Mark McLennon, Seasoned Tax and Estate Planning Professor, In His Own Words

In March, McLennon joined The College as a full-time assistant professor in tax and estate planning and also serves as the Clark/Bardes Chair in Retirement Planning and Non-Qualified Deferred Compensation. Students in the CFP® Certification Education and Chartered Financial Consultant® (ChFC®) programs will benefit from his immense knowledge in business planning, estate planning, executive compensation, life insurance planning, retirement planning, and vast experience having served in a variety of positions over a 25-year successful career in financial services.

We posed a few questions to McLennon, and in his own words, you can learn more about his journey back to The College as a full-time faculty member and what he enjoys most about working with students.

1.  How has The College impacted your career in financial services?

My experience with The College began as I pursued my CLU® and ChFC® designations over 25 years ago while transitioning from corporate tax into an "Advanced Planning" role at a major financial services firm. Despite taking every trust, estate, and tax class I could at my law school and working as a research assistant for the tax professor, none of that prepared me as much for the practical and real-world client/advisor issues I would face as did The College's curriculum.

The knowledge and credibility that came with achieving those designations and the great people I subsequently met through The College have served me well in the varied corporate and client-facing roles I have taken on. Over the years, as organizer and host of several wealth management and financial planning conferences, I have also had the privilege of working with some of the distinguished faculty of The College. I first began teaching at The College about five years ago and am now very excited to be doing that again as a full-time member of the faculty.

2.  What are today's most significant challenges and opportunities for financial professionals?

Advisors need to know or access relevant information from multiple disciplines to provide the type of holistic advice clients expect as the marketplace has responded to such demand over the years. Combine that with the time needed to truly know your clients, much less acquire new relationships, and the significant challenge for financial professionals is how to best utilize those limited working hours.

Of course, no one can be expected to know everything, and bringing in outside expertise is something savvy clients have come to expect. The good news is that opportunities exist to acquire timely, relevant knowledge through programs such as those at The College, where one can also get assistance identifying situations where outside expertise is warranted.

3.  How do The College's CFP^® Certification Education and ChFC^® Programs work together to enhance advisors' skills?

Both the CFP® and the ChFC® programs cover the core knowledge that clients come to expect when financial service professionals hold themselves out as dedicated to providing a higher level of expertise.
The College's requirements are the same across the two programs with one additional specialized course needed for the ChFC®. It is how that knowledge is applied in practice that has somewhat differentiated the two over the years, as each has its own unique background and history.

4.  How is The College ensuring that students who enroll in the CFP^® Certification Education Program achieve success in the CFP^® exam?

There is deep and continuing coordination between the particulars of the programs at The College and the ongoing requirements of achieving the CFP® designation. The College is very much invested in the ongoing success of its students, and maintaining the curriculum to help students succeed with the exam is a priority while still emphasizing the critical importance of the application of that knowledge in practice.

5.  What do you enjoy most about working with The College's students and being part of The College's community?

I most enjoy seeing that light bulb go on over students' heads. A few subject matter areas in the financial services world have historically seemed daunting to students, even those who are experienced or "seasoned" financial advisors. I like to relay stories to my classes about how I would initially dread getting calls on certain topics, like ESOPs or generation-skipping taxes for example, as a newer Advanced Planning attorney as I felt out of my comfort zone.

However, I add, I chose instead to step back, take some time, and break down these "daunting" concepts to their core components, thus replacing that dread with the anticipation of helping someone else get past their anxiety over the issue. That is one of the things I enjoy most about working with students at The College: taking what may seem a difficult concept at first, breaking it down to its core components, shedding a little light on what something truly means, and shining a larger light on its application in practice.

Being part of The American College community has been a great experience for me, and I know my colleagues feel the same way about the importance and satisfaction of getting through to students and helping them help their clients.