Personal Finance Society president Sarah Lord has pledged to use her second term to continue to support members and to help them give back to their local community.
Speaking at the PFS 2021 Personal Finance Awards, at which FTAdviser won best Trade Press Personal Finance Publication for the third year running, and senior editor Simoney Kyriakou was highly commended in the Trade Journalist of the Year award, Lord pledged the PFS would "play its part".
She said: "Our profession has continued to experience pressure through regulatory fees and a challenging professional indemnity insurance market – as I speak to you today our clients are now facing challenges due to Covid and shortages that were unimaginable just two years ago.
"The fast pace of change for our profession and the wider world continues to be unrelenting and unsurprisingly this has resulted in the need for financial advice and planning being greater than ever.
"As your professional body we will continue to play our part in supporting members to assist their clients and give back to their local community through our various programmes and initiatives, as well as driving further evolution and the pursuit of a stable and vibrant financial advice market."
She highlighted the importance of returning to face-to-face regional roadshows, and pledged to combine digital events and physical events for members.
According to Lord, the PFS will have hosted more than 175 events this year with more than 43,000 registrations for these events.
Lord added: "In September I was honoured to be re-elected as your president for a second term and will continue to build on my theme from last year of building a strong and sustainable future for our profession.
"As part of that, I would urge you to have your say about the future of the Personal Finance Society by engaging with the ‘Shaping the Future Together’ consultation."
But she urged members to "remain focussed" on "how we come together as a profession to continue to evolve and meet the needs of our clients."
Lord said this would be achieved through a focus on attracting and retaining the next generation of advisers and clients through the sustained development of resilient business models, which use technology to drive efficiency and continually improve the client experience.
Her comments have come after a tumultuous few months for the PFS and the Chartered Insurance Institute, which has seen the departure of chief executive Keith Richards earlier this year, as well as the departure of CII president Sian Fisher.
In October, the CII announced the 'Shaping the Future Together' consultation for its members.
But the PFS's Lord issued a statement the same day, in which she expressed her disappointment that the PFS board had not been given the chance to view and add its input to the consultation before publication.
