2023 PLANADVISER Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year

Domenic DiPiero, Newport Capital Group

FINALIST

Red Bank, New Jersey

Business at a Glance as of 12/31/22

Plan assets under advisement: $14.4 billion
Median plan size (in assets): $105.2 million
Plans under administration: 137
Total participants served: 155,000

PLANADVISER: How is your team/process/structure unique? How has it evolved? Where will you be in five years?

DiPiero: Newport Capital Group’s business philosophy is to manage client assets as a privately owned and independently operated, conflict-free investment office and to structure our service model as a team. Each member has a primary responsibility that intersects in the high-touch service model Newport Capital Group has built for our clients.

The overarching approach and philosophy guiding how Newport Capital Group provides investment consulting services is predicated on ensuring that participants have access to a broad array of asset classes and investment options that are appropriate, reasonably priced and managed by top performing investment managers. We ensure that participants have continued access to top-performing investment managers by utilizing an institutional asset manager approach when vetting any potential new investment offering. By drawing upon the expertise and experience of our analyst team, we have created a comprehensive due diligence process aimed at ensuring that participants can prudently allocate their retirement assets in a manner consistent with their risk tolerance and at the lowest possible cost to them.

The same members of the team who prepare materials will be engaged at every client meeting, allowing for full and complete communication between those individuals researching the investment decisions and those presenting on their performance before the committee.

In assisting our clients in ensuring compliance under ERISA and providing a world-class retirement plan for its employees, we have implemented a number of processes. Each process, whether focused on investment analysis or broader asset allocation, is aimed at mitigating fiduciary liability and supporting participants in achieving retirement readiness.

Newport Capital Group was named one of PLANADVISER’s Top 100 Advisers for 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012 and 2011. Newport Capital Group was ranked #25 (out of 607 Firms), #1 in New Jersey, #1 in Philadelphia Metro, and #5 in New York Tri-State in Financial Advisor’s 2021 Annual Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) Ranking. Domenic DiPiero was named 2019, 2018 and 2016 Financial Times 401 Top Retirement Plan Advisers. The firm was also named to the National Association of Plan Advisors 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 and 2017 Top Defined Contribution Advisor Teams and the National Association of Plan Advisors 2018 Top DC Advisors Multi-Office Firms. In 2016, Newport Capital Group was named PLANSPONSOR Large Team of the Year by PLANADVISER Magazine. We were also named one of six national finalists for the PLANSPONSOR Team of the Year Award in 2013.

Through our 18+ years working within our existing team structure, our evolution has been to refine and enhance the services we bring to our plan sponsor clients. Our goal is to make their committees run easier, alleviate their worry on meeting compliance and fiduciary responsibilities, while ultimately making sure participants are ready to retire. We regularly survey our clients to listen and ask what would make their burdens easier.

Over the next five years, we will continue our organic growth strategy. We will remain independently owned and operated, having no allegiances to any parties except for our clients. Compared to advisers who are impacted by their affiliation to other service providers, insurance companies or broker/dealers, we are able to prioritize our clients’ needs and objectives in an unbiased and conflict-free fashion. We are not affiliated with any other organizations. Our clients are assured that they are receiving the highest level of conflict-free service from specialists for institutional investment management, answering to no one else besides the committee.

PLANADVISER: As a retirement plan adviser, what do you take the most pride in?

DiPiero: Pride comes in many ways. We take great pride in improving our participants’ retirement readiness, and we also take pride in helping participants realize their future potential and how it translates into their retirement accounts. We celebrate when we see measurable results, an uptick in deferrals or an increase in plan participation; we know these were driven by many factors and decisions we’ve helped committees realize. Ultimately, we know that the more than 155,000 participants in our clients’ plans are having an enhanced experience and will hopefully have a comfortable retirement since we’ve been involved.

We love seeing when a company “gets it” and adopts a financial wellness mentality that permeates all layers and levels of an organization. If we can demonstrate the reasoning to adopt auto- enrollment, auto-escalation or increase a company match, we are fulfilled. We have a high-profile client base, and most of the recent litigation has been high-profile names; we enjoy bringing peace of mind to all committees through our prudent fiduciary process.

