Is the CAE Worth It?

Season two closes with Theo Nakashima-Ward, Director of Learning and Credentialing, on what NANA's CAE prep program actually does — and doesn't do — and his honest, personal answer to whether the credential is worth the study time and the fee.

• Theo Nakashima-Ward — Director of Learning and Credentialing, NANA. Earned his CAE in 2021.

• 00:00 Intro

• 01:45 What NANA does, and doesn't do, on the CAE

• 06:20 Why Theo pursued the credential himself in 2021

• 11:00 The study-group model NANA runs twice a year

• 15:50 Foundation scholarships and who applies for them

• 20:30 The question every candidate asks: is it worth it?

• 25:15 What the credential doesn't guarantee

• 30:00 Reflecting on season two

• 34:40 Outro

Host: Theo, before we get into your own answer to the episode's question, clear up something people get wrong. What does NANA actually do with the CAE, and what does it not do?

Theo Nakashima-Ward: We prepare candidates. We don't administer the credential and we don't set the exam content — that's an outside credentialing body, and it stays that way on purpose, so the credential means the same thing regardless of which association trained you for it. What my team runs is the CAE Credential Bootcamp twice a year and a study group that meets through both testing windows, plus the Foundation scholarship program Samuel Heathcote runs for candidates who need help with the fee. We're the training wheels, not the finish line.

Host: Why does that distinction matter so much to you?

Theo Nakashima-Ward: Because if NANA both trained candidates and controlled whether they passed, the credential would mean something different — it would signal "this person completed NANA's program," not "this person met an independent bar." Keeping those functions separate is what lets an employer trust a CAE from anyone, at any association, the same amount. I want candidates to walk away from our bootcamp better prepared, not walk away with a credential we handed them ourselves.

Host: You earned yours in 2021. Why did you sit for it, given that you already ran the department that helps other people prepare?

Theo Nakashima-Ward: Partly credibility — I didn't love the idea of running a credentialing prep program for a credential I hadn't earned myself. But mostly it was that I wanted to actually experience the exam the way our candidates do, study group and all, instead of only knowing it from the outside as a program administrator. Sitting in that study group as a participant, not the person running it, taught me more about where candidates actually get stuck than years of reading pass-rate reports would have.

Host: Where do candidates get stuck, based on that experience?

Theo Nakashima-Ward: The breadth, not any single hard topic. The exam covers governance, finance, member relations, technology, HR — the whole span of what an association executive touches — and most candidates come in strong in the two or three areas closest to their own job and weak everywhere else. A membership director is usually solid on membership content and shaky on finance; a CFO is the reverse. The study group works because candidates end up teaching each other their own strong areas, which covers more ground than any one instructor lecturing at them could.

Host: Talk about the Foundation scholarships. Who actually applies for those?

Theo Nakashima-Ward: Mostly staff at smaller member associations who'd otherwise have to pay the exam fee and the bootcamp fee out of their own pocket, because their employer doesn't have a professional-development line generous enough to cover it. Samuel's program funded 18 scholars in 2024, and applications open every January. Devika Anand, who works at one of our Great Lakes member organizations, was a 2025 scholar and passed in the December window that same year — that's about as fast a turnaround from scholarship to credential as we see.

Host: Now the question in the title. Is the CAE worth it?

Theo Nakashima-Ward: For most people in this sector, yes, but not for the reason candidates usually expect walking in. They expect it to be a credential that gets them a specific promotion or a specific raise, and sometimes it does, but that's not consistent enough to be the honest selling point. What it reliably does is force you to learn the parts of running an association that your own job doesn't touch day to day. A membership director who studies finance for the exam becomes a better membership director, not because the exam tests membership skills better, but because she now understands the budget conversations she used to sit outside of.

Host: What doesn't the credential guarantee, that candidates sometimes assume it will?

Theo Nakashima-Ward: It doesn't guarantee a management job, and it doesn't substitute for actual management experience. I've seen candidates pass the exam and expect doors to open automatically, and then feel let down when a hiring committee still wants to see years of actual leadership, not just the letters after their name. I tell every study group the same thing on day one: treat this as evidence you've built the knowledge, not as a credential that does the career work for you.

Host: This closes out season two. Any reflection on the season as a whole, now that you're the last guest of it?

Theo Nakashima-Ward: It's been a season about money and data more than governance — Noor on membership decline, Mei-Lin on engagement scoring, Kenji on a 7,800-member society's dues, Lucinda on postal rates. I like that a credentialing conversation gets to close it out, because in a strange way the CAE curriculum is the same span of topics this whole season covered, just compressed into one exam instead of spread across twelve episodes.

Host: How does the bootcamp differ from the study group? It sounds like candidates go through both.

Theo Nakashima-Ward: The bootcamp is a single intensive day, twice a year, built around content review and practice questions across all five domains. The study group is the slower, longer commitment — it runs through the full window leading up to the exam, meets weekly, and is where the peer-teaching I mentioned actually happens. Candidates who only do the bootcamp usually still pass, but candidates who do both tend to report the exam felt less like a surprise, because they've already practiced explaining unfamiliar material out loud to someone else.

Host: Do you track your own candidates' pass rates against anything outside NANA, or is that not information you have access to?

Theo Nakashima-Ward: We only see our own numbers — how NANA-prepared candidates do, not the credentialing body's national figures broken out by preparation provider, since that's not data they release at that level. What I can say honestly is that our numbers have been stable across the years I've run the program, which tells me the bootcamp and study-group format is working consistently rather than depending on any one especially strong cohort.

Host: Last one. If someone listening is genuinely unsure whether their own job justifies the time investment, what question should they ask themselves before signing up?

Theo Nakashima-Ward: Whether they intend to stay in association management for the long run, versus this being one stop on the way somewhere else entirely. The CAE is built for people who see running associations as their career, not as a temporary role. If that's your plan, the breadth of study pays off over decades. If you're not sure association work is where you're staying, I'd hold off, save the fee, and revisit the question once you know. It isn't a credential that expires if you wait a year or two to sit for it, so there's no cost to being honest with yourself about the timing first.

Host: Theo, thanks for closing out the season.

Theo Nakashima-Ward: Thanks for having me. If you're on the fence about sitting for it, the spring window opens in May — come find the study group before you talk yourself out of it.