401(k) Specialist Podcast

We needed a clear thinker with a comprehensive view to help us close out a complicated year. The choice was unanimous, “Nevin.” Nevin Adams , Chief Content Officer and Head of Retirement Research at the American Retirement Association , gives us his take on the big retirement story of 2020, how retirement plans helped ordinary Americans in a time of crisis, and what to watch for in the weeks and m...

Dr. Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College , joins us to discuss retirement plan coverage, leakage and other issues currently affecting 401ks. Importantly, she tells is what can be done to address them. Munnell is the Peter F. Drucker Professor of Management Sciences at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. Before joining Boston College in 1997, A...

Top advisor and social media personality Jeanne Fisher, managing director with Strategic Retirement Partners in Nashville, joins us to discuss effective marketing in the time of COVID, the appeal of Roth 401(k)s, and an important investment that’s getting little attention. Anyone who knows Fisher knows she’s made incredible use of LinkedIn to engage clients and grow her business, and she offers ti...

There’s a lot happening on the 401(k) front—ESG, MEPS, and PEPs, the election—and we asked industry veteran Matt Wolniewicz about them all. He recently moved from Fi360 to Prime Capital Investment Advisors, where he will run the Income America division of the firm. It’s dedicated to, what else, income in retirement, which was another topic he was happy to address. Wolniewicz's matter-of-fact...

When three major government agencies want to take credit, it's gotta be good. The Transparency in Coverage final rule was released on Oct. 29 by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Labor, and the Department of the Treasury. It cements President Trump’s executive order price and quality healthcare transparency, which he signed in the summer of 2019. What does t...

The former Assistant Secretary of the Department of Labor and current founder of Rutledge Policy Group , a new consultancy based in Washington, DC, answered everything we want to know about key issues affecting advisors, sponsors, and participants. Using his deep experience in and outside of the Beltway, he's helping "companies stay ahead of an ever-changing legal and regulatory landscap...

Are mergers and acquisitions in the 401k advisory space hot or not? They were humming along until COVID hit , which supposedly froze everything in place, or maybe it didn't, and then it picked back up and now we're not sure. So we asked Bill Chetney, founder of  Global Retirement Partners Advisor Alliance (GRPAA) what he's seeing. He tells us—bluntly, in his trademarked style.

Exciting innovation in financial wellness means it’s more tailored, more customized, and therefore more effective in helping working Americans achieve financial security and an affordable quality of life in retirement. Financial wellness pioneer Liz Davidson, Founder and CEO of Financial Finesse, joins us to discuss the “mass personalization” of the financial wellness movement, the fascinating rol...

Who better to talk about the current state of 401k than the man who started it all. In the late 1970s Ted Benna, father of the 401k, discovered an obscure provision of the tax code and developed it into the premier savings vehicle for millions of Americans. He joins us to discuss what he sees as the good and the bad in today’s DC design, the innovation that excites him, and why he has a real probl...

How are target-date funds performing in the pandemic-driven market crisis? What's the biggest surprise and/or validation revealed about the product, and how are retirement plan participants reacting in the current volatility? There is a lot happening, and thankfully Omar Aguilar and Jake Gilliam are here to help sort it all out. Both are senior executives and target-date fund experts with Cha...

Peter Mallouk says 401k plans are expensive, overly complex, needlessly complicated and involve too many third parties. While he’s a major advocate for the retirement savings vehicle, he's nonetheless on a mission to make it more effective for plan sponsors and participants. As president of Creative Planning, Inc ., one of the largest wealth management firms in the nation with almost $50 bill...

The always interesting and incredibly insightful Benz joins us to discuss her newfound FIRE respect. She also tackles critics of the traditional 60/40 portfolio and explains how to handle rising correlations in the current COVID crisis.

401k auto-enrollment, deferral, and escalation? Thank Shlomo Benartzi , a pioneer in the field of behavioral economics. He developed the highly-regarded Save More Tomorrow system with Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler, which uses subtle “nudges” to redirect our biases and bad decisions to healthier habits.

“We have not repealed the laws of fear and greed,” Liz Ann Sonders, Charles Schwab Chief Investment Strategist, wisely notes when asked about factors contributing to current volatility. Take a pandemic, economic crisis, piles of stimulus, and add in technology and hyper-connectivity and there is A LOT happening—to say the least. Thankfully, Sonders is here to help sort it out, clueing us in on whe...

Chris Hogan is a best-selling author, personal finance expert, and host of The Chris Hogan Show. A colleague of financial media mogul Dave Ramsey, Hogan’s known for his electrifying presentations and no-nonsense approach to building wealth. A smart and steady hand is what retirement plan participants need now more than ever, and it’s exactly what Hogan provides. He speaks specifically to CARES Act...

The controversial financier and former Trump Administration official gets real about the “lunatic-in-chief,” a possible Biden VP pick and the inclusion of alternative investments in 401ks.