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DEVANG SHAH, MBA, CFP® (U.S.A. & India)
email: devang@rightreturns.com
BACKGROUND
I set up Right Returns in the year 2000 after working for over seven years in the Investment Banking industry. I began my career in 1993 when I joined my father’s investment banking practice and we did very well right from day one. However, working on the side of product sellers, I realized that while a lot of resources were invested in helping sell products, there really wasn’t anybody helping individual investors take good decisions. And over a period this was hurting everybody involved – the issuers, the investment bankers and the economy as a whole.
My search for a solution lead me to finding out more about the CFP® mark. Financial planning processes were totally non-existent in India then and I landed up visiting Australia to learn about the profession. I built relationships with CFP® practitioners there, which went a long way in creating India’s first Personal Financial Planning practice – Right Returns. Presently Right Returns Financial Planning is a proprietorship owned by me.
INVOLVEMENT IN THE PROFESSION
I also got very actively involved in bringing the CFP program to India and have been associated with FPSB India (the local certifying authority, erstwhile Association of Financial Planners (AFP)) from its very first Executive Council meeting. At first I served on the Advisory Council and then as a member of FPSB’s first Examination and Certification Committee.
OUR APPROACH AT RIGHT RETURNS
In our lives, each one of us focuses or specializes in a specific area of expertise. It may be a real estate business or a legal practice in someone’s case while it might be art, travel or networking in someone else’s case. At Right Returns our objective is to support you in keeping that focus by looking after your personal money issues. Over the years we have helped our clients regain their sense of comfort and control in their personal financial matters by helping them plan, implement and monitor how they make their wealth, nurture it and pass it on to the next generation. We like to help our clients see how they will actually achieve what they want to achieve in their lives and after.
OUR PRACTICE
Every fruitful relationship brings satisfaction that surpasses the monetary rewards that accompany. We are selective about our relationships as well as assignments, so that we can provide undivided attention to each one of them. We are unflinching in accepting our weaknesses and in-competencies and are more than willing to go out of our way to acquire knowledge so that our clients are better off. We are equally proactive about building relationships with peers in complementary professions such as legal, tax and accounts, without which it would be impossible for us to help our clients reach their financial goals.
EDUCATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
I have done my graduation in Commerce and Accounts from Bombay University. I am also a qualified Cost Accountant which is known as the Management Accountant elsewhere in the world. I did my MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA). IIMA has topped the B-school rankings in India for many years now. I was grandfathered as a founding
CFPCM professional in India in January 2003. I appeared for the CFP® certification exam for being licensed in U.S.A. in November 2004 and complied with the Board’s requirements by March 2005.
ABOUT ME
I live and work in Mumbai (erstwhile Bombay), the commercial capital of India. My family consists of my father, my wife (who is a financial advisor in her own right) and my eleven year old son who goes to a school that has a holistic approach to education. I enjoy traveling and so does the rest of my family, luckily. I personally enjoy working hard as much as just doing nothing at all. We all love books and I am particularly fond of J. Krishnamurthy, Richard Bach, E. F. Schumacher, Bill Cosby and Eckhart Tolle. My favourite is a Q & A by David Goodman with Shri Ramana Maharshi.
What counts cannot be counted. My true involvement is with people and not money. I enjoy taking on challenges. That, in part, lead me to setting up India’s first Financial Planning practice and also accomplishing the cross border CFP certification. My fulfillment comes from contributing time and effort to larger causes. I absolutely love having friends all over the world (even though I might not know my neighbor too well :-)).
Presently I am a member of FPSB India as well as the Financial Planning Association (FPA), U.S.A. We are also probably the only Financial Services Affiliate in India of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA), U.S.A.
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