401(k) Fridays Podcast

Things are moving fast in the financial markets and economy. In turbulent times, the decisions you do or don’t make have a big impact on the future success of your retirement plan. To help digest some macro events and share a few 401(k) panic buttons to avoid, I am happy to welcome Jamie Battmer, Chief Investment Officer for Lockton Retirement Services to the podcast. I won’t steal Jamies thunder, but let’s just say I learned a lot of hope you get as much out of it as I did.    Guest Bio Jamie leads the investment research team that recommends portfolios to Lockton clients. His other duties include consulting, speaking, and writing on market and economic trends, providing fiduciary documentation on investment decision-making, and developing new asset-management tools and capabilities, such as model portfolios or custom-asset allocation glide-paths. Jamie has more than 20 years of experience analyzing individual securities, constructing portfolios, and providing economic and market commentary. 401(k) Fridays

Save for retirement or save for college? This is the age old debate that many struggle with. To shed some light on the subject I am happy to welcome Peg Creonte, President of Government Savings at Acensus. During our conversation we delve into some of the similarities and differences between 529 plans and 401(k) plans, ways that employers as part of their total rewards or benefits offering can help their employees save or pay for the cost of higher eduction and offer input on whether an employer can match contributions to a 529 plan. Great stuff, I learned a lot and it was a trip down memory lane for me in a way as well.  Guest Bio Peg Creonte is president of Government Savings at Ascensus, the largest independent recordkeeping services provider, third-party administrator, and government savings facilitator in the United States.  Peg is responsible for setting the vision and strategy for the firm’s Government Savings line of business and charting its course for future growth. She joined Ascensus in 2004 and h

What does the future hold for 401(k) and other workplace retirement plans? Good question, and I am excited to have Josh Cohen, Head of Institutional Defined Contribution at PGIM and the host of the podcast “The Accidental Plan Sponsor” join me today. We take a few minutes to set the stage with some important retirement plan trends and milestones, then we jump into where we go from here. Josh shares the good, as well as where he things workplace retirement plans can improve in the future. Good stuff, and hope you get as much out of the conversation as I did!   Guest Bio Joshua R. Cohen, CFA, is a Managing Director in PGIM’s Institutional Relationship Group (IRG). Josh provides expert counsel and thought leadership to large Defined Contribution plans on investment issues ranging from plan design, Qualified Default Investment Alternatives (QDIA), implications of regulatory change and implementation. He works on developing innovative solutions and thought leadership to help plan participants accumulate the wealth

If you have tried to buy almost anything in the last several months, there is a good chance it costs you more today than it did previously. These cost increases, or inflation, have been a dominant topic of conversation both at the proverbial water cooler as well as with economists. I can’t solve the water cooler part, but I am excited to welcome back to Frances Donald, Senior Managing Director & Head of Macro Strategy at Manulife Investment Management. We of course talk about inflation, and Frances is not shy to share her opinions. Great stuff, and should really get you thinking and help put a lot of things in perspective.    Before we get started, this is my second conversation on the podcast with Frances, while you don’t have to listen to the first one, it is worth checking out. To do that, just scroll through the episodes on your favorite podcast app. There are over 200 prior episodes, so if any other topics or guests catch your eye feel free to listen to those as well. Most episodes are evergreen in t

You are probably wondering, first, how do you possibly make a full episode out of retirement plan document restatements and other related topics, and second, how do you make it interesting? Well, when you have Alison Cohen, ERISA Attorney and Partner at the Ferenczy Benefits Law Center, it is a piece of cake! Not much description need on this one, but plenty of good nuggets of info and best practices. Also, Alison mentioned a "Record Retention Policy Statement" which you can find a link to in the show notes.      Before we get started, if you have been enjoying the podcast please leave a review or rating on your favorite podcast service or app. That feeds the crazy algorithms and helps more people find the podcast.    Guest Bio Alison is a Partner with Ferenczy Benefits Law Center in Atlanta, Georgia. She advises clients on many issues related to qualified retirement plans, including design, mergers and acquisitions, audits, and operational issues. Alison commonly works with clients that have operational

