Leading by Example
Alison Cooke Mintzer (photo by Chris Ramirez)
In the early 2000s, the team at PLANSPONSOR recognized a growing group of visitors and registrants to our website—advisers. Traditional investment consultants to pension plans had been dropping by for a while, but this was a new group of retirement plan advisers—those guiding mostly defined contribution (DC) plan sponsors, in the management of their retirement plan. We started slowly reaching out to this community, launching first a small digital weekly newsletter, AdvisorDash, under the PLANSPONSOR brand, in 2003.
It quickly became apparent that we wanted to do more, including to promote some of these advisers to our plan sponsor community and to each other. So, in 2004, we solicited nominations for the first PLANSPONSOR Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year Award.
We set out to acknowledge “the contributions of the nation’s best financial advisers in helping make retirement security a reality for workers across the nation.” If that sounds vague, it’s because it was. We weren’t sure what the benchmark for “best” adviser would look like. It was a daunting task, also because we were unsure what type of response we’d get—who would nominate an adviser or apply, themselves?
The goal was simply to shine a light on the best practices of the nation’s very best retirement plan advisers. That has remained our mission for the awards since the start.
Understandably, the qualitative nature of the award can be difficult to explain, especially because it changes from year to year. The first year, for example, we didn’t require advisers to acknowledge fiduciary status—we obviously do that now and have for many years; we were yet to have qualified default investment alternatives (QDIAs) to help participants make sense of asset allocation—and to contribute to our benchmark; and fee-based advising wasn’t something we even asked about. Also, we recognized individuals only, whereas now, team-based advising seems to be the norm.
As the industry evolves, our award has done the same, requiring advisers to use the many varied plan design tools at their disposal—automatic enrollment and escalation, for example—to improve their retirement plans, or to have specific reasons why they don’t find them in the best interest of particular clients.
Luckily for us, that first year, and every year since, we have found the best in the country. Between the reach of our plan sponsors who eagerly nominate their adviser, and support from all sides of the retirement plan industry, our award continues to grow and honor an amazing group of professionals. Every year, it’s difficult for our group of judges—which includes both advisers and editorial team members—to choose “the best” because we have so many excellent candidates.
It’s hard to believe, but it has been 15 years since we gave our first award, to John Mott of Smith Barney in Houston, now with Morgan Stanley but still in Houston. Since that first ceremony, in 2005, we have recognized, through the individual and various team categories of the award, 39 individuals and teams.
Reflecting on this group over the past few months has been incredible. Not only are the vast majority of them still full-time retirement plan advisers, they all still lead our industry. They serve on industry boards and advisory councils; they are sought-after speakers and mentors; they set new trends; and their businesses have grown tremendously. I’d like to think our award played a bit of a role in that, and I also must acknowledge how wonderful it’s been to have such excellent ambassadors for our brands.
We continue to give our award each year, but in light of this milestone year, 2020 will be somewhat of a trip down memory lane, as well as a look toward the future. Past Retirement Plan Advisers of the Year will be profiled on PLANADVISER’s website, will take part in a roundtable-type discussion in each issue of the magazine (see Winners’ Circle), and will help us take a new approach to our PLANADVISER National Conference (PANC) in September—this year in Arizona. We’ll honor many of them next month at our annual Excellence in Retirement Awards Dinner in Manhattan.
As many of you continue to look to them for insight on where our industry is headed, we do that, too—giving you new opportunities to learn from the best and the brightest.