Steady & Agile

Adrian Miguel (00:09):

Hi, my name is Adrian Miguel, and I'm the director of the Participant Advice team at Schwab Retirement Plan Services. I've had the privilege of serving the retirement saving needs of 401k participants for 21 years.

There's a connection between financial health and mental health, and we're passionate about helping participants get the financial information they need and the peace of mind that they seek. Throughout the pandemic, we experienced record volumes of participants, reaching out to us for help. During these conversations, we focus on their 401k plan account and help provide education on planning and saving for their retirement, but we also expand beyond that by taking a holistic approach to participants' entire financial wellbeing.

You often hear of 401k participants referred to as accidental investors. We provide access to education and various tools and resources so that they can learn more about debt, emergency savings, health savings accounts, or HSAs, insurance, and much more. Our approach is simple, educate participants in a way that meets people where they are, in layman's terms they can understand, so that they can make more informed decisions and feel more confident about their financial futures. Our ultimate goal is to help address participants' worries and concerns about retirement and make sure they can take action towards reaching their financial goals.
 

Nathan Voris (00:09):

My name is Nathan Voris. I am director of investments, insights and consultant services at Schwab Retirement Plan Services. It's a great place to do what I love. I think about my 20 year career and the ebbs and flows across the 401k market in a 20, 25 year period. Experience matters. We learn from the things that we do well and the things that maybe we fall down on. And so building that collectively, I think makes us better the next time. The key to success is simply listening. Listening to participants, listening to the plan sponsor, listening to the advisor and the consultant to understand what their goals and objectives are. We try to act as a connector to make the client's life easier. You think about the data that we have available to us. You think about ERISA consulting and advisory programs, financial wellness, all of the things that for many plan sponsors and advisors are important components of success.

Understanding that, making sure they're connected to the right solutions is one of the things that we try to focus on. Our job is to make sure they have the tools and resources to be successful and to do the work that they're hired to do for the plan sponsor. We have an open architecture approach. We try to empower that advisor and consultant to really do whatever they need to do from a fiduciary perspective. Whether that's investment menu, advice managed accounts, how they serve the participant, really embracing that fiduciary duty and putting them in the driver's seat. I think Schwab Retirement Plan Services is on the short list to so many advisors in terms of record keeping because we do it right.

Hello. My name is Loredana Morosanu and I'm a Director of Strategic Relationships at Schwab Retirement Plan Services. In 2003, I moved to the US from Romania. Since then, I've been using my skills to do work I love, helping people make a difference in their financial futures. First, I want to understand your business model, your priorities, and the kind of relationship you want to have with us. Learning how we can best work together to help participants is at the core of my role. Second, I'll work with you to help support the fiduciary functions of our shared client. At Schwab Retirement Plan Services, we provide access to a broad array of content and resources that may be relevant to plan sponsors with their fiduciary duties.

And last, but just as important, I'll keep you current in our company updates and our strategic initiatives. I believe a successful business relationship starts with strong communication. I'm always looking for feedback on how we can help better serve you. It's important for people to make informed decisions, so they can feel confident and prepare for what lies ahead. I look forward to learning more about your organization and working together to help your clients' participants with their financial futures.

Hello. My name is Rodney Shufford, and I'm a Relationship Manager at Schwab Retirement Plan Services. In my 22 years here, I've been serving our clients by helping consultants, plan sponsors, and participants work towards better outcomes.

I see each day as an opportunity to prove to consultants and plan sponsors that choosing us was the right decision. They have an enormous responsibility of successfully positioning participants for retirement.

Building trust with plan consultants starts with the little things, like being consistently sponsor and accurate with the information we relay. From there, trust progresses through various interactions, like working together to implement a plan design change that may help benefit participants or sharing insights about our platform and our capabilities, or simply keeping plan consultants apprised of information that helps better serve their sponsors.

Consultants are part of a highly competitive environment, and we have to evolve alongside to show we're a reliable resource. When consultants engage us, it's important they know we're a committed organization of professionals who try to look at every situation through our client's eyes. By doing right by participants, we all. And after all, isn't that the common goal?

Hi, I'm Catherine Golladay. I'm the managing director and head of workplace financial services. I've been here 25 years, and I have enjoyed every single one of them. At Schwab Retirement Plan Services, we serve employers and their employees, helping them prepare for retirement. It's a wonderful place to work. You get to see firsthand the changes that you're making in someone's life. It's so rewarding. We see things through clients' eyes. We put them really at the center of everything we do, innovating on their behalf and serving their needs, and we get to have a lot of fun along the way.

We are completely committed because we know how important it is to help plan sponsors and the consultants that serve them, just make the best retirement plan that they can and helping them solve their problems. Consultants can expect that we are going to deliver exceptional service to their clients. It's really how we show up every day, with a service heart and just a willingness to go the extra mile. What a powerful feeling to know that you're helping people and their family as they're thinking about preparing for retirement. It's a humbling experience, but it's so gratifying. We are committed and passionate about the people that we serve.

Hello. My name is Andrew Hudson, and I'm a Senior Manager in Consultant Services at Schwab Retirement Plan Services. I've been a proud team member here for the past 11 years. As your single point of contact, Consultants Services is always ready to help provide essential resources, including RFIs and RFPs, plan level reporting, and benchmarking for consultants and plan sponsor clients.

We serve as your primary liaison to other sources within our organization who can help provide demonstrations and client strategy reviews. We are committed to assisting consultants in understanding the flexibility and the breadth of resources that we make available.

In our industry, things are constantly changing. So one way we provide you with updates is in the form of quarterly webinars. You can hear directly from our leadership, about our commitment to the retirement business, and the enhancements that are being developed to help you better serve plan sponsors.

We know you bring value to your clients and we aim to help your business stand out from the crowd through features like third party advisor managed accounts, or AMA. We introduced the concept of AMA in 2015, and we're proud to have been the first record keeper to collaborate with Morningstar Investment Management, LLC, in this area. With our robust experience, plus their fiduciary support, you'll find it easier than ever to put your client's retirement plan needs first.

We share a common goal, and that goal is to help plan sponsor clients create a more secure financial future for participants. I look forward to learning about your practice and exploring how we can work toward achieving that goal together.