Lately, the largest point of pride in our practice is being independently owned and operated. Newport Capital Group highly values our ability to serve our clients without having to answer any other parties. With the uptick in M&A activity in the advisory space, many firms are owned by large national brokerage and insurance firms and have been quoted saying this strategy is to gain access for cross-selling and increasing their revenues. In our opinion, this creates a conflict of interest thatcan impact fiduciary duty. In our experience, some committees unknowingly include an adviser affiliated with a larger service provider or global benefit conglomerate to provide investment management services; we believe this presents a conflict of interest and allows these affiliated advisor/brokers to cross-sell financial products. We pride ourselves on making sure plan sponsors understand this point. Newport Capital Group will not receive any compensation from any third party, and there are no additional revenue streams outside of the direct compensation stated in our service agreement.

PLANADVISER: What challenges do you think the retirement plan industry faces and what role do you have in addressing and confronting those challenges?

DiPiero: The overwhelming challenge in the retirement plan industry is making sure participants will be ready to retire and have meaningful savings to retire comfortably. Retirement means different things to different people. Maximizing readiness and participant outcomes is imperative, and participants need to understand that the actions they take today will have a direct correlation and lasting effect when they are no longer in the workforce.

Newport Capital Group sees our role as helping to build a bridge between plan sponsors and their respective recordkeepers and to help mitigate fiduciary responsibility through oversight and governance best practices, while keeping the participants at the forefront of all decisionmaking. Providing participant education, in our opinion, is a hallmark of a well-run defined contribution plan. We engage with the recordkeeper to create a calendar of rotating education initiatives that consider the current demographics of the participant base. Using demographic data as a roadmap, education should be tailored based on the plan’s characteristics and campaigns deployed that most likely will affect positive changes at the employee level. These campaigns need to be monitored for effectiveness and changed as needed based on real-time reviews in conjunction with the recordkeeper and investment consultant. Well-managed plans with educational initiatives stressing the importance of contributing to plans give participants the best chance of success in saving for retirement.

Newport Capital Group’s role is to make the case to add all available attributes to help participant outcomes. Plan sponsor clients are faced with difficult issues regarding retirement readiness, talent retention and black-and-white corporate finances. A consistent theme that we have seen is: How do we use the 401(k) as a tool for client retention in an environment of economic uncertainty, talent competitiveness and corporate austerity? The role of a well-functioning retirement plan is viewed through a number of prisms. Some recognize that helping participants plan for retirement is a moral obligation. Others view their 401(k) plan as a spoke in the larger wheel of employee benefits, assuring that they can continue to attract and retain the best talent. Some view it purely as an administrative headache, where best practices are adopted solely for the reasons of meeting their obligations under ERISA. Fearful of drawing attention from the watchful eye of the Department of Labor, compliance is mechanical, expensive and viewed as the cost of doing business. While these perceptions are influential in guiding investment committee actions, and therefore participant behavior, we have tried to suggest another argument: A sound, well-functioning retirement plan is good for a company’s bottom line.

Recognizing that certain participants who may not be ready for retirement most often choose to work later in life has a very real financial impact on a firm’s well-being. As health care costs explode and the average age of participants rises , corporations are experiencing a very real strain in keeping health and disability insurance costs manageable. Understanding these facts, we have strengthened our emphasis on retirement readiness as a best practice or tool to retain talent.

Depending on the culture and paternalistic view of the company, many plans include features like auto-enrollment and auto-escalation to try and increase participation rates in the plans and ensure participants are saving enough. In our experience, combining the plan design elements of automatic enrollment, automatic escalation and scenario analysis on contributions from an employer match have been the most successful in marrying the seemingly contrasting goals of retirement readiness and the immediate outlay required by both the sponsor and participant. Bringing these points to the fore and spearheading campaigns to bring about action has been our primary plan design goal over the past few years.

Though not always an easy sell, combining these elements has yielded tremendous success in aligning the interests and goals of both participants and sponsors alike. We typically perform an extremely thorough analysis considering projected employee retention, the increased costs associated with the recommended plan design elements and the very real and significant costs associated with losing top-tier talent. Using this analysis, we are able to appeal to both the personal nature of HR’s desires and the mathematical and analytical concerns of finance.

