Cheryl R. Holland, CFP®
Cheryl R. Holland, CFP®
President, Abacus Planning Group, Inc.
Entrepreneur and certified financial planner Cheryl Holland says “complete serendipity” is responsible for her career path. Holland is owner and president of Abacus Planning Group, Inc., a fee-only financial planning and investment firm managing more than $650 million in assets for families and non-profits.
“I started as a broker for Merrill Lynch in my early 20s. Women stockbrokers were few and far between, and financial planning wasn’t even a glimmer of a profession,” says Holland. “The ‘light bulb’ moment came during a conference on the future of financial advice — in 1983. The keynote speaker predicted that financial advisors would charge a fee for their advice rather than a commission. The audience literally booed, but I quit my job three months later to become a fee-only financial advisory.”
“As a child, my favorite heroines were Amelia Earhart and Clara Barton. I aspired to follow in their footsteps, breaking barriers, caring for others and making a difference. There’s a clip of a magazine interview with Bono on our refrigerator titled "U2 Can Change the World." I have absolute faith in that statement and strongly believe that changing the world means striving first to change myself.
“I hope to continue to grow a company that not only provides jobs but is a role model of corporate citizenship whether contributing to the arts, supporting neighborhood schools, encouraging community involvement, sharing ownership of our city’s challenges such as homelessness or hungry families, and most recently contributing to the architectural fabric of the community with the renovation of our new office space.”