"That's why my company is called 3ethos," he says. "And it's that research I'm now applying to the fiduciary standard."
Trone says it took him three years to devise the new standard, at a cost of around $1.5 million. "Putting together a standard doesn't take much time once you're familiar with law, case law and regulatory opinion letters," he notes. "The more difficult task-and what takes the longest-is writing the books and curriculum that goes with that, particularly since it [GFS] went down a new path to build decision making and leadership into the coursework."
The goal for the GFS designation, Trone says, is to prepare industry leaders to serve more effectively as stewards in critical decision-making roles. Whether the industry is ready for-or is interested in-yet another fiduciary designation is a legitimate question.
For starters, there's already the longstanding AIF designation. And the Registered Fiduciary (RF) standard came out earlier this year under the auspices of Dalbar Inc., a Boston-based financial services market research firm.
But Trone believes there's a market for the GFS. "We're building the program in response to Dodd-Frank and the [proposed] new Department of Labor definition of fiduciary," he says. "We anticipate the major broker-dealers and wirehouses will have significant need for fiduciary training. We're building this to be much more responsive to the needs of major organizations."
Trone says attaining the GFS designation will require roughly 33 to 35 hours of study. The online study cost will be $1,495; the classroom cost will be $1,995. The annual fee to renew the designation will be $325.
-Jeff Schlegel