Deena Katz and Harold Evensky, Next-Gen Mavens: The IA 25 2014 Profile

Speaking in Seattle at a CFA conference, where Katz also spoke, Schiller said, “The big job ahead for finance is to attack real world problems,” with Katz herself paraphrasing Schiller’s dictum: “We have to get our heads out of the sand.”

Regarding the academic underpinnings of the profession, Evensy said, “I talk to the graduate students at Texas Tech” and so much of their research “is sociological” in nature, which fails to help practitioners solve those real-world problems. Those grad students say, “As soon as I’m tenured, I’ll do practical work, too,” but Evensky and Katz want more from academic research. “We’re talking about longitudinal studies,” she said, with direction on “how to apply” the research findings to practical matters. Evensky said, “I certainly see a greater interest in our graduate students and PhDs who’ve started other” financial planning programs at universities around the country who are “looking to do much more applied research rather than theoretical.”

But that’s where the strictures of academia come into play. “Our professors in the PhD program” at Tech, Katz said, “are more interested in relevant topics, but their problem is to do it in the academic world.” She said that some senior professors could do and are doing that practical work, but “the rest have to publish or perish.” She said that senior professors like Michael Finke (at Texas Tech) and Wade Pfau (at The American College) “are working on stuff that planners can use,” so there’s hope on the academic research front.

Both planners wistfully spoke of their frustration with industry associations and companies that partner with advisors for not sponsoring longer term research that would benefit advisors and clients. With those partner companies, Katz said, “we need to appeal to them to get more involved” in heavy-duty research that would have long-term benefits rather than work on quick “marketing surveys.” The reluctance of those firms to fund such research “has to do with time and control, not dollars; academic research doesn’t work that way. The industry isn’t willing to wait” to see the results of serious research.

Despite their frustration, Evensky and Katz are “both optimistic,” said Evensky, since “we have so many more Ph.D. students, and there’s a whole lot more people out there who understand what we do.” Their optimism is tempered with concerns that “we’re not getting enough people in our programs; not attracting women or more diverse groups” to those academic programs, he said, despite the fact that those students “walk out with a degree and four job offers.” But not to worry about the future: Evenksy and Katz are on the job.