Tamar Frankel is Professor of Law at Boston University and the Chairwoman of the Institute’s Board of Advisors. A leading expert of fiduciary law, finance law, corporate governance, mutual funds and the regulation of the financial system, she is the author of numerous books, including: Fiduciary Law (2010), Trust and Honesty, America’s Business Culture at a Crossroad (2006), Securitization (2006). Frankel has published more than 70 articles and book chapters.

Brooksley Born is a retired partner of Arnold & Porter where she practiced for more than thirty years and was head of the firm’s derivatives practice. From 1996 to 1999, Ms. Born was chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that oversees futures and commodity option markets, and strongly advocated the need for federal regulation of the over-the-counter derivatives market, which played a significant role in the 2007-2008 financial crisis. She also served as a Commissioner on the U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission from 2009 until early 2011, when the Commission issued its report on the causes of the financial crisis and resulting economic crisis. Currently, she is a member of the Systemic Risk Council, an independent non-partisan group dedicated to regulatory reform of U.S. financial markets.

Phyllis C. Borzi is Assistant Secretary for Employee Benefits Security of the U.S. Department of Labor. Prior to serving as Assistant Secretary, Borzi was a research professor in the Department of Health Policy at George Washington University’s Medical Center’s School of Public Health and Health Services where she was involved in research and policy analysis. She was also of counsel to the Washington, D.C. law firm of O’Donoghue & O’Donoghue LLP, specializing in ERISA and other legal issues affecting employee benefit plans.

Dan Solin is the New York Times bestselling author of the Smartest series of investing books and The Smartest Sales Book You’ll Ever Read. He blogs regularly for Advisor Perspectives. Dan’s books have been enthusiastically endorsed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Vanguard founder John Bogle. Kiplinger’s listed The Smartest Investment Book You’ll Ever Read on its top ten list of the best financial books ever written. A former securities attorney, Dan graduated from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Dan is a sales coach to advisory firms throughout North America. He gives presentations to large groups, conducts workshops and engages in one-on-one coaching either in person or via teleconferencing platforms like Skype.

Ron Rhoades is Associate Professor of Finance and the Director of Personal Financial Planning Program at Western Kentucky University. Rhoades is one of the most prolific authors of papers and comment letters on fiduciary duties for investment advisors and broker-dealers in this century. His many contributions to advancing fiduciary duties resulted in the Institute awarding him the Frankel Fiduciary Prize in 2020.

He has 30 years of experience as an attorney, and over 15 years as a personal financial adviser. He was a principal with an investment advisory firm where he served as its Director of Research and Chair of its Investment Committee. He is a member and former Chair of the Steering Committee of the Committee for the Fiduciary Standard, on whose behalf he travels to Washington, D.C. for meetings in Congress and with regulators.

Michael E. Kitces is Partner and Director of Research for Pinnacle Advisory Group, a private wealth management firm in Columbia, Maryland that oversees approximately $1 billion in client assets. He is the practitioner editor of the Journal of Financial Planning, and publisher of the e-newsletter The Kitces Report. He is also publisher of the popular financial planning industry blog Nerd’s Eye View through his website www.kitces.com, dedicated to advancing knowledge in financial planning. Michael is an active writer and editor across the industry and has been featured in publications including Financial Planning, the Journal of Financial Planning, Journal of Retirement Planning, Practical Tax Strategies, as well as The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, CNBC PowerLunch, and NBC Nightly News.

James H. “Jamie” McLaughlin founded J. H. McLaughlin & Co., LLC, in 2010 – a strategy and practice management consulting firm serving the wealth management industry and family offices. Previously, he was CEO of Geller Family Office Services, the New York-based MFO. Before that he was a partner at three wealth management firms: Convergent Wealth Advisors where he built the firm’s New York office, Mellon where he was the regional president of Mellon Private Wealth Management’s New York region, and Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Inc. where he began his career in the industry as a financial advisor in the Private Client Group. From 1981 to 1991 Mr. McLaughlin served in both the House and Senate of the Connecticut General Assembly. Mr. McLaughlin received his Bachelor’s degree in History from Lafayette College and his Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School.

Deborah S. Bosley, Ph.D., is the Owner and Principal of The Plain Language Group, LLC. For the past twenty years, she has worked primarily in the financial services sector to create written information that meets regulatory requirements while being easy for customers to understand. Using proven writing and design strategies, training tools, and research results, she helps Fortune 100/500 companies achieve a number of critical goals including increasing profits; saving time and money; and improving customer trust. Deborah has published three books and dozens of articles about clear communication. She has given hundreds of presentations to organizations in the U.S., France, England, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Sweden, and others. Deborah also has written for, or been interviewed by Investment News, The Federal Reserve, The Wall Street Journal This Weekend radio broadcast, The Atlantic, Time Magazine, ThriveGlobal, Investment News, Business, N.C., Employee Benefit News, Entrepreneur, Transaction World Magazine, other print and social media. Deborah has been an expert witness in lawsuits that included her testimony on the “understandability” of 1) ERISA’s required Summary Plan Description and 2) state voting materials.

