Sean Forbes

PLANADVISER: Tell us about your role at your firm and how you contribute to its growth and progress.

Forbes: I originally came to Navigate 401K as the firm’s director of participant engagement, but the role has evolved greatly over the past year. We focus on corporate 401(k) plans, which is not all that common in Alabama, but we are truly focused on the 401(k) first and foremost. We have a sister firm, Navigate Wealth, but the separation of the two allows us to think of the 401(k) and its servicing needs in a different light because, unlike a lot of shops, wealth is not keeping the lights on.

Over the past year, we have shaped the firm to maximize the impact we can have on plan sponsors and their employees, but I have also been working on creating a platform for retirement-plan-focused advisers as well as non-specialists who are looking to give their plan clients the best experience possible. Part of that was bridging the gap with a micro-wealth solution within Navigate 401K custodied through Altruist to serve clients traditionally neglected by wealth advisers. Our adviser platform today is about providing maximum value to our partner advisers and giving streams of revenue that would have previously been unavailable, without increasing their operational burdens. That allows them to better serve plan sponsors or, in the case of nonspecialist wealth advisers, better serve their 401(k) referrals and provide wealth leads that originate from the plans they sent us.

PLANADVISER: Where do you see the greatest opportunity to improve advisory services and business practices, and how are you acting on it?

Forbes: There seems to be a significant divide between the way advisers who focus on the 401(k) space and generalist advisers handle the education component of a 401(k). That, to me, is a twofold problem, because I mean more than one thing when I bring up education. First of all, I see significant gaps in the participant education being provided when 401(k)s are treated as an ancillary part of an adviser’s practice. I also see huge gaps in the education advisers are providing to plan sponsors.

If an adviser sees the plan as just another revenue stream, they miss out on providing plan sponsors with the insights to running a plan. I want to add, too, that this isn’t all generalist, but there does seem to be a giant swath that don’t know what their responsibilities are to the plan, let alone how to explain to a plan sponsor what their responsibilities are and that one of those responsibilities is participant education.

At Navigate, we are putting education front and center, providing our clients and partnering with nonspecialists to put better insights in front of plan sponsors and their participants.

PLANADVISER: Who are your mentors or role models and what lessons have you learned from them?

Forbes: I’m lucky because my dad, Bob Forbes (John Hancock) has been a wholesaler in the 401(k) space for more than 30 years, so I’ve had fantastic exposure to the space throughout my life. The greatest influences to my philosophy around the (k) space have come from going outside of his network and taking in a variety of perspectives. Coming out of college, I knew that I eventually wanted to be an adviser and made the decision, on some fantastic advice from an adviser, to work on an internal desk at a recordkeeper first and went to work with Vestwell.

Throughout my time there, I was lucky enough to work with Josh Henry (Wealthspire), where he taught me many of the nuances of the plan space. I also had the opportunity to refer in one of my close friends, Wilson Wolfe (July), and it was fantastic, because we had the opportunity to use each other as sounding boards and to allow each other to form our own perspectives on the (k) space.

At my current firm, Justin Ladden has helped me further refine my skill set, but it has not just been one person; several have shaped my experience.