AAAA poised to amplify industry influence

Stifel's Alex David, incoming chairman emeritus of AAAA

The Association of African American Financial Advisors, the largest advocacy group for Blacks in the industry, intends to step up business-to-business alliances.

Behind-the-scenes connections move to the top of the priority list for the Association of African American Financial Advisors, known as AAAA, as two industry stalwarts step up their leadership.

Alex David, CEO of Stifel Independent Advisors, was named to the role of incoming chairman emeritus. He will succeed AAAA founder LeCount Davis, the current chairman emeritus, when he steps down after 2023, enabling Davis to take an advisory role to the nonprofit he founded in 2001. Meanwhile, Christian Nwasike, an industry consultant at Practice Management Consultants, marks his first anniversary as board chair.

The AAAA has 700 members. Blacks comprise 1.68% of certified financial planners.

Citing the well-established maxim that clients gravitate to advisers who share similar backgrounds, Nwasike said that one of his goals is to accelerate the AAAA’s influence with adjacent business, professional and sports groups that serve Black Americans. Members of Black-owned banks, sports franchises and business groups both need financial advisers as their companies and careers grow, and crave professional relationships with those who are likely to share life experiences, he said.

Another priority is to coach advisory firms to adopt an industrywide definition of retention.

“As advisers transition from brand to brand, we see them moving in the RIA space,” Nwasike said. As the AAAA strengthens its role as an industry-wide employee resource group, the industry can better retain Black advisers … and show fledgling advisers who enter through AAAA connections with historically black colleges and universities that they can expect career mobility.

At the most senior level, the AAAA will accelerate its pursuit of allies of all backgrounds, David said. Partly because there are so few Black CEOs and C-level executives to even serve as allies, and partly due to the offers by white executives to help the AAAA, the organization will press into new relationships with influential non-Black executives who can add their influence to the group’s voice.

“Our organization is exclusive enough to focus on the African-American experience, but inclusive enough to embrace those with other heritages,” he said.