Possibility. Drawing on lessons from history’s greatest explorers, Steve will explore adaptability, preparation, trust, decision-making, and resilience when plans encounter unexpected conditions.
Facilitated by Gretchen Halpin, Co-founder of Beyond AUM, the conversation will connect these lessons to advisors’ personal and professional experiences. Through candid discussion, participants will reflect on risks that shaped their careers, moments that tested their resilience, and how their experiences with uncertainty influence the way they guide clients. Come prepared to listen, reflect, share, and learn from one another.

Description

Discover why the "permanent" extension of the 2017 tax cuts under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is almost certainly temporary, and why today's historically low tax rates may represent the shortest, most valuable planning window in modern history. This presentation gives financial advisors a clear, actionable framework for helping clients shift assets from tax-deferred to tax-free before tax rates rise again. Learn how Roth conversions, Roth accounts, properly structured life insurance, and annuities can create resilient, tax-free income streams and position clients in the zero percent tax bracket, where they're effectively shielded from the impact of future higher taxes.

Learning Objectives

• Understand that Tax rates in the future are likely to be dramatically higher than they are today.
• Learn the only way to truly insulate yourself from higher tax rates is to get to the 0% tax bracket.
• Recognize it's nearly impossible to get to the 0% tax bracket by relying on just one stream of tax-free income.
• Evaluate personal non-negotiables before entering succession negotiations.

Description

The SEC's Reg S-P compliance deadline has passed, and the agency has made it clear that compliance will be a focus in upcoming exams. Financial advisors can no longer prepare for the rule. They must prove they follow it. This session breaks down what RIAs and broker-dealers need to have in place today, in plain language. We will cover what SEC examiners look for, the most common gaps that trigger findings, and how to document your program so it holds up under review. Attendees will leave with clear, actionable steps to stay compliant, exam ready, and protect their clients without breaking the budget.

Learning Objectives

• Understand what SEC examiners expect under Reg S-P, including incident response plans, customer notification procedures, and vendor oversight.
• Identify the compliance gaps most likely to trigger exam findings or enforcement, and take practical steps to close them.
• Build and document a cost-effective cybersecurity program that stands up to an SEC exam and protects client information.

Description

This session explores emerging research on the FPA Competency Model and the role professional competencies play in the development of successful financial planners. Drawing on assessment data, the study examines competency domains such as client communication, critical thinking, leadership, professionalism, and interpersonal impact. Attendees will gain an awareness of how competency-based development can support advisor growth, improve client outcomes, and help firms cultivate high-performing professionals, which will lead to further research.

Learning Objectives

• Explore the relationship between FPA Competency Model skill mastery and advisor productivity measures.
• Investigate early insights into which competencies appear most closely associated with advisor performance and positive client outcomes.
• Examine the potential role of competency-based advisor development in supporting advisor retention, productivity, and firm growth.

Description

Why do smart, capable and caring financial professionals sometimes make ethical mistakes? Why do financial scandals keep happening? In this groundbreaking keynote, a seasoned financial services lawyer joins forces with a neuropsychologist to expose the hidden psychological currents and power dynamics that threaten to drive high-stakes ethical failures. Through riveting case studies of real-world frauds and moral crises, they take you beneath the surface of everyday decisions to reveal the invisible forces that can compromise even the most principled professionals. Moira and Philippa’s presentation will help attendees:

Learning Objectives

• Identify the personal, client, team and cultural factors that contribute to ethical missteps
• Develop alternative responses to cognitive dissonance, rationalization and small acts of self-protection that can lead to ethical drift
• Define their non-negotiables and plan how they will respond to common challenges in the advising environment
• Rethink misconduct, leadership and organizational culture through the combined lens of law, psychology and practical decision-making

Description

The skills that built your clients' wealth will not sustain it. Most advisors carry an accumulation mindset into the distribution years, and that gap is costing clients their retirement confidence. In this session, Curtis Cloke introduces a framework that changes everything: Buy Income / Chase Alpha, two distinct disciplines that must be mastered separately. Buy Income first to establish a guaranteed, promise-based income floor. Then Chase Alpha with the freedom that certainty creates. The defining metric shifts from AUM to IUM, Income Under Management, and ROI no longer means Return on Investment. It means Reliability of Income. Attendees will learn to identify client assets being held hostage in accumulation-only vehicles and develop strategies to "Free the Hostages," converting abstract balances into reliable income streams. Walk away with a new language, a new scoreboard, and a practice built for the retirement income era.

