Every week I receive numerous invitations to attend some financial conference or webinar presented by a so-called thought leader.
Have you ever wondered how one qualifies for this particular epithet?
I did a Google search and found dozens of articles listing domain expertise, motivational skills, etc., as fundamental for the role. That sounds like a lot of work if I wanted to become one. But maybe I could skip all the skill-building and simply apply for the job at some company.
So, I started looking around online. Alas, I couldn’t find any job title of “thought leader,” let alone any openings for such a position. Which led me to ponder that perhaps there are other job titles that do portend thought leadership.
Here are the titles of various people in the financial services industry who have been introduced to me over the past several months via email as thought leaders. Let’s see if we can find a common thread.
• Chief U.S. economist and managing director of investment research. This person sounds like a thought leader if only due to the length of his title.
• CFA and equity analyst. These are good skills to have, but I’m not sure they really qualify her for thought leadership.
• Renowned labor economist. Wow! If he’s renowned, he must be a thought leader.
• Global chief economist. There’s that economist title again. And global as well.
• Head of research and client engagement. This one’s interesting. I understand the research part. But is there such a thing as a client engagement thought leader?
• Chairman of market and investment strategy. This must be a big company if someone on staff can be the chairman of something.
• Founder and author. Just the opposite; this has to be a small company.
• Senior fellow and professor of economics. These are titles used by academics, so this person is obviously associated with some school. I’d think any good teacher should be considered a thought leader.
My takeaway from the above is that thought leaders seem to have many different job titles. Unfortunately, I only attended one of the above events, so I have no way of knowing how many of the speakers actually demonstrated any thought leadership qualities.
I think I’ll forget about becoming a thought leader for the present.
Los Altos resident Artie Green is a Certified Financial Planner and founder of Cognizant Wealth Advisors. For more information, visit cognizantwealth.com.
