Christie Searls

Chief Legal Officer

Christie Searls is the Chief Legal Officer at FPSB where she oversees governance, policy, compliance and intellectual property matters for the organization. She also negotiates and manages FPSBs commercial agreements, including those with current and potential FPSB member organizations and vendors.

Ms. Searls leads the compliance portion of FPSBs Member Assessment Program, which evaluates the CFP certification programs in 26 countries to ensure FPSBs rigorous standards are being met around the world.

She joined FPSB in May 2018 after spending more than 17 years as counsel to, and ultimately head of, the Intellectual Property group at CenturyLink, a Fortune 500 company. The group won the 2013 World Trademark Review award for best in-house trademark group.

Ms. Searls previously worked for Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards where she managed and enforced the organizations domestic and international trademark portfolio. Early in her career, she was a commercial litigator in Denver, Colorado.

She earned her J.D. from the University of Colorado School of Law, where she was recognized as a member of Order of the Coif.

A Colorado native, Ms. Searls enjoys running, theatre and spending time with her husband and two teenage daughters.