What a treat, today I am please to welcome Preston Rutledge, Founder and Principal of the Rutledge Policy group and previously Assistant Secretary of Labor for the EBSA and prior to that, senior tax and benefits counsel for Chairman Orrin Hatch on the US Senate Finance Committee. During our conversation we hit on a few good stories from his civil service days, talk about the concepts behind the SECURE Act and where we go from here, potential tax changes and the impact on retirement plans and much more. Definitely a good one to check out and share!   On that note, if you have been enjoying the podcast, please do take a minute to mention to a friend, colleague or networking group. As our audience continues to grow, it makes it easier for me to find high quality guests like Preston.    That’s it, I hope your enjoy our conversation!   Guest Bio Preston Rutledge is the Founder and Principal of Rutledge Policy Group, LLC. With an uncommon combination of expertise both in legal and tax matters, he is a sought-after

Guest Bio Joshua Dietch is the group manager of Retirement Thought Leadership in Global Brand Marketing. Joshua is responsible for leading a team of researchers and writers who create retirement thought leadership in support of the firm's workplace retirement, intermediary, and institutional businesses. He also is a vice president of T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. Joshua’s investment experience began in 1995 and he has been with T. Rowe Price since 2017. Prior to this, he was employed by Strategic Insight as head of Retirement and Institutional. He also was managing director with Chatham Partners, director of Product Marketing and Management with ADP Retirement Services, and associate director of Institutional Markets with Cerulli Associates.  Joshua earned a B.A. in history from Bates College. He is a Series 7 and 66 registered representative. Joshua is a member of the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association and its Retirement Research Center as well as a former member of its Executive Comm

What do current equity valuations and bond yields potentially mean for returns in the coming decade? Today, Rob Arnott, Chairman of Research Affiliates gets out his crystal ball and shares his thoughts. If you have heard Rob on prior episodes of the podcast, you will know he is not shy and doesn’t pull any punches. More importantly, he also shares a some good ideas for retirement plans on how they can design investment menus by understanding where we are today and looking forward into the coming decade. If you like what you heard today, Rob has three prior appearances on the podcast you can check out. Links are in the podcast episode notes.    Before we get started today, I am always looking for new ideas for podcast guests, topics or questions. If you have something or someone in mind that would benefit retirement plan sponsors or those who partner with them, send me an email to feedback@401kfridays.com.    Prior Episodes with Rob Arnott The Death of Investment Diversification? Tariffs, Interest Rates &

At least once a year it makes sense to check in on what our friends at the state run retirement plans are up to. Today, I am happy to have Katie Selenski, the Executive Director of CalSavers, the California State Retirement Plan and Dylan Giambatista, the with the new Vermont or Green Mountain Secure Retirement Plan. Katie shares some encouraging data on what they are seeing thus far from CalSavers and Dylan shares the unique approach Vermont took to creating their retirement plan. I learned a lot, hopefully you do as well.  Before we get started, if you are not already on our email list, make sure you take care of that today. We will announcing our next webinar on Pooled Employer Plans shortly. Go to www.401kfridays.com/subscribe today.  Here are the statistics from the CalSavers plan Katie mentioned.    Guest Bios Katie Selenski is the Executive Director of CalSavers, the State of California’s pioneering retirement savings program that provides a path to retirement security for Californians who lack access

If you couldn’t tell, the COVID pandemic and its impact on the economy, retirement plans and individuals has really gotten me thinking. Along those lines, a recent presentation from this week’s return guest, David Blanchett, the head of retirement research for Morningstar’s Investment Management group, on Total Economic Worth, struck a chord. A very interesting concept that I felt was very applicable to retirement plans to help communicate the importance of saving today and how that translates to resources to fund your lifestyle in retirement. We cover that and much more today in a fast paced and entertaining episode. If you listen to your podcasts on 1.5 or 2 times the normal pace, you might not want to do that for this one. Also, if you didn’t know you can listen to podcasts at a faster pace, your welcome and now you can listen to more episodes in a shorter period of time!   If you like what you hear from our guests on the podcast, be sure to look them up on LinkedIn or other social media sites. Let them kn

