Marilyn Capelli Dimitroff, CFP®
After being an owner and principal of a RIA firm from 1982 to 2017, Marilyn is now enjoying retirement!
How did you get you started in the financial planning profession? With bachelors and masters degrees in mathematics, I expected to have a career teaching high school and college math. But, after my kids started school and I decided to go back to work, no teaching jobs were available. So in 1978 I became a stockbroker, the 5th woman in a firm of over 300 brokers. The company selected one person from each branch to pursue the Certified Financial Planner designation and I was one of the fortunate chosen. I felt like the tumblers of my life fell into place. The idea of holistically assessing client needs/wants and collaboratively developing and implementing a plan resonated strongly!
What was your involvement with developing the fiduciary standard? I’ve had the privilege to help develop standards for the profession, chairing the task force that introduced the fiduciary requirement for all CFP professionals when providing elements of financial planning to clients. My committee had flown into Chicago to meet. I remember sitting in the hotel room at O’Hare airport and discussing whether we had the guts to impose the fiduciary standard. I asked, “Do we dare? Can we require putting the client’s best interest ahead of the firm’s?” We decided that it was the right thing to do.
The ensuing firestorm in the financial services world was a huge challenge! Firms threatened to fire CFP credentialed employees. In the end, it WAS the right thing to do; and today the fiduciary standard requirement has expanded across much of the financial service profession.
As Chair of the US CFP Board of Directors in DC in 2009 I was able to testify at Congressional hearings on issues in our profession and to represent our certificants and standards around the world.
How long have you been a FPA member and what has your membership meant/done for you? Since the Stone Age! Since it was the IAFP and the ICFP in the 1980s. FPA Provides connections, education, tools, friendships and resources.
What a satisfaction and joy it has been to be in this profession for almost 40 years! And though I’m no longer working, I can’t help staying engaged.
What media have you been featured in: The Wall Street Journal, Detroit and Chicago papers, most industry magazines, Worth Magazine’s list of top planners all 15 yrs it was published, (I got to be the Cover Girl on Financial Planning magazine in March 2010) 😊 Local and national radio and TV.
Thank you, Marilyn!
