I had the privilege of meeting Skip a few years ago at a TD conference. It is such an honor to share his story with all of you. Learn about how playing outdoors guided Skip’s professional attitude once he entered the business world. We owe Skip a world of thanks for his insights, incredible contributions to the financial services arena, and his candid conversation with us. He truly is an icon in our industry, and one whom all of us “cling” to for his words of wisdom. With gratitude, here is Skip’s story:
– Maree Moscati, CEO, Copytalk
Skip Schweiss
CFP®, AIF®
2021 FPA President
Share something most people don’t know about you.
Skip: Well, I’m the oldest of seven children. I grew up in South Dakota and spent a lot of time outdoors. When the kids would get a little too rambunctious under Mom’s feet, Mom would occasionally, sometimes even with voice raised, order us all outside, and it didn’t matter if it was zero degrees out. I grew up really comfortable just playing in the snow and hiking and fishing, and I’m even an Eagle Scout.
But there are valuable lessons in nature. My outdoor skills have really helped me in business and in life because I learned resilience. The only thing I can control when I’m in the outdoors is myself. I can’t control the weather or the terrain. If I get into trouble in the outdoors, which I actually did not too long ago a little bit, it’s on me. In business, more often than not, the origin of the problem resides in the mirror, and more often than not, the solution to the problem resides in the mirror, and that’s one of the things that’s reinforced when you spend time in the outdoors.
How has your career path positioned you to be where you are today?
Skip: Well, I’m excited about where I am today, despite my fun-employed status at the moment. I left TD Ameritrade last year without a landing zone, and that was purposeful. I was ready to take a step back and just breathe and think about what I want to do next, and I’m really, really enamored with financial planning and with fiduciary advice.
After working odd jobs in my teen and college years, I worked for a family-owned sporting goods business, and I enjoyed the work, but I was working every Saturday, and I knew that I was only going to go so far because the executives were family members. But I really enjoyed it.
And every job I’ve had has sort of built on each other successively to where I am today. I was actually recruited when I was 25 to sell investments and insurance, but most of my prospects were twice my age, and there was a credibility gap there, and so it just didn’t work very well at that stage. I was able to work with Fiserv and talk to advisors and help them solve problems for their clients, and I really enjoyed that. Later on in my career, I worked on policy advocacy for advisors, making sure that federal and state laws didn’t negatively impact advisors and their clients.
Frankly, I think I have one shot left in my working career—call it another decade—and I really want to make it count.
Who are your most influential mentors?
Skip: To this day, some of my greatest role models are my parents, Al and Annette Schweiss. They worked tremendously hard. They were very family-oriented. There was never any talk in our house about breaking rules or taking shortcuts or showing any lack of ethics or integrity, and yet they didn’t use those words. It was just the way they went about life, and I, to this day, am so grateful to them for that leadership and mentorship that they provided to me, even though they may not have looked at it that way at the time.
Skip: To this day, some of my greatest role models are my parents, Al and Annette Schweiss. They worked tremendously hard. They were very family-oriented. There was never any talk in our house about breaking rules or taking shortcuts or showing any lack of ethics or integrity, and yet they didn’t use those words. It was just the way they went about life, and I, to this day, am so grateful to them for that leadership and mentorship that they provided to me, even though they may not have looked at it that way at the time.
Bio:
Skip Schweiss was most recently president of TD Ameritrade Trust Company (TDATC) which offers retirement plan solutions and services for independent registered investment advisors. Schweiss was also managing director of advisor advocacy and industry affairs for TD Ameritrade Institutional. In that role he advocated with policy makers in Washington and in the states for fiduciary investment advisers and their clients. In 2014 and 2016 he was named by Investment Adviser magazine as one of its top 25 most influential people in the industry. In 2015 he was named Fiduciary of the Year by the Committee for the Fiduciary Standard, and in 2016 he was named Insider’s Forum Leadership Award winner. In 2018 and in 2019 he was named by readers of Investment Advisor magazine as one of the industry’s 25 most influential people.
Schweiss holds a B.S. in business administration from the University of South Dakota and a M.S. in finance from the University of Colorado. He has completed the Securities Industry Institute sponsored by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) at the Wharton School of Business. He is 2021 president of the Financial Planning Association. He recently completed a three-year stint as president of NAPFA’s Consumer Education Foundation. He is a CFP® professional and an Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF®).