New FPA CEO chip off the Bloch
The headhunter assigned to find the next chief executive for the Financial Planning Association (FPA) has dismissed concerns that Jo-Anne Bloch’s lack of direct involvement in financial planning will hamper her ability to understand the critical issues facing the profession.
Highland Partners financial services recruitment specialist Lynn Muirhead, whose firm was responsible for Bloch’s appointment to the FPA, said Bloch’s time at the Investment and Financial Services Association (IFSA), between 2002 and 2004, gave her exposure to the challenges facing financial advisers.
This included working with the FPA to address matters such as financial literacy, state taxes and fees and charges.
Financial planning also runs in the Bloch family.
“Her father is a planner, her sister is a planner, so she’s very close to the needs of financial planning and what’s going on in the industry,” Muirhead said.
Bloch’s previous role at IFSA will also allow her to reinforce the FPA’s connections with government.
“The role at IFSA required her to lobby very effectively on behalf of the membership, so she’s very well connected across government,” Muirhead said.
According to Muirhead, the FPA will benefit from Bloch’s ability to combine her commercial experience with her past involvement with professional associations.
“She has worked in commerce and an association environment. She’s already proven the ability to be commercially-minded, and hence understand the issues that affect planners because they’re entrepreneurial and business-minded, but at the same time she had a very successful two years in an association,” Muirhead explained.
“So she understands the real issues and is able to work in such an environment. I think very few people have demonstrated an ability to be able to work on both sides of the fence,” she added.
Bloch will begin her new role at the FPA on June 13, following her relocation to Sydney from London, where she is currently employed as a principal with Mercer Human Resource Consulting and has been setting up the firm’s retirement solutions business.
Bloch will not be offering any interviews to the media until she takes on the role formally in June.
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