Breakfast in the Exhibit Hall

Staff Development For A Greater Bottom Line

Strengthening client relationships is a complex challenge for advisors and third-party administrators in the retirement plan business. Discover the keys to long-term success that we’ve gleaned from our years of research and working alongside plan sponsors, advisors and TPAs.
Stacey Scott, Director, TPA Business Development, Cuna Mutual Group

Power of Partnership: Empower’s commitment to TPAs

Empower is dedicated to the TPA marketplace. In fact, 79% of Empower SelectTM plans are sold with a TPA.* Join this session to learn how Empower can partner with you to streamline your efforts, scale your business and promote the value you bring to advisors and sponsors every day.
*As of December 31, 2021
Brian Connolly, Assistant Vice President, National Accounts, Empower

The Tax-Exempt Market- Opportunities for TPAs

Earn 1 CE and learn how to differentiate and grow your business while providing a valuable service to nonprofit organizations and governmental entities in your community.  We as retirement plan professionals have the opportunity to help tax-exempt organizations overcome both the retirement and business challenges they face in a market that is often underserved.  OneAmerica has been serving tax-exempt organizations since the late 1960s and we partner with TPAs on over 60% of our new business each year.  We look forward to sharing the knowledge and best practices we’ve acquired over several decades working with this often underserved market.
Brian Giles, Regional Vice President- Tax Exempt Markets, OneAmerica

Hear what keeps your peers up at night (and what is motivating them as they start their day)

Join us for this panel discussion with fellow TPA peers as we dive into challenges and opportunities they’re focused on today, fresh perspectives on how industry trends are changing the way they conduct business, how they’re creating efficiencies using technology, and where they’re investing their next dollar.
Christabelle Cook, QKA, Director of TPA Relations, Retirement & Income Solutions

Artificial Intelligence in the TPA World

What is AI (Artificial Intelligence)?
Stax will show the various types of Applications of AI
Introduce the TPA world into AI technology as a competitive advantage
How Humans and AI work Together
Should we be afraid of AI?
Q&A for AI-related topics
David Hawash, Chief Operating Officer, Stax.ai
Kyle Johnson, Solutions Architect, Stax.ai

Concurrent Workshops

Workshop 1: Testing…1, 2, 3: Retirement Plan Math (Session 1 of 4)

This unique four-part series was specifically designed to provide a strong foundation for plan consultants who want to provide comprehensive consultative services. The series will cover plan opportunities by digging into plan design (and redesign), compliance, and calculation results and concludes with client communication best practices related to plan operations, potential decision points, and various changing situations available to/for the plan.

Session 01: Retirement Plan Math – The Ultimate Word Problem
To fully understand testing, it’s helpful to have a knowledge not only of the math, but the concepts underlying the tests themselves. Therefore, the first session in the series we will dive into plan math.

Mickie Murphy, CPC, QPA, QKC, QKA, ERPA, Senior Manager/Practice Lead, Blue Benefits Consulting

Lynn Young, FSEA, Partner/Consulting Actuary, Pinnacle Plan Design, LLC

Workshop 2: Why is Compensation so Complicated?

Garbage in, garbage out… and few things undermine plan compliance quite as consistently – or as disastrously – as inaccurate compensation information.  We’ll cover the three main code-based definitions of compensation, along with:

• Reviewing which exclusions require a compensation test
• Analyzing Post Severance Compensation
• Debating the use of the First Few Weeks Rule
• The impacts of Post Year End Compensation provisions

Robert Richter, J.D., LL.M., Retirement Education Counsel, American Retirement Association

Jennifer Swets, QPA, QKC, QKA, Partner/Director of Relationship Management, DWC-The 401k Experts

Workshop 3: MEPs and PEP – Should You Jump into the Pool?

Have you considered offering – or maybe just been asked about offering – a PEP (Pooled Employer Plan) or a pooled arrangement?  Either way, this session will provide answers, including an understanding of:

• The basics of PEPs
• Which type plans are a good fit for PEPs
• The roles of a PPP (Pooled Plan Provider)
• Where the market is going and if PEPs a good idea for your firm

Deborah Rubin, Vice President and Managing Director of TPA and Special Markets, Transamerica

John Webb, MBA, ERPA, QKA, QPA, TGPC, CPFA, ASRI, VP, Retirement Plans, Ameritas

Workshop 4: Ethics “Cull”:  Actuarial Ethics and Professionalism (Part 1)

Drawing on real-life scenarios, this session explores ethical dramas you may face in your day-to-day practice and the ethical standards that must be applied.  You’ll also have the opportunity in a roundtable setting to discuss the issues at hand and present best practices for resolution – as well as:

• Apply appropriate business ethics to previous and potential lessons.
• Interact with other professionals to hear additional perspectives on ethical challenges.
• Discuss best practices for demonstrating professionalism, courtesy and respect.

Kevin Donovan, Managing Member, Pinnacle Plan Design, LLC

Angie Vadnais, EA, MSEA, Enrolled Actuary, Pension Benefits Unlimited, Inc.

