Dunwoody says that training has all the time been core to her work at CETFA. Via conferences, articles, media appearances, and publications she led an effort at CETFA to debunk myths and educate advisors and buyers about ETFs. Liquidity was a frequent matter of dialog as advisors perceived larger dangers in ETFs than there truly have been. Dunwoody’s response was to be in every single place, all the time current with webinars or articles that dispelled these myths and gave advisors extra safety of their understanding of ETFs. She says that these academic efforts helped to legitimize the expansion that the Canadian ETF issuers have been already experiencing and helped them proceed their momentum.
A few of that work additionally concerned conversations with sellers and advisors about their companies. ETFs match naturally inside a fee-based follow, so Dunwoody labored on convincing the trade that fee-based was the best way to go. That work took years, and included creating a approach for MFDA advisors to combine ETFs into their platforms. These conversations, she says, have been extra about together with ETFs moderately than changing mutual funds.
“I had 25 years within the mutual fund trade, I had the identify and the voice that I may attain out and at the least get individuals to show their head and begin listening to the product, after which reaching out to the opposite associations and organizations that I had come to know,” Dunwoody says. “I didn’t say one or the opposite, I used to be all the time very clear that ETFs simply should be a part of your shelf. Don’t eliminate others, however add us to the shelf.”
Now ETFs are as properly established in Canada as their mutual fund counterparts. Even devoted mutual fund suppliers have begun issuing ETF sequence of their merchandise. The advisor neighborhood is proactive in calling for ETF options. Dunwoody sees ETFs becoming properly inside the entire trade’s transition away from the sale of merchandise in the direction of extra of a holistic wealth administration mannequin.
Dunwoody now sees this as an excellent second to step again from CETFA. She’s helped the group develop from start-up to establishment, in step with the broader trade. She has served for years as the only real driver for CETFA and a degree of connection for the entire ETF trade. As CETFA has grown and change into extra established, nonetheless, she has seen a brand new alternative to change into an entrepreneur.
