401(k) Roundtable

Could retirement plan loans be the next big fiduciary concern for plan sponsors? Hard to tell, but my conversation today with Bruce Ashton, ERISA Attorney and Partner in the Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Practice at Drinker Biddle, will certainly help you understand why multiple regulators are taking a harder look at the retirement plan loans, especially defaults. We cover a ton of ground including my opening question which is likely the first thing that would come to the minds of most employers, we delve into how loans become a fiduciary concern and much more. I also ask Bruce the inevitable question of whether the time has come to eliminate loans in workplace retirement plans. Before we get started, don't forget that we have bonus question on the website, a full transcript of the episode, a copy of the white paper Bruce authored on the loan challenges we discuss today and much more. You can find it by going to 401kfridays.com/ashton. Guest Bio Bruce L. Ashton has more than 35 years of experience handling employee benefits matters. His practice concentrates on representing plan service providers (including RIAs, independent record-keepers, third-party administrators, broker-dealers and insurance companies) in fulfilling their obligations under ERISA. His experience includes representing public and private sector plans and their sponsors, negotiating the resolution of plan qualification issues under IRS remedial correction programs, advising and defending fiduciaries on their obligations and liabilities, and structuring qualified plans, non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements. Combining his employee benefits and transactional experience, Bruce is also active in the installation and funding of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs). Bruce is a contributor to Drinker Biddle's Broker-Dealer Law Blog, which provides practical insights on litigation, regulatory, compliance and fiduciary issues impacting broker-dealers. He has co-authored four books on employee benefits issues and a quarterly column in the Journal of Pension Benefits on IRS remedial programs, and is a frequent contributor to various tax and pension publications. He is a frequent speaker on employee benefits issues ranging from fiduciary responsibility to ESOPs, and is a regularly featured speaker at conferences sponsored by ASPPA, and other organizations. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

There are three state run retirement plans that are now live. Despite the fact they have been in the news, there are still a lot of questions about what they are, how they work and how they impact employers and employees who already have a 401(k) or other workplace retirement plan. To help provide some information and clear up misperceptions I am excited to have Katie Selenski, the Executive Director of CalSavers, the newly launched California state retirement plan join on the podcast. During our conversation, Katie takes care of the basics and also shares the highlights of some research they did when preparing to launch their plan, some of which might be a bit surprising and other points could help employers with some decisions about their own retirement plans. We also discuss the profile of the businesses that will benefit from state plans, how wage theft laws provide some protection to employees who participate in them, whether there might be a national plan at some point in the future and what's next for state plans. As we did on last week's episode, Katie answers a written bonus question, we have a full episode transcript, how to get in touch with Katie and more on the website. You can find that by going to www.401kfridays.com/calsavers2019. Guest Bio Katie Selenski was appointed in 2017 by the California State Treasurer to serve as the first Executive Director of the California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Investment Board which operates CalSavers, the state's pioneering retirement savings program. The program will provide a path to retirement security for millions Californians who currently lack access to a retirement savings vehicle at work. Prior to taking the helm at CalSavers, Ms. Selenski was the State Policy Director for pension policy at The Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington, D.C., where she managed Pew's efforts to help fiscally distressed states and cities undertake data-driven pension system improvements. Previously, she was a senior manager with the nonpartisan public sector consulting firm Harvey M. Rose Associates, based in San Francisco, where she advised policymakers on a wide array of budget, management, and policy matters, including pensions. She has also worked as a municipal bond rating analyst, a legislative fellow in the California Assembly, and the director of an historic statewide nonpartisan youth voter turnout initiative. Ms. Selenski is a member of the advisory board of the Aspen Institute's Leadership Forum on Retirement Savings. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

After a quick hiatus in July, we are back and excited about what we have in store! To kick things off, this episode features my conversation with Jeff Holt, CFA and Director, Multi-Asset & Alternative Strategies with Morningstar Research Services and a lead author of the annual Morningstar Target Date Landscape Report. This is the third time Jeff has been on the podcast and his return does not disappoint. The broader theme of our conversation was the importance of avoiding oversimplifications when evaluating target date funds. As you will hear, this ranges from cost, glide path, the classic too vs. through distinction, mutual funds vs. CITs and many more. With the prevalence of target date funds in workplace retirement plans, I thought this would be a great way to get things going again. Before we get started, a few tweaks to look forward to going forward. First, we will provide a transcript on the 401(k) Fridays website for each episode. Second, also on the website each guest will provide a written answer to a bonus question. For this specific episode, we have a link to the 2019 Target Date Landscape Report we discussed today. You can find all this and more by going to www.401kfridays.com/holt2019. If you have any other ideas to improve the podcast please share them with me via email, [email protected]. Guest Bio Jeff Holt, CFA, is director of multi-asset and alternative strategies for Morningstar Research Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc. He covers target-date funds and other multi-asset funds from various asset managers. Before joining Morningstar in 2014, Holt spent nearly nine years at Jeffrey Slocum & Associates (since acquired by Pavilion Financial), where he was responsible for investment research to support the firm's defined-contribution practice. He covered target-date funds, stable value funds, and other asset classes specific to defined-contribution clients. Holt holds a bachelor's degree in management, with a concentration in corporate finance, from Brigham Young University. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

This episode is a follow on conversation to an episode a few months ago where we talked about the operational aspects of self-directed brokerage accounts in workplace retirement plans. While you don't have to listen to the prior episode first, it is definitely worth checking out if you are interested in the topic. Today, Tom Clark, a Partner and ERISA Attorney with the Wagner Law Group and I jump into the sometimes scary and confusing fiduciary territory of offering self-directed brokerage accounts. Tom shares great input on the general fiduciary concepts around self-directed brokerage, fee equity issues, discrimination issues, prohibited investments, the DOL's attitude towards them and much more. Tom also talks about a few left turns employers can take off a cliff when offering self-directed brokerage accounts, a few great responses to participant questions about self-directed brokerage, thoughts on beanie babies and his take on whether Ralphie will shoot his eye out. Quick reminder, this will be our last episode prior to a brief hiatus in July. Rest assured we will be back in August with some exciting new episodes. During the break, check out some of the 160 episodes we have released. Most of them are evergreen and do not have an expiration to them. Also, I will be thinking about ways to make the podcast more valuable. Please shoot me any ideas for improvement, future guests, topics or questions I should be asking. Love to hear what you have to say, shoot me an email to [email protected]. Guest Bio Tom Clark leads the St. Louis office of the Wagner Law Group. His expertise encompasses all aspects of employee benefits programs, including the design, implementation and compliance of retirement plans, health and welfare plans, and executive and incentive compensation arrangements. He also has a robust practice assisting covered service providers in meeting their ERISA compliance needs. Mr. Clark's vast litigation experience complements the firm's strong and growing ERISA and employment litigation department and includes work on landmark ERISA cases involving complicated ERISA fiduciary duty issues. He has been quoted extensively as an ERISA and employee benefits expert by outlets such as Reuters, the Associated Press, Bloomberg, and Forbes. Mr. Clark teaches ERISA fiduciary law as an Adjunct Professor at The Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, his alma mater. He is a co-author of the Second Edition of "ERISA: Principles of Employee Benefits Law," the only treatise of its kind that provides an overview of the regulation of employee benefit plans by highlighting the central principles and competing policies of employee benefits law in a compact and accessible format for a broad audience of readers. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

For the last several years a consistent message in the marketplace for retirement plan sponsors, participants and the industry has been the importance of investment fees. The good news is nearly all investment fees have been on a downward trend. As the cost of many passive investment options approach zero, is expense still the most important factor when evaluating index strategies? Today, I am happy to welcome Marty Kleppe, Head of Index Investing at Vanguard to share his thoughts. With the continued popularity of index funds in retirement plans, Marty shares some timely thoughts about index investing is more than just low cost, what securities lending is and the role it plays and finally how there is skill involved in managing index funds. This was a great conversation and one to definitely stick with to the end as I give Marty the opportunity to respond to some of comments active managers have shared about index managers over the years. Also, Marty and his team put together a white paper on this topic which you can access from the link in the notes or by searching Vanguard Beyond Expense Ratio. Guest Bio Martin Kleppe is the head of Equity Index Product Management in Vanguard Portfolio Review Department, where his team is responsible for conducting surveillance of competitor products and positioning, meeting with clients and prospects to discuss Vanguard's equity index lineup, publishing on noteworthy developments in the equity index marketplace and Vanguard lineup, and supporting equity index education initiatives. Mr. Kleppe joined Vanguard in 1989, and joined Portfolio Review in 2003. For the majority of his tenure with Portfolio Review, Mr. Kleppe was a senior member of the Product Strategy team, which is responsible for researching, designing, and launching new funds; monitoring the health of the existing fund lineup; researching, proposing, and implementing changes to the existing fund lineup; and coordinating these functions across five global jurisdictions. In 2016, Mr. Kleppe became the Global SMA Product Manager. His responsibilities included researching and defining the investment capabilities available to SMA (separately managed account) clients and overseeing the various organizational processes needed to support SMAs. He assumed his current role in 2017, and continues to work with SMAs. Mr. Kleppe earned a B.S. from The Pennsylvania State University and an M.B.A. Saint Joseph's University. In addition, he is a CFA® charterholder and is a member of the CFA Society of Philadelphia. CFA® and Chartered Financial Analyst® are registered trademarks owned by CFA Institute. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