Vision “Statements”: Developing (and Redefining) Your Vision and Strategic Plan

Yogi Berra once famously said “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might wind up somewhere else.”

Identifying and redefining your vision and strategic plan gives you and your team something to aim for and a map of how to reach the preferred destination. We’ll cover how to create or redesign your plan – and once in place – how to communicate it and ensure your team both understands, embraces, and lives it.

Genelle Brakefield, QKA, TGPC, QPFC, Vice President, Ekon Benefits

Kirsten Curry, APM, J.D., CEO & Founder, Leading Retirement Solutions LLC

Available to qualified attendees

Grab-n-go Drinks & Snacks

Concurrent Workshops

Workshop 5: “Test” Cases: Retirement Plan Testing (Session 2 of 4)  

This unique four-part series was specifically designed to provide a strong foundation for plan consultants who want to provide comprehensive consultative services.

Session 02: Retirement Plan Testing
Having mastered the math (session 01), this session is designed to help you better consult by providing the most optimal results in different situations – and how to evaluate the options available.  To do that, you need to know what steps occur in a plan each year – and here we’ll dive “deep” into plan testing.

Mickie Murphy, CPC, QPA, QKC, QKA, ERPA, Senior Manager/Practice Lead, Blue Benefits Consulting

Lynn Young, FSEA, Partner/Consulting Actuary, Pinnacle Plan Design

Workshop 6: Pay “Dazed?”:  Decoding the Compensation Puzzle

For those who just can’t get enough of the complexity of compensation in this scenario-driven session, we will drive into more complex compensation definitions, focus on which definition may be right for certain clients and walk through a 414(s) nondiscrimination testing scenario, as well as calculating contributions for Self-Employed individuals.

Sharpen your pencils for this interactive session in which you’ll learn:

• How to calculate eligible compensation from a K-1
• How to aggregate self-employment earnings and W-2 wages
• What can be done to correct a failed compensation ratio test
• Which definition of compensation may be right for your clients

Robert Richter, J.D., LL.M., APM, Retirement Education Counsel, American Retirement Association

Jennifer Swets, QKA, QKC, QPA, Partner, DWC-The 401(k) Experts

Workshop 7: EPCRS! You Made a Mistake – What’s Next?

Even retirement plans make mistakes – but, thanks to special programs from the IRS and DOL, there ARE ways to correct them! In this session we’ll cover case studies with “real life” examples and how to correct them, such as how to:

• Understand the differences in each correction program
• Determine which correction program/process to use
• Avoid most common mistakes in the first place

Heather Bader, APM, Partner, Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

Adam Pozek, QPA, QKC, QKA, Partner, DWC-The 401(k) Experts

Workshop 8: Actuarial Ethics and Professionalism (Part 2)

In Part 2 of this workshop, we will present and discuss scenarios facing actuaries and other retirement professionals within the context of our codes of conduct. In this lively game of actuarial “Ethics Survivor” you will have the chance to vote panelists off, based on their answers to hypothetical professional-conduct questions, until one contestant remains and is crowned the winner:

• Apply appropriate business ethics to potential lessons.
• Interact with other professionals to hear additional perspectives on ethical challenges.
• Discuss best practices for demonstrating professionalism, courtesy and respect.

Kevin Donovan, Managing Member, Pinnacle Plan Design, LLC

Angie Vadnais, EA, MSEA, Enrolled Actuary, Pension Benefits Unlimited, Inc.

Leader “Shifts”: How Leaders Create and Master a Service Oriented, Engaged Culture that Fosters Employee Growth and Improves Employee Retention

Recruiting and retaining talent are some of the biggest challenges that leaders and business owners face – particularly in the midst of what some have termed the “Great Resignation.” As a leader, how can you create a service oriented culture where team members never want to leave and feel lucky to work where they do? How do you create a culture that fosters service, employee engagement and growth, and leads to employee retention because employee turnover is not only costly to you as a leader, but it can have a huge impact on team morale, draining focus for training and spread thinner taking on additional work – AND, it can cost you clients! In this session, you’ll find out:

• What exactly does company culture mean – and what could it mean?
• How to create a service oriented, engaged culture?
• How to design a roadmap for creating or building on current company culture.
• Action items to take back to your team.

Shannon Edwards, QPA, QKC, QKA, ERPA, President, TriStar Pension Consulting

Natalie Wyatt, Senior Vice President, Head of Account Management, SS&C Technologies

Available to qualified attendees

ASEA Lunch and Business Meeting

All ASEA members are invited to attend the ASEA Luncheon at the ASPPA Annual Conference. The luncheon provides an opportunity to network with fellow members. ASEA’s president will provide an overview of activity over the past year. Further, there will be a tran­sition of leadership to the new president, officers and Leadership Council members.

Lunch in the Exhibit Hall

Join your fellow attendees for a buffet lunch in the exhibit hall to network and engage with others. New this year is a presentation stage in the back of the exhibit hall where sponsors will be offering quick, 10 minute sessions on an open platform.

