The winners of the Volunteer of the Year awards have demonstrated exemplary results with their local societies, the CFA Institute community and beyond. There are five award recipients: One per region (AMER, APAC, and EMEA), one Outstanding Young Leader (for a Society Leader aged under 35 years old), and one Lifetime Achievement (for a Society Leader with sustained, varied and impactful long-term service).
Huge congratulations to these inspiring individuals who have given so much to their local investment communities.
Volunteer of the Year: Americas
Chris Cannon, CFA, CFA Society Orlando
As a former president and long-time board member, Chris Cannon has a deep history with CFA Society Orlando. He has also served on the CFA Institute US Advocacy Advisory Council and the CFA Institute Annual Conference Committee. Most recently, he served as Advocacy Chair and displayed exceptional leadership, launching the first ever Florida state-wide Ethics Challenge.
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The process involved garnering support from the five other societies in Florida; partnering with CFA Institute; inviting universities to join the initiative and securing commitments from 13 schools; and engaging private practitioners and a University Professor to assist with the case study and judge the challenge.
The event was strategically hosted at the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University campus, a historically black college and university located in the state’s capital. Over 40 students participated, and Chris gained support from public leaders, including a proclamation letter from Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
Importantly, the Ethics Challenge raised awareness of the CFA Program among a diverse group of students. The local society was delighted that one of the University of North Florida teams was from its philosophy department and it hopes the initiative will continue to include students from backgrounds other than just finance. The challenge also helped to build market integrity and reinforce the importance of ethics and advancing professionalism.
Chris focused on creating a template that can be replicated across the CFA Society® network and is in the process of developing a manual to guide other societies through the process.
“Chris has been dedicated to building market integrity throughout his involvement with CFA Society Orlando. At the Society Leadership Conference in London, we both challenged each other to do something big, and Chris has certainly delivered with this state-wide ethics challenge! His overall contribution to the finance industry via the ethics challenge was a huge win.”
Steve Curley, CFA, President, CFA Society Orlando
Volunteer of the Year: Asia Pacific
Muhammad Asim, CFA, CFA Society Pakistan
Muhammad has been a society leader at CFA Society Pakistan for around seven years and has served three terms on the board of directors – as Treasurer, General Secretary and currently as Society President. In this time, he has been instrumental in building the profile and extending the reach of the local society, including establishing a Northern chapter.
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Muhammad has positioned the CFA Society Pakistan Annual Excellence Awards as a high-profile leadership event and the local society as a thought leader. The awards are widely acclaimed by the market and he has been instrumental in setting the award criteria for the prestigious Capital Markets Awards and judging the popular, and fiercely competed, Brokerage Awards.
In addition, he has strengthened the society office infrastructure, using project funding from CFA Institute and onboarded an Executive Director. By building collaborative relationships with organisations, such as the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and Financial Markets Association, he has increased the impact of CFA Society Pakistan locally.
Muhammad has significantly enhanced member value through a record-breaking number of events (22 events in 2019-2020) with high member and industry involvement, including technical trainings and member events.. Using his existing relationships, Muhammad has secured high-profile speakers, including the State Bank Governor, International Monetary Fund Resident Representative of Pakistan, and the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan. He also led the local society to have the most improved membership retention rate in 2019.
“Muhammad Asim has made us all proud by winning the Volunteer of the Year Award for the APAC region. Asim has been volunteering for CFA Society Pakistan devotedly since 2010 and we highly appreciate his commitment, leadership and enthusiasm to positively impact the strategic goals of the local society,”
Sadaf Shabbir, CFA, Director CFA Society Pakistan and Communications & Technology Chair.
Volunteer of the Year: Europe, Middle East and Africa
Adrian Codirlasu, CFA, CFA Society Romania
Adrian has been a member of the CFA Society Romania Board of Directors for the last 13 years, and for more than half of this time has acted as president. He has been instrumental in increasing the membership of the local society more than tenfold, from less than 25 members to more than 250, and has made a huge impact locally with several high-profile initiatives.
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In 2019, CFA Society Romania launched a financial literacy project, Generation I, and Adrian played a central role in this. The project was designed to increase awareness of future challenges and provide guidance for ensuring retirement security. The campaign included developing a website, which offered guidelines for saving and investing; 10 Podcasts; a resources page with articles written by members and collaborators; and a study “The Future of the Romanian Pension System”. The study was launched at a press conference, attended by more than 110 participants, and secured over 70 pieces of media coverage. Social media influencers were also used for raising the awareness digitally, with the social media campaign reaching around 800,000 people.
In addition, Adrian was part of the team that organized the second edition of the Women in Investment Management Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) Forum in Bucharest, where more than 150 specialists from 15 countries attended.