One of the most popular questions we get from employers is what is going on with 401(k) or ERISA litigation, or the close cousin to the question, what is on the horizon that we should be aware of? To share some perspective on that and much more, I am happy to welcome Carl Engstrom, a partner with Nichols Kaster, a plaintiff's litigation firm who has secured over $100 million in ERISA settlements in the last few years. During our conversation, Carl does a great job sorting through some headlines and predictions that he agrees with and some that he does not agree with on the future direction of ERISA litigation. As you will hear, Carl is not shy and shares his candid insights and predictions so I won't steal his thunder. One thing before we get started, our podcast community continues to grow. Thank you for sharing the podcast with friends, colleagues or members of your professional network. As our audience continues to grow, it helps me attract great guests to share helpful insights with you! Guest Bio Carl F. Engstrom is a partner at Nichols Kaster, PLLP, a plaintiff's litigation firm located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As a founding member of Nichols Kaster's ERISA litigation group, Carl has been counsel of record in every ERISA case brought by the group since its inception in 2015. In that time, Nichols Kaster's ERISA litigation group has helped negotiate settlements totaling over $100 million on behalf of defined contribution plan participants harmed by fiduciary self-dealing, excessive fees, and imprudent retirement plan investments. Notable settlements include cases against Deutsche Bank, American Airlines, Allianz Asset Management of America, Fujitsu, and BB&T. Prior to entering the legal profession, Carl spent six years working as a financial advisor, providing retirement and investment advice to hundreds of clients, and earning the Certified Financial Planner™ designation, though he has not maintained his certification. Carl graduated magna cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School and earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, where he also graduated with honors. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Student loans have gotten a lot of attention recently. Whether it is due to the sheer number of loans and size of the outstanding debt, or due to the competition for talent, employers are weighing whether they should offer new benefit to help those who have them. Today, we take a little different view on student loan debt and delve into the impact they might have on the economy and unpack a few popular narratives in the marketplace. To provide the intellectual muscle to the conversation I was glad to have Scott Kimball, a portfolio manager for BMO Global Asset Management join me today. Scott does a great job helping explain the impact of student loan debt on the economy and creates the case for why employers should consider their impact on the employees, even if you don't have a lot of millennials. Also, don't miss his take on whether Student Loans are the next sub prime mortgages and stick around for Scott's thoughts on some other things he is concerned about that could pose a threat to the economy. Before we get started, we have a few more new episodes coming out in June before we take a little hiatus in July. During the short break, I will be thinking about ways to improve the podcast, kicking around future topics and looking for future guests. I would love to get feedback from our listeners. Please shoot me an email to [email protected] if you have something to share. Anything good, bad or just a note saying that you enjoy the show is appreciated. Guest Bio Scott Kimball, CFA Director & Portfolio Manager is responsible for the firm's investment policy and strategy and manages client portfolios. He joined BMO in 2007 and served as a research analyst prior to joining the portfolio management team in 2011. He is also a member of the management committee. Previously, Scott held positions at Merrill Lynch and other boutique investment firms. He began his career in the investment industry in 2003. Scott holds an M.B.A. from the University of Miami and a B.A. in international business from Stetson University. In addition, he is a CFA® charterholder. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

A few years ago, the idea that participants in 401(k) plans were going to keep their money in their retirement plans longer started to gain traction. Today, my guest Sue Walton, a SVP and Senior Retirement Strategist with The Capital Group shares how that idea got started and more. I start with sharing a few of my preconceived notions about how retirement plans work for retirees, Sue responds to a few cynical comments and then get into the meat of how to make your workplace retirement plan more retiree friendly and how that could help your company and employees. With some potential help on the way in the form of legislation, don't miss our conversation on the current state of retirement income and how employers could integrate that into their plans going forward. Finally, I stepped all over Sue's great wrap up, but i think it was worth it. Quick thought before we get started, next time you are on LInkedIn, be sure to follow the 401(k) Fridays Podcast page. I use that to announce new episodes, give you opportunities to ask questions of future guests and more. And, don't be shy. If you have a question you want me to ask a future guest, leave it in the comments or shoot me an email to [email protected]. Guest Bio Sue Walton is a senior defined contribution strategist at American Funds, part of Capital Group. She has 21 years of industry experience and has been with Capital Group for two years. Prior to joining Capital, Sue was a director at Towers Watson Investment Services. Before that, she was an investment consultant at Mercer Investment Consulting and Ellwood Associates. She holds an MBA from DePaul University with a concentration in finance and a bachelor's degree in business administration, economics and international business from Marquette University. Sue is based in Chicago. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday! Disclosure Investments are not FDIC-insured, nor are they deposits of or guaranteed by a bank or any other entity, so they may lose value. American Funds distributed by American Funds Distributors, Inc.

Thought it might be helpful to discuss a core retirement plan fiduciary concept, the duty to monitor. To lend some muscle to the conversation I was excited to welcome back Jim Scheinberg, the Managing Partner and Founder of North Pier Fiduciary Management. We kick off with one of the best explanations of what it means to be a fiduciary that I have heard and then we delve into the world what the fiduciary duty to monitor means, best practices for plan sponsors to follow and much more. Jim also has some interesting points about how M&A in the retirement industry ties into monitoring, and some important differences between the roles of benchmarking, RFIs and RFPs. Stick around for my wrap up this week to get an interesting story about one thing Jim and I had in common that we didn't realize. Guest Bio Born and raised in the North Suburbs of Chicago, Jim Scheinberg came to Southern California in 1987 to pursue his B.A. in Political Science at University of California, Los Angeles. He achieved the Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA®) designation in 2001 from The Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA®) in conjunction with the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania. He has also earned the Accredited Investment FiduciaryTM (AIF®) and Accredited Investment Fiduciary AnalystTM(AIFA®) designations, awarded by the Center for Fiduciary Studies, which is associated with the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business of the University of Pittsburgh. He also earned the PLANSPONSOR Retirement Professional designation (PRP) from the PLANSPONSOR Institute and sits on the Steering Committee of The Center for Due Diligence. He is a quoted resource to journalists, a regular guest expert on a syndicated radio and a regular speaker at industry conferences. Jim also regularly serves as a consulting expert for U.S. government regulatory agencies and as an expert witness for Federal ERISA litigation. Jim Scheinberg began his career in venture capital in 1990 moving to general securities with Smith Barney Harris Upham in 1992. He joined Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. in 1994 as an Associate in the Oppenheimer Consulting Group, the firm's institutional investment management consulting department, where he worked with sponsors of trustee-directed plans and other institutional clients. In 2001, Jim founded what would become the Corporate Services Group of Oppenheimer Co., Inc. (CSG), where he eventually held the position of Director and Senior Vice President. CSG was an industry pioneer in providing conflict free, fee-only investment consulting and fiduciary advocacy for institutional, participant-directed plan sponsors. In 2008, Jim and CSG Partner Brant Griffin founded North Pier Fiduciary Management LLC. His tenure in the industry has also included experience in hedging and monetization, corporate executive services, and corporate cash management. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

We break new ground today on the podcast as we talk about FOMO, catching falling knives, Uncle Warren and chewing glass. My guest today is John Allen, CFA the Chief Investment Officer at Aspirant. We also hit on some other great concepts such as why it is important to understand vs. observe what your investment managers are doing, thoughts on the impact of investment bubbles in the short, medium and long term. I also have a new word for my vocabulary, conflate, John makes some insightful observations about how that term applies to risk and return for some people which dovetails nicely into some other thoughts on whether some traditional guidance 401(k) participants get, still makes sense. Finally, John makes some not so rosy predictions for what the next seven to ten years could look like for investors and why that matters to 401(k) plans and participants. Not always fun to consider, but definitely worth the listen. Before we get started, a lot of the topics John and I cover on the podcast came from the quarterly newsletter John and his firm Aspiriant put out. If you want to check them out or subscribe, the link is below. Click on that and you can figure it out from there. Finally, be sure to catch my post episode wrap up for a few more interesting tidbits on this episode and what we have coming up in future episodes. http://aspiriant.com/fathom/insight/ Guest Bio John Allen joined Aspiriant in 2013 as Chief Investment Officer. As CIO, John is primarily responsible for leading the firm's overall Investment Strategy & Research Group, broadly consisting of twelve investment professionals. The group is responsible for asset allocation, portfolio construction, manager selection and risk management. John is also the Chair of the firm's Investment Committee and serves on a number of other committees. He has nearly twenty years of experience in investment management, investment banking, corporate finance advisory and business strategy consulting. Prior to joining the firm, John was a senior member of the client service team at Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo ("GMO"), which manages approximately $115 Billion across a wide-range of public equities, fixed income, hedge funds and asset allocation funds. In that role, John had primary responsibility for 80 clients and $6.5B in assets under management. Prior to joining GMO, John was the Head of Investments at a large family office in Los Angeles. There, John had responsibility for managing the firm's overall investment portfolio as well as its direct investments. John established his career working in the investment banking department at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and in the business consulting practice at Stern Stewart & Co. Throughout his career, John has served on the boards of directors of three private companies. John earned a Bachelor's of Science degree with high distinction from the Economics Department at the University of Virginia. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designation. He is also a member of the CFA Institute and CAIA Association. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

This episode is a companion episode to a similar one we released a few weeks about which focussed on the equity side of the conversation. Not require listening, but if this one caught your eye, you should check that one out as well. My guest today, John Bellows, PhD, a Portfolio Manager with Western Asset Management and a member of their US Broad Strategy Committee, the Global Investment Strategy Committee and the Global Portfolios team. We jump into the recent market action right out of the gate to help interpret some recent events and how they could impact fixed income investments in workplace retirement plans. We also hit on some topics that can cause confusion such as do we want inflation which makes things more expensive and want to avoid deflation which makes things less expensive. With the background set, John then shares some great input on evaluating the fixed income portion of investment menus. Be sure to stick around for his comments towards the end about the index vs. active conversation in the fixed income space. Guest Bio John L. Bellows, PhD, is a Portfolio Manager with Western Asset Management Company, LLC. Prior to joining the Firm in 2012, Mr. Bellows served at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, most recently as the Acting Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy. At Western Asset, he is a member of the US Broad Strategy Committee and the Global Investment Strategy Committee. In 2018 he took on an elevated role in the Global Portfolios team where he is a leading voice for US and global macro strategies. Mr. Bellows holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Dartmouth College, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude, and a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He also holds the CFA designation. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