Lunch & Learns

Working Together. Winning Together

According to recent Empower research, plans with a TPA are healthier, have higher participation and have contribution rates. Hear the top 3 reasons why TPAs and advisors should join forces to deliver a comprehensive package of services to plan sponsors and the importance of partnering with a top recordkeeper.
Kathy Lake, National Accounts Market Director TPA, Empower

The Three Legged Sales Stool

Ideas and tools TPAs and Recordkeepers can partner to assist advisors grow their business and build loyalty.
Joel Mee, Senior Director, Retirement Plan Sales, The Standard

Updated TPA Service Reimbursement Program

OneAmerica reimburses their TPA partners providing administrative services to shared clients to offset the costs in providing those services. The program is tier structured to allow greater rewards for TPAs based upon annual plan sales as well as overall total plan assets under management with OneAmerica. This is a change from how OneAmerica typically had paid TPAs where the majority of TPAs were paid 15 bps monthly over the first 12 months and 5 bps ongoing. We’re changing the structure of the program to better align our services to TPAs we work more closely with while incentivizing further growth with our TPA partners.
Daryl Swick, Product Manager, OneAmerica

Plan Management Made Simple for TPAs

Overview of Cuna Mutual Group’s dedicated TPA resources and smart technology to streamline your day to day responsibilities.
Victoria Frey, TPA Business Development Consultant – West, Cuna Mutual Group

About T. Rowe Price

Rowe Price Retirement Plan Services, Inc., has been a retirement solutions provider for nearly 40 years, serving over 2 million retirement plan participants in over 6,000-plus plans. As your resource for top-level recordkeeping services, our industry-leading thought leadership, highest client satisfaction levels, and award-winning participant experiences can help you increase efficiency and reliability for your clients, while helping to improve retirement outcomes for their participants.
Lynn Roy, Vice President, T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. & T. Rowe Price Retirement Plan Services, Inc.

Deep Dives 75

Specialized 75 minute long sessions.

Workshop 9: Building “Blocks”: Retirement Plans: Building, Designing, Maintaining, and Redesigning Plans (Session 3 of 4)

This unique four-part series was specifically designed to provide a strong foundation for plan consultants who want to provide comprehensive consultative services.

Session 03: Building, Designing, Maintaining, and Redesigning
Using the building blocks from the math (session 01) and the test (session 02), this session will cover topics including building, designing, maintaining, and redesigning plans to provide the most optimal results.

Justin Bonestroo, MSEA, CPC, CPFA, QPA, QKA, Senior Vice President, CBIZ, Inc.

Melissa Terito, CPA, Partner, Sentinel Pension

Workshop 10: “After” Map:  Building a Post-M&A Action Plan

Plan consultants always seem to be the last to know about mergers and acquisitions! You might find out about these other entities during the onboarding of a new client or maybe three years AFTER an acquisition has occurred. Regardless of timing, in this session we’ll focus on:

• Strategies to effectively complete an M&A
• Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
• What to do when you find out about a surprise merger or acquisition

Lyndsey Barnett, Attorney, Graydon Law

JJ McKinney, CPC, QPA, QKA, ERPA, Director of Sales, EGPS

Workshop 11: Correctional “Facilities”:  VCP – A Day in the Life (Well a Year In the Life)

To VCP or Not VCP – A conversion with the IRS

Have a burning question regarding the Voluntary Correction Program? Join this interactive discussion to hear from the IRS on topics such as:

• Recent and upcoming changes with the VCP program
• Documentation requirements and best practices for a smooth filing process
• Common failures that are being submitted and how the IRS is responding
• Can I really rescind my VCP application without repercussions?
• To file or not file – case study examples of SCP versus VCP

Heather Bader, APM, Partner, Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

Stephanie Bennett, Tax Law Specialist, IRS

Workshop 12: Open & Shut Case(s):  Actuarial Consulting from Implementation to Termination

What do plan sponsors need to know and how can you – as an actuary – effectively communicate all that is involved in taking a defined benefit plan through its life cycle? What do you choose to communicate at inception versus year two or in the future? What issues can a lack of communication cause at plan termination? In this interactive session we’ll tackle real life case studies and solve them together… from start to finish. We’ll:

• Outline the DB Plan lifecycle from inception through termination
• Review what communication is necessary for actuaries, TPAs, and plan sponsors to work together effectively

Mary Ann Rocco, EA, MSPA Consulting Actuary 

The Business Owners Roadmap: Seven Steps to a Business That Works (Part 1)

This EMyth session will present a way of thinking about your business, your life, and the relationship between the two that can forever change your business into one that not only truly works but gives you more life. EMyth a model for how to productively relate to the development of your business, your own growth as a leader and the results that you want your company to produce. The essence of this roadmap was originally created in 1977 when Michael Gerber founded the company. Since then, Michael’s ground-breaking ideas about building a small business that works have been incorporated into his series of EMyth books, including his bestselling, The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, first published in 1986.

This keynote will set the stage and introduce EMyth’s Approach–the philosophy, core principles and a proprietary process–for developing a business that works.

Tricia Huebner, Coach Emeritus, www.emyth.com

Available to qualified attendees

Concurrent Workshops

Workshop 13: Retirement Plan Client Communications (Session 4 of 4)

This unique four-part series was specifically designed to provide a strong foundation for plan consultants who want to provide comprehensive consultative services.

