Judges for the 2004 awards were:

Diana Crossan
Diana Crossan was appointed Retirement Commissioner after the retirement of Colin Blair this year. She currently leads the FUNZ project, a private not-for-profit initiative established to explore ways New Zealand families can save for their children¹s tertiary education. She previously worked for AMP; most recently as Director, National Distribution Strategy Project, AMP UK and has also worked in the several government departments, including the Ministry of Justice, State Services Commission and the Ministry of Education. She is a member of the boards of NZ Post, the JR McKenzie Trust and Relationship Services and a member of the Victoria University Council.

Donal Curtin
Donal is Managing Director of Economics New Zealand and one of NZ's best known business economists. Before setting up his own firm, Donal was chief economist at the BNZ and also its national private banking business. He is on the council of the New Zealand Association of Economists, is an associate member of the Commerce Commission and is the Finance and Expenditure select Committees adviser on monetary policy.

Rob Stock
Newly appointed to the judging panel this year is Rob Stock, Money editor of the Sunday Star-Times. Rob was born and educated in the UK, where he was previously news editor of Investment Week - a weekly publication for financial advisers. Rob holds the Chartered Insurance Institute Financial Planning Certificates one, two and three and several awards for personal finance reporting. He moved to NZ with his kiwi wife who is a lecturer in international law at the University of Auckland.

Young Financial Planner of the Year

Ricky Bennett
Financial Adviser, Certified Financial Planner of the Year 2003

Jenny Ridge
Jenny was born and educated in the UK. After university she worked with Barclays Bank before becoming an academic. She has lectured at universities in England, Scotland and Australia before coming to New Zealand.

Jenny, recently retired, was a Senior Lecturer at Massey University and worked in the Department of Finance Banking and Property. She was in charge of The Graduate Diploma in Business Studies endorsed Personal Financial Planning offered by the university.

Jenny has presented research papers at The Academy of Financial Services in the USA and has given papers in Canada, Europe and Asia. For seven years she was a judge of the annual Pricewaterhouse Cooper Young Banker of the Year award held in Wellington.