Deals & People March 22, 2024

Retirement Industry People Moves – 3/22/24

The Retirement Advantage expands consulting team; Pantheon announces leadership succession plan; Noble appoints Johnson head of global client solutions; and more.

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The Retirement Advantage Adds Chase Meitler to Consulting Team 

Chase Meitler

The Retirement Advantage Inc., an independently owned retirement services company, announced the addition of Chase Meitler as the newest regional plan consultant. Meitler will be responsible for overseeing a territory that includes Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming. 

Meitler will report directly to Darin Erdmann, TRA’s director of sales and distribution. Meitler will concentrate on expanding TRA’s client base in the Rocky Mountain region, as well as crafting personalized retirement plan solutions that minimize taxable income for business owners.  

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Meitler’s various positions included senior retirement consultant and associate internal sales director at Empower Retirement and, most recently, regional retirement consultant at Transamerica. 

Pantheon Announces Succession Plan for CEO, CIO Roles 

Pantheon Ventures LLP announced this week that Kathryn Leaf will become CEO of the firm in 2025. She will succeed Paul Ward, who will become the executive chairman, following a tenure of more than a decade leading Pantheon through a “period of substantial growth and expansion.” 

The transition will be effective January 1, 2025, and is subject to standard regulatory approval.  

Leaf is currently co-head of investment and global head of real assets, as well as a member of the firm’s executive committee and partnership board. Since becoming partner in 2012, Leaf has led the development of the firm’s infrastructure platform and has overseen the firm’s growth to more than $20 billion in discretionary assets under management.  

Ward will step down following a 20-year career at Pantheon, having joined as vice president on the private equity secondaries team in 2003. 

Additionally, Jeff Miller, who has served as co-head of investment alongside Leaf since 2022 and as global head of private equity, will become chief investment officer. Miller is also a 15-year veteran of the firm and currently serves as global head of private equity, as well as a member of the firm’s executive committee and partnership board. 

Noble Appoints Angela Johnson as Head of Global Client Solutions and Strategic Partnerships 

Angela Johnson

The Noble Investment Group announced the hiring of Angela Johnson as head of global client solutions and strategic partnerships, a new role at the firm. Johnson will be responsible for leading Noble’s client relationships and cultivating new strategies and investment products. Johnson will also serve as a member of the firm’s investment committee.

Johnson joins Noble from venture capital firm Fifth Wall, where she was a partner and head of capital formation, leading global capital raising and investor relations. She began her career in hospitality at RLJ Development as part of its acquisitions, capital markets and portfolio management teams. She has more than 20 years of experience in the real estate sector. 

“I am honored to join the Noble team, an organization renowned for its integrity, investment performance, innovation, and leadership,” said Johnson in a statement. “I look forward to leveraging my experience to help build valuable new strategies across the Noble platform.” 

John Phillips Named Senior Strategic Adviser at FusionIQ

John Phillips

FusionIQ, a wealth management platform, announced the appointment of John Phillips as senior strategic adviser. Phillips will focus on consulting with registered investment advisers, family offices and broker/dealers to “drive growth, efficiency and transformation strategies.” 

He will also play a “key role” in expanding FusionIQ’s digital marketplace, finTAMP and self-directed investing modules as the company aims to become a leading all-in-one cloud-native wealth management platform.

Prior to joining FusionIQ, Phillips served as executive vice president and head of platform sales at Fidelity Institutional, a division of Fidelity Investments. Phillips has nearly three decades of experience in the financial services industry. 

“We’re thrilled to welcome John Phillips to the FusionIQ team,” said Mark Healy, FusionIQ’s CEO, in a statement. “John’s deep sector knowledge, industry relationships, and strategic insights will be invaluable as we continue to enhance our platform and help our clients become digital wealth leaders. We look forward to working closely with John to deliver unparalleled value for our partners and clients.” 

Phillips will begin his new role next week. 

Data & Research March 22, 2024

Race, Gender Disparities Still Evident in Retirement Account Balances

Even when accounting for salary and tenure, the gap still exists.

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Significant race and gender disparities persist in retirement account balances, even after adjusting for salary and tenure, according to research from the Collaborative for Equitable Retirement Savings.

The initiative, established in 2023, is a collaboration between the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program, Morningstar Retirement and the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association. According to the initiative’s first report, “Same Income, Same 401(k), Different Account Balance: The Critical Role of Retirement Plan Design in Addressing Racial and Gender Retirement Savings Gaps,” the discrepancies in retirement account balances can be linked to differences in contribution, loan and withdrawal behavior,

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“Income and tenure differences do not fully explain the reasons that Black and Hispanic workers in our dataset save less than their white counterparts, after controlling for age, salary, tenure, and plan design variables, nor do they fully explain the gender differences that we see in the data,” the report states. “Simply put, the differences in account balances across races and genders do not appear to be solely a result of differences in economic circumstances. An easy way to understand these differences in savings is by considering participants’ average account balances as a ratio of salary.”

The initiative’s research, conducted in 2023, found that among Black men aged 55 to 59, the average ratio of account balance to salary was about one to one, while Black women had lower average ratios. By contrast, white men and women had balances approximately 1.81 and 1.80 times their salaries, respectively. Hispanic workers fell in between these figures, with men’s balances 1.33 times their salary and women’s 1.43 times.

Those disparities widened for workers closer to retirement, emphasizing the need for targeted interventions, the report noted. According to the collaborative’s analysts, the key reasons for the disparity are:

  1. Discrepancies in contributions: After accounting for age, salary, tenure and plan design factors, Black and Hispanic females contributed a lower proportion of their salaries than their white counterparts, impacting their long-term retirement savings prospects;
  2. Withdrawals before retirement: Black and Hispanic workers tended to make more withdrawals before retirement than white participants, hindering the overall growth of their retirement savings; and
  3. Differences in loan usage: Black participants were more likely to have unpaid loans than white individuals, allowing them to save less in retirement accounts.

The report suggested that implementing cost-effective measures to encourage participants to refrain from early withdrawals could also significantly narrow the racial gap in retirement savings.

“Simulation results indicate that eliminating preretirement withdrawals would substantially mitigate race and gender disparities at retirement, particularly for early- and mid-career 401(k) participants,” the report stated.

Analysts noted that account balances used in the study do not include savings outside of workplace plans. However, workers’ tenure and income were adjusted to ensure comparisons were as equitable as possible.

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