Session 04: Client Communications
The final session in this series will bring it all together with Client Communications. Regardless of your knowledge and technical proficiency, when there’s a “failure to communicate” that could all go for naught! During this session, we will use role playing scenarios to evaluate what to do and not to do in our communications with clients.

Justin Bonestroo, MSEA, CPC, CPFA, QPA, QKA, Senior Vice President, CBIZ, Inc.

Melissa Terito, CPA, Partner, Sentinel Pension

Workshop 14: “Guide” Paths:  A Guide Inside Retirement Plan Investments

Okay, so maybe investments haven’t been your “thing.”  But there’s no time like the present to get “invested” in investment types, asset classes, target-dates, QDIAs, and expense ratios.  That’s right, we’re going to cover things like:

• Different share class requirements – and why they matter?
• What makes a QDIA a QDIA
• How TPAs can (and should) analyze investment expenses
• How revenue-sharing works on different platforms

Genelle Brakefield, QKA, TGPC, QPFC, Vice President, Ekon Benefits

Workshop 15: Court “Costs”:  Lessons from Litigation

COVID notwithstanding, the retirement plan industry has seen a record increase in court filings and litigation the past few years. With a laser-focus on fiduciary breaches and so-called excessive plan fees, what should TPAs and Recordkeepers know about current cases (including a recent decision by the United States Supreme Court) and their impact on retirement plan design and process.  We’ll focus on:

• Critical components of why these cases are being filed
• How to better understand how a case moves through the court system.
• How these cases may impact your business

Kizzy Gaul, Esq, CPC, QPA, QKA, TGPC, ERISA Attorney, Ascensus, LLC

Workshop 16: Regulatory Radar: DB Regulatory Update 2022

A gigantic meteor may have wiped out the dinosaurs, but defined benefit plans are still very much with us and continue to evolve!  Who’s read the new 401(a)(9) regs? What about 417(e)?

There’s no better place to get an up-to-date overview of the evolving new regulations and recent IRS/Treasury guidance impacting defined benefit plans.  We’ll also:

• Recall guidance that has been recently released by the IRS and Treasury
• Identify situations in which the recent changes in the guidance may have an effect

Clint Blankenship, EA, MSEA, MAAA, President-Owner, McCloud & Associates, Inc.
Chris Denning, Actuary, IRS
James E. Holland, Jr., FSEA, FCA, MAAA, ASA, EA, Chief Research Actuary, Cheiron, Inc.
Linda Marshall, Attorney, IRS

The Business Leaders Roadmap: E-Myth Hands on Peer-to-Peer Roundtable – Let’s Get to Work

During this roundtable follow-up workshop, we’ll drill down into the seven steps to:

• Discover ways to manage your time so you can go to work on your business, not just in it
• Ask the question: is your business giving you more life?
• Determine what you need to start/stop/continue doing to be an effective leader
• Assess your business operations and level of systemization
• Give you a template for creating a vision for your business, and your life, that inspires you
• Learn how to develop a high-performing team using a key EMyth management tool

Tricia Huebner, Coach Emeritus, www.emyth.com

Available to qualified attendees.

Roundtable groups will be assigned in advance and attendees be notified the week before the conference of their assigned roundtable group.

Beverage Break in the Exhibit Hall

TPA Growth Summit Reception

Sponsored by

Available to qualified attendees

Breakfast in the Exhibit Hall

Cultivating Durable Loyalty

Strengthening client relationships is a complex challenge for advisors and third-party administrators in the retirement plan business. Discover the keys to long-term success that we’ve gleaned from our years of research and working alongside plan sponsors, advisors and TPAs.
Jonathan  Young, Senior National Accounts Manager, Capital Group | American Funds

Cyber Security Trends: Staying Vigilant in an Evolving Threat Landscape

While the cybersecurity landscape is constantly changing, and new hacking and fraud threats emerge daily, we all must vigilantly defend the retirement benefits and personal information with which we have been entrusted. David will share top cyber security industry tips, while providing practical application and industry resources.
David Westin, AVP, Cyber Security Operations, Nationwide Retirement Solutions

5 Moments of Truth

Earn 1 hour of CE and learn how to show advisors how to use the compliance calendar to prospect and grow their retirement plans business.
Rita Taylor-Rodriguez, Director, TPA Sales, The Standard

2021 Defined Contribution Consultant Study – Perspectives Summary

Rowe Price, in partnership with Schaus Group, conducted this second annual study to capture business and retirement views from the consulting and advisory community. The study was conducted at the end of 2021 during the continued coronavirus pandemic and the inaugural year of the Biden administration.
David Norris, Sales Director, T. Rowe Price

Convergence of Health and Wealth in the workplace

Employee benefits have always been an important component of total compensation packages, but they are becoming increasingly more important for both employers and employees—particularly in the wake of the Great Resignation.

To help address employee demands, employers have added flexibility and choice to their benefits menus—which can lead to complexity, confusion and decision fatigue for employees.

