Financial Planner of the Year champions education and ethical advice
FPI Financial Planner of the Year 2025, Nicola Langridge, a CFP® and Wealth Manager at Private Client Holdings, believes winning the competition creates opportunities for financial education and to promote the CFP® accreditation to a broader grouping of South African consumers. READ MORE....
Congrats to SA’s top financial planners
FAnews spoke to Langridge just over a week after the award was conferred at a gala dinner held after the first day of the Financial Planning Institute of South Africa (FPI) Convention. As a publication focused on financial and risk intermediaries, FAnews would like to congratulate the winner and two runners-up (Theoniel MacDonald CFP® and Brendan Dunn CFP®) for their performances in one of the toughest competitions in the financial planning realm.
“Financial education has always been a passion of mine,” Langridge said. “I run a series of seminars each year aimed at medical professionals and women but would like to expand my reach to educate more people on aspects of financial well-being.” She added that CFP® professionals would have to take the lead in producing ethical, factual education to counter the deluge of misinformation being peddled by ‘finfluencers’ online.
The FPI encourages its members to think about financial planning outside of what happens in face-to-face client interactions. According to Langridge, it takes careful planning to achieve a balance between administration, compliance, financial advising and giving back. “I am mindful when taking on new clients to ensure that I have enough capacity and am proactive in making time for things I am passionate about, such as education and public speaking,” she said.
Benchmarking the advising process
The FPI Financial Planner of the Year competition operates a rigorous three-part selection process to assess all the core traits that a well-rounded financial planner needs in order to succeed. The first requirement is to submit a case study of a completed financial plan. Competitors have singled out this step as an excellent opportunity to benchmark their processes against FPI best practice.
“This requirement focuses on how you go about onboarding a client through to the proposal stage and is a great way to check that you are covering everything,” Langridge said. The structured framework allows financial planners to identify potential shortcomings in their current client interactions and helps them to rethink approaches to disclosures and presenting solutions.
Stage two of the judging centres on practice management. “You are interrogated on your processes; your client onboarding and retention; your compliance and ethics procedures; and your succession planning,” Langridge said.
The final hurdle is a two-hour-long face-to-face interview with a panel of five judges who have free reign to question candidates on approaches to financial planning, compliance, ethics, situational awareness etc.
All three finalists found real value in the self-reflection that the judging process forced, describing it as an opportunity to ‘relook everything’ and strengthen their professional processes.
Trusted advice in a digital world
The programme at the two-day long FPI Convention was packed with discussions around how financial planners deliver trusted advice in an increasingly digital world. “We have a responsibility to share decent and up to date content,” Langridge said, adding that multi-discipline advice practices enjoyed somewhat of a content ‘edge’ due to having a range of subject experts in-house.
Private Client Holdings sees video as an excellent medium through which to engage with consumers, especially among younger generations. “We have put together a series of educational videos for our website, starting with one on behavioural psychology and consumers’ money personalities,” she said.
FAnews challenged the Financial Planner of the Year on how to engage with younger consumers who often had limited budgets for insurance and investment products. “The youth are going to be your future clients,” Langridge said. “They may not be investing money today, but understanding aspects of saving and investing from an early age will make a huge difference later on.”
The conversation shifted to how financial advisers and advice practices might adopt AI and digital tools without causing harm. Conducting proper due diligence before unleashing a solution emerged as a key consideration. “We are fortunate to have four people that run a fin tech team in our business, and they are constantly considering and testing various solutions for us,” the FPI Planner of the Year said. She added that data protection concerns made internal education around AI adoption extremely important.
Human first
Langridge believes that financial advice needs to come from a human financial planner. And so, for now, the preferred approach is to leverage AI and automation in back-office administration and compliance functions, freeing up financial planners to spend time with clients. This does not mean that advisers should not consider solutions like Teams Pro to improve efficiencies in minute-taking and post-meeting feedback to clients.
The FPI is the steward of the CFP® accreditation in South Africa, and a foundational support pillar for financial planners. According to Langridge, the FPI is doing an excellent job in educating its members and ensuring the integrity of the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) framework. Going forward, the hope is that the institute will be more proactive in defining how AI is used in financial planning, wealth management and other financial advising disciplines. A nice-to-have would be an FPI-approved set of digital and AI tools, perhaps informed by feedback from CFP® professionals.
At the convention, FPI CEO Lelané Bezuidenhout CFP® expressed a desire to encourage more under-30s to enter the financial planning profession. FAnews asked if this ‘gap’ was somehow linked to the level of experience required before giving face-to-face advice.
“A CFP® professional does not have to be sitting in front of a client and giving advice,” Langridge said. “But the earlier you get the CFP® designation, and the earlier you get into the swing of things working alongside a financial adviser, the quicker you build experience.” The 2025 Financial Planner of the Year would also like to see more young women enter the profession, noting that although FPI figures are improving, women were still underrepresented in the industry.
Experience is non-negotiable for any chance to scoop the Financial Planner of the Year accolade. Langridge said her first ‘taste’ of the competition took place back in 2017, when her colleague Mark MacSymon CFP® won the coveted title. “Watching Mark have the platform, and seeing the wealth of advice, education and information he had to share made me realise that this competition was not something you just jump into,” she said. “I always wanted to enter but decided to leave it until I felt I was ready and had the necessary experience.”
Dual focus on education and planning
There is an expectation that winners of this accolade assume a year-long ambassadorial role for the FPI and the CFP® accreditation in addition to financial education for both consumers and their financial planner peers. Over the coming year Langridge will continue to grow her book, meeting with new and existing clients and supporting their financial planning needs as her primary goal, with a dual role as an educator.
Looking ahead, Langridge is clear that financial education, mentorship and encouraging more young people, especially women, to enter the profession, are part and parcel of a career in financial planning. “The more CFP® professionals we have, the more quality and ethical advice is available to financial consumers,” she concluded. “This is a meaningful industry and being a financial planner is an amazing career.”
Writer’s thoughts:
FPI Financial Planner of the Year, Nicola Langridge CFP® shows how education and ethics remain the backbone of trusted advice, even in a digital world. Is the profession doing enough to uphold these standards as AI becomes embedded in advice? Please comment below, interact with us on X at @fanews_online or email us your thoughts [email protected].
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