Leland B. Hevner is a leading figure in the world of investing research, consulting and education and has been since 1997. He teaches personal investing classes at the college level, has authored 12 investor education publications and is the founder and president of the National Association of Online Investors (NAOI), an organization that is nation's premier supplier of personal investor education. Thousands of people have taken NAOI investor education courses. This page presents Mr. Hevner's profile.

Founder and President of the NAOI

Taking early retirement from a successful business career in 1992, Mr. Hevner became a full-time investor. These were the "wild west" days of personal investing when all of a sudden individuals had the power to trade stocks from their home using the Web. While Hevner achieved a degree of success with his online trading activities, he saw that many individuals, tempted by the siren call of day-trading riches, were losing money hand over fist.  

Individuals in the early 1990s had the power to invest but not the knowledge of how to invest and this was a problem. Power without knowledge is a dangerous combination and Hevner watched as thousands of people lost incredible amounts of money through uninformed and naive trading.  

Resolving to address this issue, Hevner founded the NAOI in 1997 to provide the public with the serious education they needed to become confident and successful investors. 

Creator of the NAOI "Individual Investor Certification Program" ™

To meet his goal of empowering individuals to take more personal control of their portfolios, Mr. Hevner created the NAOI Individual Investor Certification Program, the nation's premier personal investor education resource. More information is found on the Education Page of this site.

This offering consists of five multimedia courses, totaling close to 1,000 pages of material and covering a full range of investing topics. Each course includes a hardcopy workbook and an online component where students can access calculators, worksheets and Web links. The online component also enables the NAOI to continuously update the material to reflect current market dynamics and new tools as they become available. 

The NAOI Individual Investor Certification Program is the gold standard of personal investor education today. These are the courses that should be offered in every high school and college in America but are not. They are only available from the NAOI. Thousands of students have graduated from the NAOI investor education program and earned the NAOI Certification diploma as shown above.     

Author of the Perfect Portfolio Book

Mr. Hevner is the author of one of the most innovative books in the market for empowering individual investors to take more personal control of their portfolios. Published by John Wiley & Sons in 2009, The Perfect Portfolio details a new and uniquely effective approach to portfolio design that can be used by investors of all experience levels to profit in virtually any market condition.

More than simply a book, The Perfect Portfolio closely resembles a college course in investing. The book's online component provides calculators, worksheets and Web links that involve readers in a complete learning experience. Individuals who finish the book will have the knowledge, tools and methods they need to immediately begin investing successfully and with confidence.

Investment Researcher

When the market crashed in 2008 Mr. Hevner realized that it would take more than education to empower investors. Teaching decades old investing methods was not giving individuals the power they needed to thrive in today's volatile markets.

In 2009 he began to search for a new approach to investing, one that does work in today's markets. After significant research he found it in the form of Dynamic Investment Theory.

Hevner presents this new theory and the revolutionary Dynamic Investments that it creates in his book The Amazing Future of Investing as pictured at left. The book can be purchased in the NAOI Store.

Nationally Recognized Advocate for the Individual Investor

The national media has recognized Mr. Hevner’s status as a leading authority and innovator in the field of personal investor education as well as a strong advocate for the average individual with money to invest. He has appeared on the three major commercial TV networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, as well as multiple times on the CNBC business channel and Fox Business channel as an expert commentator on new approaches to investing. He has been interviewed extensively on radio stations across the United States and is often quoted in the national press.  

Refer to the NAOI Pressroom for examples of his media appearances.

Certified Investment Advisor

By passing a series of rigorous tests, Mr. Hevner is certified by the North American Securities Administrators Association as a qualified investment advisor. 

Teacher

Since 2001 Mr. Hevner has taught college courses on the art and science of personal investing in the Washington D.C. area. His classes are always filled to capacity and student reviews are consistently outstanding. This on-going interaction with the investing public enables Hevner to revise the content of his courses and presentations to meet current individual investor needs.  

Consultant

Mr. Hevner has provided consulting services to governments, academic institutions and financial organizations around the world. He has also supplied customized investor education content to the Web's premier tax advisory resource: J.L. Lasser. Following is an example of one of his consulting jobs.

The Government of Dubai

In 2006 Mr. Hevner was engaged to take part in the development of an Investor Education Program for the people of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Among the project goals was to empower average citizens of this rising Middle East financial center to invest in Dubai Markets. For this purpose Hevner spent a considerable amount of time in-country studying the market, the local stock exchange, Dubai financial regulatory bodies and the level of public investor education. Based on this research Hevner produced and presented a comprehensive Individual Investor Education Program to the Government of Dubai that was immediately implemented.

Researcher / Innovator / Futurist

In 2008 while teaching a class on Personal Investing at a college in the Washington D.C. area, Mr. Hevner watched as the portfolios that he was showing students how to create were crashing along with the market. He was teaching portfolio design methods based on Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) a universally accepted approach introduced in 1952 when markets were a far different place. He realized that while markets had evolved significantly since then, the investing methods used by the financial services industry to cope with them had hardly changed at all. And they no longer worked. At that point he refocused NAOI efforts toward finding a new approach to investing that did work in modern markets. Following an extensive period of research and development, the NAOI under Hevner's guidance found it in Dynamic Investment Theory (DIT) and the Dynamic Investments that DIT creates. More information on this major evolution of the investing world is found by clicking here. Hevner realized that to empower individual investors more than education was needed; also needed was innovation which is now a part of the NAOI's Mission Statement.

Speaker

Mr. Hevner has spoken at multiple conferences around the world as well as participated in a variety of round-table discussions and debates. His presentations center on his vision of the future of investing and why the current status quo cannot survive. He clearly and logically describes a "future of investing" that will bear little resemblance to the way investing works today. And this is a vision that is unique among his peers. Mr. Hevner is always glad to debate the subject with anyone who disagrees! Contact the NAOI to schedule Leland as a Speaker.

Education Background

Mr. Hevner holds an MBA from Purdue's Krannert School of Business, a B.S. degree in Computer Science from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology with minor degrees in Psychology and Russian. 

Certifications

Mr. Hevner is qualified as a Registered Investment Advisor by passing the North American Securities Administrators Association 1-65 Uniform Investment Advisor Law Examination - commonly known as the Series 65 Exam. 

Contact

Email at LHevner@naoi.org  

Phone: 813-949-3817

Or via the  Contact page of this site.

Connect with Leland on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lelandhevner