These challenges are compounded because:

• With the elimination of Defined Benefit plans, employees are shouldering more responsibility for funding their retirement;
• Healthcare expenses have risen dramatically for both employees and employers; and
• With the proliferation of high deductible health plans, employees are faced with higher deductibles and potential for higher out-of-pocket expenses.

Adding to the pressure employees are facing is the current financial environment of rising inflation—requiring every dollar to be stretched further.

We’ll be discussing how financial professionals and employers can help employees drive better financial outcomes in this environment.
Nate Black, VP, Consumer Driven Health, Voya Financial

Concurrent Workshops

Workshop 17: Worldly Ways: Administering a Global Benefits Program

There’s a big old world out there, and a growing number of employers both hire and operate in countries outside the US. Join us for a session focused on untangling the administrative complexities that come with working in a global world.  We’ll walk through multiple case studies based on:

• Whether the entities are related
• Are the employees excludable or are they covered under the plan
• How is compensation paid to the employee accounted for
• Do tax treaty laws apply and what do they impact

Derrin Watson, J.D., APM, Ferenczy Benefits Law Center

Workshop 18: Owner “Slips”: Controlled Groups – Ownership Matters!

Why are administrators always the last to know? Whenever you get the news, in this session we’ll work through the intricacies of a controlled group and how to communicate the requirements to the unsuspecting client, as we:

• Review controlled group rules
• Understand the complications inherent in controlled groups
• Analyze plan design and compliance testing options
• Discuss real-life fact patterns that have led to controlled groups

Kelsey Mayo, J.D., Lead Partner, Employee Benefits, Poyner Spruill LLP

Workshop 19: “Wrong” Headed?  DB Administration – When things go wrong (and they WILL go wrong)

Whether you’ve encountered problems with defined benefit plan administration – or just want to be prepared for that eventuality, this interactive (and participatory) session will provide an opportunity for an open discussion of challenging situations encountered during administration of defined benefit plans.  You’ll:

• Learn how to deal with complicated administration issues
• Have an opportunity to discuss with colleagues scenarios that you are unsure how to manage
• Learn how to more effectively communicate the issues and challenges to the plan sponsor

Eric Brandon, EA, MSEA, MAAA, FCA, Pension Actuary, Guardian Life Insurance Company of America

David Kupstas, MSEA, FSA, EA, Actuary, Actuarial Consulting Group, Inc.

Robot “Tics”: The Ins and Outs of Automation: How to Get Started, Areas to Use it, Pitfalls to Avoid

You may not be familiar with Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, but it’s time to take the robot out of the human, courtesy of Automation or Robotic Process Automation (RPA) – a key component in digital transformation. It can help you boost productivity, reduce manual errors, and free your teams to focus on more fulfilling, high-value, strategic tasks, driving engagement, growth and profitability. Together, we’ll explore:

• What’s RPA
• Where to start
• How to get the buy-in
• Mistakes to avoid
• Lessons we’ve learned

Alex Petrenko Calaf, QPA, QKC, QKA, SVP, Retirement Plan Consulting, Cetera Retirement Plan Specialists
Karen Smith, JD, Enrolled Actuary, President, Nova 401(k) Associates

Available to qualified attendees

Grab-n-go Drinks & Snacks

Concurrent Sessions

Workshop 20: Fiduciary Duties: What is a Fiduciary?

Do you know the difference(s) between 3(16), 3(21), and 3(38)? Understanding and offering these various levels of fiduciary services can be tricky. In this session we will provide an overview of these services and focus not only on the differences, but the benefits of providing these services, as well as the risks. We’ll cover:

• The different fiduciary arrangements in the marketplace
• The benefits and risks associated with each fiduciary option
• How to help your plan sponsor decide which services are most valuable and appropriate for their situation

Lyndsey Barnett, J.D. LL.M., Attorney, Graydon Head & Ritchey LLP

Adam Pozek, QPA, QKC, QKA, Partner, DWC- The 401(k) Experts

Workshop 21: A Different and Complex World – Affiliated Service Groups

In this age of acquisition and business diversification, affiliated service groups are becoming more prominent. Using case studies, this session will focus on:

• The different ways those affiliated service groups are being formed
• The implications of being part of an affiliated service group, and
• How leased and shared employees are impacted

Kelsey Mayo, J.D., Lead Partner, Employee Benefits, Poyner Spruill LLP

Derrin Watson, J.D., APM, Ferenczy Benefits Law Center

Workshop 22: Cash Balance “Cache”: The (Deep) Ins and Outs and All Abouts of Cash Balance Plans

If you’re a cash balance expert, this session is for you!  We’ll dive into the nitty gritty and focus on:

• How to deal with sticky situations like fluctuating assets with market rates of return, and high PBGC Variable Rate Premiums
• What interest rate assumption should you make to help avoid these situations and why?
• What other plan design choices can you make to mitigate some of these challenges?