The title for this episode might seem a little confusing, but after you listen to my conversation with Don Trone, CEO and Co-founder of 3Ethos it will make a lot more sense. This is Don's second visit to the podcast, if you missed his first one, Building a Stronger Retirement Plan Fiduciary, it is a great listen as well. Today we kick off with a quick post mortem on the DOL fiduciary rule and thoughts on the movements within some states to create their own version of a fiduciary rule. We also tackle a bigger question of whether you can regulate or legislate someone into being a good fiduciary, interesting response to an interesting question. Don also shares what he feels the future of fiduciary holds and shares input on robo-fiduciaries and if fee compression is impacting the fiduciary world. Finally, we also discuss how plan sponsors can keep their fiduciary roles in perspective while keeping their important day jobs. Guest Bio Don Trone is the CEO and one of the Co-founders of 3ethos, which conducts original research in the new field of Behavioral Governance (BG). BG is the follow-on to Behavioral Finance, except now the focus is on how the behavior of a fiduciary impacts the quality of retirement outcomes. Don Trone is the CEO and one of the Co-founders of 3ethos, which conducts original research in the new field of Behavioral Governance (BG). BG is the follow-on to Behavioral Finance, except now the focus is on how the behavior of a fiduciary impacts the quality of retirement outcomes. Don was the founding CEO of fi360; founder and President of the Foundation for Fiduciary Studies; and the first person to direct the Institute for Leadership at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Over the past three decades, Don has trained more than 10,000 investment fiduciaries on the subject of procedural prudence. In 2015 he was named by Investment Advisor magazine as the "Father of Fiduciary" and one of the 35 most influential people in the financial services industry. In 2003, he was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Labor to represent the investment counseling industry on the ERISA Advisory Council, and in 2007 he testified before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee on the fiduciary issues associated with the management of retirement plans. He is the author or co-author of ten books on the subject of fiduciary responsibility, portfolio management, and leadership. Don is a graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and served for ten years on active duty, most notably as a long-range search and rescue helicopter pilot. He has a Master's from The American College and has completed post-graduate studies in theology from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and Trinity Episcopal Seminary. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Today I welcome back Marcia Wagner, ERISA Attorney and founder of the Wagner Law Group, to tackle the not so straightforward lifecycle of a 401(k) or workplace retirement plan document. Logically we start at the beginning on what it takes to create a 401(k) plan document, and move through common steps to maintain a document and things that happen along the journey, and close with terminating a retirement plan. With several changes in rules, IRS programs and some general confusion in many of these areas, this was a fun and informative conversation that hopefully helps you as much as it did me! Guest Bio Marcia S. Wagner is the founder of The Wagner Law Group, a certified woman-owned and operated business and one of the nation's largest and most highly regarded boutique law firms, specializing in ERISA, employee benefits, executive compensation, employment, labor, human resources, personal law (estate planning, family and immigration) and investment management law. Ms. Wagner has been practicing employee benefits law for over 32 years. She founded The Wagner Law Group more than 20 years ago and is the Firm's Managing Partner. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell University and is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Ms. Wagner is an authority on employee benefits matters, including qualified and non-qualified plans, fiduciary issues, deferred compensation, and welfare benefit arrangements. Her experience in employee benefits includes plan design, drafting and preparation, compliance, tax planning and consultation on all aspects of ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code. She consults with law firms, employee benefits organizations, and corporate and public plan sponsors, and serves as an expert witness in ERISA litigation. She counsels plan sponsors on qualified plans, 403(b) and 457 plans, multiple employer plans (MEPs), IRAs, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), executive compensation arrangements and retiree medical benefits in matters involving plan operation and maintenance, plan terminations, mergers and acquisitions, tax treatment of plan participants, use of life insurance and annuities, and derisking of pension liabilities. Ms. Wagner also specializes in Title I of ERISA, and has obtained advisory opinions, information letters and prohibited transaction exemptions from the U.S. Department of Labor. She handles fiduciary matters impacting plan sponsors, investment and other fiduciary committees, investment managers and advisors, recordkeepers, broker-dealers, banks, and other financial services firms. Ms. Wagner advises clients on the avoidance and rectification of prohibited transactions, the development of compliance programs, and investment policies. She is a renowned expert in issues concerning pension plan investments and fiduciary issues, and her opinion has been sought by noted authorities in the employee benefits area, including governmental agencies. Ms. Wagner works on Department of Labor, IRS and PBGC audits of plans as well as of financial institutions that service plans, and has negotiated numerous favorable closing agreements. She was appointed Chair of the Employee Plans subcommittee of the IRS Tax Exempt & Government Entities Advisory Committee and received that agency's highest honor. She is a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel and is the recipient of more than 50 professional honors. Finally, Ms. Wagner has written hundreds of articles and 15 books. She is a highly sought after lecturer, and is widely quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Pension & Investments. She has been a guest on Fox, CNN, Bloomberg, and NBC. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

This episode is inspired by some recent conversations I have had with workplace retirement plan or fiduciary committees and some hesitancy they have had in speaking with managers of invests they offer in their plans. My guest today is John Forrest, Head of the Research Practice at Russell Investments, and to say the least, he has a little experience in this area. In my experience, some members of retirement plan committees have avoided speaking with managers as they don't feel equipped to ask questions, or don't feel they would be able to understand what a manager would share. John does a great job sharing why it is valuable to speak with investment managers, questions you can ask, and things to listen for that can shed light on their people, process and perspectives. We also talk about different questions or things to listen for when speaking with an equity vs. a fixed income manager, how the numbers or results are important but not the whole story, and why it might be more important than ever to take time to speak with a manager of investment you are considering replacing or adding to your investment menu. Guest Bio John Forrest is head of Russell Investment's global manager research practice. His role is to guideand support the manager research effort to ensure it continues to be an industry standard for identifying and recommending the very best managers globally. His role includes defining andrefining Russell Investments' manager research process, training analysts in the art and science ofmanager research, developing and improving analytical tools and a variety of other activities that support, evaluate and improve the manager research practice. As part of his tenure at Russell Investments, which began in 1997, John has spent more than a decade researching, interviewing, evaluating and recommending professional money managers forRussell Investments' Funds and clients. He has applied his expertise in a range of asset classes and in multiple geographic regions spanning equity, fixed income, currency and property. John has also managed consulting client relationships and participated in specialist projects for selected clients in his areas of expertise. Prior to joining Russell Investments, John was a senior analyst managing the BHP Superannuation Fund, a major Australian pension fund. John spent the early part of his career gaining practical experience working as a securities analyst and portfolio manager for a global money manager, specializing in equities, derivatives and property securities. John has presented lectures to a variety of securities industry forums on topics including the investment process, the art of manager research, applied portfolio management and performance measurement. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

This week we take our first glimpse into self directed brokerage or brokerage accounts linked to workplace retirement plans. Historically this has been a confusing and polarizing topic amongst retirement plan sponsors and the retirement industry. To help with the conversation, I have Nathan Voris, Managing Director for Business Strategy of Charles Schwab Retirement Plan Services. During our conversation, we tackle a statement popularized in a movie classic that probably applies to how some people view these accounts, we discuss the basics and mechanics of self-directed brokerage accounts, some creative things that plan sponsors are doing with them and trends to keep an eye out for in the future. This episode focuses mostly on the operational side, my conversation with Nathan also has inspired me to bring back to popular podcast guests to discuss the fiduciary and regulatory side of the conversation in the near future. Guest Bio Nathan Voris joined Schwab Retirement Plan Services in 2016. He is responsible for leading the client experience, platform, and product development strategy to help retirement sponsors, consultants, and participants meet their goals. Mr. Voris previously worked at Morningstar, where he held several roles within Morningstar Investment Management, including portfolio management and asset allocation responsibilities. His most recent focus there was on product development and strategy for the retirement solutions, including wellness, advice and managed accounts, and target date solutions. He was also a consultant with R.V. Kuhns & Associates, where he worked with defined contribution plan sponsors to help improve asset allocation and solve other needs of plan participants. In that role, Mr. Voris was responsible for all aspects of portfolio construction, including asset allocation and manager selection/due diligence for plan sponsors, retirement plan providers, and asset managers. He began his career working for defined contribution plans, including Wal-Mart and the Ohio Public Employees' Retirement System. Mr. Voris has earned a bachelor's in education from the Ohio State University. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 150 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Numerous guests have hinted at the capital market forecasts they or others have made with the common theme of anticipating lower returns than we had in the last decade. I thought it might be timely and helpful to steer into this and talk about what that could mean for workplace retirement plan investment menus. With me today, I have Andy Pyne, Executive Vice President and Equity Strategist at PIMCO to dive into the equity piece of the conversation. We start with a quick discussion on the go forward predictions about growth and what that means for the markets, what late cycle means, address some of the challenges active managers had in the last decade and what the next decade could mean for them and whether plan sponsors as well as participants are performance chasers. Andy also shares some specific investment concepts workplace retirement plans should consider going forward. Guest Bio Mr. Pyne is an executive vice president and strategist in the Newport Beach office, focusing on PIMCO's equity strategies. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2011, he was a managing director and client portfolio manager for fundamental equity at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, serving as a member of the growth team investment committee. Before joining Goldman Sachs in 1997, Mr. Pyne was responsible for product management at Van Kampen Investments. He has 26 years of investment experience and holds an undergraduate degree in business/economics from Wheaton College in Illinois. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred and fifty prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Today we explore the changing landscape of Third Party Administrators, better known as TPAs. With me, I am excited to have Jerry Bramlett, Head of TPA Solutions for Acensus. During our wide ranging and insightful conversion we cover the current realities and challenges of TPAs, why consolidation wave has begun and how will the business and service models of TPAs either change or stay the same going forward. We also hit on a few questions I received from listeners such as the impact of fee compression on TPAs, whether their will be any local TPAs going forward and how do things like ERISA 3(16) fiduciary services and payroll integration evolve. Fun stuff! Guest Bio Jerry Bramlett was the Founder, President and CEO of The 401(k) Company (1983), which was sold to Charles Schwab in 2007. At the time of the sale, The 401(k) Company had 350 employees and served over 100 clients with approximately $25 billion in plan assets and more than 425,000 plan participants. After the sale of The 401(k) Company Mr. Bramlett assumed the role of President and CEO of BenefitStreet, a financially troubled firm with 7,000 retirement plans under administration, over 400 employees and 10 subsidiaries. After taking BenefitStreet through a restructuring process, Mr. Bramlett and Peter Lynch, Vice Chairman of Fidelity Investments, acquired the assets of BenefitStreet and founded a new firm, NextStep, which was sold to The Newport Group in 2010. Between 2010 and 2018, Mr. Bramlett has been engaged in industry consulting with some of the largest defined contribution investment advisory and asset management firms in the country. In 2018, Mr. Bramlett became head of Ascensus TPA Solutions, which has acquired over 20 TPA firms since 2016. These firms, which offer services through 41 locations across the country, administer over 34,000 retirement plans. Mr. Bramlett holds a bachelor's degree in Sociology from Southern Methodist University 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