Adrian had a key role in establishing the CFA Society Romania Survey and Macroeconomic Confidence Index – a monthly indicator that aims to quantify financial analysts’ expectations on economic activity and financial markets evolution in Romania for a 12-month horizon. The indicator benefits from local and international media coverage and the most recent survey was included in the Thomson Reuters pool for Romania.
CFA Society Romania launched a CFA Ambassadors project to increase brand awareness through regular meetings with university teachers and students where Adrian has been actively involved. The project consisted in organising visits to 10 universities, reaching more than 700 students in Romania and Moldova.
Adrian is a respected opinion leader in Romania and has played an important role in building the profile of CFA Society Romania and CFA Institute in the local media. During Adrian's tenure as President of CFA Society Romania, the local society has become one of the most respected and cited professional associations in Romania. He advises other Board members and volunteers on media relations and has managed the social media pages, which saw a five-fold increase in followers over 2019.
“Under Adrian’s leadership, the governance of CFA Society Romania has further improved, with an enlarged staffed office, a comprehensive board manual, and rented office space. Adrian encourages cooperation and has built strong partnerships with other societies in the CEE. Throughout his long involvement with the local society, he has displayed exceptional leadership qualities.”
Florentina Almajanu, Managing Director, CFA Society Romania
“I would like to thank my fellow Board members, the Executives of the Society and the Volunteers for the tremendous cooperation we had during these years. We are an exceptional team, CFA Society Romania became an outstanding organization and together we accomplished wonderful things while fulfilling our mission.”
Adrian Codirlasu, CFA, President, CFA Society Romania
Volunteer of the Year: Lifetime Achievement
Ertunç Tümen, CFA, CFA Society Istanbul
Ertunç has been a board member with CFA Society Istanbul since 2004. Over the last 16 years, he has displayed diligence, ambition, and an extraordinary ability to motivate and collaborate with fellow society leaders.
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Ertunç is a well-known figure in the asset management industry and has worked tirelessly to raise the profile of CFA Society Istanbul among the Turkish Capital Markets community; promoting its key values to the capital markets regulator, stock exchange (Borsa Istanbul), local brokers, and asset managers.
Ethics has been Ertunç’s top priority. Under his leadership, the local society worked with the Capital Markets Board of Turkey and made ethics a formal chapter of the official local licensing examinations. He also launched the Women in Finance Conferences, which have become an important cornerstone of the advocacy efforts of CFA Society Istanbul.
One of his key successes was delivering the 2014 Central and Eastern Europe Conference in Istanbul in a short time-frame. Due to his leadership, local societies brought together over 300 high profile participants and made a huge impact across the region.
Ertunç has also grown social media accounts for the local society and appointed a digital media agency to professionalise marketing efforts, helping CFA Society Istanbul to reach a wider candidate pool.
“Ertunç is extremely diligent and hard working. He always takes the time to listen to his colleagues and melts all ideas into one pot. His vision for the EMEA East region and broader CFA Institute family is to maximize the power of a great network based on ethics and professionalism in the finance industry. He believes CFA Institute, the CFA Society® network, and members should learn, innovate and adapt to new realities together. He is an inspirational leader and we are delighted he has been recognised with this award,”
Ilke Homris, CFA, Executive Director, CFA Society Istanbul.
Volunteer of the Year: Young Leader
Muhammad Faridq Rashid bin Ridzuan, CFA, CFA Society Malaysia
Faridq first volunteered with CFA Society Malaysia in 2016 on a Career Day organising committee. Since then, he has shown huge commitment and strengthened collaborations with key local stakeholders. He is passionate about ethics and championed the creation of the Regional Ethics Challenge with CFA Society Singapore in 2019.
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Faridq was the University Relations Chair (2017-2019), where he promoted the CFA Program and conducted ethics workshops in universities across the country. He led the 2019 Career Day and secured a record high turn-out and strengthened engagement with universities, employers and prep-providers.
He then went onto the role of Vice-President (2019-2021), where he focused on strengthening employer outreach, delivering member value, and further enhancing relationships with regulators and Malaysia’s stock exchange, Bursa Malaysia. Faridq championed many cross-regional, cross-society collaborations and helped to secure high-profile speakers. Collaborations included launching the Regional Ethics Challenge (which is expected to include more countries this year), regional webinars, and a Masterclass series.
Faridq is the “Face of CFA Society Malaysia”, speaking at high-profile events, such as InvestSmart, the Securities Commission Malaysia’s flagship event, and motivating aspiring financial professionals to engage with the local society. His efforts have helped to double the active volunteer base to 24 individuals.
“Faridq is an extremely inspiring individual who is able to outline his vision clearly, motivate others and lead by example. He holds himself to the highest standards of integrity and can harness the power of collaboration and teamwork to solve issues and achieve success. This leadership quality enabled him to rise through the ranks swiftly, from Board Member to Vice President, in only two years,”
Caroline Ng, Executive Director, CFA Society Malaysia.
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