When we’re done, you’ll be able to:

• Identify different allowable interest crediting rate assumptions and their impact on plan design and PBGC premiums
• Learn how to select an ICR and when a variable rate could be the right choice
• Explore the complexities of advanced Cash Balance Plan designs

Mike Eaton, MSEA, CPC, QPA, QKA, Lead Actuary, Future Plan by Ascensus

Norman Levinrad, EA, FSPA, MAAA, Chief Actuary, EGPS

Growth “Spurts”:  How to Manage Business Risk when Practices are Growing and Evolving

Growth and change often are accompanied by increased business risk(s), and whether your firm is growing organically or through acquisition, growth often requires new (or revised) processes, new collaborations, new employees, and obviously new clients.

During this interactive panel, panelists will discuss planning, processes, protections, and profitability through the lens of growth, with the desired outcome of remaining profitable or becoming more profitable through growth.

Session participants will leave equip with ideas and knowledge to answer:

• What is your Plan around growth?
• What is your Process around growth?
• How do you create Protections around growth?

Justin Bonestroo, MSEA, CPC, CPFA, QPA, QKA, Senior Vice President, CBIZ, Inc.
Amanda Iverson, CPA, MBA, PHR, SHRM-CP, APM, Partner and COO, Pinnacle Plan Design, LLC
Kirsten Curry, J.D., APM, CEO & Founder, Leading Retirement Solutions LLC

Available to qualified attendees

Lunch in the Exhibit Hall

Join your fellow attendees for a buffet lunch in the exhibit hall to network and engage with others. New this year is a presentation stage in the back of the exhibit hall where sponsors will be offering quick, 10 minute sessions on an open platform.

Sponsored by

Lunch & Learns

Guaranteed Retirement Income: What Advisors Want

When it comes to in-plan guaranteed retirement products, what are advisors and plan sponsors looking for? Flexibility, fee transparency, simple decumulation and guaranteed income all make the list.

The Smallest BIG Opportunity Before Us

Establishing a new retirement plan for a small business can take up to six weeks or more. There’s information to verify. Documents to sign. Details to coordinate. Learn how we can help you streamline the process—from the proposal to the creation and implementation, to the commitment with employee enrollment—to as little as a week or less.
Jason Neal, Head of Product Strategy-Core Market, Principal Financial Group

Put Your Workflows on Autopilot

Stax.ai is the first of its kind Intelligent Document Management platform offered to TPAs. Reading documents from various sources from PDFs, Excel, Word docs, scanned docs, emails, faxes, hand writings, and much more.

Stax.ai can understand and extract information so the TPAs can automate a lot of the manual work to save time, money, and maximize human resources. These include automatically sorting, splitting, and filing brokerage statements, automatically pulling record keeper reports (5500 plan admin, loan details and more) from portals for John Hancock, Voya, Empower, logging email communications from clients, automating PensionPro project and tasks creation from intake forms and more.

The presentation will go over how to streamline the processes of TPAs to help them grow and be more efficient in with technology.
David Hawash, Account Executive, Stax.ai

Deep Dives 75

Specialized 75 minute long sessions.

Workshop 23: Response “Abilities”: “It’s just a retirement plan. I’m responsible for WHAT?”

Has your client ever said, “It’s just a retirement plan. I’m responsible for WHAT?” It may be “just” a retirement plan on paper, but there are duties Plan Sponsors are responsible for that many are completely unaware of, such as overall plan governance, understanding services and associated fees of the Plan.

This session will outline a fiduciary and plan committee overview, discuss service agreements and the identification of responsible parties and their fiduciary status.  And at the end you’ll be able to:

• Understand the basic responsibility of a fiduciary
• Understand the plan committee process, plan reviews and the documentation of findings
• Basics of the service agreement and each party’s responsibilities

Alex Petrenko Calaf, QPA, QKC, QKA, SVP, Retirement Plan Consulting, Cetera Retirement Plan Specialists
Robert Gower, Director, Trucker Huss, APC
John T. Webb, MBA, ERPA, QKA, QPA, TGPC, CPFA, ASRI, VP, Retirement Plans Compliance, Ameritas Life Insurance Corporation

Workshop 24: Help! My Plan Failed Nondiscrimination Testing

If at first you don’t succeed…. Let’s face it, failing nondiscrimination testing often presents an opportunity – as well as a need – for creative solutions. However, this is not your “normal” testing refresher course. Rather, the session will dive deep into failed nondiscrimination and coverage tests, including ADP, ACP, 401(a)(4), ratio percentage and average benefits tests.

