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DENVER - In an effort to promote both its Chartered Financial Analyst credential and its mission outside North American borders, the 70,000-member Association for Investment Management and Research has rechristened itself the CFA Institute.
The rebranding, which was approved by some 86 percent of the membership who voted at the organization's recent annual meeting or via proxy, would help promote the institute outside of North America - where the AIMR name is not widely recognized, or associated with the CFA designation.
CFA Institute chair-elect Monique E.M. Gravel said that the name change has been coming since AIMR became an umbrella group uniting the Financial Analysts Federation and the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts in 1990.
"First and foremost, we offer the CFA program," Gravel explained. "It is our brand, and we feel that with the amount of effort and time spent promoting it, we will get much more leverage out of associating the brand and the name of the institute, especially internationally."
In 1999, Gravel said, about 90 percent of CFA candidates were in North America, with 10 percent coming from other continents. Currently, the ratio is closer to 60-40 and moving toward 50-50. Some 85,000 people...