2025 Top Retirement Plan Adviser: Phil Sherman

Phil Sherman

This year, PLANADVISER followed up with advisers on the 2025 Top Retirement Plan Advisers listing to get to know them better. These are the responses from Phil Sherman of Deschutes Investment Consulting LLC in Portland, Oregon.

PLANADVISER: What does it take to be a successful retirement plan adviser in 2025?

Sherman: Patience, proactiveness and passion. We are seeing so much pressure on plan sponsors and their participants, from plan-related legislation to volatility in the marketplace. The increasing complexity of our industry is exacerbating an already-stretched-thin workforce of HR professionals and their C-suite teams, who are typically tasked with overseeing plans. This can then trickle down to participants, so ensuring your team has a plan to help them is also critical.

PLANADVISER: Has the focus or character of your practice shifted meaningfully over time to respond to evolving client demands, market pressures or the emergence of new technologies?

Sherman: We have always been a ‘participant-first’ firm, with a strong emphasis on education and engagement with employees. If anything, the increase in technology and requests from plan sponsors to get more of this interaction has only helped us put more energy into a part of our business we were already passionate about!

PLANADVISER: What are some of the most important growth strategies that have generated success for your firm? Where do you source new clients most effectively?

Sherman: Not every plan is the right fit for our team, and that is OK! We find that the plans we work with best are those that value the expertise we bring, plus appreciate our desire to transform their retirement plan from a ‘check the box’ offering into a real benefit that participants appreciate. We have great partnerships with other professionals that operate like our team, and, of course, our own clients referring us to like-minded plan sponsors.

PLANADVISER: How do you balance the desire to grow with the need to keep clients happy?

Sherman: A challenge every business faces, right?! Technology has allowed us to scale, but our focus is still very much hands-on advising and involves a lot of face time with participants and plan sponsors. Being mindful about how we provide fiduciary training and required plan governance obligations allows us to effectively deliver those services and then free up time for the more rigorous and creative aspects of service offering, such as custom education and one-on-one participant support. We are fortunate enough to work with plan sponsors that get this and really appreciate our service model!

PLANADVISER: What is something you or your team learned the hard way about this business?

Sherman: That not every plan is the right fit for us. Every business and team go through the phase of wanting to grow, but finding that not all clients want or value your support and approach can be a strong part of growing up in our industry. We wanted to work with every plan we could because we truly believed that our service offering and educational support would be life-changing for plan participants, but sometimes we found that some plan sponsors were not interested in this or didn’t heed our advice on plan governance best practices, which ultimately led to us finding that this was no longer a good relationship.

PLANADVISER: What are the most challenging aspects of the job? What are the most enjoyable?

Sherman: Challenging—feeling the pressures of trying to keep up to date on all the internal processes and software our clients use. Retirement plans are so integrated to other aspects of running a business—payroll, audit, accounting, IT—the list goes on. Being aware of what other operational hurdles exist today and then helping our plan sponsors navigate those to ensure we don’t have a ‘tail wagging the dog’ experience is becoming more and more prevalent with all benefits.

Enjoyable—by far, helping plan sponsors deliver a truly exceptional experience to their employees. I came to the retirement plan side of financial services after almost a decade as a certified financial planner professional helping families retire. I loved that job, but after too many meetings where I met families that were being pushed into early retirement (layoffs, health, family, etc.) or those who were at retirement age or beyond and financially unprepared, I knew there had to be a better way. By working with retirement plans, I found the key to what had been missing all along—TIME. By having the chance to meet and work with individuals while they are younger and still able to make an impact on their financial future, I found the loophole I had been desperately searching for from my time as a wealth adviser.

PLANADVISER: How do you foresee the retirement plan industry evolving in the coming decade? Will your practice look much the same in 10 years, or do you see significant evolution coming?

Sherman: I hope we see big changes! Congress gave us all a gift with SECURE and SECURE 2.0 to truly make differences in retirement plans to benefit employers and their employees. But there are still so many individuals who do not have coverage today—part-time employees, gig workers. Just watching the evolution of our economy brings a lot of excitement, but also can create lots of gaps that didn’t exist before due to changes. I expect, once again, for our industry to adapt to help meet the changes coming our way. New products and investment offerings will always be presented, but addressing the coverage gap is the thing I am most excited about!

PLANADVISER: For those plan sponsors looking for a new plan adviser, describe what makes your firm stand out.

Sherman: We believe that what helps us stand out is our firm’s commitment to education across the retirement plan spectrum. This goes from educating committee members about their responsibilities and making them better fiduciaries and stewards to their plan to my favorite aspect, which is helping their participants close the savings gap for a dignified retirement. We are fortunate to have built a team of compassionate humans, not regulatory robots. I am so proud of the group here at Deschutes and our team’s shared commitment to the plans and their participants we have the privilege to serve!

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