At the end, you’ll know:

• When to utilize techniques like disaggregation, restructuring, and shifting
• When QNEC or QMAC contributions are advantageous
• Plan design options to prevent or minimize future failures

Erin Patton, CPA, ERPA, QPA, QKA, Retirement Plan Consultant and Administrator, Striegel Knobloch & Company, LLC
Steve Riordan, CPC, QPA, QKA, Director, Plan Consulting, Fidelity Investments

Workshop 25: Designer “Close”:  Combined plan design case studies (DB CORE)

This interactive session focused on advanced testing and design techniques is designed with the “hands on” practitioner in mind!  You’ll get an opportunity to design combined cash balance plans using the provided census data – and to apply the methods demonstrated during the session (BYO laptop to aid in the calculations).  You’ll be able to:

• Compare available options to use for nondiscrimination testing
• Understand what challenges arise from tricky plan designs
• Review the pitfalls in certain plan designs and how to avoid certain errors
• Identify plan design opportunities during testing failures

Lawrence Deutsch, FSPA, President, Larry Deutsch Enterprises

Driving Change: How to Motivate and Inspire Today’s Salespeople to Maximize Sales in Your Organization

Let me be the first to tell you this is NOT your traditional, boring, old-school sales presentation filled with regurgitated sales language, pushy tactics, ABC mentality, and antiquated sales techniques. It’s 2022, not 1992, and it’s time we learn how to teach salespeople how to sell effectively to our potential clients, with honesty, integrity, and humility.

My commitment to ASPPA is to deliver a memorable experience and engage your members with relevant content, fresh ideas, and tangible takeaways that will leave a lasting impact to inspire growth both personally and professionally.

One critical factor that determines how slow or fast we grow our companies revolves around sales. Most of us want to know how to increase sales and how quickly we can do it. A few questions need to be addressed if we want to know the answer to those two questions. 

• Do you understand how your salespeople are motivated and how to motivate them?
• Do you use the right tools to evaluate yourselves and your salespeople’s ability to sell?
• Do you effectively inspire your team with a purpose-driven, selfless, client-first culture?

Guess what? You’ll have concrete answers to all three of these very pertinent questions, amongst many others, and you’ll walk away with strategic initiatives, real-world solutions to these challenges, and specific processes to implement in your businesses to get your sales where they need to be.

Success in sales today isn’t about using magic selling systems built 50 years ago, manipulative techniques, or “used car salesman” techniques. Leading the salespeople of today is essential to your bottom line and must be an area of focus in your business if you truly want to thrive in this marketplace.

Steve Heroux, CEO, Victory Selling, www.victoryselling.com

Available to qualified attendees

Concurrent Workshops

Workshop 26: “Gray” Matters a Discussion in Ethics

Life – and work – presents retirement plan professionals with any number of difficult scenarios that test your professionalism and even at times your personal and professional ethics. We’ll work through case studies that build on real-life interactions, encompassing challenging situations, the impact of decisions made, and how best to communicate with clients. We will also review the ASPPA Code of Conduct and Circular 230 – and don’t forget that Ethics CE credit!

Brian Furgala, CPC, QPA, Director of ERISA Services, Wolters Kluwer
Natalie Wyatt, QKA, QPFC, Senior Vice President, Head of Account Management, SS&C Innovest

Workshop 27: “Required” Reading? New Rules with RMDs

In this session, we will focus on the new proposed (maybe final) Required Minimum Distributions rules – not to mention the timeline and how the SECURE Act has changed the RMD rules. Bring your examples and be prepared to work through real-life situations.

John Griffin, Principal, Actuarial Systems Corporation

Workshop 28: Retro, “Active?”: Retro Plan War Stories

It’s been said that timing is everything – but the timing of new plans has changed everything. With post year end plan adoption allowed under the SECURE Act we are all adjusting to new deadlines, and some new considerations.  What are best practices for implementing a retroactive DB Plan? What are the challenges with new and existing 401k plans? What did we learn from the 2021 tax season and how can we do better next year?  We’ll discuss all this, and at the end of the session you’ll be able to:

• Apply new deadlines available under the Secure Act
• Discuss best practices for implementing retroactive plans

Mike Eaton, MSEA, CPC, QPA, QKA, Lead Actuary, FuturePlan by Ascensus
Matt Rustige, EA MSPA, MAAA, Actuary, EGPS

Peer-to-Peer Roundtable: Looking to the Future and Driving Change

Steve Heroux, CEO of Victory Selling will follow-up his prior keynote and lead this peer-to-peer roundtable discussion where each roundtable will take what was learned in his previous session (driving change with new and different sales strategies) and determine how to apply these tactics to your firm.

Available to qualified attendees.

Roundtable groups will be assigned in advance and attendees be notified the week before the conference of their assigned roundtable group.

Beverage Break in the Exhibit Hall

ARA PAC VIP Reception

By invite only to $250+ ARA PAC supporters.

ASPPA at Night

Grab dinner in the area and join us back at the Gaylord where we’ve transformed the general session room to a retro arcade with skeeball, air hockey, Packman and arcade games! Music performance by The HariKaraoke Band – sing with the live karaoke band and be a rock star!

Sponsored by

Grab-n-Go Breakfast

Concurrent Workshops

Workshop 29: “Out” Takes:  Plan Termination Strategies and Pitfalls

Particularly in this time of the so-called “Great Resignation” you can expect to receive several calls from clients who are ready to retire – and to take their retirement plan “with them.”  We’ll discuss real examples involving plan terminations, partial plan terminations, and mergers/acquisitions. Come prepared to learn:

• The differences between a full plan termination and partial plan termination
• Important deadlines and requirements
• How mergers/acquisitions impact plan terminations

NOTE:  Some basic knowledge about plan terminations will be helpful for this session.

