Not all financial advisors are created alike. And Betty-Anne Howard, an advisor with Independent Planning Group Inc. in Kingston, Ont., stands out from the crowd.

Howard has a long list of serious credentials, including certified financial planner and chartered life underwriter, and is known for her commitment to causes ranging from anti-poverty to alternative energy, but she likes a good laugh.

She chortles when describing the reaction of others when they see her trundling along the streets of Kingston on her bike — which she does three seasons of the year — dressed for the office and packing a briefcase in her saddlebag. It’s part of her commitment to making environment-friendly choices.

“People joke about it,” she says with amusement tinged with chagrin. “They can’t understand why a financial planner would bike to work when I can drive.”

Both the humour and the chagrin say a lot about Howard’s public-spirited, highly independent approach to her business — and her life. Howard, who has been a financial planner since 1997, was until recently one of a half-dozen advisors based in an IPG office in downtown Kingston. As of this month, she will be out on her own, in an office located in a restored 19th-century wool mill, also in Kingston and also affiliated with Ottawa-based IPG.

Howard’s book of business, which consists of $16 million in assets under administration spread among more than 400 clients, isn’t large — but her growing reputation for socially responsible investing is. Many of her clients come from cities such as Toronto and Ottawa, drawn by her emphasis on managing money with an eye to doing good. Among other strategies, for instance, Howard frequently presses major fund companies and insurers to defend their records in the area of SRI.

In addition to financial planning, Howard also advises on estate planning and on life and health insurance for individuals. She has conducted seminars on group benefits for such companies as General Motors of Canada Ltd., Royal Bank of Canada and Queen’s University.

Howard, 54, is always looking for a fit between socially responsible businesses she learns about through her activism and the financial services she provides. She may, for instance, learn about alternative energy companies at gatherings of SWITCH, a Kingston-based group of entrepreneurs and individuals looking for ways to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. That can lead to opportunities for Howard to talk about creating financial structures with socially responsible values.

“I let them know that I am available to set up group RRSPs and pension plans,” Howard says, “whereby I provide options that fit with what they are trying to achieve.”

With Howard’s sharp focus on activism, she views herself as an “anomaly” among financial advi-sors. But her philosophy has worked well when it comes to building a client base made up of individuals and companies with values that dovetail with her own. And, in addition to being like-minded, her clients tend to be intensely loyal. She lost none during the steep downturn of 2008-09, although she wrestled mightily with her own sense of responsibility when it came to her clients’ portfolio losses.
@page_break@“I took it personally and I had to do a lot of deep soul-searching,” she says. “I believed in the model that knowledge is power, and if you understand something it will help you to get ahead. But the system tanked anyway. So, when the markets tanked, it was a threat to the very core of my belief system.”

During that difficult time, Howard says, she expended a lot of effort in reaching out to clients. To her surprise, few blamed her for the chaos and only one left the stock market; none left her practice. Indeed, she says, most were philosophical and responded to her concerns with some form of: “Betty-Anne, you prepared us for this.”

Part of that stability may be a reflection of the type of clients Howard typically attracts. While a small number are retired, most are employed and many hail from the ranks of the public service, including the federal and provincial governments, academia and the professions. Most are, like Howard, members of the baby-boom bulge, although she also has clients who are in their 20s and 30s. Howard takes a lot of trouble when it comes to finding the right fit with her clients. She uses a fee-only model with new clients before shifting to a commission-based arrangement.

All of Howard’s clients come through word of mouth; a reading group of young women lawyers in Toronto, for instance, has generated clients for Howard, as have groups of teachers and religious groups.

In fact, prior to becoming a financial advisor, Howard, who holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s in social work, had a 20-year career as an educator and consultant in the field of addiction. Like many financial advisors who have started in another field, Howard’s move into financial planning was serendipitous. After working for a public agency for 10 years, she quit, headed for independent consulting and teaching at Queen’s University and St. Lawrence College, which is also in Kingston. At around that time, she linked up with a financial planner while seeking advice about what to do with the pension benefits she had accumulated. Howard was then in her early 30s.

“I knew this woman through my volunteer activities,” Howard recalls. “Even so, I was skeptical about what she could do for me.”

Howard stayed with that planner for 10 years. “It was phenomenal what I learned from her,” Howard says. “So, when I hit 40 and I thought, ‘What am I going to do with the rest of my life?’ I talked to her and she said, ‘Why don’t you come into financial planning? With your background as an educator and with your communication skills, you’d be great at this’.”

Indeed, Howard is known for her high level of engagement. In addition to her work with clients, she has been a trustee with the CLU Institute since 2008; she is a member of a CE accreditation committee run by that organization; and she has been the head of Advocis’s Kingston chapter.

“My involvement with Advocis is what has helped me survive in this business,” Howard says. “We are so-called ‘competitors,’ but everyone is so incredibly wonderful.”

In 2007, Howard was named IPG’s Advisor of the Year. The same year, she received the Meritas Socially Responsible Investment Leadership Award, conferred by SRI fund firm Meritas. Howard’s volunteer work on a range of committees and activities makes for a lengthy list, including financial education for women and environmental issues.

Says Howard: “I just really like to push myself.”

IE