On opening day of the 2012 National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) annual conference in Chicago, outgoing chairwoman Susan John named Ron Rhoades to succeed her as head of the fee-only planners group.
In addition, John told the audience of about 500 planners that NAPFA will celebrate the group's 30th anniversary next year with a national conference in Las Vegas.
Rhoades, a certified financial planner who serves as assistant professor and program chair for the Personal Financial Planning Program at Alfred State College, Alfred, N.Y., will assume his new NAPFA role on Sept. 1. He said after John's announcement on Tuesday that he just completed a hectic first academic year at Alfred, but expects that his schedule will be more manageable in his second year, thus allowing him to devote more time to NAPFA once he takes over as chairman.
Previously, Rhoades was chief compliance officer at Joseph Capital Management. He is also president of ScholarFi and was named one of Investment Advisor magazine's Top 25 Most Influential people in the advisory profession for 2011. Rhoades is the author of several books and numerous white papers and is known as an advocate for the fiduciary standard as applied to registered investment advisors (RIAs) and financial planners.
Rhoades (left) will continue to advocate for the fiduciary standard as NAPFA chairman. As a member of the Financial Planning Coalition, NAPFA joined in an April 25 coalition statement opposing legislation that would create a self-regulating organization (SRO) for investment advisors. In response to the introduction of the Investment Adviser Act of 2012, sponsored by House Financial Services Committee chairman Spencer Bachus and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, the coalition argued that enhancing existing oversight is a better and more cost-effective option than creating an added layer of regulation.
