Scholarship Stories
Ikechukwu “Ike” Egwuonwu, CFP®
and enrolled in a CFP Board Registered ProgramatNorthwesternUniversitythe following month. The scholarship award enabled Rojo to begin the CFP Board Registered Program right away without waiting to save money first. Because of the scholarship, she was able to complete the course and then go on to pass her CFP ® exam in March 2024. “The scholarship also greatly helped me to transition to my new role,” said Rojo, explaining that she was promoted to financial advisor associate at Morgan Stanley in December 2023 while she was enrolled in the CFP Board Registered Program. She negotiated for the new role with her promise to become a CFP ® professional. How has earning CFP ® certification helped Rojo? “It has a lot of weight with my clients. It is very popular. I think CFP Board has done a good job in marketing ‘It’s Gotta Be A CFP ® .’ Those three letters actually mean something to clients,” she said. She said CFP ® certification has also givenhermoreconfidencewhentalkingto herclientsaboutestateplanningandtaxes. Whatdoessheenjoymostaboutbeing a financial planner? “When clients or prospects come to me with too many things, and they feel overwhelmed, I enjoy getting to know the client, getting to know their goals, and helping them to get organized,” she said. “I tell them, ‘It’s going to be OK. We’re going to make a plan.’ Then the client goes home with greater peace of mind.” Rojo is also very passionate about giving back to the Latino community and feels that she can relate to her Latino clients’ challenges through firsthand knowledge of the culture. “It is good to feel that you have someone who is an expert in financial planning but also speaks your language,” she said. “They will be more open, and it will be easier to have that conversation.” There are currently only a handful of Latina CFP ® professionals in Wisconsin, and Rojo said she would like to see that change. She also wants to someday serve on the Board of Directors of CFP Board. “I am a woman, a mom, a wife, an employee and a Latina; I want to represent and speak for all of those like me that cannot have a place in the decision room because of the lack of opportunities.” she said.
He enrolled in a CFP Board Registered Program at Bryant University because he knew he would be more marketable as a CFP ® professional, and he decided to continue working for Deloitte while continuing his education. After learning about the Facet Scholarship , he applied. Facet Scholarship recipients like Egwuonwu also have the opportunity to participate in a mentoring program. Of the scholarship, he said, “I couldn’t pay out of pocket, so I had to ask my mom for money or take a loan, so it just made my life a lot easier and helped me just get the program going.” The scholarship covered his full tuition as well as a CFP ® exam prep course, and he was able to pay his mother back. Egwuonwu worked full time at Deloitte when he first enrolled in the self-paced program. Then, in October 2021, he began working at Goldman Sachs educating clients on financial literacy topics. He said the fact that he was working toward CFP ® certification helped him to get the new role. “It just makes you look more serious about the industry,” he said, and his
position at Goldman Sachs eventually helped him segue into his current role as a financial planner at Beacon Pointe Advisors. “Once you’re kind of greenlit by a company like Goldman, it makes it easier to find another job,” he said. Egwuonwu said he’s glad he started working toward his CFP ® certification when he did. “I was already a personal finance nerd, so I was reading every personal finance book you could think of, but this gave me professional perspective,” he said. He passed the CFP ® exam in November 2022 and obtained CFP ® certification in June 2024 after completing the work experience requirement. At Beacon Pointe, Egwuonwu helps clients develop, execute and maintain a strategic financial plan to achieve their personal and financial goals. In the future, he would like to become a financial advisor.Atsomepoint,hesaidhewould like to work with business owners. “I have a deep interest in business and a deep passion for entrepreneurship and helping entrepreneurs,” he said. He also wants to help immigrant families. “It’s serving people like me, people who are new to the U.S. or the second or third generation in the U.S. Some of them are starting their own businesses or just navigating finances in this country. I would love to target that demographic,” he said. “I’m the first generation of my family, who are all from Nigeria.” Egwuonwusaidsomeofthechallenges newer immigrants face when it comes to financial planning include a general mistrust of financial professionals, as well as high income, but not high assets. “They can be stuck in survival mode where they don’t think to start to accumulate, and sending money back to the home country is another big one,” he explained. When he and his brother were growing up with his mom after his parents divorced, Egwuonwu said he used to think his family was poor. However, when he helped his mother with her financial plan, he discovered that she actually made a lot more money back then than he realized. She was just sending a lot of money back home to help her four siblings and their families, he said. Now, he is helping his mother to make good decisions so she can retire well.
2020 FACET SCHOLARSHIP
Ikechukwu “Ike” Egwuonwu, CFP ® , a financial planner at Beacon Pointe Advisors LLC, in La Puente, Calif., was awarded the Facet Scholarship in the fall of2020,whilehewasworkingatDeloitte. Egwuonwu had recently earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in finance from Pepperdine University, where he was a Posse Foundation Scholar, but he was having trouble landing a financial planning role and the jobmarketwasunpredictableatthetime.
Ike Egwuonwu, CFP ® said the fact that he was working toward CFP ® certification helped him land a job at Goldman Sachs.
Yesica Rojo, CFP® 2022 BALLENTINE PARTNERS SCHOLARSHIP Five years after moving to the U.S. from Colombia,YesicaRojo,CFP ® had earned her MBA with a specialty in finance and had begun working for Morgan Stanley in Brookfield, Wis., as a wealth advisor associate. She had also decided CFP ® certification was necessary to achieve
her career goals, especially since she was new to the country and to the industry. “I wanted to advance my career, so I saw that as something to compensate for my lack of experience in the U.S.,” she said. However, Rojo couldn’t pay for the program at that point nor was she yet eligible for education reimbursement through her employer. SheappliedfortheBallentinePartners Scholarship in the fall of 2022, was awarded the scholarship in December
Yesica Rojo, CFP ® is passionate about giving back to the Latino community. She hopes to serve on the Board of Directors of CFP Board one day.
Portrait Illustrations by Jacqui Oakley
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