When Eddie Grant met his new colleagues on the Personal Finance Society's board earlier this month, he was struck by the makeup of the group as well as the energy in the room.
"There was a real energy in the room to get on with things," he says, describing his colleagues as a good mix of financial planners and people with strong backgrounds in governance.
Grant, a former PFS president who served on the body's board during the implementation of the Retail Distribution Review in 2013, was brought back as an institute director by the Chartered Insurance Institute with a view to future-proofing the ailing body for its 40,000 members.
The PFS had been in a spat with its parent body, the CII, for the best part of three years and has seen several board members depart as a result.
There were disagreements over the use of certain funds and, most recently, the CII's appointment of directors to the board, with some board members questioning what this means for the PFS's independence.
Grant says he came back because of his past experience with the PFS. "No one else has got previous experience so I'm unique amongst the group.
"But the other thing is, what the PFS board now is made up of is a mixture. You've got some financial planners on the board but also you've got some people who have got some really strong background in governance.
"And, you know, one of the things we're working through is we're making sure that the PFS is going to have the infrastructure for the future."
He says the future of the PFS will be defined by the value it offers to its members. There is a strategy day scheduled for late August, which will be all about making sure the PFS is fit for purpose, that it has the right infrastructure in place, and that the executive team is supported in helping the members achieve good client outcomes.
"What we have read over the past 12 months is, we read a lot of stuff that wasn't about the membership and wasn't about better outcomes for clients. And that's not what I would hope to see a professional body do," Grant says.
"What we need to do is make sure the money is there for members to get value out of it. That's absolutely key. So for me, this is all about making sure that we put the members front and centre."
He waves off any suggestion that he's been brought in to repair damage between the PFS and CII and says instead it is time to look forward.
"The issues stem from people who are no longer there. You've got a new chief executive on the PFS, you've got a new chief executive on CII, you've got people that want to work things through, that want to make sure that actually we become absolutely member focused, you've got a new board that absolutely wants to be member focused.
