Retirement Industry People Moves – 5/3/24

PRI hires retirement plan executive; The Standard hires an AI lead; Broadridge names Kirkland to mutual fund regulatory team; and more. 

PRI Hires Retirement Plan Executive

Karen DiSastio

The Pension Resource Institute LLC, a retirement plan compliance, technology, and consulting firm, has hired Karen DiStasio as senior vice president, member relations.

In the position, DiStasio will focus on enhancing the PRI member experience, working alongside Annie Messer, who joined PRI in March 2023.

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“Karen has the perfect background to complement PRI—helping financial institutions and professionals grow and scale their retirement business,” Jason C. Roberts, CEO of PRI, said in a statement. “Karen joins us at a time where the industry is recognizing the vital role retirement plans play in positioning financial institutions for maximum growth and while it is bracing for even more change. She will be critical to advancing our goal of doubling our membership over the next 12–18 months.”

PRI offers clients a customizable and comprehensive suite of compliance forms, agreements, disclosure, policies and procedures, and training materials designed to help banks, broker-dealers, and investment advisers simplify regulatory complexity.

“I am honored to join a team with such highly respected expertise in retirement plans,” DiStasio said in a statement. “Having had the privilege of working closely with retirement plan advisers in my previous roles, I am eager to bring my insights and experiences to PRI. My goal is to harness this collective knowledge to empower PRI members, helping them navigate the complexities of retirement plans with confidence and clarity.”

The Standard Names Head of AI Strategy and Development

Peter Orr

The Standard Insurance Company, or The Standard, named Porter Orr to the role of second vice president of artificial intelligence strategy and development.

Orr is responsible for leading and administering the company’s AI strategy in partnership with employees in information technology as well as business and service divisions across The Standard. In the position, he will seek to “harness AI capabilities that deliver tangible value and productivity to the company and customers,” according to the announcement.

Prior to joining The Standard, Porter worked at Unum as head of applied AI products and platforms. He also held positions in data analytics, machine learning and AI at Mobi Systems, the U.S. Department of Defense and The Walt Disney Company.

Broadridge Taps Kirkland to Head Mutual Fund Unit

Jane Kirkland

Broadridge Financial Solutions has named Jane Kirkland head of mutual fund regulatory communications for the firm’s asset management solutions group.

In the role, Kirkland will be responsible for asset manager client relationships, product development, service delivery and engagement with securities regulators.

Kirkland will be overseeing a business providing regulatory disclosures to shareholders in more than 30,000 mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, variable annuities and other investment vehicles. She will also expand the team’s ability to service clients in Europe.

Kirkland had previously spent nearly nine years with State Street as senior vice president in leadership roles including head of boutique asset manager servicing; prior to that she was at McKinsey as a partner in the strategy and financial institutions practice.

Before the new role at Broadridge, she had been partnering with the firm as a consultant to develop its regulatory reporting strategy.

Newfront Names August-deWilde to Board

Katherine August-deWilde

Newfront announced that Katherine August-deWilde will join the insurance and retirement services firm’s board of directors after being an investor and adviser for the last six years.

August-deWilde will bring experience including co-leading First Republic Bank from 1985 to 2015. She currently serves on corporate boards, including Sunrun and Eventbrite, along with several non-profit organizations.

 “Newfront’s strategy of marrying technology with industry-leading talent to provide a modern client experience is revolutionary and standard-setting,” August-deWilde said in a statement. “I look forward to joining the board of directors to support the company’s client-focused culture and business strategy.”

Rep. Sean Casten: SEC Climate Rule Will Protect Investors from Risk

Many investors are unaware of the climate-related risks that their assets carry, the Congressman argues.

Representative Sean Casten, D-Illinois, and a co-chair of the Sustainable Investment Caucus, has been an outspoken advocate for the climate risk disclosure rule finalized by the Securities and Exchange Commission in March. Casten argues that the rule will help less-sophisticated investors protect themselves from climate risks to their investments.

The SEC’s final rule requires public issuers to disclose their physical and transition risks, including damages they suffer from significant weather events. They also must disclose the carbon emissions that result from their direct operations and electricity consumption, known as Scope 1 and 2 emissions, respectively.

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Critics of the rule say it exceeds the SEC’s legal authority and that it will be extremely costly for issuers to implement. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals placed a stay on the rule on March 18, 12 days after it was finalized, pending review.

Risk Transparency

Casten has argued in many Congressional hearings on the rule that, as climate change worsens, sophisticated investors will increasingly try to offload risk by selling assets with high climate risk exposure to less sophisticated investors. This so-called “information asymmetry” will enable some investors to effectively offload their risks onto other, less-savvy investors.

In an interview, Casten says “it’s much easier to access capital and to succeed in capital markets if you have more information than the person on the other side of the trade. There’s been a lot of investor pressure for a long time to do this.”

Casten adds that when sophisticated investors “see risk coming, they move it into special opportunities, and sell it off to, you know, a small local pension fund.” That’s a risk, he argues, that the climate risk disclosure rule would help protect them from.

Emphasizing the information gap between some investors, Casten says, “if you’re the kind of operation that can afford to hire hundreds of smart MBAs and you’ve got piles of Bloomberg terminals and you’ve got access to everybody’s SEC filings, you can figure out where risk is parked in the system and how to insulate yourself from that.”

But in the case of smaller investors, “If you don’t have access to all that, how would you find it?”

“Why are insurers pulling out of Florida?” Casten asks. “Because we’ve gotten [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] reports that say there’s going to be two feet of sea level rise coming to the Gulf Coast by 2050. In other words, before current home mortgages will be paid off.”

Casten argues that the knowledgeable investors want to “make sure that their portfolio is hedged out against that risk.”

Investor Popularity

Both Casten and SEC Chairman Gary Gensler have underscored that the climate rule was very popular with investors in the public comment file even amid the public backlash from industry groups and policymakers on the others side of the debate. Casten quips, “the next time I meet with an investor that’s opposed to this role will be the first time. I’ve never met an investor that would like less information.”

Specifically, Casten says that “the folks who I think have been most broadly supportive are a lot of the state treasurers.”

Casten notes that state treasurers and other pension managers hold funds for long periods of time, and “they don’t particularly want a portfolio that requires rebalancing and adjusting every year, every six months, every nanosecond.” Given their longer time horizons, they’d prefer to invest in assets that don’t carry longer-term risks, such as high climate risk exposure, he says.

 

 

 

 

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