Our analysis gives credence to the apprehensions of both HR and Finance, and in most instances, HR is satisfied to offer additional benefits and meet their talent retention goals, and Finance is able to understand that it’s a 401(k)’s role in contributing to the continued aim of keeping the company “in the black.” Newport Capital Group endeavors to align the goals of both groups while continuing to act as an advocate for participants.

PLANADVISER: Please tell us about an important experience you have had while getting involved in your local, regional or global community.

DiPiero: Long before Newport Capital Group was founded by Domenic DiPiero in 2004, charitable engagement and philanthropy was part of his family life. The understanding of the impact individuals could have on worthy nonprofits was ingrained in his belief system.

Domenic founded a business on the same street he attended grammar and high school. Out of the windows of the office, he can see Riverview Medical Center, Count Basie Theatre, Two River Theatre and The Two River Times. We not only impact the less fortunate in our community, but we are the community. We have the pulse of the community, hearing from local leaders that run businesses, local government and nonprofits, and we are able to help solve issues we can impact. Our firm motto is to help shepherd the community to realize goals and aspirations; not only is this accomplished by impacting the more than 155,000 employees and plan participants in our retirement plans, but also by helping the community realize the same goals. We believe that locally, no one helps more than we do!

The experiences Domenic has had in his community have been varied and impact primarily local and regional charities. On the smaller scale, he has helped a local Pop Warner football team in the city of Asbury Park afford uniforms for both football and cheerleaders; the relationships forged with the coaching staff uncovered another need. One of the coaching staff’s goals for developing successful young adults was to monitor the kids in the program, making sure they were good students and helpful citizens. The coaches came to Domenic with the idea that a few students had great potential, since they excelled academically and were identified as potential scholarship recipients. Working in conjunction with the local Catholic school and an educational nonprofit, Domenic was able to donate the tuition and busing assistance needed to get them into a private institution. These students have gone on to higher education and have been able to take advantage of opportunities afforded to them through a different path in education.

On a larger scale, Domenic has made lifetime gifts of more than $2 million to Drexel University and more than $1 million to Hackensack Meridian Health (HMH), where the DiPiero family helped build a 22,000-square-foot surgical center at Riverview Medical Center, allowing patients to receive advanced surgical procedures near home, rather than going into New York City. “My family and I are so proud to support Riverview Medical Center in this way, as Riverview has been our family’s hospital for more than three decades,” Domenic DiPiero said in a statement. “We are delighted and privileged to be able to have an impact on the health care of our community through this gift, as well as my role as chairman of the RMC Foundation Board. I look forward to what the future will bring in terms of continued and increased support for this outstanding medical center and, in turn, the many patients they serve. Riverview is creating a center that reflects the generosity and strength of our growing community to the benefit of countless families.”

Domenic spends a significant amount of his energy on donor stewardship, engaging and retaining donors for the broader philanthropic goals of the HMH Foundation. For example, the DiPiero family has hosted the annual Riverview Medical Center Foundation’s Fireworks on the Navesink on July 3 for the last 10 years, and this year will be the 11th. To date, the fundraiser has raised approximately $2.5 million to go back into the community to further its plans to elevate the level of local care remaining close to home.

Creating opportunities for new and additional donors to be introduced to causes is just as important and is at the heart of Domenic’s mission. About 12 years ago, Domenic DiPiero purchased the local Red Bank newspaper, The Two River Times. The fear of the local paper going out of business threatened the charitable voice for the community, and losing local news coverage would have negatively impacted the community. The primary value of The Two River Times is to educate, inform and inspire people. The purpose of journalism is to provide people with the information they need to make the best possible decisions about their lives, communities, societies and leaders. A viable local newspaper provides a monitoring system within the community; it is the primary means that keeps people talking with each other. Every aspect of a newspaper, from the entertainment section and neighborhood activities to local and regional news, sports, theater, events and accomplishments, all play an essential role in keeping communities together.

Domenic believes the most critical function is covering the most well-run and upstanding charities in our local community. The paper has a committee made up of local nonprofit leaders and philanthropic stakeholders to vet Form 990s using metrics such as financial responsibility, governance, program support and leadership, giving light to the best-run charities. The mission is critical, and The Two River Times must constantly change and embrace the evolving landscape while being financially solid and keeping communities informed, connected and knowledgeable.

