The Personal Finance Society (PFS) has elected John White as its president for 2018/2019 at the professional body’s AGM.

Mr White has spent over 26 years in financial services with 17 of those connected to professional services firms.

He is a Chartered Insurance Practitioner and has experience advising and consulting on private client Financial Planning, investment management, corporate pensions and employee benefits.

Mr White is chief executive of Sanlam UK and prior to this he was CEO at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

Previously he has held management positions at Baker Tilly, RSM Tenon, RSM Bentley Jennison and RSM Robson Rhodes.

He was appointed to the PFS board of directors in September 2015.

To encourage participation the PFS introduced electronic voting for the AGM for the first time this year.

This was in addition to members still being able to send hard copy votes or vote at the AGM.

The PFS said the use of the new technology had “resulted in thousands more votes being registered from across the membership.”
 
Mr White said: “This is an interesting time for the profession and I am really looking forward to my year as president of the PFS.

“My theme for the year will be the promotion of financial education and awareness whilst also raising the profile of professional advice and the role it plays in society.

“The launch of the society’s new educational outreach programme ‘discover fortunes’ will be at the heart of my presidential theme.”
 
Mr White takes over from outgoing president, Sharon Sutton, who has stepped down from the board after completing a 12-month rotation as president of the professional body.

Vanessa Barnes and Caroline Stuart were also appointed as directors at the AGM.
 
Keith Richards, chief executive of the PFS, commented: “We are delighted to welcome John as president of the PFS.

“His broad experience of both our profession and of working with us over the past couple of years as a board member, will be invaluable in supporting our ongoing commitment to evolve as a modern professional body.

“I look forward to working with him over the next twelve months.
 
“I would also like to thank past president Sharon Sutton for her contribution to the profession over the past year.

“Her theme of Financial Planning good practice including the use of new tools and techniques and practitioner experience has helped more members to adopt new processes and achieve better outcomes for clients’ life planning.

“We will continue to build on this.”