Peter Hewett, the managing director and founder of Efficient Advise in Pretoria, was named as the Financial Planner of 2014 at this week’s annual conference of the Financial Planning Institute (FPI).
Bruce Fleming, a financial planner at Consolidated Financial Planning, and Donovan Adams, a planner and retirement specialist at Chartered Wealth Solutions, were the runners-up. All three finalists are Certified Financial Planner (CFP) professionals and members of the FPI.
The competition, sponsored by Personal Finance and the FPI, consists of three rounds. In the first round, entrants must submit a comprehensive financial plan; in the second round, their practices are inspected; and in the third round, they are interviewed by a panel.
Each round is judged by a different panel of independent judges, including academics, industry experts, FPI board members and Personal Finance’s editor, Laura du Preez.
Godfrey Nti, the chief executive of the FPI, says the award celebrates the excellence in financial planning that members of the FPI achieve.
Nti congratulated Hewett, saying his 23 years of experience make him an excellent role model for the up-and-coming generation of planners.
In addition to the CFP accreditation, Hewett has a BCom and the Certified Associate of the Institute of Bankers qualification.
Over the past five years, Hewett has been building a financial advisory practice for the Efficient Group. Efficient Advise now has 63 advisers who serve over 12 000 clients. Hewett also looks after his own clients, who consist of 24 families.