Journal of Financial Planning: March 2018
Ian Harvey on NexGen, Career Paths, and Finding Financial Planning
WHO: Ian Harvey, CFP®
WHAT: 2018 FPA NexGen president; adviser associate at Sontag Advisory
WHAT'S ON HIS MIND: “Be passionate. Be patient. And lead and follow at the same time.”
Ian harvey is no stranger to FPA; he helped start the FPA student chapter at Virginia Tech while an undergrad there, and he was involved in the FPA NexGen community as a local leader liaison before being elected the group’s 2018 president.
I recently caught up with Harvey to learn about his path into the planning profession, the impact of NexGen, and his thoughts on career paths for the next generation.
1. What’s your top priority for the FPA NexGen community in 2018?
To foster integration between NexGen and the greater FPA community. The purpose for that drives what will be the strategic vision for the next generation of planners. It’s important that we integrate. Our vision statement is to foster the transition of wisdom between the generation that came before us and the next generation, and we can’t do that effectively and consistently without purposefully integrating with former generations. If that happens, everything else will follow.
2. Describe NexGen in 15 words or less.
NexGen exists to improve our collective readiness to make a difference in this profession.
3. How has your involvement with the FPA NexGen community impacted you?
I first got involved with NexGen about four years ago as the local leader liaison and it’s progressed to where I’m now the president. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the finest financial planners in the country; not only in thinking about different financial planning concepts and how to improve the client experience, but for me personally, it’s been a leadership training for the last four years, and will continue to be, that I couldn’t have gotten elsewhere.
4. If a young planner was on the fence about joining the FPA NexGen community, what would you tell him or her?
If you want to be the best financial planner you can be, you need to surround yourself with people who are as passionate about this profession as you are. Being surrounded by passion is hard to find. The folks who come to NexGen events, the folks who come to Gathering, who show up at the FPA national conference and participate in conversations and take their proverbial seat at the table, are who you want to surround yourself with. NexGen has those people.
5. Did you study financial planning in college from the get-go, or did you have another career in mind?
I went to college for a business degree, because I was the first person in my immediate family to go to college and the whole idea was to be successful. At that time, [being a business major] gave me a lot of options and variability to be successful. I didn’t get into financial planning [as a career] until I was a senior.
6. What led you to financial planning?
I went to Lauren Grove’s [now Stansell] 21st birthday party at Buffalo Wild Wings and Dave Yeske was there. He was talking about starting an FPA student chapter; I was a vice president of another student organization, so I understood how that operated. I wanted to help. My only stipulation was I needed Lauren; this was a financial planning thing, and I had a job offer with [an insurance company]. Working on getting that student chapter going, I thought, [financial planning] is relevant to me, but I’m not going in this direction. Then I started talking to and meeting people, and the more I talked to Dave and to the people we were able to bring to campus, I decided to make the change.
7. What needs to happen for financial planning to be a career path that more young people are drawn to?
Successful financial planners need to make time in their schedules to reach out to who’s coming behind them.
Traditional finance is a lot more interesting, I think, for someone who’s 18-, 19-, 20-years old. You think of the movies, and fast pace, and making money, and living in these grand apartments. People want to make big money and do big things. Financial planning is all of that, but it’s a longer road and it’s much more about the clients and wanting to help people and being a part of the solution for folks who don’t have any solution right now. It’s a lot less sexy to be a financial planner than it is to be a deal maker.
Many firms struggle with career trajectory. At Gathering, we open source our topics and career track comes up at every one. We’re part of a profession that is just now starting to turn over to the next leaders, and it’s a little rocky. I think if the folks who have been successful can say, “We want you to be a part of this profession and here’s why” and work with the next generation to figure out the best ways to move forward, you’d get a lot of people interested. The next generation should also realize this is a two-way street.
8. Who is your mentor?
I have a lot of mentors. I can name five but I would leave off 10. I purposefully reach out to folks for different reasons. There are people who I look to for leadership qualities and I try to emulate them. There are people at my firm who are successful in different areas, so I talk to them about what they’re good at. I try to have a wide range of influences.
9. While you were a student at Virginia Tech, you and Lauren Stansell helped launch the school’s FPA student community. What advice do you have for other college students looking to do the same?
Be passionate. Be patient. And lead and follow at the same time.
When I say have passion, Lauren and I convinced about 10 people to work with us and we allotted each single person a specific set of classes. We went to every single class and stood in front for two minutes and said, “We’re having this Financial Planning Association meeting. If you think you might want to be a financial planner, if you think you don’t know what that means but it’s kind of cool, you should come.” And we did it for every class for freshman and sophomores in the finance program. You can’t just put out a Facebook post that says, “Come to our meeting.” You’ll get three people and you’ll be disappointed.
And leading and following at the same time is hard. When you’re starting an organization, especially when you’re co-starting an organization, you have to realize your strengths, and then when it’s not your turn, the other person leads. If you’re doing it by yourself, that other person might be your program director. We were fortunate enough to have two strong leaders as professors and directors who supported what we were attempting and fostered our success.
10. What has been your greatest lesson learned so far in your financial planning career?
Get back up and keep going. When you leave the security of a set schedule and you’re on your own and you’re trying to start a new job and you want to be involved in the profession that you’re so passionate about, things are going to go wrong from time to time. And the answer is not, “Well, financial planning is not for me.” If you’re still passionate about it and you’re just bummed out, then take a step back, reevaluate what happened, and do better next time.