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PLANEJAR
PLANEJAR began in November 2016, succeeding the IBCPF that had anchored Brazil's financial-planning standards since 2000. Founding board member Ana Cláudia...
PLANEJAR
PLANEJAR began in November 2016, succeeding the IBCPF that had anchored Brazil's financial-planning standards since 2000. Founding board member Ana Cláudia Akie Utumi now chairs the global FPSB board, creating an unusual channel from São Paulo into the governance of a credential held by more than 236,000 people across 27 territories. The organization operates as a non-governmental, nonprofit self-regulatory body; its board includes representatives from ANBIMA, B3, and the CVM, making it a junction between voluntary professional standards and Brazilian securities regulation. PLANEJAR neither deploys capital nor manages assets. Its operational output is the CFP examination, continuing-education programming, and a portal that connects consumers to certified planners. The certification covers retirement, tax, estate, investment, and insurance planning. The firm itself reports that 69% of employing companies see faster asset growth under CFP professionals and 76% cite improved client retention — figures drawn from its own benchmarking surveys. Its strategic footprint is exclusively domestic Brazil, with embassies in Pernambuco, Paraná, and Santa Catarina running local events for certificants. Organizationally, PLANEJAR prioritizes governance over growth. Its 2026 International Congress is scheduled for September in São Paulo, and recent embassies have convened in Recife, Curitiba, and Florianópolis through June and July 2025. The board roster blends long-tenured standards-setters like Marcia Dessen and Jan Karsten with capital-markets operators, and the CEO, Ana Leoni, runs day-to-day operations from the Itaim Bibi headquarters. While the firm does not disclose headcount, its public calendar and portal infrastructure imply a lean coordinating secretariat rather than a large commercial enterprise. What sets PLANEJAR apart is its statutory gatekeeper role: the CVM formally recognizes only the CFP certification for the investment-advisor registration pathway under Brazilian regulation. This creates a single point of entry for a profession, making the association a hybrid between a professional licensing body and a standards institute — closer in architecture to a bar association than to a trade group. Succession risk is concentrated in the relationship with the Denver-based FPSB, but the deep integration with Brazilian regulators and exchanges binds PLANEJAR's relevance to the structure of the country's advisory industry itself.
General information
Firm type
Pension Fund
Year founded
2016
Location
Region
South America
Country
Brazil
City
São Paulo
Corporate office
R. Joaquim Floriano, 1120 - 7º andar, Itaim Bibi, São Paulo - SP, 04534-004
Principals
Ana Leoni
CEO
Jan Karsten
Board Member, Former President
Ana Cláudia Akie Utumi
Founding Board Member, Chairperson of the FPSB Board of Directors
Marcia Dessen
Coordinator of the Board of Directors, FPSB Board Member
Patrícia Palomo
Board Member
Guilherme Wertheimer
Board Member
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at PLANEJAR?
PLANEJAR is not an investment firm; it is a self-regulatory certification body. The CEO, Ana Leoni, leads operations, while the board — including representatives from ANBIMA, B3, and the FPSB — governs strategic direction. No investment committee exists because the organization administers professional standards, not a portfolio.
How does PLANEJAR relate to the Financial Planning Standards Board?
PLANEJAR is the exclusive FPSB affiliate in Brazil, licensed to grant the CFP certification. The relationship is bidirectional: founding board member Ana Cláudia Akie Utumi chairs the FPSB global board, placing a PLANEJAR director at the top of the worldwide standards-setting body. The partnership locks Brazilian CFP certificants into the global continuing-education and ethics framework overseen by FPSB.
Is PLANEJAR a family office, an asset manager, or a regulator?
None of the above. PLANEJAR is a non-governmental, nonprofit self-regulatory organization that administers the CFP certification program in Brazil. It does not deploy capital or manage assets. However, it holds a quasi-regulatory function because Brazil's Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM) recognizes the CFP certification as a qualifying credential for investment advisor registration.
What is the scale of the CFP community PLANEJAR oversees?
The firm reports that Brazil holds the fifth-largest CFP population globally, with more than 12,000 certified professionals as of the latest update on its website. Worldwide, over 236,000 individuals hold the CFP designation, benchmarked against FPSB territorial data. PLANEJAR itself does not disclose revenue or capital-deployment figures because it does not operate as a commercial asset manager.
How are capital-markets entities integrated into PLANEJAR's governance?
ANBIMA, the Brazilian capital-markets association, is a senior associate and appoints board members. B3 (Brasil Bolsa Balcão) is a business partner engaged in joint financial-education and investor-protection initiatives. This structure embeds exchange and securities-industry oversight directly into the governance of individual financial-planning standards, an architecture unusual among FPSB affiliates.
Does PLANEJAR maintain any philanthropic or operating-company structures?
PLANEJAR operates a consumer-facing financial education portal and runs volunteer-based financial education programs, but it does not spin out separate philanthropic foundations or operating companies. The education efforts are housed within the nonprofit itself, consistent with its statutory mission to promote professional and ethical standards in financial planning.
What is PLANEJAR's known posture on co-investments or fund commitments?
PLANEJAR does not participate in co-investments, fund commitments, or any capital-allocation activity. Its entire mandate is credentialing, continuing education, and professional networking for CFP certificants. Any capital deployment made by its CFP holders occurs within their own firms, not through the association.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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