Learning Objectives

• Distinguish the two disciplines of retirement planning: Understand why Assets Under Management (AUM) and Income Under Management (IUM) require fundamentally different skill sets, and how the Buy Income / Chase Alpha framework creates a complete, sequenced retirement architecture that accumulation strategies alone cannot deliver.
• Redefine ROI as Reliability of Income: Apply a new client conversation framework that shifts the focus from market performance to income certainty, replacing return anxiety with a promise-based income floor that funds retirement with confidence and predictability.
• Master the language of Risk-Based vs. Promise-Based Income: Learn to clearly distinguish between income that is guaranteed and income that is market-dependent, and use that distinction to reframe client conversations, reduce fear around volatility, and align every asset in the portfolio with its proper role in the retirement income plan.

Description

Charlotte Ingram
This session presents preliminary research on how inheritance-related wealth changes are associated with household investment behavior. Using 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances data, the study considers inheritance relative to income and net worth and examines patterns in stock ownership, portfolio allocation, and financial risk tolerance. The session will also discuss potential implications for financial planning practice and future research on wealth transitions.

Kevin Bayani
Blockchain-based financial products are moving from the fringe to the mainstream. This session equips financial planners to engage client conversations about these topics with confidence, evaluate products responsibly, and distinguish legitimate use cases from promotional or fraudulent claims.

Eric Ludwig
Social Security is the largest retirement asset for most American households, yet a majority claim well before the age that would maximize lifetime benefits. Advisors have long known the math favors delay, but knowing the math has not been enough to change behavior, because claiming decisions are shaped as much by how the choice is described as by the numbers themselves. The result is a persistent gap between optimal and actual claiming that costs households real lifetime income. This session presents findings from a randomized experiment testing how different message frames affect stated intentions to delay claiming, and translates those results into language planners can use directly in client conversations.

Learning Objectives

• Charlotte Ingram: Identify key ways inheritance-related wealth changes can be examined within household financial decision-making.
• Charlotte Ingram: Compare associations between inheritance measured relative to income and net worth and selected investment outcomes.
• Charlotte Ingram: Consider preliminary implications for financial planning practice and future research involving inheritance and portfolio decisions.
• Kevin Bayani: Identify professional countertransference as a mechanism affecting advice quality in blockchain-enabled consumer finance.
• Kevin Bayani: Apply a three-phase progressive framework (practitioner readiness, crypto literacy, and client readiness) to consumer blockchain product cases, demonstrating how to conduct a practitioner self-of-the-therapist check, build structural competence on the product, and prepare a client conversation that aligns goals, risk tolerance, and suitability.
• Kevin Bayani: Differentiate cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and digital assets and the characteristics associated with each.
• Eric Ludwig: Explain why randomized experimental evidence on claiming behavior offers different insight than observational survey data.
• Eric Ludwig: Identify which message frames produced the largest shifts in consumers' stated intention to delay claiming.
• Eric Ludwig: Apply the tested framing approaches to client conversations about claiming age.

Description

The RIA M&A market is on track for 475 deals in 2026. Your G2 advisors are watching, and they know their worth. They're doing the math on their futures, with or without their current employers. Firms commanding today's highest multiples share one defining trait: G2 advisors who are equipped, empowered, and aligned. This session walks RIA owners through the strategies to begin putting in place, and the conversations to have now, to keep advisory staff happy before the market forces the issue. Because the gap between firms built to endure and firms built around a founder is widening, fast.
This session is built for RIA owners and senior partners who know the market is moving but haven't yet translated that awareness into action with their next generation of talent. While it draws on M&A and valuation data, the real focus is on the human dynamics that determine whether a firm captures premium value or quietly loses it.

Learning Objectives

• Understand how G2 readiness directly impacts RIA enterprise value in today's M&A market and identify the specific G2 indicators that PE-backed and strategic buyers evaluate during diligence.
• Apply a 5-conversation framework for aligning with next-generation advisors before not during a transaction process.
• Develop a 90-day action plan to close the most common G2 readiness gaps that erode valuation and create transaction risk.

Description

Jeremy Ko
This presentation articulates a novel approach to Social Security optimization for married couples which moves beyond analysis based on average or expected lifespan and toward prudent management of longevity risk. It specifically uses long projected lifespans from the 70th and 90th percentiles for each spouse. We devise rules for optimal claiming which migrate away from strategic claiming decisions (in which one spouse accounts for the other’s decision and maximizes the value of joint benefits) in the average lifespan case. They instead migrate toward decoupled decision making (in which each spouse maximizes the value of his or her personal benefit only) in the case of longer assumed lifespans. This approach can be used in all aspects of retirement planning including to determine savings thresholds, withdrawal rates, annuitization, long-term care insurance, etc.