The Newport Capital Group team has benefited from a philanthropic culture, enabling the broader group to also be motivated by our passion for helping others and making a difference in our local community. The firm has a working group that was established to support an environment for charitable and philanthropic giving. The group is charged with reviewing requests and the use of funds towards program support. The group meets quarterly for decisionmaking and awarding organizations our donation dollars. This focus translates into an active, philanthropic company culture as we help our communities and neighbors.

Our team members are highly encouraged to participate actively in our communities, where they act as board members, committee leaders, volunteers and donors to organizations that speak to each member’s individual interests. These collective philanthropic efforts impact many different local and regional nonprofits and initiatives. We have effectively advocated for thousands of children, women, veterans, seniors, healthcare initiatives, animals, the environment, the arts, education, religious activities, journalism and more, all a significant point of firm pride. The list of causes and organizations that Newport Capital Group and the larger team support is extensive. Here is a sampling where we have and continue to make a meaningful impact:

180 Turning Lives Around Inc., helping survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault.
Count Basie Center for the Arts, a world-class inclusive center for arts education, culture and the performing arts in New Jersey.
CPC Behavioral Healthcare, providing physical and mental health, substance-use treatment and specialized education.
Drexel University, an urban research university providing scholarships, research and career-defining nonprofit co-ops.
Emanuel Cancer Foundation of NJ, helping families facing pediatric cancers support at no cost.
George Street Playhouse, enriching people’s lives by producing world-class theater.
Girl Scouts of the Jersey Shore, building girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place.
Hudson Farm Foundation, supporting qualified charities in the immediate vicinity of Hudson Farm in Sussex County, N.J.
The Jersey Shore Partnership, advocating for New Jersey Shore protection.
The New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Foundation Inc., sharing the experiences of the Vietnam War era and its enduring legacy with future generations.
Monmouth Council Boy Scouts of America, preparing young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.
Monmouth County SPCA, protecting, caring and advocating for all animals.
Preferred Behavioral Healthcare, delivering quality and compassionate behavioral health services to individuals and families through a Trauma Informed Care philosophy and approach.
Roman Catholic High School, educating a diverse student body drawing from every section of the city of Philadelphia, as well as the surrounding counties.
Semper Fi & America Fund, helping our service members, veterans and military families achieve their highest possible quality of life and independence.
Springpoint Senior Living Foundation, providing assistance for qualified life plan community residents who have outlived their resources, by no fault of their own.
Villanova University, providing scholarships to worthy students and enhancing programs that make an impact on campus to benefit the student population.

PLANADVISER: What advice can you give to your industry peers about developing a successful philanthropic or charitable vision for a firm?

DiPiero: My advice starts with understanding your personal and firm philanthropic capacity. There are many needs to be filled in our communities and different sized nonprofits, but it’s important to find the organization that speaks most to you and your colleagues. Is it helping at-risk children afford higher education, providing the elderly population with meals, helping animals, housing the homeless or providing arts education to underserved populations?

Philanthropy is more than sponsoring and attending events. Just like we analyze investments as financial professionals, you need to analyze the Form 990s and understand what and who you’re giving to. Reviewing 990s, board and administrative turnover, leadership and costs to run the nonprofit are all financial considerations to be made prior to donating. Identifying the organizational needs, their financial sustainability, their governance practices and deployment of funds is key to understanding the full picture of how your philanthropy will be utilized. The impact your philanthropic giving will have on your chosen nonprofits is also a decisionmaking factor.

Just as important, I would also suggest building a committee at the firm to govern your mission and goals for your philanthropic giving. Philanthropy and charitable giving should be part of the company culture, not mandated or forced by leadership. Having a formal process including regular meetings and grant reviews will keep the giving at the forefront, while allowing for employee and team support. When the broader team can be involved, each member will feel empowered by their collective giving, and hopefully that will translate into an engaged group that will also act as board members, committee leaders, volunteers and donors to these organizations. There have been countless articles and studies done that show volunteering boosts employee engagement and improves hiring and retention. Newport Capital Group’s team, and by extension their broader families, have benefited greatly from our altruistic culture taking root far beyond our office walls.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss philanthropy and giving with any of our industry peers; I feel as an industry, we all give a tremendous amount back to our respective communities. I am extremely passionate about this topic, but equally passionate and protective about making sure people understand how to qualify a well-run and financially deserving nonprofit.

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