Deals & People June 2, 2023

Retirement Industry People Moves

NFP hires Perkins as SVP; Cochrane to lead Hub International non-profit specialty; OneDigital names Fong VP.

 

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NFP Names Perkins SVP North American Trade Credit and Political Risk Practice

Andrew Perkins

NFP Corp. announced the hiring of Andrew Perkins as a senior vice president to lead its North American trade credit and political risk practice.

The practice is responsible for developing solutions to protect clients’ accounts receivable and foreign investments, as well as ensuring the safety of key personnel.

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“I’ve always been impressed with NFP’s suite of value-added services and look forward to building on the team’s outstanding track record of designing risk management strategies to help clients improve their coverage, claims management and program marketing,” Perkins said in a statement.

Perkins joins NFP from Atradius CyC, where he served as vice president and commercial director for the firm’s Canada branch.

Cochrane to Lead Hub International Retirement and Private Wealth Non-Profit Specialty

Kim Cochrane

Kim Cochrane will lead the retirement and institutional asset management segment within Hub International’s enterprise-wide nonprofit practice.

“Kim will work with Scott Konrad and the other specialty practice leaders in this role,” a Hub spokesperson wrote via email. “She will bring deep nonprofit sector experience as a thought leader, resource, and business unit champion, while promoting collaboration across business units to ensure that HUB offers creative, cost-effective solutions that improve performance while reducing work, fiduciary risk, and promoting retirement readiness.”

Cochrane’s new role is in addition to her work as a financial adviser and director of client services at Hub Mid-Atlantic. She brings more than 25 years of investment management experience to the nonprofit specialty practice.

OneDigital Names Fong VP of Growth Initiatives

Kaleena Fong

Kaleena Fong was promoted to vice president of growth initiatives for OneDigital Retirement + Wealth. 

In this new role, Fong will report to Vince Morris and will continue to lead the marketing vision for OneDigital’s retirement and wealth practice, while also expanding to contribute broader business strategy for one of OneDigital’s fastest growing business areas.

Fong has been with OneDigital since 2020. Prior to joining the firm, Fong was a marketing and creative consultant at Resources Investment Advisors. Previously she was an operations manager at Oakeson Steiner Wealth & Retirement.

Deals & People June 2, 2023

Vestwell Partners With Payroll Provider Gusto on Integrated 401(k)

The offering is geared toward businesses and state auto-IRA programs.

 

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Small plan 401(k) provider Vestwell Holdings Inc. announced Thursday a partnership with payroll solutions provider Gusto Inc. to provide a retirement recordkeeping service with payroll solutions to businesses and state auto-IRA programs.

Vestwell and Gusto make the announcement as the number of states offering state-facilitated or state-sponsored retirement plans has grown to 18 this year, with analysts expecting more to come. Pennsylvania may be the next state to offer such a plan, with its House of Representatives passing on May 24 a bill to establish the Keystone Saves program, an automatic enrollment, payroll-deduction IRA savings program.

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New York-based Gusto, which provides payroll services to 300,000 businesses, has teamed with Vestwell to provide retirement plan services through an application programming interface the firms say will save “time (and money)” on adding a retirement savings options for employees. The integration is available to the more than 1,000 Gusto users who are already using Vestwell, also based in New York, according to the announcement.

“Together with Gusto, we’re bringing a modern and user-friendly platform to the small businesses previously excluded from offering an affordable workplace savings program to their employees,” Aaron Schumm, founder and CEO of Vestwell, said in a statement. “The Vestwell and Gusto integration not only provides a flexible offering that can be delivered through advisors and TPAs; it also creates seamless integration across the rapidly expanding state IRA solutions.”

In the announcement, the firms noted that small business owners often have to “upload their payroll files to their retirement plan provider and are responsible for tracking any changes that are made on the 401(k) platform by their employees,” which can be time-consuming and lead to mistakes.

The integration is designed to streamline that process, and it also gives employers the ability to access Vestwell directly through the Gusto portal.

Small plan providers such as Vestwell, Ascensus and Ubiquity Retirement+Savings have reported growth in states that are requiring small businesses to add retirement plans. They also anticipate further growth based on incentives for businesses to add retirement plans coming online in 2024 from the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022.

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