The worst nightmare of many retirement plan fiduciaries is to find themselves the target of a class action ERISA or 401(k) lawsuit. My guests today, are intimately familiar with that feeling and more importantly, lived to tell about it. Returning to the podcast I have Jamie Fleckner, ERISA Litigation Chair at Goodwin and Diane Gallagher, the Chair of the American Century Corporate Retirement Plan Committee. During this fascinating conversation you will hear how the 401(k) class action against American Century got started, what the plaintiffs were alleging, what it was like to be personally named in a multi-million dollar lawsuit, defending fiduciary decisions at trial and much more. This episode is probably one of the more timely, informational and even emotional ones to date, enjoy! Guest Bios Diane Gallagher is the Chair of the American Century Investments Corporate Retirement Plan Committee. She is responsible for developing content and value-add programs for clients and is also a spokesperson on retirement investing. Diane originally joined American Century Investments in 1995 and developed communication programs for clients of J.P. Morgan/American Century Retirement Plan Services. Prior to returning to American Century in 2012, Diane was vice president, Retirement Insights for J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Previously, she led product marketing for J.P. Morgan Retirement Plan Services and directed the participant communications and education department. Prior to 1995, Diane served as media relations manager for the Mutual Fund Education Alliance (MFEA). She also worked in Corporate Communications and Marketing for Sinai Health Care System in Detroit, Michigan. Diane earned a bachelor's degree in communications, magna cum laude, from the University of Detroit. She is accredited by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and has earned many awards for her communication programs. She is a Board member of the Hands & Hearts Auxiliary for Children for Children's Mercy Hospital and is a member of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce's Centurions Leadership Program, class of 2019. She is Past-President of the Board of Directors of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Kansas City and currently serves on its Advisory Board. In 2007, Diane was named one of Kansas City's "40 Under 40" leaders by Ingram's magazine. A frequent conference speaker, she holds Series 7, 63 and 24 licenses. Jamie Fleckner is a partner in Goodwin's Financial Industry practice and Chair of its ERISA Litigation practice. Mr. Fleckner represents clients in a wide array of complex commercial litigation, with a focus on financial services and products, including investment management. He regularly litigates class and derivative actions under ERISA, the Investment Company Act of 1940, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and related federal and state laws. His practice also focuses on regulatory investigations and governmental proceedings, and has represented clients before the U.S. Department of Labor, Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of Justice, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and state authorities. Mr. Fleckner's success in litigating cutting edge legal issues has been profiled in The American Lawyer's Big Suits and Litigator of the Week features. According to Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business where Mr. Fleckner has been selected for inclusion since 2014, Mr. Fleckner is "at the top of his game," and is "a rare thought leader" on ERISA litigation. Since 2015, he has been recognized as a leading lawyer in the list of Who's Who Legal: Pensions and Benefits. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Maybe its just that time of year again, but a few articles have popped up recently about how we need to overhaul 401(k) plans, or how we need to scrap the 401(k), you get the picture. However, my guest today, Sarah Holden, Senior Director of Retirement & Investor Research at the Investment Company Institute has some powerful data which tells a different story. While few would suggest that 401(k) plans are perfect, Sarah and ICI have spent years delving into what people really think about their 401(k) plans. I won't spoil this too much, but safe to say Sarah will leave you feeling good about 401(k) plans and the benefits they offer employees and the positive feelings they evoke even from people who don't have one yet. Guest Bio Sarah Holden, Investment Company Institute (ICI) senior director of retirement and investor research, leads the Institute's research efforts on investor demographics and behavior and retirement and tax policy. Holden, who joined ICI in 1999, heads efforts to track trends in household retirement saving activity and ownership of funds as well as other investments inside and outside retirement accounts. She is responsible for analysis of 401(k) plan participant activity using data collected in a collaborative effort with the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), known as the EBRI/ICI Participant-Directed Retirement Plan Data Collection Project. In addition, she oversees The IRA Investor Database™, which contains data on more than 17 million IRA investors and allows analysis of IRA investors' contribution, rollover, conversion, and withdrawal activity, and asset allocation. Before joining ICI, Holden served as an economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. She has a PhD in economics from the University of Michigan and a BA in mathematics and economics, cum laude, from Smith College. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

It's been a little while since we have focussed an episode on plan design of behavioral finance. So, no time like the present to make that happen! To provide the mental muscle behind the conversation I was excited to have Steve Shu, a Managing Principal at Digitai and a Researcher, at the City University of London. As an expert in behavioral science and someone who has worked with the likes of Schlomo Bernartzi and other pioneers in the field, he brings some current and unique insights on how behavioral finance continues to drive retirement plan design, technology and influences retirement outcomes. We start with an update on the auto features, move to nudges, predictive technology, deaccumulation, digital fiduciary concept and much more. Be sure not to miss Steve's thoughts on democratizing of behavioral science. Guest Bio Steve Shu specializes in incubating new initiatives and business lines with a primary focus on services, technology, and behavioral science. He serves as a Managing Principal at Digitai, a behavioral economics consultancy and innovation firm. Steve has consulted to or had management roles at organizations such as The Voya Behavioral Finance Institute for Innovation, Allianz Global Investors Center for Behavioral Finance, Allscripts, Nortel Business Consulting, PRTM Management Consultants (acquired by PwC), and numerous startups. Steve holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and both an ME and BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. In parallel with Steve's work with Digitai, he conducts behavioral finance research as part of City, University of London, Cass Business School. Steve has put his decades of experience into his solo-authored books, Inside Nudging: Implementing Behavioral Science Initiatives and The Consulting Apprenticeship. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Whether you are passing or failing your discrimination testing, this is a great episode to help get your arms around some of the key concepts and fundamentals behind coverage and discrimination testing. My guest is Doug Van Galder, a Compliance Analyst with the ERISA Law Firm Boutwell Fay, who has worked with countless employers over his 35 year career to help them navigate the sometimes challenging testing waters. We start with the basics, discuss strategies to improve testing results and believe it or not, we don't even mention the concept of safe harbor until the very end! As you'll hear, its all about getting the math to work in your favor! Guest Bio Douglas Van Galder is a Compliance Analyst who is committed to the favorable tax-qualified status and success of the private and public pension systems in America. Therefore, Doug assists Boutwell Fay LLP Clients and their service providers in properly administering retirement plans that remain compliant and deliver the intended benefits. Boutwell Fay LLP is a highly rated, women-owned law Firm specializing in employee benefits and ERISA. We have seven Attorneys with Offices in Newport Beach, CA and New York City, NY. Boutwell Fay LLP is the only boutique law firm in Orange County, CA that focuses exclusively on employee benefits and ERISA. The Firm provides high quality legal services normally associated with large law firms, while its smaller size allows us to be more accessible to our Clients and more responsive to their needs. The Firm helps Clients with legal issues that arise in the context of: Qualified and Non-Qualified Plans, Health and Welfare Plans, Plan Corrections and Government Audits, ERISA and Fiduciary Consulting and ERISA Claims and Disputes. In his capacities as a Compliance Analyst, Third Party Administrator (TPA), Record Keeper, Executive, Plan Sponsor/Trustee and Fiduciary Administrator, Doug has amassed 34 years of experience in the intricate business development, compliance and consulting aspects of retirement plans. Most recently, Doug was an Executive Vice President with both QBI, LLC and Fiduciary Administration, LLC serving as Defined Contribution Practice Leader and a Fiduciary Administrator, respectively. He previously founded and was the President of Strategic Pension Services, Inc. (SPS), where he led expert teams of Consultants and Administrators. SPS was acquired by QBI, LLC in January of 2015. Doug is an Enrolled Retirement Plan Agent and earned the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries' designation of Qualified Pension Administrator. He is also the President for the Orange County Chapter of the Western Pension & Benefits Council. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Today we gaze into the future and explore how retirement service providers business models and product offerings to employers and employees could evolved in the coming years. My guest, Dick Darian, the founder and CEO of Wise Rhino Group brings his tremendous enthusiasm for the topic and his years of diverse experience leading firms like BlackRock, MFS and ING, now Voya to the conversation. Be forewarned, there is definitely some inside baseball and with as busy as Dick is these days, I had to corner him on his cell phone so the audio is good, but not great. However, his insights, the most important part are fantastic. We hit on the ongoing impact of technology in retirement services, how private equity and venture capital could disrupt the industry, whether outside players could enter the business and what that would mean, and the ultimate customer the retirement industry is after. Guest Bio Dick is the founder and CEO of Wise Rhino Group, which provides M&A Consulting and Advisory services to firms focused in the retirement space. Prior Dick managed BlackRock's DCIO business. He began his career as a retirement consultant with Williams Thacher and Rand where he was a partner and DC national practice leader. He also led DC distribution at MFS Investment Management and ING. Prior to joining BlackRock, Dick was a co-founder and on the leadership team at National Retirement Partners. Dick lives in Charleston SC with his wife Mary. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Today we take leave the world of 401(k) plans and enter the parallel universe of nonqualified deferred compensation (NQDC) plans. This is a new topic on the podcast and was happy to have Will Tysse and Taylor French, Partners and co-chairs of the employee benefits and executive compensation practice at the law firm McGuireWoods join me. This is a broad topic so we started picking away at it by discussing why employers start nonqualified plans, how they are similar and different from 401(k) plans and some pitfalls to be aware of right out of the gates. There is also some discussion of a Rabbi. Guest Bios G. William Tysse - Will is co-chair of the McGuireWoods employee benefits and executive compensation group. He focuses his practice on employee benefits and executive compensation. He has extensive experience advising public, private and nonprofit clients on all aspects of non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements, including excess and supplemental retirement plans, cash and equity incentive plans, and employment and severance agreements. Taylor French - Taylor is co-chair of the McGuireWoods employee benefits and executive compensation group. His employee benefits practice covers a wide-range of traditional executive compensation and employee benefits matters along with a variety of inter-disciplinary practice areas and industries that are affected by executive compensation and employee benefits laws. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

If you are looking for a some timely insights on where the economy and markets head from here, my conversation today with Dr. David Kelly, CFA Managing Director and Chief Global Strategist for J.P. Morgan Asset Management hits the mark. We cover arguments for why the bull market may continue and why a bear market could set in. We also share some thought provoking points for individuals sitting in the proverbial conference room making decisions about their investment menu design. And towards the end, don't miss a great new quote, well it was from a Greek philosopher so not sure if that counts as new but, it involves a man and a river, pretty good analogy for where we are today in the market and economy. Guest Bio Dr. David Kelly is the Chief Global Strategist and Head of the Global Market Insights Strategy Team for J.P. Morgan Asset Management. With over 20 years of experience, David provides valuable insight and perspective on the economy and markets to the institutional investor and financial advisor global communities. David's research focuses on investment implications of an evolving economic environment. He has written extensively on all aspects of the U.S. economy and his proprietary U.S. economic forecasting model helps shape his views on both the economic landscape and prospective asset class returns. He currently sits on JP Morgan Fund's operating committee. Throughout his career, David has developed a unique ability to explain complex economic and market issues in a language that financial professionals can use to communicate to their clients. He is a keynote speaker at many national investment conferences and a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, and other financial media outlets. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan Asset Management, David served as Economic Advisor to Putnam Investments. He has also served as a senior strategist/economist at SPP Investment Management, Primark Decision Economics, Lehman Brothers and DRI/McGraw-Hill. David is a CFA® charterholder. He also has a Ph.D and M.A. in Economics from Michigan State University and a B.A. in Economics from University College Dublin in the Republic of Ireland. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

I don't know who said it first, but every company is a technology company. That becomes very evident during my conversation with Tom Conlon of Betterment, a start-up fintech company or what some also refer to as a Robo Advisor in the 401(k) space. Tom does a great job sharing how technology enabled companies are looking to disrupt the 401(k) space for companies and plans of all sizes. You will hear him comment on different strategies they use to attract clients, how technology is drives their business and his responses to some criticism tech enabled 401(k) providers have received. Guest Bio Tom Conlon is Head of Client Relations at Betterment for Business, a technology-led 401(k) provider that aims to deliver better retirement outcomes and personalized advice. Tom has spent the last 10 years in the retirement services industry where he has held various positions leading teams and helping plan sponsors accomplish their goals for their retirement plans. His focus has always been on helping plan sponsors simplify plan design and administration to help achieve broader goals for impactful participant outcomes. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

