Message from COO

 

Hello and Welcome!

The Asia Pacific Association for Fiduciary Studies is the brainchild of some forward thinking individuals who envisioned an regional coalition that provided support to individuals and organizations willing to assume the responsibility of managing trust funds. Today, our mission remains clear, yet the stakes have grown.

Just as national security has taken on a new and ever widening definition, our role as trustee and fiduciary has also evolved from “Managers of trust” to “Guardians of Trusts”; and, although the distinction may look semantic, the ramifications are profound. In our world today, effective corporate governance involves more than setting sound operational policies or mandating the highest return possible from our investment managers. Today, effective corporate governance also means establishing and ensuring all individuals doing business with our respective organizations share a common compliance to a Code of Ethics and Responsibility. As “Guardians of Trusts”, we need to ensure that we secure the assets we are entrusted to protect with the same intensity we would secure our personal assets. The Asia Pacific Association for Fiduciary Studies is the regional resource to help achieve this goal.

The Asia Pacific Association for Fiduciary Studies links training with regional understanding. Our Association exists to provide educational forums with the uniqueness of being regionally focused. Bringing Wall St. to Micronesia means that we provide our members with seminars that describe the most current and fundamental understanding of our roles as fiduciaries. It means providing our members with relevant tools necessary to measure the performance of our investment managers, consultants and service providers. It means that we serve as a regional resource for “Best Practices” and industry developments, and finally, it means providing these forums while recognizing and appreciating the richness of the cultures and practices that are uniquely Micronesia. Few organizations possess the level of regional understanding that ours does. Few people can claim responsibility for managing the more than 3 billion USD in assets that is under collective trust among member countries represented in this Association. And fewer still can claim the understanding of a geographical location spread over miles of ocean yet connected by a rich heritage of culture and tradition.

I encourage those who aspire to make a difference in the future of their community to become involved with APAFS. On behalf of the Board of Governors of the APAFS, thank you for your interest.

Gerard Cruz
APAFS Chairman
Board of Trustees, Government of Guam Retirement Fund