Erin Hall

Managing Director, Strategic Retirement Partners

Business at a Glance

PLANADVISER: How has your retirement plan practice evolved over the past three to five years?

Hall: Over the past three to five years, my retirement plan practice has evolved organically as the size and complexity of my client base grew alongside the depth of my fiduciary expertise. From the outset, my practice operated under a disciplined, high-service consulting model that extended well beyond investments. As clients increasingly relied on me for governance, execution and risk management support, I began to attract larger and more complex plans.

A pivotal moment occurred when a long-standing client contact, a chief people officer, transitioned to a new organization and engaged me to consolidate nine legacy retirement plans into a single structure. This became my first plan exceeding $100 million in total plan assets and required extensive coordination across plan design harmonization, recordkeepers, payroll integration, compliance testing, participant communications and fiduciary documentation. That experience sharpened my ability to manage institutional level complexity.

As a result, enhanced services originally required by larger plans became formal deliverables across my entire practice. These include independent cybersecurity RFIs and recordkeeper comparisons, automatic rollover IRA service provider analysis, auditor RFP management and documented vendor oversight processes. To support these engagements, I developed an ongoing partnership with an ERISA attorney, whom I have since referred into four additional client plans.

Following this work, I was referred into two additional plans with more than $100 million in aggregate plan assets. The rigor developed through these engagements now benefits all clients, regardless of size, strengthening governance, reducing risk and improving fiduciary outcomes across the practice.

PLANADVISER: What differentiates your team in a crowded advisory marketplace today? Please expand on what you do differently in practice, not philosophy.

Hall: What differentiates my team in the traditional retirement plan consulting industry is how we evaluate and implement the retirement benefit stack holistically, rather than treating the qualified plan as a stand-alone solution.

In practice, as organizations grow, we frequently see that nondiscrimination testing, contribution limits and regulatory requirements restrain deferral opportunities for employees whose compensation exceeds what the qualified plan can effectively support in meeting their retirement goals. A key part of our process is helping sponsors recognize when these constraints create unintended disparities for highly compensated employees and building alignment to further evaluate potential solutions. This challenge has been compounded by the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, which now requires certain high-income earners to make catch-up contributions on a Roth basis, materially reducing pre-tax deferral opportunities within the qualified plan.

Having been one of the first advisers to earn the Nonqualified Plan Consultant designation, I am uniquely qualified to help clients address this gap. In practice, this includes scheduling separate discovery meetings outside of regular committee reviews to educate sponsors on how nonqualified deferred compensation plans work and to assess whether a nonqualified plan is appropriate. These meetings focus on workforce demographics, compensation design, regulatory constraints and organizational objectives. We evaluate plan design alternatives and model how qualified and nonqualified plans work together to support meaningful retirement savings outcomes.

For organizations for which a nonqualified plan is appropriate, I support implementation and provide ongoing service, including governance support, coordination with legal and tax partners, and continued monitoring to ensure alignment with total rewards strategy and fiduciary oversight.

PLANADVISER: Describe your core plan sponsor client and service model. What problems do sponsors typically hire you to solve?

Hall: My core plan sponsor clients are growing and complex organizations navigating business change, regulatory pressure and workforce evolution. Many are experiencing mergers and acquisitions, rapid growth, leadership transitions or heightened fiduciary scrutiny and need a trusted adviser who can solve business problems through the lens of retirement and benefits strategy.

Sponsors typically hire me not simply to manage a retirement plan, but because they view me as a business consultant who brings deep retirement plan expertise. I help them align their retirement and benefit programs with broader organizational goals, such as talent retention, executive compensation strategy, cost management and risk mitigation.

My service model is holistic by design. While the qualified retirement plan is often the entry point, my work routinely expands to evaluating the full retirement benefit stack. This includes assessing plan design limitations, nondiscrimination impacts and workforce demographics, as well as educating sponsors on complementary solutions, such as nonqualified deferred compensation plans, health savings accounts, long-term-care benefits and fiduciary considerations related to

In practice, sponsors rely on me to identify problems they may not yet see, bring those issues forward with data, and guide them from analysis through implementation and ongoing service. My role is to provide clarity, structure and execution across retirement and benefit decisions so leaders can make informed choices with confidence while managing fiduciary and operational risk.

PLANADVISER: What are the three most pressing retirement plan challenges your sponsors face today? How have you helped sponsors address them in measurable ways?

Hall: The three most pressing retirement plan challenges my sponsors face today are fiduciary risk management, operational complexity driven by business change and ensuring retirement benefits remain effective across a diverse workforce.

First, fiduciary risk has increased materially as litigation activity, cybersecurity exposure and regulatory scrutiny continue to intensify. Sponsors are increasingly aware that ERISA litigation is now more structured and enduring, supported by third‑party litigation financing and increasingly sophisticated plaintiff strategies. I help sponsors respond by implementing documented, defensible fiduciary processes. In measurable terms, this includes leading independent cybersecurity RFIs and recordkeeper comparisons, establishing structured vendor oversight calendars, managing auditor RFPs and ensuring committee decisions are formally documented and reviewed.

Second, operational complexity has grown as sponsors navigate mergers and acquisitions, workforce expansion and plan transitions. I help sponsors manage these changes through coordinated plan consolidations, recordkeeper conversions, payroll alignment and audit remediation. A critical component of this work is recommending and partnering closely with ERISA counsel so legal considerations are addressed proactively, rather than reactively. Success is measured through clean transitions, timely compliance testing, reduced audit findings and smoother post‑transaction integration.

Third, sponsors are increasingly concerned that regulatory limits prevent certain employee populations from effectively using the qualified plan. I help sponsors identify plan design constraints and evaluate complementary solutions such as nonqualified plans and HSAs. Where implemented, these solutions measurably restore deferral capacity and better align benefits with compensation strategy.

Across all three challenges, sponsors hire me for clarity, execution and accountability, not simply recommendations.