Keith Jacks Gamble
Does working with a financial planner improve household outcomes, and does the CFP® credential add value on top of that? This session presents new evidence from the CFP Board's Financial Planning Longitudinal Survey, a panel of 3,357 U.S. households tracked across 2024 and 2025. Working with a planner is associated with roughly $220,000 more in investable wealth and higher financial satisfaction, even after controlling for demographics. Households that adopted a planner between the two survey years gained about $63,000 within a single year compared to non-users. The session also addresses the measurement challenge. Because many clients cannot say whether their planner holds the CFP designation, the estimated CFP-specific premium ranges from statistically insignificant under a conservative approach to about $128,000 under an inclusive one. Attendees will leave with an evidence-based way to talk with clients about the value of planning, a clear view of where the CFP premium is well-supported versus uncertain, and practical takeaways for the profession.

Eric Ludwig
SECURE 2.0 opened the door to guaranteed lifetime income inside defined contribution plans, yet consumer uptake of income annuities remains low even as interest in protection-oriented products such as RILAs continues to grow. Advisors, insurers, and plan sponsors are left describing these products largely by instinct, with little evidence about which explanations actually generate interest. When the description fails, the product never gets a fair hearing, regardless of whether it fits the client. This session presents results from a randomized controlled trial testing three communication strategies, analytical, emotional, and social identity, across two product types, measuring purchase intention, product attractiveness, and willingness to learn more.

Learning Objectives

• Keith Jacks Gamble: Quantify the wealth and financial-satisfaction differences associated with using a financial planner.
• Keith Jacks Gamble: Distinguish the total value of engaging any planner from the incremental value of the CFP credential.
• Keith Jacks Gamble: Identify which client segments show the largest planning benefits.
• Eric Ludwig: Compare consumer response to analytical, emotional, and social identity framing of retirement income products.
• Eric Ludwig: Distinguish how framing effects differ between income annuities and registered index-linked annuities.
• Eric Ludwig: Construct product explanations for client conversations using the framing approach the evidence supports.

Description

Military members, veterans, and their families navigate financial decisions shaped by deployments, transitions, benefits, pay structures, survivor considerations, and changing civilian careers. In this interactive panel, experienced speakers will share practical tools, trusted resources, and effective strategies financial planners can use to deliver relevant, objective, and compassionate advice. Participants will leave better prepared to identify military-specific planning opportunities, avoid common pitfalls, and connect clients with resources that support long-term financial resilience.

Learning Objectives

• Recognize key financial planning issues unique to military members, veterans, and their families, including benefits, transitions, deployment-related decisions, and survivor considerations.
• Identify tools, programs, and referral resources that can help planners support military-connected clients with budgeting, debt management, benefits navigation, retirement planning, and financial readiness.
• Apply practical communication and planning strategies that build trust, address military family needs, and help clients make informed decisions during major service and post-service life events.

Description

The year a client dies presents unique tax planning considerations and opportunities for financial planners to provide meaningful guidance to both the estate and surviving heirs. Led by Mark Prendergast, this session will explore tax planning strategies before and after a client’s death, with a focus on identifying opportunities to minimize taxes and avoid potential missteps. The discussion will also address other actions financial planners can take to assist the decedent’s estate and heirs during the transition. Participants will gain practical insights to help them navigate the financial and tax considerations that arise during this complex and often challenging time.

Description

Succession planning represents a significant revenue opportunity for advisors willing to expand their role with business owner clients. By seeing the bigger picture, identifying interconnected succession issues, and quarterbacking the advisory team, advisors can deliver greater value, become indispensable, and command significantly higher fees. In this practical, real-world session, Kelly Maheu and Hugh Roberts will show financial advisors how to move beyond traditional planning services to lead comprehensive succession engagements. Attendees will learn how to uncover needs clients may not recognize, address issues that keep business owners from taking action, coordinate the advisory team, and build a higher-value, revenue-generating succession planning practice.

Learning Objectives

• Identify succession planning needs beyond traditional financial and exit planning, including leadership, management, successor readiness, strategic planning, family dynamics, and governance.
• Apply a holistic approach to uncovering and addressing interconnected succession issues that can prevent business owner clients from achieving their long-term objectives.
• Explain how financial advisors can serve as the succession planning “quarterback,” coordinating the advisory team, expanding their value to business owner clients, and creating opportunities for higher-value, fee-based engagements.

