The Personal Finance Society (PFS) has appointed Carla Brown as the professional body’s new president.

Ms Brown is managing director of St James’s Place partner firm Oakmere Wealth Management Ltd in Cheshire.

She is also a director of CL Wills and Estate Planning.

She is a Chartered Financial Planner, Fellow of the PFS, an accredited later life adviser with the Society of Later Life Advisers, and holds a Certificate in Relational Financial Planning. She also holds an MSc in Wealth Management from Loughborough University.

The PFS began its search for a new President in 2023 when it appointed Barclays Wealth Chartered Financial Planner Anthony Ward as interim President. Former President Caroline Stuart resigned in January 2023, citing health and business reasons for her decision to quit.

In 2019 Ms Brown won the inaugural SJP Chartered Financial Planner of the Year award and in 2021 went on to win the PFS Chartered Financial Planner of the Year.

Prior to starting Oakmere Wealth Management in 2011, Ms Brown spent 15 years working with HSBC and Bradford & Bingley as an IFA, and Cheshire Building Society as a financial consultant.

Ms Brown joined the PFS board in July last year as an independent director just three weeks after two independent directors of the PFS quit the board over a row over the potential transfer of £19m in PFS reserves to parent body the CII.

She has also previously completed a Planner Casebook for Financial Planning Today Magazine about how she helped a widow cope with family illness which led to a bereavement.