WF: Can you share with us the growth of the COFP organization?

Yuvaraja: It started with a small group of Bangalore based CFPs meeting informally. Over the years, it gained a structure where the members would give a presentation on a topic of professional interest to educate their fellow members. This tradition continues even today. In 2013, COFP was formally founded as non-profit society to “collaborate, educate and empower” its members. Membership is opens to CFA certification and AFP certificants. Currently, we have close to 110 members across India, predominantly from Karnataka.

We meet the second Wednesday of every month where all of our members are given an opportunity to present and share their experiences. At various times, we invite external speakers to give presentations. To allow other intermediaries who are not CFPs or AFPs to also benefit from these sessions, we have now started guest memberships. All of our meetings happen in Bangalore but they are recorded and the videos are put on website. Members who live outside of Bangalore can view the videos by logging into the website.

WF: What is the agenda for this year’s retreat?

For registration, there are two categories. For members, it is Rs. 16,000. For non-members, it is Rs. 18,000. Those interested can visit our website http://www.cofpindia.org/ and register. Our contact numbers are listed on the website and they can get in touch with us to find out more details about the retreat and our organization.

WF: What are some of the activities planned for the retreat?

Yuvaraja: We have a variety of different speakers who will be approaching the theme from different angles. We have entrepreneur Ganesh Krishnan, the founder of Big Basket as our keynote speaker for the first day. The second day focus is on client engagement. Ravi Sharma, who is coming from Australia, will talk about the advisory practices in Australia and elsewhere and what we can adopt in India. Anand Kasturi will be leading a workshop on how to be client-centric and get the best client engagement in practical scenarios. We also have scheduled a skype meeting with a leading US based CFP who will share his views and experiences from the international context.

On the third day, we will have Arvind Rao covering international taxation and how to tackle cross border issues with participants. There will be sessions on estate planning which will be led by an estate planning certificant as well an advocate based in Bangalore. Rajendra Kallur from Mumbai will be leading a session on investment policy statement. In addition to the professional sessions, we have also planned a motivational talk by a leading social worker who runs an organization for patients of multiple scleroris. So participants can look forward to lots of highly interactive case based sessions with great learning involved.

To know more about the upcoming retreat, click here

To know more about CoFP, click here

Share this article