Dr. Gavin initially introduced the focus that inspired the partnership with the CoW Initiative during his valedictory address as National Program Director of the HAMFDP in 2013 following 20 years as National Program Director. He engaged the expertise of seasoned financial planners and advisors with whom he had some positive personal experience to enlist their assistance in developing an accessible program to address the full range of critically-important needs for assuring successful financial planning for medical and health professionals.  It became readily-apparent that the wide range of services available through the Consortium of Wealth Initiative and the broad mix of financial expertise that could be accessed by program participants would provide the help to empower medical professionals to make comprehensive and strategic decisions that could positively impact their families for generations. As a result, under the leadership of Mr. Olin T. Wiley, founder of the CoW Initiative, plans were launched to introduce this initiative to the participants of the AMFDP in order to assess the degree to which this program was perceived to meet the needs of these health and healthcare professionals.

On September 27-30, 2022, the team from the Consortium of Wealth Advisors attended the 39th Annual AMFDP Meeting in Washington, D.C. With the encouragement and cooperation of program director, Dr. David Wilkes, director emeritus Dr. James R. Gavin III, and deputy director Nina Ardery, the team presented a financial planning session entitled, “Financial Planning for Medical Professionals: Survive and Thrive in a Volatile Economy” featuring noted financial advisor/attorney Roccy DeFrancesco served as the keynote speaker.  Subsequently, on October 4^th-6^that the 40^th annual AMFDP meeting held in Atlanta, GA, the CoW held its second financial planning session entitled, “Changing Jobs and Tax Efficient Financial Planning”.  These sessions directly addressed the strengthening of the HAMFDP’s focus on practical life issues and strongly affirmed the program leadership’s belief that the Wealth Gap is as real as the Health Gap, both requiring committed effort and expertise as reflected within the CoW Initiative. Thus, both sessions were entirely in keeping with AMFDP’s long-held aspiration to include important aspects of “Life Success” in addition to its focus on career success in the program. 

The Consortium of Wealth Plan is an efficacious path to Wealth Accumulation, Distribution, and Transfer that will rely on your Financial Capability.  The Consortium of Wealth Plan accepts that this “Capability” is simply the mix of demeanor, information, aptitude, and self-discipline expected to settle on and practice financial related choices that best fit an incredible array of economic and monetary conditions.  Financial Capability is not just what you learn through financial literacy, but whether you exercise the skill, cleverness, and resourcefulness to handle the situation.  Access and Action is a successful combination.  The Consortium of Wealth Plan brings together banks, attorneys, CPAs, financial service firms, and insurance companies to address the issue of wealth disparity.

 “This collaborative partnership between AMFDP and the Consortium of Wealth Initiative will allow AMFDP to fulfill it’s mission of promoting “Life Success” for our alumni.”— James R. Gavin III, M.D., PhD.

The AMFDP “Life Success” Initiative is implemented to provide comprehensive planning for scholars and alumni. The idea of comprehensive planning has been lost in this era of “overspecialization.”  For example, stockbrokers traditionally focus primarily on investments (in the stock and bond market) and savings, annuity salespersons sell annuities, life insurance agents sell life insurance, estate planners primarily deal with making plans in preparation of one’s death or incapacitation. Not only is there typically little coordination between these professional advisors, but often times they are in competition with one another and/or see little value in understanding the plans of the other advisors or why those plans were proposed/implemented. In this type of environment, consumers often find it exceedingly difficult to nearly impossible to find true comprehensive advice.  The AMFDP “Life Success” Initiative is designed to offer truly comprehensive financial planning by creating ready access to numerous financial services using a platform that promotes coordination and collaborative planning among independent financial professionals and companies who work together with the goal of producing a better outcome for the client.

Comprehensive planning is typically a much more extensive and complex process than traditional planning but is typically an imperative process (particularly among those with high incomes and complex finances) in achieving and preserving financial wellness. Not only can “piecing together” a comprehensive plan using various professional advisors be very time-consuming, confusing, and stressful; but it can also be extremely expensive. The AMFDP “Life Success” Initiative provides a more streamlined and efficient process to developing and implementing a comprehensive financial plan utilizing the professional services, strategies, and/or products from a variety of preferred independent professionals and companies including financial advisors, money managers, banks and commercial lenders, estate planning law firms, and others typically with preferred pricing. The approach utilized by the CoW makes it an ideal vehicle for financial planning strategy with participants from a broad range of medical and health research programs, for whom the tenants of the AMFDP “Life Success” Initiative are directly applicable.

The Consortium of Wealth Initiative has added the following two additions to it’s program that is poised to revolutionize the partnership and the financial services industry: (1) Industry leading expert, trainer, and mentor, Roccy DeFrancesco, JD, CAPP, CMP and (2) Courtney L. Ingram, the new Chief Director of Women and Finance.