The mere thought of a 401(k) lawsuit can send shivers down the spine of even the most experienced retirement plan fiduciary. However, when you have a grasp on why workplace retirement plans are being sued, how the economics of a lawsuit work and what you can do to make the job of a plaintiff's attorney harder, the risk can be a little easier to manage. For answers to these and more questions, I thought it was time to invite Jerry Schlichter, the plaintiff's attorney who has sued numerous 401(k) and 403(b) plans around the country and even successfully argued a 401(k) case before the US Supreme Court back to the podcast to share his thoughts. I was also able to work in several questions from our listeners into the episode. If you missed your opportunity to submit a question be sure are one of our email subscribers, we often send announcements out about future guests and give you the opportunity to share your questions in advance. Go to 401kfridays.com/subscribe today to take care of that. If after listening to this episode you feel like you need a little fiduciary refresher, check out last week's episode with Jason Roberts. Some good points there to help you sleep better and keep the boogeyman away. Guest Bio Jerry is founding and managing partner of the firm. He has been repeatedly elected by his peers for inclusion in "Best Lawyers in America" and "Lawyer of the Year" and is listed in the 2019 edition. Jerry has been designated legal counsel for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers for many years and is currently designated legal counsel for the United Transportation Union and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He has represented railroad workers in trials in many states and has had record-setting jury verdicts in numerous jurisdictions. He obtained a verdict of $27 million for the widow and children of a St. Louis firefighter for a defective breathing apparatus which caused the firefighter's death. This verdict, which was increased to $40.4 million with pre and post judgment interest, was the highest jury verdict in Missouri in 2007 and one of the highest in the United States. The entire amount was collected after appeal. He has also obtained multiple precedent-setting judgments against railroads, including successfully requiring a railroad and the Federal Railroad Administration to modify rules on certification of railroad engineers; successfully obtaining a permanent injunction against the Union Pacific Railroad on behalf of all of its employees, which stopped the railroad's practice of interfering with employees' ability to pursue injury claims; and obtaining the first and only jury verdict in the United States in which a jury determined that a locomotive was not crashworthy, resulting in a jury verdict of $4.75 million, which was the highest verdict against that railroad by an injured employee in its history. Throughout his career, he has also handled major precedent-setting class action and mass tort cases on behalf of individuals. Jerry has been featured in numerous national publications, including the New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal, for his and the firm's success in pioneering claims of excessive fees in 401(K) plans and obtaining precedent-setting results involving claims of excessive fees against large employers, and for the reduction in fees his cases have caused throughout the 401(k) industry. He and the firm have obtained settlements in these 401(k) excessive fee cases of more than $300 million for employees and retirees, in addition to significant improvements in their 401(k) plans; in total, this relief has been valued at more than $1.5 billion. He also was lead attorney for the firm in the first and only full trial of an excessive fee case in the country, resulting in a verdict of $36 million. In recent rankings of the most influential people in the 401(k) industry by 401kWire.com, Jerry has repeatedly ranked in the top 5. According to a recent article published in Reuters, the CEO of Brightscope, an independent company which evaluates 401(k) plans, stated, speaking of Mr. Schlichter's national impact on 401(k) plan fees, that "[h]is impact has been humongous." The New York Times has referred to Jerry as "a Lone Ranger of the 401(k)'s," and he has been referred to by Investment News as "public enemy no. 1 for 401(k) profiteers" and by Chief Investment Officer as "the industry's most feared attorney." In describing the effect of his work on behalf of employees in 401(k) plans, the Wall Street Journal referred to it as being "Schlicterized". In 2014 and 2015, Mr. Schlichter's firm obtained the two largest 401(k) excessive fee settlements in history. The first was a settlement for $62 million against Lockheed Martin on behalf of Lockheed Martin employees, which included significant changes to the Lockheed Martin 401(k) plan. The second was a settlement for $57 million from Boeing, which likewise included significant non-monetary

Happy New Year and here is looking forward to another successful year on the 401(k) Fridays Podcast! We kick things off with my conversation with Jason Roberts, ERISA Attorney and the Founder & CEO of the Pension Resource Institute. As a prior and early podcast guest, the two prior episodes we did are still very relevant. While you don't need to listen to them prior to this conversation, they are good to check out when you have a minute. Prior Episodes: Are You Running Your 401(k) Committee Meeting Wrong & A Misunderstood Risk In Your 401(k) Plan This time we connect on what has or hasn't changed relating to fiduciary governance since we last got together, we also delve into the three distinct buckets of fiduciary duties Jason recommends plan sponsors think about, what the Department of Labor has on their focus list, the double edge sword of fee disclosure, everyone's favorite fiduciary topic, target date funds, and some unique insights on "proprietary" investments. Jason also hits on a the hot topic of missing participants and a few investment policy statement tips and a few other nuggets. Guest Bio Jason C. Roberts, Esq. is the founder and CEO of the Pension Resource Institute (PRI), a consulting firm that delivers strategic, compliance, training and technology-based solutions to financial institutions, retirement plan sponsors and asset managers. He is also a founder and shareholder at Retirement Law Group (RLG), a law firm specializing in ERISA and investment-related matters. Prior to founding PRI and RLG, Jason was a partner and co-chair of the Financial Services Group at a leading ERISA law firm and the head of the Investment Fiduciary practice for a prominent securities industry legal defense firm. Jason has been repeatedly recognized as one of the "100 Most Influential in Defined Contribution" by the 401(k) Wire and a "Rising Star" by SuperLawyers Magazine. In 2015, he was selected by InvestmentNews as one of the "Top 40 Advisors and Associated Professionals under 40" in the financial planning industry. Jason has published numerous articles focusing on ERISA and securities compliance, fiduciary best practices and is a frequent speaker at retirement plan and financial industry conferences. He is a contributing author and faculty member for the Practicing Law Institute (PLI). Jason is also currently serving a two-year term as an advisor to the finance committee for the Beach Cities Health District. Jason received his B.S.B.A. in Finance & Banking from the University of Missouri and his J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law. He is a graduate of FINRA's Compliance Boot Camp and has obtained the designation of Accredited Investment Fiduciary Analyst™ from the Center for Fiduciary Studies. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

With market volatility picking up and unique things happening on almost a daily basis, my conversation today with Jeff Shulze, CFA and Investment Strategist withClear Bridge investments is both timely and full of perspective. In classic 401(k) Fridays Podcast fashion be define a few important terms and concepts that keep popping up in the headlines and offer some perspective on how they are moving markets, the economy or both. Jeff also offers a few points of optimism and his input on what could impact the markets in 2019 and beyond. Guest Bio Jeffrey is an Investment Strategist and oversees capital market and economic research, contributing thought leadership on these topics that is frequently quoted in the financial media, including the Wall Street Journal, CNBC and CNN. He joined ClearBridge Investments in 2014 and has 13 years of investment industry experience. Prior to joining ClearBridge, Jeffrey was a Portfolio Specialist at Lord Abbett & Co., LLC. He received a BS in Finance from Rutgers University. He is a member of the CFA Institute. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Stable value funds, what are they, how do they work and what should you consider if you have one, thinking about moving to a new one or making the switch from a money market account. My guest, Bob Madore, a Vice President and Stable Value Portfolio Manager with T. Rowe Price answers these questions and much more. I start out with a pretty pointed question right out of the gate that sets the tone for the rest of the conversation. We also cover in great detail the impact of interest rates on stable value funds, why managers have been enforcing their exit provisions and clarify some confusing terms and concepts around stable value. This is a must listen and very timely. Guest Bio Bob Madore is a portfolio manager in the Fixed Income Division at T. Rowe Price. Mr. Madore has lead portfolio management responsibilities for the Stable Value Strategy as well as several large Stable Asset Management team accounts. He is a vice president of T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., and T. Rowe Price Trust Company. Mr. Madore has 37 years of investment experience, 16 of which have been with T. Rowe Price. Prior to joining the firm in 2001, he was a senior vice president and portfolio manager at Putnam Investments. At Putnam, Mr. Madore had senior-level responsibility for its stable value business, which included Putnam's Stable Value Fund. Before joining Putnam, he was a founding partner at Fiduciary Capital Management. Mr. Madore earned a B.A. from the University of Connecticut. He served on the Board of Directors of the Stable Value Investment Association from 2002 to 2007 and again from 2015 to present, currently serving his fourth three-year term. Mr. Madore also is an active member of its Accounting and Government Relations Committees. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

When we get the question of "What is the best strategy for me to save for retirement" and it comes for an entrepreneur, the answer is seldom as simple as it might seem. So, where and how do you start? We thought it would be helpful to cover a few key concepts and then follow the progression of an entrepreneur along their journey from a "solopreneur" with an idea or inspiration for a business to experiencing some success, hiring employees, scaling and eventually selling the business and weave in along the way how different retirement plan strategies could potentially support their personal and business goals along the way. While I know some in our audience are not necessarily entrepreneurs, however I bet you know someone who is or maybe you might be one down the road! Be sure to share with your friends, colleagues or social networks that might have entrepreneurs, sole proprietors or business owners who could benefit! They can easily find the podcast on iTunes, their favorite podcast app by searching 401(k) Fridays or on the web at 401kfridays.com/Shelton. ​Finally, This episode came about because of several questions from our listeners and some recent industry conversations I was a part of. If you have questions or a topic that you think could make for a great future episode, please shoot us an email to [email protected]. Guest Bio Patrick is the Managing Member of Benefit Plans Plus and has more than 25 years of retirement plan industry experience in banking/trust, insurance, and third party administrative environments. He is responsible for innovating and executing the firm's business plan. Additionally, he specializes in financial advisor relations, including 401k sales prospecting presentations, vendor searches, and fiduciary consulting. ​ Patrick's reputation as a nationally recognized industry thought leader has allowed him to give back through various platforms in the media, speaking at industry events, and participating on various panelist presentations. ​ Additionally, Patrick serves on the American Funds, Transamerica, and Lincoln TPA leadership roundtables. He is also a board member and past President of the National Institute of Pension Administrators (NIPA). ​ Patrick was the first recipient of Brown Smith Wallace's prestigious Founder's Award, which recognizes top employees for excellence in leadership and contribu on to firm growth since 2003. ​ A graduate of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, Patrick holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business/Committee Plan. ​ He has also earned the Group Benefits Associate (GBA) designation from the International Foundation of Employee Benefits Plans Certified Employee Benefit Specialist (CEBS) program. Patrick also holds a Life and Health Insurance License in the state of Missouri and is a member of the Financial Planning Association. ​ As a youth, Patrick had two separate basketball coaches that were former NBA players, and he also played college basketball. Patrick is also a fan of fantasy/ SIFI.