Stephen D. Johnson, CFP^® is the retired chairman of Johnson Lyman Wealth Advisors in Silicon Valley. An active leader in the financial planning profession, Steve has served on the national Boards of Directors of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) and the Financial Planning Association (FPA). He is a past president of the NAPFA West Region, the FPA of Silicon Valley and the FPA of Rhode Island, and was the founding president of the FPA of California. He served on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee 222 where he helped write and was the final editor of ISO 22222:2005, Personal Financial Planning — Requirements for personal financial planners. As a member of the Institute’s Real Fiduciary Practices™ Board, he co-authored its Professional Conduct Guidance for Advisors. Prior to his career as a fee-only financial planning professional, Steve served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force. 

Paula Hogan is a Wealth Manager at Creative Planning. Creative Planning provides comprehensive wealth management services including investment management, financial planning, charitable planning, retirement plan consulting, tax planning, and estate planning services. Specialties: Wealth Management, Investment Management for Individuals, Businesses, and Charities, Financial Planning, Wills, Trusts, and Estate Planning, Tax Planning, Charitable Planning, Business Succession Planning, Risk Management.

Prior to joining Creative Planning, Paula founded and served as CEO of Hogan Financial Management. The firm was an early advocate and adopter of the fee-only, fiduciary business model, comprehensive financial planning, and passive asset class investment strategies. Further innovation included the implementation of life-cycle economics with its focus on human capital, lifetime income planning, and risk managed with the insight that risk is goal dependent. The more necessary the goal, the safer will be the funding.

Rick Kahler, MS, CFP®, CFT-I™, CeFT® is a pioneer in integrating financial planning and psychology. Rick is one of the founders of financial therapy and has been recognized for his pioneering work in that field by InvestmentNews who gave Rick their 2019 annual Innovator Award and in 2018 by the Insiders Forum who named him and their annual Iconoclast Award recipient. He is also a founding board member and Past-Chair of the Financial Therapy Association. He is a Distinguished Adjunct Professor at Golden Gate University, a Finology Fellow, and a past chairman of the South Dakota Investment Council. His work and research has been featured or cited in scores of national and international periodicals and books. He is in his 30th year of writing a weekly column on personal finance that appears in several newspapers. He is a co-author of four books blending financial planning and therapy.

Rick Scheeler is a native of Chicago and spent 17 years there before joining the U.S. Army. He served in the 3rd U.S. Infantry, The Old Guard from 1991-1994 at Arlington Cemetery. After this, Rick began his career with Northwestern Mutual. He started his own practice in Cincinnati in 2012 and opened his own office in 2016 in West Chester, OH. He has been honored to serve his clients as a Wealth Management Advisor ever since and now serves clients in over 20 States. In 2019, Rick transitioned away from Northwestern Mutual and he founded Scheeler Financial Group.

Rick decided to go independent, which dramatically increased the capabilities of his firm and what he is able to offer. He strongly believes in continuing education and has obtained several designations/certifications and obtained his Master of Science in Financial Services through the American College in the summer of 2020. Rick’s designations/certifications include: Certified Financial Planner (CFP), Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) and Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC).

He also has a Bachelor of Science from George Mason University (1999) and his Licenses include the series 6, 7, 63 & 66 registrations all held through LPL Financial.

Dr. Woodrow W. Leake (2015 – 2020) was Edwin Lawrence Professor of [Political and Ideological] Communication at the University of Vermont. After leaving academe, he served as Executive Director and CEO of both the Brain Injury Association of Georgia and the Institute of Industrial Engineers, not-for-profit professional associations, and as Vice President for the Benjamin Franklin Center of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Leake was actively involved in politics, both state-wide and local races. He was a strategic and tactical advisor to then-Governor Jimmy Carter for his second debate with President Gerald Ford. He moderated debates among contenders for the U. S. Senate and governor in two states. He also led campaigns for state races in the northeast, Georgia, and Florida. Dr. Leake is now retired and lives in Florida.

Leake served on the Institute’s Board of Advisors until his passing on April 13, 2020.

John C. Bogle was the founder of The Vanguard Group, Inc., and President of Vanguard’s Bogle Financial Markets Research Center. He created Vanguard in 1974 and served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer until 1996 and Senior Chairman until 2000. He had been associated with Wellington Management, a predecessor company, since 1951, and served as its CEO from 1965 to 1974. Bogle wrote ten books; his most recent, The Clash of Cultures: Investment vs. Speculation, was published in August 2012.