While Canadian equities account for just 2.7 percent of world equities,¹ CFA Society Toronto is CFA Institute’s largest society, with over 11,000 members, or 5.5 percent of CFA Institute’s nearly 200,000 world-wide members. By comparison, the venerable CFA Society New York, located in the world’s largest capital market, has approximately 10,000 members.2 On a proportionate basis, CFA Society Toronto is more than twice as big as might be expected based on the size of its local capital markets, which begs the question, why has it grown so large? The answer can be found in the history of how CFA Institute founded the profession of investment analysis and portfolio management and led its international expansion, two endeavours in which CFA Society Toronto played a significant role. 

Toronto’s early role in establishing the investment profession and facilitating international growth 

Shortly after the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts (the educational body set up in 1963 by the North American societies of the Financial Analysts Federation to administer the CFA Program) merged with the Financial Analysts Federation in 1990, the new Board of Governors accelerated efforts to make the CFA designation the standard requirement for members of a new international professional body. This body, then called the Association for Investment Management and Research, would later be renamed CFA Institute. Canadian societies were the only non-U.S. member societies in the CFA organization at the time, reflecting the historically close links between U.S. and Canadian financial markets and the shared language and culture of the two countries. Additionally, in Canada, more than in most countries, there had traditionally been a high regard for the role of professional self-regulating institutions in law, medicine, accounting, and finance, an appreciation that stemmed from Canada’s historic ties to the United Kingdom and its centuries-old institutions. 

In the 1990s, the leaders of CFA Institute and the U.S. and Canadian societies recognized the historic challenge and opportunity of creating a truly global investment profession. To aid in this endeavour, eager volunteers from Canadian CFA societies came forward and were welcomed at every level of the CFA organization, from membership to curriculum setting, examination administration, grading, and professional advocacy. 

At the same time, high levels of immigration and successful multiculturalism were reshaping the previously conservative and domestically focused Toronto into a larger, more dynamic, and globally engaged city. CFA Society Toronto members played a unique role in advising and assisting new international societies and demonstrating how to develop relationships with foreign regulators. Canadian volunteers took active positions on CFA Institute committees and the Board of Governors, and CFA Society Toronto welcomed CFA Institute’s assistance in education and professional standard setting. 

CFA Society Toronto and CFA Institute cooperated in marketing the CFA Program to employers and assisting universities seeking to offer courses based on the CFA Program. The experience of integrating Canadians (English and French speaking) into the CFA Program aided the CFA Institute in managing its overseas expansion and in its efforts to include societies’ activities within education-focused CFA Institute activity. Furthermore, CFA Society Toronto assisted the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants in setting corporate disclosure requirements and accounting standards and encouraged the OSC to recognize the CFA designation as a preferred qualification for portfolio managers. This helped CFA Institute gain recognition and cooperate with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board. 

While regional politics, some of it a relic from pre-merger times, complicated CFA Institute’s efforts to standardize membership requirements and conduct examinations in various parts of the world, Canadian representatives helped demonstrate how such obstacles could be overcome. Above all, the keen commitment of Canadian volunteers to establishing the highest standards of professional conduct, ethics, and international cooperation served CFA Institute exceptionally well. It is telling that one such Canadian volunteer, a past president of CFA Society Toronto who has served as Chair of the Board of Governors of CFA Institute and as a member of numerous working committees over the years, is today the President and CEO of CFA Institute: Marg Franklin. 

Opportunity to build on our achievements 

The close linkage established by CFA Institute between earning the CFA charter and society membership has been an enormous boon to all CFA Societies’ growth in membership over the past four decades. Still, the exceptional growth of CFA Society Toronto is evidence that a solid commitment to professionalism and to bridging the distances between international capital markets can enable a society to achieve far greater size, influence, and stature than would otherwise be expected. For its part, in the early 1990s, CFA Society Toronto began a process of expanding and enhancing its activities, which saw the society transform itself from an equity-focused group hosting corporate presentations (in the era before quarterly conference calls) and a small number of recurring seminars into the programming powerhouse it is today, with more than 70 events and marquee conferences annually, covering all aspects of secular market issues and trends and with global, industry-leading practitioners. Success breeds success, and the large number of CFA charterholders in Toronto has made the designation a necessary requirement for many investment professionals. Over four decades, our society has grown from a membership of under 1,000, to more than 11,000 today, and we now look to the next phase of growth as we strive for even more significant influence in the global investment and financial services industry. 

¹ Neufield, Dorothy. “The $109 Trillion Global Stock Market in One Chart.” Visual Capitalist, September 27, 2023. 

² Both the New York and Toronto societies were founded in 1937 and are the oldest societies in CFA Institute.