As the parent of a teenager and a lifelong learner myself, I am fascinated by research in education, neuroscience, and psychology on what is now known as the “growth mindset.”  Dr. Carol Dweck’s research from over 30 years ago was later popularized in her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. The basic tenet of her work is that intelligence, ability, and talents are not fixed and that anyone, regardless of their incoming genetic endowment of grey matter, can develop and hone their talents and abilities via effort, teaching, and persistence, by adopting a “growth mindset.”

Fully embracing a growth mindset, our board and Society leadership recently undertook our annual strategic planning exercise, setting in motion the development of a new strategic plan to guide the organization from fiscal years 2025 to 2028.

We look forward to sharing and executing the final plan in partnership with you, but, in the meantime, let’s unpack some of its key focal areas. Your board deliberated extensively on what “growth” means for a member-focused, not-for-profit professional association, arriving at several foundational principles:

–  Our “North Star” remains our vision to be “The leading source of world-class investment professionals,” and our mission of “Creating opportunities for our members to raise standards and make high-quality contributions towards a trustworthy financial community.” We reassert our unwavering commitment to this.

– Growth means:

• Broadening and deepening our relevance and value to existing members by advocating with external stakeholders for the value of the charter, delivering impactful content and continuing education, and nurturing a bona fide community of professional peers committed to a common cause and to one another’s success.
• Increasing our membership by leveraging traditional channels for new charterholders via ongoing outreach to university and college students, embracing Toronto’s unique advantage globally as a destination of choice for talented financial professionals and warmly welcoming new Canadians into our community, and promoting theofferings available in our associate membership category to non-charterholders.
• Broadening our membership by redoubling our efforts to strive for a full spectrum of diversity, from gender and ethnicity to educational and professional background.
• Amplifying our impact and influence in important conversations with regulators, government, employers, local and national business communities, and the broader public, leveraging where appropriate our partnership with CFA Societies Canada and CFA Institute.

– Financial growth, resilience and accountability will be crucial as enablers of these primary growth vectors.

There is much to do and much to be excited about, with sound foundations in place and great work already underway in many of these areas.

Stay tuned, stay engaged—or better yet, engage more deeply—and, above all, join us in embracing a growth mindset as we relentlessly pursue our professional journeys together.