The financial markets have started the decade on a feverish pace despite a brief pandemic induced bear market. Today, Dr. David Kelly, CFA with J.P. Morgan Asset Management joins me to share his thoughts on where we go from here. As usual he has great insights on what it will take to get some inflation in the economy, what impact new policies from the Biden administration could have on financial markets, and with the current equity valuations and low interest rates, does that mean employers should be thinking differently about investment diversification in their retirement plans? For more insights on the financial markets from the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Team, check out their Guide to the Markets. 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

Happy New Year! I could not think of a better way to kick off 2021 than with an update from Pete the Planner on the impact of the pandemic on personal finances. Some of what he says you might expect, but the group of employees he feels are at the most risk will likely surprise you. That and a whole lot more are part of our conversation.  As a reminder, if you have been enjoying the podcast please share with a friend, colleague, or peer group. Best thing to do is encourage people to search "401(k) Fridays" on their favorite podcast app, or go online to www.401kfridays.com.  Enjoy! Guest Bio Peter Dunn a.k.a. Pete the Planner® is an award-winning comedian and an award-winning financial mind. He’s a USA TODAY columnist and the author of ten books, six of which were featured in a nationwide launch at Barnes & Nobles stores in January of 2015. He is the host of the popular radio show and podcast The Pete the Planner Show. Pete has appeared regularly on CNN Headline News, Fox News, Fox Business as well as numer

Admittedly, when I develop topics and content for the podcast I am generally catering to the mid to large plan market. Today, I am excited to welcome Chad Parks, the Founder & CEO of Ubiquity Retirement + Savings to discuss the world of small retirement plans. As you will hear, Chad brings his years of experience and is not shy to share his perspectives. We talk about everything from how do you define a small plan, how they are similar and different from mid to large plans, to the launch of PEPs, and potential changes to retirement plans with a new administration. We also get Chad looking into his crystal ball. Even if you don’t sponsor or support “small retirement plans”, there is a lot of great info here that might help you when your friend who does have a small plan has some questions.    Before we get started, as we go into the New Year, tis the season of giving, please consider either sharing the podcast with a friend, or leaving a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. Either or both of thos

If you have stable value investments on your mind, my conversation today with Debbie Vince & Ken Sommers of New York Life should address your questions or concerns. We start with Debbie providing some background on stable value investments, how they work and some pros and cons compared to other cash equivalent options in workplace retirement plans. Then we transition to Ken for his thoughts on the realities of managing stable value investments in an historic low interest rate environment. Great stuff, if we missed anything shoot me an email to feedback@401kfridays.com.    Disclosures: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of Debbie Vince and Ken Sommer as of [date podcast recorded] and are subject to change without notice.  Any forward-looking statements may not come to pass. The information provided in this podcast is general in nature and is provided solely for educational/informational purposes. It is not intended as investment advice nor as a solicitation for any specific investme

Could Retirement Income be the hot topic of 2021? It was supposed to be the hot topic of 2020, then we got a little derailed. To chat through this with be today, I am excited to have Doug McIntoch, Vice President of Investment with Prudential Retirement. We go through all the stuff you would expect us to. What is retirement income, what are the employer attitudes, what are employee attitudes, what are the lingering concerns despite the new protections provided in the SECURE Act. We also delve into public policy, the legislative environment and where we go from here. I hope you get as much out of this as I did!   Guest Bio Douglas S. McIntosh, Jr. is vice president of Investments for Prudential Retirement. In this role, Doug supports the investment product function, working across the enterprise to source best-in-class investment & guaranteed solutions for retirement investors on Prudential’s recordkeeping platform and beyond. His team also oversees third-party asset managers that deliver on the promise to

