Certified B Corporations: Building New Companies for a New World
Josefa Monge, executive president of Sistema B in Chile, spoke to GAIA partners to explain what a purpose-driven company is. The ability to overcome traumatic situations is perhaps one of the most surprising attributes of the human being. Resilience is the word that defines this capacity of people, and the covid-19 pandemic has outlined a […]
Advice That Sticks
Advice That Sticks: How to give financial advice that people will follow Dr Moira Somers is a neuropsychologist and financial change expert led a workshop for GAIA members,based on her book, ‘Advice That Sticks: How to give financial advice that people will follow’. As a leading practitioner in the field of financial psychology, a professor […]
Professor Bob Merton
We were very fortunate to have Professor Bob Merton present: Capital Market Assumptions/ Expected Returns to members of GAIA in May 2021. The presentation focused on key aspects of capital market returns, S/D and Sharpe Ratios since 1926. He also compared Expected Returns v S/D of MSCI World to various regions including US, Canada, Switzerland, […]
Money, Happiness and the Future of Advice
Brian Portnoy, Ph.D., CFA, is an expert at simplifying the complex world of money. He has served as keynote speaker, seminar leader, and coach to thousands of investors on topics ranging from portfolio strategy to the connection between money and happiness. He is a CFA Charterholder, earned his doctorate at the University of Chicago, and serves […]
2020: A Year of Events
Early on in 2020 as the pandemic spread across the globe, the decision was made to cancel our annual in-person conference, scheduled for June in Montreal, Canada. Thankfully, we were still able to meet virtually and split the conference into 4 sessions running from June through to December, each featuring keynote speakers. True to our […]
Morgan Housel
The Global Association of Independent Advisors (GAIA) are pleased to have recently facilitated a presentation for their member firms from noted investment writer Morgan Housel. In the aim to help member firms always have better conversations and forge deeper connections with their clients, (GAIA) have looked to engage with leading thinkers around the globe in […]
ESG and Sustainable investment
Sam Adams of Vert Asset Management, presented on sustainable and ESG investment marketplace. There appears to be a mismatch between investors who are very interested in sustainable investing and advisers who have little or no interest and part of the reason for this is the conviction by advisers that by introducing the sustainable or ESG […]
Delivering Strong Factor Exposure
The highlight of August 2020’s VC call was a presentation from Antonio Picca, Head of Factor Based Strategies at Vanguard, who took the group through building strategies that deliver strong factor exposure. Firstly, Antonio took the group through Key decisions when building factor strategies. These amounted to the selection universe, the characteristics and weighting methodology. […]
Positive Psychology: Lessons for Advisors
Working in a people profession, where emotions can often dominate, financial advisors can find useful tools from the burgeoning field known as positive psychology. That was the message to GAIA members in a presentation from Brad Steiman, head of the wealth management group at Dimensional in Canada. Described as the scientific study of what makes […]
Member meeting in Australia
GAIA’s 2019 Conference was held in Sydney and Adelaide between 5-9 of April 2019, and touched on the themes of innovation, leadership, and cybersecurity. The first day was scheduled in Sydney to coincide with a global advice conference held on the previous two days. On the Sydney morning attendees were welcomed by new GAIA chair […]