Description

As the largest wealth transfer in history unfolds, advisory firms have a tremendous opportunity to strengthen relationships, deepen client engagement, and position themselves for long-term growth. In this highly interactive simulation, participants step into the role of advisory firm leadership teams and work through realistic client scenarios involving wealth transitions, family dynamics, and evolving client expectations. Through a series of facilitated challenges and strategic decision points, attendees will explore how relationship continuity, trust, and client experience influence growth and retention in today's advisory landscape. Rather than focusing on marketing tactics, this session examines the relationship strategies that help firms build stronger connections, create greater client confidence, and remain relevant across generations.

Learning Objectives

• Identify relationship continuity risks that can emerge during wealth transfer, widowhood, retirement, and other major life transitions.
• Evaluate client engagement strategies that strengthen trust, confidence, and long-term retention among women and multigenerational families.
• Apply relationship-centered business development practices that support sustainable firm growth in a changing wealth landscape.

Description

Married couples optimizing the Social Security claiming decision must account for possibly two worker benefits, a spousal benefit, and a potential survivor or widow benefit. The set of monthly claim age combinations available to them can exceed 9,000, not including options for claiming the survivor benefit. This is a far more complex consideration than for individuals who need only select a single claim age.

This session explores optimal claiming strategies for married couples spanning a wide range of age differences, covering the entire spectrum of relative lifetime earnings between the spouses, and for all valid monthly claim age combinations. Computational factors discussed include claiming rules, individual and joint survival functions, retirement period considerations, and discounted cash flows. Often the recommendation is that an assumed older, higher earner delays claiming to age 70 and the younger, lower earner claims immediately at 62. While that strategy is often optimal, for other cases the optimal claim ages can be, surprisingly, reversed.

Learning Objectives

• Understand how the individual survival functions of two spouses combine to form a joint survival function, and how the age difference of the spouses in a couple affects the lengths of the joint and survivor retirement periods.
• Explain why cash flows during the joint retirement period generally contribute more to the total present value than those of the survivor retirement period.
• Be able to explain how and why the optimal claim strategy differs by spousal age difference and spousal earnings ratio, particularly at the extremes where couples can have either a non-earning spouse or near equal earners, and either a much older or a much younger higher earner.

Description

Financial planners already intuit what academic literature has struggled to formalize; financial plans are not six domains stacked next to each other but one integrated system where every decision ripples across the others. This session introduces Interdependent Integrative Financial Planning Theory (IIFPT), a formal framework that treats cash flow, retirement, tax, estate, risk management, and investment planning as structurally coupled rather than independently optimized.

Through a live case study of a mass-affluent business owner, attendees will vote on client priorities and on which external shocks they expect to most affect the plan, watching the recommended strategy shift in front of them. The session closes with what the framework does not solve, specifically, how not knowing your client or failure to gather good information error discovery can lead to measurable value loss.

Learning Objectives

• Describe how interdependence among the six core financial planning domains changes the planning process compared to a siloed or sequential approach, and identify three categories of decision in which cross-domain coupling materially alters the recommendation.
• Explain how a client's ranked priorities across planning domains function as formal inputs to recommended strategy, and demonstrate, by working a case, how two clients with identical financial facts but different priority rankings arrive at different optimal plans, including how elicitation error in priority discovery generates quantifiable value loss.
• Apply the integrated-planning lens to a business-owner retirement scenario, identifying at least two specific interactions between business value, tax posture, and retirement income that a siloed analysis would miss or mis-size, and evaluate how the ranking of plans changes when external shocks are introduced.

Description

Our elderly population in the United States is expected to reach 80 million by the year 2050. What does this mean for your clients and their loved ones as they retire and beyond? The Money and Memory session is specifically designed for financial and long-term planners to help people with the financial realities that many will encounter. Misunderstandings and misreading cues cause loss of assets and clients. By preparing for the possibilities ahead, clients can live through retirement with a peace of mind around their financial reality. And planners can protect themselves.

Learning Objectives

• Practical tools and strategies to ensure clients have peace of mind.
• Actionable steps to protect against dementia and scams.
• Plans to secure successful outcomes for your clients.

Description

Twenty years ago, Keith Ferrazzi revolutionized professional networking with his book "Never Eat Alone." Now, this #1 New York Times bestselling author is set to transform the leadership landscape with his latest paradigm-shifting concept: "Never Lead Alone."
In this captivating talk, Ferrazzi will take you on a journey through two decades of insights gleaned from extensive research and hands-on experience coaching Fortune 500 companies. He'll unveil a fresh approach to leadership tailored for today's dynamic and interconnected business environment. Keith's insights will equip you with the tools to thrive in an era where connectedness is key.