Featured Speakers
Keynote Speakers
Michelle Singletary
Keynote Speaker
Thursday, September 4
Michelle Singletary is a personal finance columnist for The Washington Post. Her award-winning column, "The Color of Money," appears twice a week in dozens of newspapers across the country and is syndicated by The Washington Post News Service and Syndicate. She is a frequent contributor to various NPR programs including "1A," "Morning Edition," "All Things Considered." She regularly appears on CNN's daily and weekend programs, including New Day, and "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer." She has also appeared on NBC's "Today Show" and PBS. For two years, she hosted her own national television program, "Singletary Says," on TV One. Singletary is the author of four books: "What To Do With Your Money When Crisis Hits: A Survival Guide," "The 21 Day Financial Fast: Your Path to Financial Peace and Freedom," a perennial Amazon bestseller; "Spend Well, Live Rich: How to Live Well With the Money You Have, and "Your Money and Your Man: How You and Prince Charming Can Spend Well and Live Rich." She is the recipient of the 2022 Gerald Loeb Lifetime Achievement Award, "recognizes a journalist whose career exemplifies the consistent superior insight and professional skills necessary to further the understanding of business, financial and economic issues," according to The G. and R. Loeb Foundation Inc. and UCLA Anderson School of Management.
In 2022, she was the first-place winner of a Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW) Best in Business award for commentary (The IRS Is a Hot Mess). In 2021, she won a prestigious Gerald Loeb Award for commentary for "Sincerely, Michelle," a 10-part series on race and money. The series also landed her the 2021 National Association of Black Journalist award for commentary. In 2020, The Washington Post celebrated her long and distinguished career at the paper with the Eugene Meyer Award, its highest journalistic honor. Singletary is the director of Prosperity Partners Ministry, a monthly personal finance program she founded at her church, First Baptist Church of Glenarden. As part of this ministry, she and her husband also volunteer to teach financial literacy to incarcerated individuals in various prisons in her home state of Maryland. Singletary is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, and she earned a master's degree in business and management at Johns Hopkins University.
Anupa Iyer Geevarghese
Keynote Speaker
Friday, September 5
Anupa Iyer Geevarghese is a distinguished attorney and advocate dedicated to advancing equal employment opportunity and civil rights for Americans, including individuals with disabilities. Most recently, she served in the Biden-Harris Administration as the Deputy Director for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). In that role, she advised the Acting Secretary of Labor and Acting OFCCP Director on a range of issues involving federal contractors and subcontractors, such as Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, pay equity, equal opportunity in construction trades workforce, and anti-harassment programs. Prior to her role at OFCCP, Anupa was the Chief of Staff for the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), where she collaborated with department leaders to enhance employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities in the private and public sectors. She came to DOL from the U.S. Department of Defense, where she served as a subject matter expert and Senior Disability Policy Advisor for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives. Prior to that, she worked for seven years at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Office of Federal Operations (OFO), where she was instrumental in implementing updates strengthening Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
She holds a Juris Doctor from Seattle University School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Preconference: CFP Board® Revised Code and Standards
Wednesday, September 3
Linda Leitz, PhD, CFP®, EA
Providing financial planning is much more than a career for Linda – it’s a lifelong mission. She believes that all individuals and families can feel in control of their finances and have money help provide them with the life they want. To have a more in-depth understanding of how people work through their financial concerns and to provide better support to her clients, Linda obtained a PhD in Personal Financial Planning. Because she believes that a strong financial planning profession best serves consumers with rigorous standards, she has given her time and efforts to organizations that further the profession and has served as Chair of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the CFP Board. Linda has three adult children and her hobbies include reading, hiking, and movies.
Richard C Salmen, CFP, CFA, EA
An experienced fee-only financial planner and servant leader, Richard serves as CEO at Family Investment Center. He guides a team that helps hundreds of families across the United States fulfill their dream of reaching financial independence. Family Investment Center’s focus on middle and upper-middle class clients allows them to provide holistic, fiduciary advice on a fee-only basis to those who previously did not realize such a service existed for them.
Richard’s passion for leadership led to a natural transition to serving the financial planning profession. His tenure on the Financial Planning Association (FPA) national board lasted from 2006 through 2010, and he served as national President in 2009. He served on the CFP Board from 2015 through 2018 and as the 2018 Chair of the CFP® Board national board of directors.