Regina Bedoya to Lead Million Dollar Round Table

Regina Bedoye (Credit: MDRT)

The new leader of the Million Dollar Round Table comes from the United States.

Regina Bedoya, the MDRT's 2020 president, is the president of RB Financial Advisors of Juno Beach, Florida.

(Related: Ross Vanderwolf to Lead MDRT)

Bedoya took over from Ross Vanderwolf, who now serves on the MDRT executive committee as the group's immediate past president, this week in Sydney, Australia, at the MDRT Global Conference.

Vanderwolf is a financial planner based in Brisbane, Queensland, in Australia.

The other members of the MDRT executive committee are Ian Green, who is now the MDRT's first vice president; Randy Scritchfield, the second vice president; and Peggy Tsai, the secretary.

MDRT

MDRT represents financial professionals who meet the group's sales and conduct standards.

The group says it now has 72,000 members in 70 nations and territories.

That's up from 62,000 members in 69 nations and territories a year ago.

MDRT's latest Form 990 filing available on FoundationCenter.org, for 2017, shows that the group reported $16 million in operating income that year on $53 million in total revenue and $100 million in total assets.

MDRT had 103 employees and 1,619 volunteers.

One sign of the group's global reach: It reported spending $1 million on interpreter services.

The group provided $377,500 in support for its own MDRT Foundation, and $750,000 in support for Life Happens.

MDRT says in the announcement of its new officer list that its 2020 initiatives will include providing content through the MDRT EDGE app and offering strong local networking events.

Regina Bedoya

Bedoya has a bachelor's degree from Palm Beach Atlantic University. She holds the Chartered Life Underwriter, Chartered Financial Consultant and Certified Divorce Financial Analyst professional designations.

She got her start working at Bank of America, and she later spent 11 years working as an agent and planner at Prudential Financial Inc.

She struck out on her own to form RB Financial in 2004.

She has been an MDRT qualifier for 20 straight years, and she is an MDRT life member.

She has also been active in the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, and she has represented MDRT on the board of Life Happens.

Bedoya said in a statement that she believes MDRT's most valuable asset is its membership.

In recent years, much of the world's growth in life insurance sales has come in China, India and elsewhere in Asia.

Bedoya indicated that she wants to nurture financial services growth in the United States, too.

"Our diverse leadership team is determined to inspire collaboration through more accessible regional offerings and promote limitless growth for our U.S. members, where MDRT's legacy first began," Bedoya said.

Bedoya's firm offers tools consumers can use to ask for quotes for products such as annuities, long-term care insurance, life insurance and disability insurance. Her site offers articles prepared by Broadridge Advisor Solutions' investor communications unit about topics such as why people buy annuities, indexed annuities, and annuity living benefits.

The MDRT Global Conference

The MDRT Global Conference took place as protests rocked Hong Kong.

The MDRT conference offered speakers who provided handouts in Mandarin Chinese, the dominant language in China, and in Cantonese, which is widely spoken in Hong Kong, as well as in Hindi, Japanese, Korean and Thai.

Many speakers focused on ideas for self-improvement. Jenny Brown, for example, presented a session on how an attendee could start a Gratitude Diary, to seek happiness and focus through mindfulness.

Another highlight was a Seed Programs International effort. MDRT conference attendees filled 20,000 empty vegetable seed packets, to help people facing hunger in Australia and other countries grow their own food.

— Read Million Dollar Round Table Brings the World to Los Angeles, on ThinkAdvisor.

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