Blaine Aikin, AIFA®, CFA, CFP®, is CEO of fi360. He is the author of the monthly “Fiduciary Corner” column in InvestmentNews magazine and is currently serving as a member of the Board of Directors for the CFP Board of Standards. Aikin has held leadership positions in public and private sector financial management, including as Budget Officer for Prince William County, VA, Chief Investment Officer of Allegiance Financial Advisors, and Senior Vice President and Director of Product Development and Management for PNC Advisors. He holds a Masters of Public Policy and Management from Carnegie-Mellon University.
Clark M. Blackman II is founder, president and CEO of Alpha Wealth Strategies, LLC, a fee-only wealth management RIA firm. He is Chairman of the Executive Committee of the AICPA Personal Financial Planning Division and leader of the AICPA PFP Fiduciary and Competency Task Force, responsible for editing the Prudent Practices for Investment Fiduciaries series, among others. Blackman serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Accountancy and speaks and writes on fiduciary and PFP topics. Blackman holds a BBA and MA from the University of Iowa and is a CPA/PFS, CFA, CFP®, AAMS, CIMA® and AIF®.
Harold Evensky, CFP®, is President of Evensky & Katz, a fee-only investment advisory firm. He holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from Cornell University. Evensky served on the national IAFP Board, as Chair of the TIAA-CREF Institute Advisor Advisory Board, Chair of the CFP Board, Board of Examiners, and the International CFP Council. He is an adjunct graduate professor of financial planning at Texas Tech, a contributing writer for Financial Advisor and Asia Financial Planning Journal and Research Columnist for Journal of Financial Planning. Evensky is author of Wealth Management (McGraw-Hill) and co-editor of The Investment Think Tank and Retirement Income Redesigned (Bloomberg).
Sheryl Garrett, CFP® is founder of the Garrett Planning Network, an international organization of hourly based, fee-only financial advisors. Their mission it is to help make competent, objective financial advice accessible to all people. Due to her work Garrett was recognized by Investment Advisor magazine as “One of the Top 25 Most Influential People in Financial Planning” for four consecutive years and received the Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA).
Roger C. Gibson, CFA, is best known as the author of the investment classic, Asset Allocation: Balancing Financial Risk (McGraw-Hill). First published in 1989, it was released recently in its fifth edition and remains a best-selling book on asset allocation. Gibson is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Gibson Capital, LLC located in Wexford, Pennsylvania. The firm is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor providing fee-only, open architecture investment advisory services for high net worth individuals and institutional clients nationwide. Gibson is also the co-founder and former co-director of the Center for Fiduciary Studies.
Patricia P. Houlihan, CFP® is President and Owner of Houlihan Financial Resource Group, Ltd. Reston, Virginia. She has been recognized by Investment News as a major contributor to the future of the financial service industry. Ms. Houlihan was selected numerous times by Worth Magazine as one of the Nation’s 100 Most Exclusive Wealth Advisors. She was recognized by Bloomberg Wealth Manager Magazine as one of America’s Top Wealth Managers and as one of the 50 Distinguished Women in Wealth Management. She was included in Mutual Funds Magazine as one of the 100 great financial planners, and Washingtonian Magazine selected her as one of Washington’s top financial planners. Ms. Houlihan served on CFP Board of Governors from 1997 through 2001 and formerly served as 2000-2001 chair of CFP Board and 2001-2002 chair of the International CFP Council and 1997 chair of CFP Board of Practice Standards. She was a member of the 2002-2003 TIAA-CREF Institute Financial Advisor Advisory Board and a member of ASEC’s Policy Board. Ms. Houlihan is a past member of the advisory board for the Journal of Retirement Planning and the editorial board for Asia Financial Planning Journal. She was an adjunct professor for the College for Financial Planning at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and was co-author of the Dalton CFP® Examination Review Case Exam Book. Ms. Houlihan has been a frequent speaker domestically as well as internationally. M s. Houlihan hosted the PBS series “The Financial Advisors.”
Deena Katz, CFP®, is an Associate Professor in the Personal Financial Planning Division at Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, Texas. She is also a founding partner of Evensky & Katz, a wealth management firm located in Coral Gables, Florida. She is an internationally recognized financial advisor and practice management expert and the author of seven books on financial planning and practice management topics. Katz is an immediate past member of the Board of Trustees for the Foundation for Financial Planning, and for the past two years, served as an advisor to the Comptroller of the State of Texas on their college funding plans. In 2009, Katz testified before the Senate Committee on Aging regarding Boomer Bust: Securing Retirement in a Volatile Economy.
Kathleen M. McBride, AIFA®, serves as the current chair of the Committee. She is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary Analyst™ conducting certification assessments for the Centre for Fiduciary Excellence (CEFEX). The assessments measure the conformance of a firm’s investment fiduciary practices to the Global Fiduciary Standard of Excellence. Kate is the founder of FiduciaryPath, LLC, and a founder of The Committee for the Fiduciary Standard and The Institute for the Fiduciary Standard. She has been editor of the fi360 Fiduciary Standard Survey for the past four years. Prior to founding FiduciaryPath, she was Wealth Editor in Chief at AdvisorOne.com, Editor in Chief at Wealth Manager, Senior Editor at Investment Advisor and a regular columnist for CBS MarketWatch, where she also appeared on air. Kate began her career on Wall Street, as a broker, bond trader and later an investment adviser. She holds BA from New York University and completed the Investment Strategies and Portfolio Management program at The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania.
Ron A. Rhoades, JD, CFP®, serves as Program Chair for the Alfred State College Financial Planning Program, Alfred, New York, where he teaches financial planning and investment courses as well as business law. He is also the President of ScholarFi, Inc., an investment advisory firm, and President of Ron A. Rhoades, P.A., a law firm, each serving select clients. He served as Reporter for the Financial Planning Association’s (FPA’s) Fiduciary Task Force and its Standards of Conduct Task Force, and on FPA’s Government Relations Committee. Rhoades is on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA), where he serves on its Ethics and Public Policy Committees. Frequently quoted in the national media, Rhoades is the author of several books and many articles on investment theory, portfolio construction, tax and estate planning, and fiduciary law.
Ronald W. Roge, MS, CFP®, is a nationally recognized fee-only wealth manager. He is founder, Chairman, and CEO of R. W. Roge & Company, Inc., an SEC registered investment advisory firm organized in 1986. He is a member of NAPFA, the national organization of fee-only planners and served on NAPFA’s Board from 1993-1996. Roge is frequently quoted by the media, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Business Week, Newsday, Money, Fortune, and Smart Money. He has published articles in professional journals and magazines. Roge earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Long Island University and an MBA from Polytechnic University.
W. Scott Simon, J.D., CFP®, AIFA®, has authored two books, The Prudent Investor Act: A Guide to Understanding and Index Mutual Funds: Profiting from an Investment Revolution, as well as a great number of articles. He writes a monthly column for Morningstar on fiduciary investment issues called “Fiduciary Focus.” Simon is an expert on modern prudent fiduciary investing and does consulting and expert witness work on the Uniform Prudent Investor Act and the Restatement 3rd of Trusts (Prudent Investor Rule). He is also an Accredited Investment Fiduciary Analyst™ and a Certified Financial Planner®. Simon graduated from UCLA with departmental honors, earned his law degree and was awarded a post-graduate law fellowship as a Rotary Foundation Fellow. Simon, who is a member of the State Bar of California, is a principal with Prudent Investor Advisors, LLC (www.prudentllc.com), a registered investment advisory firm based in Arcata, CA. He can be contacted at wssimon@prudentllc.com.