Our 2023 PLANADVISER Vision Award Winners

PLANADVISER is pleased to announce the 2023 Vision Award Winners celebrating industry leaders who have propelled positive change toward retirement saving and security for U.S. workers and retirees. This year we recognized the CFP Board and Kelli Hueler, CEO and President, Hueler Companies. 

VISION WINNER:
CFP Board
Nonprofit serving the public by setting and enforcing standards for the Certified Financial Planner certification and advancing professional diversity in finance.

The Certified Financial Planner Board is one of the largest financial professional certification bodies in the country, with more than 95,000 financial workers carrying the CFP certificate nationally—one of every three financial advisers in the U.S. The board’s ongoing commitment to fiduciary best practices, and the evolution of the CFP fiduciary standard—most recently in 2019 stating that CFP professionals are committed to act as a fiduciary when giving advice to a client—helps to understand why so many seek out this designation.  

The CFP has also been a driver of diversity, equity and inclusion in the financial space, regularly updating the public about demographic statistics from its certification program, along with championing a broader umbrella for financial services recruiting and education. In 2022, the board began a process to double down on its efforts to improve DEI with a major restructuring of its organization. In a decision driven by leadership, the nonprofit decided to create two entities: One will remain focused on CFP certification, and the other will focus on forwarding financial advisement as a career for all, particularly among groups currently underrepresented in the sector. 

The CFP Board made headlines in January when it announced that new structure. Now the organization is split into two nonprofit entities under one advisory board. One organization, the CFP Board Center for Financial Planning, has a stated mission of advancing “competent and ethical financial planning and expand[ing] CFP professional diversity for the benefit of the public,” according to the CFP.  The other, the CFP Board of Standards, is focused on developing and administering CFP certification.  
 
“As more Americans seek financial advice, firms large and small are embracing financial planning as a core service,” Daniel Moisand, CFP Board chair, and Kevin Keller, the CFP Board’s CEO, said in a statement upon the announcement. “However, with tens of thousands of financial advisers expected to retire in the coming decade, our country faces a dearth of competent and ethical financial planners.”

The dual structure was created in part because, as a 501(c)(3) entity, the CFP Board was limited in how it could promote financial planning careers, according to the CFP. The new CFP Board of Standards organization will be a 501(c)(6), which allows the nonprofit to promote the benefits of a career in financial advisement. 

The CFP Board made the announcement shortly after releasing its latest diversity statistics for the CFP profession on January 19. In that release, the nonprofit noted that the CFP designation reached an all-time high for new women and racially and ethnically diverse financial professionals. Of new CFP designations in 2022, 763 went to racially and ethnically diverse financial professionals, or nearly 15% of the 5,214 overall new designations, according to the nonprofit. Meanwhile, 1,519 of new certifications went to women, accounting for almost 30% of the total pool. These certifications represented the most diverse certificate class in CFP board history, the organization said. Despite these gains, women made up just 23.6% of all CFP professionals in 2022, an increase of 4.4% over 2021. Meanwhile, racially and ethnically diverse professionals stood at 8,715, representing about 9% of the total 95,137 CFPs nationally.  

VISION WINNER:
Kelli Hueler
CEO and President, Hueler Companies

Kelli Hueler.

Kelli Hueler was early on in identifying a key dilemma in the 401(k) era of retirement savings: How can savers ensure themselves a steady paycheck in retirement? Today, after more than two decades of work, her Income Solutions division stands as a leader in providing a safe and simple platform for advisers and individuals to compare, assess and purchase institutionally priced retirement income annuities. 

Hueler first began her journey in 1987, with the founding of Hueler Companies, a data, market research and analytical reporting firm that became a retirement industry standard. During those years, Hueler’s work in researching insurance-backed stable value funds led her to see the need for an affordable solution to the retirement income dilemma for defined contribution retirement plan participants. 

In 2004, the CEO launched Income Solutions, a platform designed to empower transitioning employees in need of creating a personal lifetime income stream by providing online access to competitively bid, institutionally priced annuities. The Income Solutions platform was made available directly to plan sponsor clients and through non-exclusive partnerships with financial services firms, fiduciary adviser platforms and non-profit member organizations. After years of leading analysis on stable value investing, Hueler sold the analytics portion of her business to Morningstar Inc. in 2020, while continuing to run Income Solutions. 

In February of 2022, Hueler began a partnership with Morningstar to incorporate guaranteed income products into retirement savers’ personalized advice plan through Morningstar Retirement Manager. Through the partnership, Morningstar’s managed accounts and adviser managed accounts connect to Hueler Income Solutions, according to an announcement from the time. If a plan sponsor or adviser indicates they want to make annuities available for participants, Morningstar’s advice platform can refer them to Hueler Income Solutions to provide “real-time, annuity quotes at institutional prices” along with personalized guidance, according to the companies.  

In addition to partnerships such as the one with Morningstar, Hueler has dedicated her time and focus on educating others about lifetime income creation. That work has included testifying before the Department of Labor ERISA Advisory Council, presenting at the Wharton Pension Research Council and participating on the National Endowment of Financial Education’s think tank on income sufficiency, among other appearances. She is a founding member of the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association and has served on the board of directors for the Stable Value Investment Association. Hueler is a regular contributor to news outlets, including CNN News, CBS’ Wall Street Journal Report and PLANADVISER/PLANSPONSOR, where she educates and informs the public about the importance of retirement saving and planning. 

In a 2021 interview with PLANSPONSOR, Hueler discussed the need for customization of retirement income according to participant need. 

“I think there are good ways to set up annuity programs that take into account an individual’s much broader asset pool and put limits on what is annuitized,” she said. “Individuals should only annuitize what they need in income. They can look at the sources of income they will have in retirement and see what they need in addition. People are comfortable with that and can understand it; some may be more comfortable making the decision after they are retired and drawing Social Security.” 

For PLANADVISER Industry Leaders Awards sponsorship information, please contact Rob Reif. For general information, contact Carol Popkins.