Today’s episode came by request from several listeners, so thank you for that! The topic is retirement plan fees. My guest is Jim Scheinberg, Managing Partner of North Pier Search Consulting and North Pier Fiduciary Management. We started off with some basics on fees, then get into some of the tricker considerations such as how do you charge fees to plan participants, per head or pro-rata, how do you account for proprietary products when evaluating fees, whether institutional share classes are really the best choice and much more. We also left some things on the table as we ran out of time, so please send me your feedback and questions to feedback@401kfridays.com and I will get that worked into a part two with Jim. Also, the timing of that will be based on your feedback, the more we get, the sooner he will be back!   Also, if you have been enjoying the the podcast, next time you are on your favorite podcast app please leave us a rating or review. Those go a long way to help more people find the podcast and to

When it comes to M&A activity in the retirement service provider ecosystem, there has been a lot of activity to say the least. This is something my guest, Dick Darian, the CEO of Wise Rhino Group saw coming and has been actively involved in. During our conversation we hit on a few recent headline grabbing announcements, how the traditional lines between traditional service provider roles continue to blur and the argument for how all of this M&A activity benefits employers, their retirement plans and participants. Dick also shares his thoughts on one of my observations that the M&A trends seem to be moving in the opposite direction of the litigation trends. Good stuff.    If you liked what you heard today, check out my prior conversation with Dick back in February of 2019. In the coming weeks on the podcast we have thoughts on how the upcoming election could impact retirement plans, you might have seen a few headlines about that, we will tackle stable value funds in  this low interest rate environm

Tis the season for talk about elections and boy do we have that today. To lend some muscle to the conversation I have Nevin Adams with the American Retirement Association. We start at the top of the ticket as they say and discuss how who sits in the White House could impact retirement policy going forward, we hit on what that would mean to the priorities and focus of various government agencies, then we move to congress as a whole and hit on how influential races and committee leadership roles influence things. Finally, as we recorded this prior to the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, we have some written bonus content from Nevin you can find in the podcast notes in your podcast app about how a new Supreme Court justice could impact workplace retirement plans litigation. Check that out when you have a chance.    While you are there, if you have been enjoying the podcast please leave a review or comment. That goes a long way to help more people find the podcast, continue to grow our audien

A few months ago, Vanguard made a significant announcement about the future of their recordkeeping business. To be honest, there was a lot of confusion and questions about the rationale, details and what the future holds for them. To address those and many more questions I am excited to have Dean Edwards, a Principal and Head of Institutional Strategy and Market Leadership with Vanguard join me on the podcast. Our conversation has a great beginning, middle and end. You don’t want to miss any of it. I learned a lot from Dean, and hope you do as well.    Coming up on the podcast we have conversation about politics, elections and 401(k) plans, in another episode we dive into some of the driving forces behind the M&A activity in the retirement ecosystem, we are going to explore best practices on plan fees and much more as we look to close out the year that has been 2020. If you aren’t subscribed to the podcast, take care of that today by searching 401(k) Fridays on your favorite podcast app or going to 401kfr

Hard to believe, but the economic and financial market impact of COVID-19 first materialized about seven months ago. Since then, we have been seen record breaking market volatility, a spike in unemployment, a recession in the U.S. economy, and dramatic changes to daily life and routines. With all that said, how are retirement savers weathering this storm? To share some details, I am excited to welcome back Nathan Voris, a Managing Director of Business Strategy with Charles Schwab Retirement Plan Services. In his role, Nathan is responsible for leading the client experience, platform, and product development strategy to help retirement sponsors, consultants, and participants meet their goals. During our conversation, he pulls from his observations and conversations as well as a the recent 2020 401(k) Participant Survey they recently completed. We covered everything you would expect us to. Some things are you would expect, and others aren’t. I f we missed anything please let me know. Shoot me an email to feedba