Approved IAR CE Courses

Session 1: Your Money: Reimagining Wealth Through Simple Sketches
Type of presentation: Keynote presentation
Length of presentation: 75 minutes
Description: In this keynote, Carl Richards—creator of The New York Times' “Sketch Guy” column and a trusted voice in the financial planning world for over 25 years—delivers a transformational experience for financial professionals. Drawing from hundreds of keynote events, thousands of real-life conversations, and the most powerful insights from his new book, Carl weaves live sketching, storytelling, and timeless human truths into a session that is both deeply engaging and profoundly practical. This isn't about performance or products—it’s about the emotional side of money and the real work of advice. Through a carefully curated selection of 7 to 12 sketches, Carl helps advisors move beyond rigid financial plans toward a more adaptable, values-based approach. By exploring the critical tensions that define the advisor-client relationship, this session equips attendees with the language, metaphors, and frameworks to help clients make better decisions and have the conversations that truly matter.

Session 2: Be the Best Advisor in Your Client’s Worst Times – 55 minutes Taught by Amy Florian, CEO of Corgenius Inc.
When clients cope with death, divorce, retirement, empty nest, or other life transitions, what you say and do in the office has more influence on your client relationship than your financial savvy ever did. Learn essential skills for understanding and addressing your client’s experience when they encounter difficult or emotional life events. Set yourself apart from all the other advisors who have never been taught, and build long-term loyalty in the process.

Session 3: Public-Private Markets: Trends, Themes, and Portfolio Strategy Siobhan Broadbery, Capital Group. This program will provide attendees with an overview of the private markets, including both private credit and private equity, their growth and adoption across different industries and company profiles, and the various vehicles that have been created to provide access. The program will explore key opportunities and risks across private markets and discuss considerations for appropriately balancing public and private assets within client portfolios. Lastly, the program will review trends and themes in private markets and examine how a public-private suite is structured.

Session 1: Your Money: ReimaginingWealth Through Simple Sketches - Advisor Edition: In thisengaging and thought-provoking session, financial professionals will explore the critical tensions that shape advisor-client relationships and influence financial decision-making. Carl Richards, renowned for his New York Times sketches and behavioral insights, will guide advisors through aninteractive discussion, helping them move beyond rigid planning to a more adaptable, client-centered approach. Usinga selection of 7 to 12 curated sketches, this session will examine key challenges, such as:
● Purpose vs. Goals – How to alignfinancial plans with a client’s deeper values, ensuring long-termengagement.
● Precision vs. Adaptability – Why financial planning should beseen as an ongoing process, not a static document, and how to navigate uncertainty with confidence.
● Facts vs. Emotions – The role of behavioral biases in financialdecision-making and how to use empathy to strengthen trust and communication.

SESSION 2: Be the Best Advisor in Your Client's Toughest Times: When clients cope with death, divorce, retirement,empty nest, or other life transitions, what you say and do in theoffice has more influence on your client relationship than yourfinancial savvy ever did. Learn essential skills forunderstanding and addressing your client’s experience whenthey encounter difficult or emotional life events. Set yourselfapart from all the other advisors who have never been taught, and build long-term loyalty in the process.

SESSION 3: Implementing Alternatives: Following 2008's Financial Crisis it became clear that a liquidity crunch in both stocks and bonds when indiscriminate selling occurred and correlations went to 1, that asset classes, strategies, and sectors of the market that could effectively diversify during periods of turmoil and the unique Monetary Policy that followed for 13+ years could benefit an Asset Allocation. Post-2008, as Wall Street innovates to 'solve a problem for a profit' Fund Families across the industry unveiled their version of Alternatives. In the institutional space, where Pensions and Insurance companies invest to match liabilities to obligations,they found themselves following QE1-3 & Operation Twist in an ultra-low rate environment where bonds with low yields could hardly deliver like they used to. This pushed Institutions to substitute private markets in a big way to a position public market stocks and bonds had previously inhabited. When 2020 and the pandemic unexpectedly struck, institutional investors who had gone to private equity and private credit for returns and yield premium, also realized the benefit of low-volatility on instruments that are not appraised on the same time frame as public market securities and genuinely delivered low correlation to public markets due to the longer term mentality of the investor base. Since this realization and many regulatory changes, the private markets category has mushroomed. The traditional players with household names have offered a more democratized structure of privates for many years, but there's been proliferation new entrants in the form of GPs, structures,and asset classes since 2020, when the space was truly tested in the pandemic and delivered as promised. It sometimes feels like the Wild West when it comes to evaluating Alternatives, so we want to arm you with some rules and laws to abide by as you navigate. As a retail investor many Advisors have mixed experiences with Alternatives because of the depth and breadth of these markets. Calamos' history in risk management andoptions enables us to help Investors make sense of alternatives and implement them with greater understanding to meet their true objectives. This Course will help you expand your definition, define your objectives, and ask the right questions toget the outcomes you and your clients' are seeking across a variety of market climates.

Session 1: Your Money:Reimagining Wealth Through Simple Sketches - Advisor Edition: In this engaging and thought-provoking session,financial professionals will explore the critical tensions that shape advisor-client relationships and influence financial decision-making. Carl Richards, renowned for his New York Times sketches and behavioral insights, will guide advisors through aninteractive discussion, helping them move beyond rigid planning to a more adaptable, client-centered approach.Using a selection of 7 to 12 curated sketches, this session will examine key challenges, such as:
● Purpose vs. Goals – How to align financial plans with aclient’s deeper values, ensuring long-term engagement.
● Precision vs. Adaptability – Why financial planning should be seen as an ongoing process, not a static document, and how to navigate uncertainty with confidence.
● Facts vs. Emotions – The role of behavioral biases infinancialdecision-making and how to use empathy tostrengthen trust and communication.
SESSION 2: Be the Best Advisor in Your Client's Toughest Times: When clients cope with death, divorce, retirement, empty nest, or other life transitions, what you say and do in the office has more influence on your client relationship than your financial savvy ever did. Learn essential skills for understanding and addressing your client’s experience when they encounter difficult or emotional life events. Set yourself apart from all the other advisors who have never been taught, and build long-term loyalty in the process.
SESSION 3: Fraud Happens to Smart People/ David Haas & Laura Reeves
Fraud Happens to Smart People: Helping Clients Prevent and Respond to Scams: Fraud attempts target clients every day, and even highly intelligent and financially sophisticated people can become victims under the right circumstances. Research suggests that 10–20% of Americans lose money to fraud each year, making it a growing risk that financial planners must be prepared to address. In this session, David Haas, CFP® and Laura Reeves, CFP®, will explain why scams are so effective and why anyone can be vulnerable. Through real stories involving clients and family members, attendees will learn how modern scams work and why traditional warning signs are often missed. Participants will also learn practical strategies advisors and their clients can use to help prevent fraud, detect problems early, and respond effectively if fraud occurs. The session will cover reporting procedures, potential recovery options, and the responsibilities of financial institutions when fraud happens.
SESSION 4: Optimizing Client Happiness During Retirement and Advanced Age
Michael Finke, Ph.D., CFP® walks us through the latest research on retiree happiness, highlighting other areas where clients should invest to secure their future life satisfaction. Topics discussed include the impacts of relationships on retiree happiness, cognitive decline’s relationship with investment performance, and the factors associated with having a higher likelihood of overspending or underspending in retirement. Michael provides strategies that advisors can use to ensure that once they help clients prepare for retirement financially, they can also help them prepare to actually enjoy it.