“It means the world to me,” says Debbie Ammeter, FP Retired™, of receiving the Donald J. Johnston Lifetime Achievement Award from FP Canada™. “It’s recognition for all of that important work, the time put in, and the values behind it.”
Ammeter sat on the FP Canada Board of Directors from 2004 to 2013, serving as chair for two years. She also contributed to various committees, including the certification advisory committee and ethics and practice committee, among others. She then joined the conduct review panel, where she spent nine years. For two of those years she was chair, a role she held after her retirement from her full-time position as Vice President of Advanced Financial Planning at Investors Group in 2018. She was also honoured with FP Canada™ Fellow distinction in 2011.
Ammeter is proud of working to advance competency, ethics, and practice standards, as well as her contributions to the Body Of Knowledge. She also takes pride in having helped strengthen the oversight function of FP Canada and deepened its relationship the Institute of Financial Planning.
“I’m a lawyer by training, and I value that profession. But I also hold the CFP® certification and believe that financial planning is distinct, important, and well-defined enough to be viewed as a formal profession,” Ammeter says. “People deserve to receive quality financial planning advice from qualified planners who are held to high standards with regard to education, competency, and ethics.”
Ammeter adds that her work with FP Canada complemented her day job, where she was involved with the financial planning offered by her firm’s advisors, as well as the assessment of tools such as the financial planning software that they used. She notes that it was interesting and exciting, and introduced her to wonderful, dedicated people from across the country and internationally.
Volunteering, she says, is important for the development of the profession and reinforces the importance of the volunteer’s role. She emphasizes that it’s very rewarding to be involved in something larger than yourself.
“It’s about growing yourself and gaining so much in addition to contributing to the profession and making a real positive difference,” she says. “It was such a good segue from full-time work to retirement to be able to continue to be involved. I feel like I benefited so much from working with FP Canada after I retired.”