This is a pretty straightforward episode, Collective Investment Trusts, or CITs are more widely available as options for plan fiduciaries and their service providers to utilize in their investment line-ups, they are still misunderstood by many. To help inform the conversation I have Rob Barnett, Vice President of Wilmington Trust and Head of their Institutional Retirement Sales & Service. I am not going to spoil what the one question is that all retirement plans need to ask, but what you will hear is Rob has a great deal to say about what a Collective Investment Trust is, how they differ from mutual funds and helps dispel some common concerns and misperceptions employers and service partners have. In the current environment which is hyper sensitive to fees, we also discuss how CITs are many times able to offer lower fees for a similar investment strategy than the comparable mutual fund. Guest Bio Rob Barnett manages and provides leadership for the institutional retirement sales and service teams. Additionally, he is responsible for national and regional key account relationships. Rob is a subject matter expert in collective investment trusts, retirement advisory solutions, and trust and custody services. He has over a decade of industry experience, with more than half of those spent with Wilmington Trust, N.A. focused on the institutional retirement services market. Mr. Barnett earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Finance from Washington State University. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Today is a real treat, not only is this a timely episode based on current market conditions but we welcome back Rob Arnott, the Founder & Chairman of Research Affiliates who manages billions of dollars and who for the third time, shares his insights with us on the podcast. If you have missed any of our prior conversations go check them out after you finish this one, in 2016 we talked about whether Third Pillar Investment Belong In Your 401(k) Plan, then in 2017 we talked about Avoiding the Bubble in Complacency and this year doesn't disappoint. With the recent volatility in the financial markets, Rob shares his thoughts on interest rates, inflation, market valuations and how diversification is a double edged sword. We also hit on a few important topics such as smart beta, factor investing and the challenges that come with potential low investment returns in the future. I won't steal his thunder, trust me this is a good one. Guest Bio Rob Arnott is the founder and chairman of the board of Research Affiliates. He is also portfolio manager on the PIMCO All Asset and All Asset All Authority family of funds and the PIMCO RAE™ suite of funds. Over his career, Rob has endeavored to bridge the worlds of academic theorists and financial markets, challenging conventional wisdom and searching for solutions that add value for investors. He has pioneered several unconventional portfolio strategies that are now widely applied, including tactical asset allocation, global tactical asset allocation, tax-advantaged equity management, and the Fundamental Index approach to investing. His success in doing so has resulted in a reputation as one of the world's most provocative practitioners and respected financial analysts. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Maybe you're are like me, you have heard the term blockchain before, but if someone asked you to define it, you would have a tough time. Hopefully after you listen to my conversation with Micheal Barry, an author and President of O3 Plan Advisory Services, you will have a better idea of what blockchain is, and how it could impact 401(k) and other workplace retirement plans in the future. During our conversation we hit on distributed ledger technology and how it relates to blockchain, how providers will use blockchain in the future & the issues that could come up. We also hit on bitcoin and how it does or doesn't relate to blockchain as they seem to be used in the same sentence often times and share some thoughts on the balance between privacy and universal data. We touch on a ton of new topics here and hopefully do it in a way that won't leave you with a headache. Guest Bio Michael P. Barry is a senior consultant at October Three and President of O3 Plan Advisory Services LLC, which provides retirement plan regulatory analysis targeted at plan sponsors and those who provide services to them. Plan Advisory Services publishes analyses of regulatory developments affecting private employer defined benefit and defined contribution plans, focusing on the challenges, opportunities, and consequences for sponsors that regulatory changes present. Mike has had over 40 years' experience in the benefits field, in law and consulting firms, concentrating on the regulation of private employer DB and DC retirement plans. Beginning law practice in 1976, the year that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) became effective, Mike has worked with and studied the evolving complexities of regulation in this heavily regulated field. Before founding Plan Advisory Services in 1998, Mike was Managing Director at Bankers Trust and, before that, a New York benefits partner at LeBeouf, Lamb, Greene & McRae. He writes a regular column for PLANSPONSOR magazine ("Barry's Pickings"). Mike blogs at moneyvstime.com, and you can follow him on Twitter @PlanAdvisorySvc. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

From time to time we will take a side trip off the 401(k) path and explore other related topics. Today is a great example of this where we take a minute to explore the 401(k) cousins if you will, in 403(b) and 457 plans. My guest, Sandy Blair is a Director and CALSTRS or the California Teachers Retirement System and a board member at the NAGDCA, or the National Association of Governmental Defined Contribution Administrators. As you will hear, while there are some similarities among governmental plans and their cousins in the corporate world, there are also some important and material differences. We also hit on some important topics and trends we have talked about in many prior episodes such as fees, the use of auto features, fiduciary responsibility and RFPs that have some different nuances to them in the governmental plan world. Finally, Sandy also highlights the resources NAGDCA has to offer anyone who finds themselves in the world of governmental plans, specifically some highlights of next week's National Retirement Security Week. Guest Bio Ms. Blair began her CalSTRS management career in 2009 in the client outreach and guidance business area, where she was instrumental in establishing the model of CalSTRS first Member Service Center in West Sacramento. She became a field manager, overseeing centers in West Sacramento, Glendale and Santa Clara. Under Ms. Blair's leadership, the CalSTRS defined contribution plan, Pension2®, experienced tremendous growth. It currently administers nearly $600 million in assets on behalf of more than 10,000 plan participants. Prior to joining CalSTRS, Ms. Blair worked in the private sector in consumer banking, finance and tax preparation. She holds a Bachelor of Science in business administration and finance from California State University, Sacramento. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Do the largest 0.1% of workplace retirement plans in the country or the "Mega Plans" do things the same as the other 99.9% of plans? As you will hear from my guest, Charlie Nelson, CEO of Retirement & Employee Benefits of VOYA Financial, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. I had a few technical issues and distractions on my end to deal with right before we got started but once we got going this is a fast paced conversation where we hit on some topics things you might expect us to talk about when it comes to what mega retirement plans trends, but we also delve into on a few important topics you might not be thinking about like helping employees figure out what the next best financial decision for them is, whether the prevalence of 401(k) lawsuits in large plans influence their decision making and how some trends in the large market are actually influenced by the small market. Guest Bio Charles Nelson is chief executive officer of Retirement and Employee Benefits for Voya Financial, Inc. (NYSE: VOYA), which helps Americans plan, invest and protect their savings — to get ready to retire better. In his role, Nelson oversees Tax-Exempt and Corporate Markets and Retail Wealth Management, which comprise the company's workplace and individual retirement businesses, including 401(k), 403(b) and 457 plans, as well as its Employee Benefits business. Prior to joining the company, Nelson served as president of Retirement Services for Great-West Financial through September 2014 and most recently led the legacy Great-West retirement business of Empower Retirement, a business unit of Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company. Nelson has more than 30 years of leadership experience in the retirement and employee benefits industry. He was named the second most influential player in the 401(k) market, according to the 401(k) Wire's 2012 Most Influential ranking list. During his career, Nelson has managed all aspects of defined contribution businesses. He has overseen government, healthcare, nonprofit, 401(k) and FASCore institutional lines of business, while also managing recordkeeping, administration, operations, sales, products, financial results and broker-dealer services. Nelson began his career at Great-West in the employee benefits business marketing retirement plans, healthcare, stop loss and various benefit offerings. Nelson is a graduate of Whitman College with a degree in chemistry and economics, and he was a member of the Whitman College Board of Overseers from 2008 to 2017. Nelson served as the past president of the board of directors for The SPARK Institute, a trade institute that represents the entire spectrum of defined contribution service providers. He has also been a member of the National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators (NAGDCA) since 1985. As a member, Nelson has contributed articles for publication, participated on a number of committees, and spoken at numerous regional and national conferences to support and assist the organization's efforts to further the industry. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

If you have been searching for a candid overview on the state of workplace retirement plan education in the world of automatic enrollment and changing technology, then look no further than this episode with Catherine Golladay, Senior Vice President for Participant Services & Administration at Charles Schwab. During this fast paced conversation we hit on what is working and not working with 401(k) education, why if you are still offering pizza lunch and learns you aren't getting the results you are hoping for and a few ideas to rethink your approach to group meetings. We also provide a fresh update on the age old debate of education vs. advice and discuss how there is a disconnect between the retirement industry, employers and employees on the topic. And, how could we talk about education trends without at least an honorable mention of financial wellness. Oh, an stick around for our closing thoughts on how fee competition is also forcing employers to rethink their approach to education. Good stuff and this episode should get you thinking. Guest Bio Catherine Golladay is senior vice president of participant services and administration and has been with Charles Schwab since 1996. Golladay is responsible for plan administration, participant service centers and support teams, third party advice services, and education presenters within Schwab Retirement Plan Services. Previously, Golladay was vice president of participant programs in Charles Schwab's Corporate & Retirement Services business, where she was responsible for overseeing third party advice and education teams. Golladay has been serving retirement plan clients since 1990 and has held management positions in compliance, client services, communication consulting, and participant service centers. Prior to joining Charles Schwab, Golladay was vice president of ERISA compliance at Key Bank. Before that she served as a Certified Public Accountant at S.R. Snodgrass and Co., LPA. She is a Certified Public Accountant and a qualified 401(k) administrator (QKA). She also holds FINRA Series 7, 9/10, 24, 63, and 66 registrations. Golladay earned a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from the University of Akron. She also has a Master of Business Administration degree from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Based on the recent IRS private letter ruling I though this would be a good episode from the archives to repost. While this episode is almost two years old, my guest, Tony Aguilar, who at the time was the co-founder and CEO of Student Loan Genius could not be more current and relevant about the realities and challenges that come with student debt. What you might be surprised to hear is that nearly half of your workforce could be impacted and its not just a millennial thing! Tony also does a nice job framing how employers have been adding solutions to help employees with their student loan debt as part of their wellness programs and how some employers are even making contributions towards employee student loans as a recruiting and retention tool! What is the tie in to retirement you ask, well it wouldn't be the 401(k) Fridays podcast if we didn't address that at some point. As you will hear, paying off debt has an impact on your employees' ability to save for retirement, however I was pretty excited to learn about some of the new tools and resources employers may offer to help to tackle both loan repayments and retirement savings! Guest Bio Tony Aguilar is co-founder and CEO of Student Loan Genius, Austin-based inventor of the first complete student loan employer benefits solution. Today he uses his years of experience as a financial advisor and founder of Amiti Advising and Campus Slice to help crush America's $1.3 trillion student loan problem. Featured in the Wall Street Journal, Money Magazine, and on CNN, his commitment to helping professionals get ahead and live a life free from debt is the common thread in all of his work. When he's not leading the team at Student Loan Genius, Tony is spending time with his 3-year old daughter. He can also be found guest lecturing at the University of Texas and Concordia University on entrepreneurship and personal finance, serving as Chairman of Concordia University's Emerging Leaders Advisory Board, or mentoring fellow social entrepreneurs and startups. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

