The Council was first given an overview by staff of activities of the Society Marketing and Communications Council. Brand spend has been increased year-over-year, and top of mind brand awareness has risen by three percent points since October 2017. High net worth campaigns will be executed soon in Canada and the United States, involving 66 societies. CFA Institute-managed websites will be provided an opportunity to have their homepages refreshed, and more robust materials will be provided to assist with social media posts. Guidance will be provided to better align society social media posts with those of CFA Institute.
CFA Institute staff briefed the Council on the work to revise Principles of Partnership and Operating Framework, the document that describes the relationship between CFA Institute and Societies. This is an initiative under Societies 2.0. There has also been a lot of work to develop a new Society Service Center which will provide enhanced operational support, on a regional basis, with a focus on technology. Another initiative underway that supports society efforts to professionalize is an HR Toolkit that provides guidance around hiring and staff management practices.
A Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Design Council had been instituted and held its first meeting in December 2018. Josh Howard, CFA was nominated and approved as the first Chair of the CPD Design Council.
The Council was also given a brief update on the membership affiliation gap between CFA Institute and Society memberships, a 23% difference in total. It is difficult to reengage society members once they let their membership lapse. Time to attend events is often cited as the reason for lapse, but the new membership transaction process should allow us to gather better data at the point of decision.
Lastly, the Presidents Council (PC) Chair discussed PCR allocations, given the ongoing expansion of the society network, particularly in EMEA. There was also a discussion about representation in areas of high candidate growth such as China.