The Impact and Innovation award recognizes societies executing high impact and highly innovative initiatives that have strong potential for widespread society interest and further development. Congratulations to the three regional winners: CFA Society Orlando, CFA Society Philippines and CFA Society United Kingdom.
CFA Society Orlando
Investors First Podcast
When the current society president, Steve Curley, CFA, was Programming Chair, he noticed that CFA Society Orlando struggled to get speakers to fly in for a single evening presentation. The local society, therefore, looked for other ways to engage renowned speakers and provide high-quality content for its members.
At the Society Leadership Conference in May 2019, Steve attended a breakout session on podcasts, which ignited some ideas and inspired the local society to launch the ‘Investors First Podcast’ in March 2020.
Developing the Podcast
The podcast series aims to educate investors, consultants, advisors and investment professionals in the state of Florida, as well as increase brand awareness of CFA Society Orlando.
The local society worked with The Podcast Consultant, Mathew Passy (who has helped to launch renowned podcasts like, Invest Like the Best and The Meb Faber Show) to create a professional podcast brand and he continues to assist the local society with marketing advice and episode editing.
Local subject-matter experts from its member-base host nationally recognised finance thought leaders and cover a variety of topics, including women in investing (Liz Ann Sonders), diversity (Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic) and leadership (Paul Smith). The podcast series has enabled CFA Society Orlando to obtain renowned speakers that would not – and could not (following the COVID-19 pandemic) – travel. In fact, the local society has been able to secure more prominent guests than it expected because of travel restrictions.
The series complements the efforts of the CFA Society Orlando Programming Committee and has allowed the local society to diversify and offer a wider range of topics than traditional programming.
Results
The focus of the podcasts started in Florida, but CFA Society Orlando quickly realised it was popular elsewhere, with the podcasts having been downloaded in over 100 countries thus far.
After recording podcasts with notable guests, CFA Society Orlando has focused on social media marketing efforts, with some great results:
- Peter Zeihan, Geopolitical strategist’s podcast, New World Disorder, was downloaded 3,000 times in the first 30 days.
- Danny Moses, who was the head trader at FrontPoint Partners under Steve Eisman during the housing crash in 2008 and featured in Michael Lewis’ best-selling book “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” recorded a podcast that was downloaded more than 1,110 times in the first 30 days: Life After The Big Short, COVID-19, and $TSLA .
- Barry Ritholtz, host of Bloomberg Radio's Masters in Business, recorded two podcasts, Bailout Nation and Active Share, which were downloaded more than 1,110 times in the first 30 days.
The podcast has also given the society the platform to further engage its sponsors by inviting their CEO’s and top investment strategists to record an episode. This was a contributing factor to almost all its partners renewing their sponsorship this year, a material source of revenue for the society.
How This Can be Replicated by the CFA Society® Community
Other societies could replicate this initiative and launch their own podcast series. The initiative is cost-effective, with around US$2,000 upfront cost for equipment, software, and design and then US$125 per each episode (if using a consultant).
Steve Curley recommends that all local societies have a podcast champion to oversee the initiative. Its champion is Colby Donovan, co-founder of the podcast along with Steve Curley. Colby is the main host of every episode and works with Matthew Passy to ensure each episode meets a high standard. Colby was previously an active non-board volunteer who has since joined the board this fiscal year. He is a Level II CFA Program candidate who is currently enrolled in the Level II Mentor Program run by the local society. Colby is a podcast consultant for Meb Faber, listening to around 40 hours of podcasts per week, giving CFA Society Orlando unprecedented insight into trends and what is relevant among podcasts. Colby has already offered guidance to several societies interested in establishing their own podcast, ranging from which equipment to buy, to which consultant and software to use.
Steve Curley said: “Through the Investors First podcast series, we have provided our members with high-quality content from nationally recognised speakers. We initially aimed to release an episode a month, however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we increased our efforts and managed to release one episode a week. The increase in production allowed our listeners to stay informed and educated on relevant topics and provided our members with opportunities to record professional learning hours during the pandemic.”
CFA Society United Kingdom
Certificate in ESG Investing
CFA Society United Kingdom (UK) has worked to evolve environmental, social and governance (ESG) education through formal qualifications and professional learning, to ensure that investment professionals can continue to meet their clients’ needs and fulfil their fiduciary duties.
In 2018, the local society began consulting with its members and the broader investment sector and a strong consensus emerged on the need for a foundational body of knowledge, non-prescriptive in approach, which would ensure practitioners are equipped with the right tools to advance ESG investing.
In response, CFA Society UK launched the Certificate in ESG Investing. The first computer-based tested, international qualification on ESG integration, which is now available globally through online examination.
Developing the Certificate
Working with expert practitioners, CFA Society UK produced a comprehensive syllabus and supporting learning materials written specifically to each of the syllabus learning outcomes. The learning materials reference an extensive body of knowledge (both practitioner and academic) to explain the risks, opportunities and challenges to ESG integration.
Candidates undergoing the course of study are assessed via a 2 hour and 20 minutes examination delivered via computer-based or online testing, consisting of 100 questions.