This episode is a perfect example of one where I get to use the podcast as my own research lab and learn right along side of you. Environmental, Social & Governance investments, or ESG or is it ES&G strategies, is a new topic here on the podcast and one that i have been looking forward to exploring. Their popularity seems to have ebbed and flowed in the 401(k) investment world, but as a strategy it is defiantly here to stay. My guest, Sean Kenney, A CFA and Managing Director for MFS Investment Management is, as you will hear, incredibly knowledgable and passionate about all things ESG. We hit on a few familiar themes such as whether the decision to add an ESG strategy or strategies to your workplace retirement plan should be done by evaluating different products or through a broader process. We also discuss who in your population ESG might appeal to, the fiduciary and regulatory implications for offering ESG investments in your plan and close with some solid takeaways and next steps for employers. Guest Bio Sean M. Kenney, CFA, is a managing director and head of Defined Contribution at MFS Investment Management® (MFS®). He leads a team focused on selling MFS investment products through retirement plans, advisors, consultants and recording keeping platforms. Sean joined MFS in 2004, first working in the Retirement Services Division. He subsequently held various distribution roles within the firm. From 2008 to 2017, he served as a managing director of Institutional Sales. In this role, he was responsible for leading the firm's sales efforts involving institutional investors in the eastern United States. Sean graduated magna cum laude from Assumption College with a major in economics. He earned an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is actively involved in numerous industry groups. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Guest Bio Kevin Murphy is a senior vice president and Head of the Defined Contribution Strategic Accounts team for Franklin Templeton's US Investment-Only division. He is responsible for directing and expanding sales of mutual funds and sub-advised portfolio products in employer-sponsored retirement plans. In addition to leading the team of Strategic Account Managers, his primary focus is on mid-market advisory firms with a national footprint, and serves as the primary liaison with these firms at their home offices. Mr. Murphy also leads the firm's Health Savings Account (HSA) initiative. Mr. Murphy's primary objective is to help more Americans achieve optimal retirement outcomes. He approaches this by offering thought leadership in retirement plan services and investments and working diligently as a key business partner to retirement plan advisory firms, consultants and retirement plan sponsors. His expertise spans qualified plans, investments, current industry trends and Franklin Templeton products and services. Mr. Murphy began his career in the financial services industry in 1999 and joined Franklin Templeton Investments in 2011. Prior to that, he was a regional vice president on Columbia Management's Defined Contribution Investment Only team. He also served as vice president and regional sales director of corporate retirement plans at Wachovia Retirement Services. Mr. Murphy holds a B.Sc. in Agriculture from the University of Delaware. He was selected by National Association of Plan Advisors (NAPA) for its list of the Top 100 Defined Contribution Wholesalers in the industry in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Among his sales accolades, Mr. Murphy was named Franklin Templeton's Investment-Only Specialist of the year in 2012 and 2014. Kevin, his wife Shannon and their four children reside in Kinnelon, NJ. He is a FINRA registered representative.

We have talked about financial wellness on the podcast before, but not like this. My conversation today with Bill Harmon, President of Retirement Corporate Markets for Voya Financial illustrates how a thoughtful approach to financial wellness can help you become the employer of choice in your market and make a meaningful difference in the battle to attract and retain key talent. As you will hear, Bill shares a very personal and emotional story about how he found comfort in leaving his prior employer of nearly 30 years to join Voya in large part due to their approach in one key area of wellness. He also hits on a few other high value low cost wellness strategies for your consideration. Despite this being the most heartfelt episode I have done, there is a surprising amount of concrete and relevant data as well. Guest Bio William Harmon is president of Retirement Corporate Markets for Voya Financial. In his role, Harmon oversees all aspects of the Corporate 401(k) market, including sales, relationship management, strategy and profitable growth for all segments of the market — from small- and mid-sized companies to some of the nation's largest corporate employers. He and his team support Voya Retirement's efforts to deliver next-generation customer experiences and solutions that drive positive retirement outcomes. Harmon is a member of CEO of Retirement Charlie Nelson's leadership team, as well as Voya's Operating Committee. Most recently, Harmon served as senior vice president, Core Markets, for Empower Retirement, where he was responsible for the segment's overall success. During his 29-year tenure at Empower, the U.S. retirement business of Great-West Lifeco, he contributed to significant growth in plan sales, assets and earnings. For 11 years, including five as president, Harmon served on the board of Adam's Camp, a group of non- profit organizations providing a variety of intensive, personalized, and integrated therapeutic programs for children with special needs and their families. He has also been closely involved with organizations supporting the special needs community including Special Olympics and Rocky Mountain Down Syndrome Association. Harmon holds a bachelor's degree in Marketing from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

This episode was a real treat for me and hopefully will be for you. I am excited share my conversation with The Honorable Phyllis Borzi, the former Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration under President Obama. We covered a range of topics that regardless of your involvement with workplace retirement plans should keep your interest. I am also proud that while we talked about her time at the DOL, the majority of our focus was looking forward and exploring how her experience can help employers today and those who want to shape the future of the workplace retirement system. We also hit on two pieces of unfinished business Phyllis wished she had more time to work on while she was at the DOL, what the Perez Principle is and whether employers also suffer from choice overload in retirement plans. Finally, we cover a few topics near and dear to her heart and what she thinks of some of the current retirement proposals in front of congress today to reform the retirement system. Be prepared for some candid insight and some very different perspective than frankly what I expected going into the conversation. And don't miss our call to action at the end. Guest Bio: The Honorable Phyllis C. Borzi served as the Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), an agency that oversees approximately 700,000 private-sector retirement plans, approximately 2.3 million group health plans, and a similar number of other welfare benefit plans that provide benefits to approximately 150 million Americans. As agency head, she oversaw the administration, regulation and enforcement of Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). ​ Among her other duties as Assistant Secretary of Labor, she represented the Department of Labor in overseeing implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance market reforms and other ACA rules affecting employer-sponsored group health plans and she was instrumental in the development of various pension regulations, including the Department's rule requiring individuals providing financial advice to plan sponsors and retirement investors to act as ERISA fiduciaries. ​ Ms. Borzi also represented the Secretary of Labor in the Secretary's role as statutory trustee for the Social Security (OASDI) and Medicare Trust Funds and in the Secretary's capacity as chair of the Board of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Previously, Ms. Borzi was a research professor in the Department of Health Policy at George Washington University Medical Center's School of Public Health and Health Services. In that position, she was involved in research and policy analysis involving employee benefit plans, the uninsured, managed care, and legal barriers to the development of health information technology. In addition, she was of counsel with the Washington, D.C. law firm of O'Donoghue & O'Donoghue LLP, specializing in ERISA and other legal issues affecting employee benefit plans, including pensions and retirement savings, health plans, and discrimination based on age or disability. ​ From 1979 to 1995, Ms. Borzi served as pension and employee benefit counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations of the Committee on Education and Labor. In 1993, she served on working groups dealing with insurance reform, workers' compensation and employer coverage in connection with the Clinton Task Force on Health Care Reform. ​ Ms. Borzi is a charter member and former President of the American College of Employee Benefit Counsel and served on its Board of Governors from 2000-2008; former member and former co-chair of the Advisory Board of the BNA Pension & Benefits Reporter; former member of the Advisory Committee of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation; and former member of the Advisory Board of the Pension Research Council, The Wharton School, The University of Pennsylvania; and former member of the Board of the Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER). In 2007, she was appointed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and served as a public member of the Administrative Committee for the Goodyear retiree health trust until 2009. ​ Ms. Borzi has published numerous articles on ERISA, health care law and policy and retirement security issues and has been a frequent speaker to legal, professional, business, consumer and state and local governmental organizations both in the United States and internationally. An active member of the American Bar Association, Borzi is the former chair of the ABA's Joint Committee on Employee Benefits. She holds a Master of Arts degree in English from Syracuse University and a J.D. from Catholic University Law School, where she was editor-in-chief of the law review. Ms. Borzi currently is a member of the Board of Visitors of the Catholic University Law School. She is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and is admitted to

Maybe I'm a little early with the football analogy, but it seemed to fit. Today, we welcome back Tom Clark, an ERISA Attorney and Partner at The Wagner Law Group as we discuss five 401(k) fiduciary fumbles we see plan sponsors make. As a return guest who I have gotten to know pretty well, we have a little fun and share some insight along the way. Whether it is clarifying the importance of fiduciary analysis vs. process, mistakes to avoid when "outsourcing" fiduciary responsibility, or the inevitable fumbles around fees. Oh, and Tom gives us his feedback from the front lines as to whether the tide has been turning in favor of employers or plaintiffs in ERISA litigation. Guest Bio Tom Clark is a partner at The Wagner Law Group, a law firm specializing in ERISA & Employee Benefits. He leads the firm's St. Louis office. His expertise encompasses all aspects of employee benefits programs, including the design, implementation and compliance of retirement plans, health and welfare plans, and executive and incentive compensation arrangements. He also has a robust practice assisting covered service providers in meeting their ERISA compliance needs. Tom's vast litigation experience complements the firm's strong and growing ERISA and employment litigation department and has included work on landmark ERISA cases involving complicated ERISA fiduciary duty issues, such as Tibble v. Edison. Tom has been quoted extensively as an ERISA and employee benefits expert by outlets such as Reuters, the Associated Press, Bloomberg, and Forbes. He teaches ERISA fiduciary law as an Adjunct Professor at The Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, his alma mater. He is also a co-author of the forthcoming second edition of ERISA: Principles of Employee Benefits Law, the only treatise of its kind that provides an overview of the regulation of employee benefit plans by highlighting the central principles and competing policies of employee benefits law in a compact and accessible format for a broad audience of readers. Tom earned his JD and LL.M. degrees from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, MO. He is a member of the bar in Missouri and Illinois. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Welcome back to new episodes of the 401(k) Fridays Podcast! After taking a little hiatus in July I am really excited about what we have in store for the remained of the year. Also, during our little break I updated the podcast intro, if you skipped it go back and give it a quick listen. We also updated the website, thank you Jonah and Annie at Puddlecreative. Go to 401kfridays.com and check that out, and while you are there don't forget to subscribe to our email list. All done with housekeeping, now onto the episode at hand. Its always fun to welcome back a returning guest. Jeff Bograd was one of my favorite guests from last year, if you haven't listened to his episode scroll down on your podcast app and look for Retirement Plan Design The Next Frontier it is a good one. Today, we tackle some thoughts for employers as they plan for 2019. Recent tax reform brought about a few changes to 401(k) plans that everyone should be aware of. Also, we hit on a few plan design options to think about as you consider changes to your plan for next year. And, since wellness is such a popular topic we hit on a few ideas to dip your tow in the water on financial wellness with simple enhancements to your retirement plan. Guest Bio Jeff Bograd is the Vice President, Senior Retirement Plan Consultant for John Hancock Retirement Plan Services and has been with the company for more than 28 years. In this role, Jeff serves as a technical resource to John Hancock's client service and sales teams, plan sponsors and financial advisors on complex compliance matters and optimal plan design. He provides ERISA and fiduciary training classes to John Hancock employees, plan sponsors and financial advisors and speaks at industry conferences on legislative and regulatory matters and achieving financial independence through plan design. Prior to his current role, Jeff managed the ERISA Consulting Group, served as an ERISA Consultant and managed the ERISA Compliance Department, responsible for all compliance testing, Forms 5500, and IRS and DOL plan audits. Jeff received a B.A. in Economics, cum laude, from Middlebury College. In addition, he is a Registered Representative and maintains his FINRA Series 6 and 63 registrations. Outside of work, Jeff enjoys reading about behavioral economics and personal finance, and playing and coaching lacrosse. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

