Aravind Sithamparapillai, CFP®, switched careers to become a financial planner. He joined Ironwood Wealth Management in Fonthill, Ontario, in March 2020—just in time for the arrival of COVID. Despite the rough start, Sithamparapillai has established his place in the profession over the past five years, and he’s now been recognized with an FP Canada™ Emerging Leader Award.
“It’s validation,” he says. “I think everybody spends so much time doubting themselves at the beginning of their career. You wonder if you’re going to make it. To have so many peers and leaders and mentors look at me and say, you truly deserve to be here, it means a lot.”
For Sithamparapillai, whose first-place finish on the February 2025 CFP exam led to a place on FP Canada’s President’s List, his latest honour comes with a responsibility to live up to the word “leader.” His goal is to be as accessible, sharing, kind, accommodating and patient with new-to-the-industry financial planners as his own mentors were with him.
One of Sithamparapillai’s standout accomplishments is his work on research that illuminates the salary or dividends question for business owners. It examines the impact of different choices on Canada Pension Plan benefits. He was a little awed when a nominee said this research will likely improve retirement for thousands of Canadians for many years to come.
In addition to volunteering with the Financial Planning Association of Canada, Sithamparapillai sets aside time to be a parent volunteer—by, for example, coaching kids’ sports teams. He’s also been cultivating expertise in financial planning for midwives and the impact of menopause on their careers (his three children were delivered by midwives). In general, he says intense curiosity drives him to dedicate time to learning, and he fits more time in to learn by listening to podcasts while walking his dog or driving.
To other financial planners, he says, “find the pieces of the job you want to obsess over, that you’re entranced by, because then it becomes easy to do that work.”
Sithamparapillai has made a point of proactively reaching out to professionals who are doing things that impress him—for example, people who produce podcasts or social media content he likes. He’s grateful to those have become his mentors, taken his phone calls, fielding questions, and generally been generous with their time.
It’s important to learn from people who have been in business longer than you have, he emphasizes. “There’s so much knowledge that we’ll lose out on if we don’t bridge that gap and look at everybody as having something valuable to offer.”
