Why Kochis Global Came To Be
Throughout the world, many hundreds of millions are accumulating wealth and facing the challenges of more...and more complex...choices of financial strategies and products. Even more significant, they face the necessity of taking greater responsibility for their desired outcomes. Good long term financial outcomes are now available, especially recently in developing economies, but the risks are high. In the past, there was little opportunity and thus little expectation. Now, a much more comfortable and liberated financial life is possible for individuals around the world, but employer or government provided security either never existed or is fraying. The results, for good or bad, are up to the foresight, hard work, intelligent planning…and, in truth, in part to the luck…of the individual. Consequently, the need for competent and ethical advice, to assist individuals to make better and more perseverant financial decisions is already enormous and growing fast.
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Advisory Panel The following persons are friends of Kochis Global and provide occasional advice and counsel to Tim Kochis and his associates. They help Kochis Global assess the market environment and offer guidance regarding strategies to achieve and maintain more effective wealth management and investment management delivery systems around the world, with particular emphasis on China and other developing markets. These advisors receive no compensation for their assistance and bear no responsibility for the activities undertaken or client advice delivered by Kochis Global. Kochis Global is deeply grateful for the counsel they provide and congratulates them on participating in this effort to improve financial outcomes for millions of people around the world. We will all be beneficiaries of those better outcomes.
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Certified Financial Planner ( CFP®) certification, with its grounding in requiring appropriate education, examination, experience, and ethical practice (the "4 E's"), is effectively beginning the response to this need for qualified advisory talent. The ranks of those with CFP® certification or on the pathway to it are large and rapidly growing.
A New Business Model
What's currently missing is a broad enough array of business models for consumer choice. In most developing markets, the predominant choices are very large institutions such as banks, and insurance and brokerage firms. While very resourceful and enjoying brand recognition, these delivery models are often conflicted, motivated heavily by sales commission revenue, focused almost exclusively on their own proprietary solutions, and requiring the use of their custody and execution platforms to the exclusion of others. To access the products of several such institutions requires establishing distinct client relationships with each of them.
This landscape resembles the situation in the US and other developed economies of 40 years ago. In that meantime, thousands of smaller, often just local, and largely independent, but still resourceful and durable, firms have emerged in more advanced markets to provide an effective alternative. These "independents" have responded to the demand for less conflicted advice, more transparent pricing, access to the broadest possible array of solutions, ease of account management, more intimacy, and greater personal accountability. In the US, they now account for close to 40% of the total individual financial advisory market.
Kochis Global's Mission
Our mission is to help existing independent firms in the developed world to perfect their business strategies and long term equity and management succession plans. Many of those are at or close to the retirements of their founding professionals and are in need of assistance to effectively transition to new ownership and new management to be able to continue to serve their clients well.
And, with a global perspective, we assist firms and individuals in the developing markets to rapidly learn how to emulate the success of independent firms in those more developed markets. Kochis Global helps firms and individuals to identify and adopt proven strategies and to avoid the mistakes of their forbearers' trial and error. For them, there isn't another 40 years to wait! The marketplace demand is already present; the need for a robust "independent" solution everywhere is now.
Tim Kochis founded Kochis Global in 2012 to foster best in class wealth management and investment planning services. For many years he has had a special interest in the developing world, particularly in China and other rapidly growing markets in Asia. Tim Kochis has over 44 years of experience in financial and investment planning. He has advised a select group of executives, professionals, and business owners throughout the United States and overseas since 1973. Before founding Kochis Global, Tim served as CEO and then as Chairman of Aspiriant and was a founder of Kochis Fitz, one of its predecessor firms. Prior to that, Tim was National Director of Personal Financial Planning for Deloitte & Touche (1985 – 1991) and for Bank of America (1981 – 1985).
Tim has long been recognized as one of the key leaders of the wealth management and investment planning profession and has had an unparalleled influence on its development, worldwide, through his long and extensive client service, his success in building and growing the leading organizations within the profession, his service in professional and educational organizations, and his extensive writing and very frequent speaking engagements to professional audiences around the world.
Tim recently completed his second term on the Board of Directors of the Financial Planning Standards Board, the international certification authority for the CFP® credential, having previously served on its Board at its founding in 2004 and as its Chair in 2005.
Past professional responsibilities have included:
- Chair of the Board of Governors of the Foundation for Financial Planning.
- Chair of the International CFP®(Certified Financial Planner) Council.
- President of the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, the US CFP® certification authority.
- Chair of the Board of Examiners of the CFP® Board.
As chair of the Board of Examiners, Tim was responsible for supervising the creation of the first comprehensive examination now used throughout the profession to qualify CFP® candidates. In addition, he was a co-founder of the Personal Financial Planning Program at University of California-Berkeley, one of the first accredited financial planning programs in the United States, where he taught for eighteen years. Many hundreds of currently practicing wealth management professionals were his students.
Tim serves on the Board of Trustees of the ETF and Mutual Funds business unit of the Charles Schwab Investment Management organization. Tim also works with DeVoe and Company as Special Advisor, supporting US-based RIA's with management consulting, particularly on matters relating to management and equity transition.
Tim also devotes considerable effort to philanthropy and civic involvement. Tim currently serves on the Boards of the University of San Francisco,The Asia Foundation, the 1990 Institute, and as a member of the Investment Committee of The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco where he finished a 12 year term as Trustee in June, 2017.
Tim earned a BA in Philosophy from Marquette University (1968), a JD degree from the University of Michigan (1973), and an MBA from the University of Chicago (1979). Tim served in the US Army from 1969 to 1971 including a tour of duty in Vietnam where he received a Purple Heart for wounds received in action.