Results
Since the end of September 2019, more than 2,400 candidates have registered for the Certificate in ESG Investing. Candidates come from over 450 firms (including asset owners, asset managers, consultants, NGOs, banks, regulators and accountants) and work in a wide range of roles.
Launching the Certificate in ESG Investing has extended the reach of CFA Society UK into new firms and strengthened existing stakeholder relationships, enabling the local society to promote both the work of CFA Society UK and CFA Institute.
The Certificate in ESG investing has also achieved positive and extensive media coverage. CFA Society UK has demonstrated the demand for ESG education having successfully met that demand in the UK and major European markets.
How This Can be Replicated by the CFA Society® Community
CFA Society UK believes that the Certificate in ESG Investing is a global product. With online as well as test centre delivery, candidates in any market can now study for the certificate and take the exam.
The local society acts as a conduit for different organisations seeking speakers on ESG and recently sourced specialist, Chinese-speaking presenters for a series of ESG webinars delivered via CFA Beijing.
CFA Society UK has established partnership arrangements with CFA Society France, CFA Society Switzerland, CFA Society Denmark, CFA Society Spain, CFA Society Luxembourg, CFA Society Netherlands, CFA Society Finland and CFA Society Ireland to enable distribution and testing of the certificate in those countries. To date, the society has received over 400 registrations from these countries. The Certificate in ESG Investing also forms a module of the CFA Society VBA Netherlands’ 12-module Executive Education programme.
Will Goodhart, CFA, CEO, CFA Society UK, said: “We are delighted and honoured to win this award. We believe that our experience in qualification development, marketing and distribution, together with the work we are now doing with CFA Institute, could provide a template for other CFA Institute member societies to incubate qualifications to the initial benefit of their local market and then, via collaboration with CFA Institute, to the benefit of the global investment profession.”
CFA Society Philippines
Developing a Mobile App
The idea of developing a mobile application (app) was first floated by CFA Society Philippines at a planning session it hosted in 2018. The following year, the team had identified several issues that could be addressed by a mobile app and plenty of opportunities to keep members engaged, informed, and interested. The first app initiative in the region was, therefore, launched and development got underway!
Developing the App
The objectives of the app are to increase member engagement; address the need to provide a digitized event experience (especially as members are predominantly millennials); improve the event management processes; and make events more sustainable.
CFA Society Philippines engaged an app developer to customize its society app based on its needs and key objectives.
Strategically launched at the Philippine Junior Finance and Investment Summit (PJFIS), in September 2019, the mobile app was effectively promoted to thousands of finance students, professors, employers, and regulators.
The features of the mobile app include:
- Dashboard and monitoring
- Event administration
- QR ID Generation and Scanning
- Booking and Payment Confirmation
- Event Evaluation
- Badges for Members, Candidates and Guests
- Rewards System
- Job Posting/Internship/Volunteer Opporunitites
- Notifications
The event management capabilities of the app allow for digital registration, digital program with speaker profiles, Q&A and evaluation. CFA Society Philippines has saved on the costs involved in purchasing single-use conferencing apps and printing event programs, evaluation forms and registration lists.
As the local society continuously improves the app, it has added an “engagements” feature, where volunteer opportunities and job advertisements are posted. A rewards system has also been added to engage members through accumulation of points from attending events, answering surveys, signing-up as a volunteer, attending volunteer meetings, and membership renewal.
The local society hopes to further develop the app and add features such as communities, member-to-member messaging, and e-learning. Eventually, CFA Society Philippines believes the app can be a powerful tool to bring localized professional learning content straight into its members hands.
Results
PJFIS is the biggest flagship project run by the local society in terms of number of participants and that is why the local society use this event to launch the app. At the launch, 70% of the PJFIS participants downloaded and used the app. On-site registration improved tremendously with a record-breaking one-hour smooth registration of the 2,300 participants (at previous events it had taken two-hours to register participants). The local society also found that participant engagement improved during Q&A sessions (with around seven questions per session using the app versus an average of two-three previously). The app also allowed the local society to reach participants instantly whenever it needed to make an important announcement during the event through the push notifications.
CFA Society Philippines believes that in the first 10 months of use, the gains from this project have made the investment in the technology worthwhile. Since PJFIS, the app has been used for all local society events whether for pre-registration, on-site registration, digital program, Q&A, and evaluation and will be used for future events.
At launch, the mobile app had 1,600 users. This has increased to 3,094 users, comprising members, candidates, and guests. The local society is focused on continuing to engage members through the app.
How This Can be Replicated by the CFA Society® Community
A mobile application is a tool to keep members engaged, informed, and interested. It can also help a local society to continue to grow. Once a local society has identified that a mobile app is an investment it would like to make, it can engage an app developer to support the development process. CFA Society Philippines is also happy to share its experience of what worked and any challenges it faced. The CFA Society® community may also find this app useful during the current pandemic, to keep members engaged and informed.
Rizchelle Sampang-Manaog, Program Director, CFA Society Philippines, said: “With the mobile app, the local society is able to enhance its operational effectiveness and improve member engagement. If a website helps an organization to become global, a mobile application makes an organization remain local, as it resides on the member’s phone. It has been a key catalyst for member satisfaction and delivered increased value to our membership.”
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