We are taking a brief summer hiatus. Enjoy this episode from the archives. New episodes will resume again in August. Enjoy! This episode is fresh out of the 401(k) Fridays Podcast experiment lab. Today my guest JD Carlson, the President & CEO of the legendary Third Party Administration firm Plan Design Consultants and Host of the Retireholi(k)s show we poke a little bit of fun with 401(k) speak. Each of us took the time to prepare a few statements that are full of retirement plan terms, or maybe not, and then put the other person on the spot to determine if the statement is Jargon, Gibberish, or Jumbled. We had a lot of fun recording this but want to make sure we weren't the only ones. Please share your feedback on whether this was entertaining, informative or both or neither. Shoot us an email to [email protected] or leave a comment on LinkedIn to me, Rick Unser or JD Carlson. If the feedback we get is encouraging, we will tackle some additional retirement plan related topics using this format with future guests. The fate of Jargon, Gibberish or Jumbled is in your hands! We also have another first with this episode, we have video! If you want to check that out, go to YouTube and search Plan Design Consultants. Or go to www.401kfridays.com/jgjand I will have a link towards the bottom of the page. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Employers consistently want to know what other employers are doing in their 401(k) plan. In this episode we drill into the decisions employers are making about plan design, investment options, fiduciary process and employee retirement outcomes. The heavy lifting is done by Derek Wallen, a SVP at Fidelity and architect of their annual Plan Sponsor Attitudes Survey. Derek does a nice job highlighting the key finds of this years survey which is hot off the presses and comparing result to prior years. He also does all of this in a way that is easy to understand and compare contrast what is going on in your plan. If you would like a copy of the survey go to 401kfridays.com/wallen and we will have a link. Or, if you are an email subscriber we will send that out to you. If you are not an email suscriber, go to 401kfrisays.com/subscribe today to get that taken care of. Finally, we are going to take a little summer hiatus so this will be the last new episode for a few weeks. Don't forget we have over 120 episodes in the archives you can explore and we will repost a few prior episodes while we are on break. When we come back with new episodes we will also have a fancy new website and a few other surprises to be sure to check it out! Guest Bio Derek Wallen is senior vice president and head of Defined Contribution Investment Only (DCIO) Sales at Fidelity Institutional Asset ManagementSM (FIAMSM), Fidelity Investments' distribution and client service organizationdedicated to meeting the needs of consultants and institutional investors, such as defined benefit and defined contribution plans, endowments, and financial advisors. In this role, Mr. Wallen oversees the DCIO team distributing Fidelity Investment asset management capabilities through advisors, advisory firms, and record keepers focused on serving the small and mid-sized defined contribution marketplace. Prior to assuming his current position in 2011, Mr. Wallen managed institutional insurance sales for the eastern region of the United States. He joined Fidelity in 1991 as a sales executive responsible for the Chicago, New York, and Boston marketplaces. Mr. Wallen graduated from Villanova University. He has also completed the Leadership Development Program at the Center for Creative Leadership and the Securities Industry Institute. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Its getting to be that time of year again, no not that time of year, its time to plan for benefits open enrollment. Over the last several years all the changes and activity in health plans has grabbed the headlines and the lions share of the focus of employee meetings. This year, and going forward where does the 401(k) plan fit? To shed some light on this I am happy to have Peg Knox who today is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of DCIIA. But not so long ago she was the global retirement plans manager at Bechtel Global Corporation, where she worked to generate and implement new ideas for Bechtel retirement plans to enhance retirement security for its employees. She shares some great thoughts right out of the gate on 401(k) plans and open enrollment. We also delve into the hot topics of financial wellness, whether HSAs should be tied to health plans or retirement plans and much more. Guest Bio Peg Knox is Chief Operating Officer (COO) of DCIIA. Prior to joining DCIIA, she was the global retirement plans manager at Bechtel Global Corporation, where she worked to generate and implement new ideas for Bechtel retirement plans to enhance retirement security for its employees. Previously she had served as Bechtel's treasurer, where she ensured efficient global treasury operations including cash management and investments, debt and credit lines, foreign exchange services and other treasury functions to support the company's business lines. Peg has an MBA from Saint Mary's College and is based in San Francisco. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

There has been vast improvement by retirement plan fiduciaries when it comes to reviewing fees and investments. We even see more retirement plan committee who check the box on other important fiduciary tasks. But does that mean they have a good governance process? With that said, what is fiduciary governance, what does good governance look like and can you be a top notch fiduciary but leave yourself exposed to risk with poor governance? We tackle this and more today in my conversation with Andy Larson, Director of Retirement Education at the Retirement Leaning Center. Right out of the gate Andy shares what he feels the key missing ingredient to good governance is. We also tackle many common questions we get from employers about governance such as who should be on a fiduciary committee, how often should you meet and what should you address every year. Stay tuned because some answers you have heard in the past have been updated based on what we have learned from ERISA litigation and other trends. You will also here that Andy shares my love for analogies, and there are some good ones! Guest Bio With 35 years of experience in the financial services industry, Andy is a respected authority, frequent lecturer and author on industry topics. Andy's background includes managing and consulting with major recordkeeping platforms, extensive product design for plan sponsors and advanced sales support for intermediaries who work with plans. As a retirement industry executive, he ran the recordkeeping and consulting practice for Universal Pensions, Inc. (UPI), and headed the BISYS Corporate University. He has served as an adjunct professor for the Central Lakes College system in Minnesota, and provides expert witness services on numerous industry topics. Andy is co-author of RLC's book, Retirement Resource Guide: Essential ERISA Education & Best Practices for Financial Advisors. He is a graduate of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and maintains a Certified Pension Consultant (CPC) designation from the American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

Believe it or not, but it has been over six months since we have tackled about financial wellness on the podcast. Today, Chris Whitlow, the Founder & CEO of Edukate, address the red hot topic. In our conversation today we tackle an interesting thought on financial wellness, despite nearly everyone talking about it, are employers actually embracing it? We share some thoughts on that along with four steps to start an effective financial wellness program, if financial wellness is a product or process, how to evaluate VOI & ROI and thoughts for employers to knock down silos between their physical wellness and financial wellness programs and embrace a program based on overall wellbeing. Chris and I also had a few good laughs as he picked away at my compound questions. Guest Bio Chris Whitlow is the founder and CEO of Edukate, a workplace financial wellness provider on a mission to give every person access to expert financial guidance. Chris works with the Edukate team to solve problems that ease the financial stress most Americans experience each day. Using cutting edge technology, Edukate helps employers provide the best financial wellness benefits, thus helping employees manage their financial stress, increase their productivity, and live happier, healthier lives. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

In case you hadn't noticed, Target Date Funds (TDFs) are kind of a big deal in workplace retirement plans. My guest, Jeff Holt, a Director of Multiasset Strategies at Morningstar and one of the authors of their 10th annual Target Date Landscape report cites their use as default funds in retirement plans as one of the key reasons they hit $1 Trillion dollars in assets in 2017. During our conversation today, we discuss the significance of that accomplishment and hit a few other highlights including thoughts on the flood of money into "passive" target date funds, how TDFs are actually performing, whether you can glean useful information by evaluating the underlying holdings in TDFs and how the competitive environment in TDFs is affecting the industry. Also, don't miss our discussion on a newer statistic Morningstar has developed comparing the cost of a target date fund with the percent of that fund that is index based. Whether you are TDF novice or expert, there is something here for you. If you feel like we missed something on TDFs, let me know and we can tackle it on a future episode. Shoot me an email to [email protected]. Guest Bio Jeff Holt, CFA, is director of multiasset and alternative strategies for Morningstar Research Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc. He has covered target-date funds and other multiasset funds from various asset managers. Before joining Morningstar in 2014, Holt spent nearly nine years at Jeffrey Slocum & Associates (since acquired by Pavillion Financial), where he was responsible for investment research to support the firm's defined-contribution practice. He covered target-date funds, stable value funds, and other asset classes specific to defined-contribution clients. Holt holds a bachelor's degree in management, with a concentration in corporate finance, from Brigham Young University. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!

With the continued focus on fees in workplace retirement plans I thought it might be good to pivot the conversation and tackle some of the realities around the what actually goes into running a successful and compliant plan. To add some muscle to the conversation I have Ed Murphy, President of Empower Retirement. Ed and his team are responsible for over 30,000 of thousands of retirement plans and over 8 million participants. Our conversation ranges from what it takes to keep the proverbial trains running on time, why scale is important in retirement services, how they predict where the puck is going to allocate discretionary spending, and much more. I learned a lot during our conversation and hopefully this will provide you with some helpful perspective when you face the inevitable questions about your retirement plan fees. Before we get started, we have some exciting new episodes in store where tackle where 401(k) fits in your open enrollment strategy, is financial wellness working, trends in target date funds, input on employer attitudes about retirement plans and much more. However, we definitely want your feedback on other topics to pursue. When you have a suggestion for a guest or topic please just shoot us an email to [email protected]. We will take it from there. Guest Bio Edmund (Ed) Murphy provides leadership and strategic direction for Empower Retirement's 5,000 associates.1 He directs all defined contribution, defined benefit, institutional and IRA markets. He also oversees all sales, marketing and global operations. Ed brings 30 years of broad industry experience to his role. Before his 2014 appointment as President of Empower, he had served as Managing Director of the Defined Contribution and Investment Only business at Putnam Investments since 2009. He joined the firm's operating committee in 2011. Previously, Ed held executive leadership roles for 17 years at Fidelity Investments in its institutional, private equity and retail businesses. He also served as President and CEO of Veritude, LLC, as well as a board member of BostonCoach, Advisor Technology Services, Seaport Hotel, World Trade Center and several other Fidelity-owned businesses. Earlier, he spent six years at Merrill Lynch. Ed has written articles on retirement-related matters and has testified in Washington, D.C., before the House Committee on Ways and Means. He has also testified before the Department of Labor, the Treasury Department and the IRS. He speaks on topics ranging from investment advice to lifetime income solutions for retirees. Ed is a board member of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, Cristo Rey School, Boston College Wall Street Council and the New England Council. He holds a bachelor's degree from Boston College. Ed is a graduate of the General Manager Program at Harvard Business School. 401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over one hundred prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!