Allison Kapelski

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

Kapelski: I am the team lead for our retirement operations onboarding team. When the team was first established following Creative Planning’s acquisition of Lockton Retirement Services, we consisted of three team members and managed seven different client onboarding processes, each with its own agreements, workflows and data-entry requirements.

Since then, I’ve led the effort to centralize onboarding into a single, standardized process, while growing the team from three to five members. This transformation has improved the consistency and quality of our client data and reporting; standardized client agreements; and streamlined the onboarding experience. Most importantly, it has reduced the administrative burden on our consultants and managing directors, allowing them to focus on serving clients and developing relationships.

PLANADVISER: What advice would you give to someone entering the industry today?

Kapelski: Just jump in and go for it and don’t give up when it gets hard. My professional background is in multifamily housing, and I have a B.S. degree in education—so absolutely nothing to do with retirement. I started the second week of the COVID-19 shutdown, fully remote, in an industry I knew absolutely nothing about (except the employer match because of my previous 401(k)s) as an executive assistant for the retirement group. Hard transition is an understatement.

A few months in, I still wasn’t fully understanding the differences between 3(21)/3(38), ERISA/non-ERISA, deferred comp/defined benefit, and I was asking myself, “What did I get myself into?!” because I felt like I was failing at my job. I had a very supportive team that answered millions of questions for me. They were patient with me when I made a mistake and gave me explanations and guidance on those mistakes. Finally, one day, things started clicking, and I started making processes for the team to follow when they needed something with which I assisted them. I was finally getting it and becoming confident in my abilities. Since then, I have helped build a team from the ground up and helped grow that team, all doing what I do best.

PLANADVISER: What have you done that you are most proud of at work? Personally?

Kapelski: Professionally, I’m most proud of the team I currently run and the processes that we have built out and put in place. Building it out from nothing was no small feat, and the growth we have had in the past 4.5 years has been amazing.

Personally, I’m most proud of earning my bachelor’s degree from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. It might have taken me seven years to get it done, but it is one of the most meaningful pieces of paper I have hanging on my wall. I didn’t have great family support throughout my college career and juggled a full class schedule while working full-time to support myself. There were a lot of tears, a lot of times I wanted to just quit, and several failures, but I persevered and got it done.