September marks the transition to fall, the start of a new academic year, and a new year at CFA Society Toronto. It will be my pleasure to serve as your President this year. As many of you are aware, Toronto is a leading society globally within the CFA Institute, and we trust that this year will still find us demonstrating leadership through our integrity, our innovation, and our commitment to the investment profession.

CFA Society Toronto depends on many volunteers to accomplish our goals, including the leadership provided by our Board of Directors. Carlo Giuliani and Anish Chopra are new to the Board this year, joining our existing members who serve in varying capacities. The focus of our Board is shifting from pure programming to broad strategy and governance as members undertake initiatives in outreach, advocacy, external relations, programming, and member services. One of our priorities this year will be a review of our effectiveness at delivering services to members, for which we have a newly created Board position with a focus on our broad-based member services.

Programming continues to be an essential component of services provided to our members. Our recently restructured programming committees are designed to be aligned with the practice areas in which our members have expressed interest. Another key issue for us is ensuring that our committee structure facilitates the development of events with the breadth and depth to reflect the composition of our membership. Our focus continues to be on quality rather than on quantity and on ensuring that all events meet our high standards.

With this in mind, we sincerely hope that our upcoming Annual Forecast Dinner on October 1 will appeal to you. We have an exceptional lineup of speakers—Martin Barnes, Barry Ritholtz, and Gary Shilling—who will cover a full range of topics. In addition, we will have a more interactive format this year, allowing our guests to contribute their views as well. We look forward to seeing many of you there.

Finally, I would like to thank our extremely dedicated staff at our expanded CFA offices. The team works hard to make everything we do at CFA Society Toronto look easy. This requires a lot of effort behind the scenes in a volunteer organization. Another challenge we will face this year will be a leadership transition, given that Peter Jarvis is retiring at the end of the year. We feel sure that he will remain engaged with the profession, and we look forward to working with him in a new role.

We anticipate a lot of activity this year at CFA Society Toronto, and we urge you to get involved and to let us know how we can further our common goals.