The CFA Institute's former chief marketing officer pleaded guilty to embezzling almost $6 million from the financial education group and another company.
Michael J. Collins now faces as long as nine years behind bars after admitting he stole the money to fund a lavish lifestyle that included club memberships, travel and the purchase of a $150,000 engagement ring. Collins, 61, is expected to be sentenced in June on two counts of grand larceny, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Wednesday.
Collins, who worked at the CFA Institute from 2016 to 2022, was charged last June with using his position as a marketing executive to hire outside consulting firms he'd created, submitting more than 100 fake invoices for "non-existent work."
Seth Zuckerman, a lawyer for Collins, didn't respond to an email seeking comment on the plea.
The CFA Institute, which offers the Chartered Financial Analyst certification, wasn't identified in the indictment, but the group has acknowledged it was a victim in the case. A person familiar with the matter said at the time of the indictment that Collins' other victim was Boundless Learning Inc., a former unit of educational publishing company Pearson Plc, where he worked from 2022 to 2024.
"CFA Institute assisted the Manhattan District Attorney's Office in its investigation that led to this guilty plea," the institute said Wednesday in a statement. "Our former employee committed a crime against CFA Institute, and we thank the Manhattan District Attorney's Office for pursuing justice in this matter. In the years preceding and since the incident, we have significantly strengthened our financial and internal controls to help protect our organization against potential future misconduct."
According to Bragg, Collins stole nearly $5 million from the CFA Institute and around $1 million from Boundless Learning. He used the same scheme at both companies, bolstering his fake consulting firms' credibility by establishing web addresses, emails, phone numbers and bank accounts for them. He exchanged emails with the firms that he forwarded to colleagues at the CFA Institute and Boundless.
Bragg said that Collins spent the embezzled funds on a luxurious lifestyle that included fine dining and "extensive travel," including more than 150 plane tickets. He purchased the engagement ring from a boutique jewelry store using an account associated with one of his consulting firms, prosecutors said.
The three-level test to become a CFA holder is offered several times a year and is seen as leading to new job opportunities and higher salaries. More than 24,000 candidates sat for the Level I CFA exam in February, which was administered at hundreds of proctored, computer-based testing centers around the world.
The case is New York v. Collins, IND-72754-25/001, New York State Supreme Criminal Court, New York County.
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