Red Raiders Named to Prestigious Financial Advising List

Texas Tech University’s Department of Personal Financial Planning (PFP) in the College of Human Sciences features three faculty members and one alumnus who were all named to the IA 25, a list of the most influential people in and around the financial advising industry. The list was published in the May 2014 issue of Investment Advisor.

Included on the list were Professors Harold Evensky, Deena Katz and Michael Finke as well as Caleb Brown, member of the Board of Directors for FPA Dallas-Fort Worth and a Texas Tech alumnus.

“Texas Tech has long been a leader in financial planning education and applied research,” said Vickie Hampton, chair of the PFP Department. “Our PFP faculty is committed to working with practitioners and academics across the nation to build the financial planning profession so that it can better serve the public. I am honored to work with these three faculty members who have been recognized as leaders in the profession and to have one of our own graduates also in this esteemed group.”

Individuals chosen for the list, which includes Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez and NextGen Founder Michael Kitces, were selected based on their influence in the past and for the likelihood they will influence the markets, how advisors invest and plan retirement for clients, and who will affect the regulatory and legislative environment in which advisors operate.

This is Katz’s eighth time to make the list, and together she and her husband, Evensky, have made the list a total of 13 times.

“They’ve both been influential for years because of their intellectual capital, their early adoption of the fee-only model, their work on getting advisors recognized as a profession, their leadership in advisor associations and their promotion of female advisors,” the duo’s profile reads. “At a stage in their careers when many advisors might be expected to slow down, Katz and Evensky are instead doubling down on their commitment to the next generation of advisors. Beyond teaching classes and mentoring students at Texas Tech University, and helping graduates get actual jobs, they’re also evangelists for the next generation of planners.”

In the same vein, one of those graduates is paving the way for career changers and students to pursue careers in financial planning.

Brown’s career day program focuses on younger talent and career changers, guiding them to career opportunities. He and Kitces founded New Planner Recruiting in 2009 which assists firms with finding and attracting students and qualified young talent.

Brown said that his experience at Texas Tech shaped his career, even though he didn’t realize it prior to arriving on campus.

“I immediately recognized the program was different than anything I had ever seen: small, but growing, personalized, intimate, and the reality that the professors were personally vested in my success and I was not just another number on a roster,” Brown said. “These experiences, along with developing some important key contacts, close friends I have to this day, have had substantial impacts on my life and short career thus far.”

Finke’s realm of influence rests primarily in his efforts in research, which are helping to make Texas Tech the center in higher education for financial planning. He made headlines last year when he challenged the traditional four percent rule in retirement planning.

Finke’s profile reads: “Finke said he and his colleagues’ goal is ‘trying to introduce a different way of thinking about building a retirement income plan’ and retirement risk, including the importance of considering ‘partial annuitization,’ responding to changes in the marketplace and how much retirees should spend.”

The profile points out how Finke’s research is becoming increasingly important as the baby boomer generation begins to retire.

“To have three of our faculty members and one former student listed on the Investment Advisor’s Top 25 is a testament to the quality of Personal Financial Planning faculty and program,” said Linda Hoover, dean of the College of Human Sciences. “Their collective contribution to the field of financial planning is significant, and their commitment to helping to develop the next generation of financial planners is critical to the future of the field. We are very proud of Professors Harold Evensky and Deena Katz, Dr. Michael Finke, and Caleb Brown and congratulate them for this important recognition.”

The full IA 25 list as well as profiles for each individual can be found at http://www.thinkadvisor.com/2014/04/28/the-ia-25-for-2014.

Investment Advisor is part of the ThinkAdvisor Network, which provides resources and information for the investment advisory community.

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