Brian Furgala, CPC, QPA, Director of ERISA Services, Wolters Kluwer

Workshop 30: Pension “Penchants?”: DB for Non-Actuaries

One for all?  Is there a checklist that one can go through to see if your client should add a DB plan? If only it were so easy. That said, a good partnership between the DB administrator and the actuary is a recipe for success. Join this session to be able to identify things to look for to consider introducing a defined benefit plan. Learn issues to communicate to both the plan sponsor and the actuary when the plan is in place to insure a smooth operation.

Kevin Donovan, CPA, FSEA, Managing Member, Pinnacle Plan Design, LLC
Shannon Edwards, ERPA, CPC, QPA, QKC, QKA, President, TriStar Pension Consulting

Workshop 31: Regulatory Radar: PBGC Update

A panel of PBGC representatives will provide an overview of recently published PBGC guidance and program operations with hints, tips, and relevant information about their various programs. Bring questions you have come across on topics including plan terminations and audits, reportable events, coverage determination, and premium filing requirements.  They’ll address:

• Review recent updates from the PBGC
• Learn relevant information regarding PBGC’s program operations and guidance
• Discuss your questions with the PBGC
• Learn best practices for resolving issues and concerns

Brad Porter, Financial Program Manager, Collections and Compliance Division, Financial Operations Department, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation

Recalibrate, Rewire and Reboot Your Brand (Part 1)

Each year you dive into your business. You look at topline and bottom-line numbers; evaluate what worked and what didn’t; discuss future goals and plans; and likely discuss marketing. Unfortunately, it’s very possible that your brand gets short shrift, unattended and dusty from years of neglect. At this point in the conference, you’ll have spent some time thinking about your business and drivers of success. This session? It’s all about how everything you’ve learned is absolutely related to how you show up in the world—your brand. What drives your brand’s success? What does it mean to recalibrate, rewire and reboot your brand? More importantly, how do you navigate this process without it costing more than 25 percent of your net profit? This is a two-part workshop. The concepts and considerations will be presented during the Part I. Deep industry research will be offered to support the case for retooling your brand and go-to-market strategy. In Part II, you’ll apply what you’ve learned through a step-by-step, practical workshop with a series of one-on-one hot seats with Sheri Fitts, a 30-year financial services sales and marketing veteran.

Sheri Fitts, Speaker, Consultant, Creator, Sheri Fitts & CO., www.sherifitts.com

Available to qualified attendees

Concurrent Workshops

Workshop 32: Limits “Less”:  Yes, You Can Provide More Benefits to Only Highly-Compensated Employees

Nonqualified deferred compensation plans are often a significant component of a retirement program for highly compensated and/or key employees. More importantly as a practitioner the plan design, administration and compliance considerations are quite different from those affecting tax-qualified retirement plans.  We’ll:

• Discuss a variety of nonqualified deferred compensation plans and arrangements
• Compare and contrast differences of a 401(k) plan
• Understand basic complexities with 409A
• Understand funding methods for nonqualified plans

Rod Stortenbecker, AVP, Compliance, Lincoln Financial Group

Workshop 33: Notices, Notices, and More Notices

Have you noticed all the notices?  Administering a retirement plan can mean the fiduciary has to ensure that many disclosures are timely provided to participants.  Some disclosures such as the SAR & SPD generally need to be provided to all participants.  There are additional disclosures that must be provided when certain features apply like QDIA or automatic enrollment.  This session will provide a summary of what notices are needed and when as well as some best practices to ensure your plans are staying compliant with participant disclosures.  In this session, you’ll

• Understand the notice requirements
• Determine which notices are applicable and when
• Discuss best practices to ensure compliance

Erin Patton, ERPA, CPA, QPA, QKA, Retirement Plan Consultant and Administrator, Striegel Knoblock & Company LLC

Workshop 34: Question “Air”: Your DB Questions – Answered

You’ve got DB questions?  We’ve got the experts – and expertise – to answer the questions that you have encountered in your practice or questions that have been raised over the course of the conference. Bring your own technical defined benefit and other plan-related questions and get answers from industry experts as we:

• Interact with peers on technical issues and examine any outstanding questions from the conference
• Collaborate with experts to receive feedback on pension related issues and questions

If you would like, you can pre-submit your questions here.

Chris Denning, Actuary, IRS
James Holland, FSPA, FCA, ASA, MAAA, EA, Chief Research Actuary, Cheiron, Inc.
Norman Levinrad, EA FSPA, MAAA, Chief Actuary, EGPS
Linda Marshall, Attorney, IRS
Karen Smith, JD, Enrolled Actuary, President, Nova 401(k) Associates

Recalibrate, Rewire and Reboot Your Brand (Part 2)

This is a two-part workshop. The concepts and considerations were presented during the Part 1. Deep industry research will be offered to support the case for retooling your brand and go-to-market strategy. In Part 2, you’ll apply what you’ve learned through a step-by-step, practical workshop with a series of one-on-one hot seats with Sheri Fitts, a 30-year financial services sales and marketing veteran.

Sheri Fitts, Speaker, Consultant, Creator, Sheri Fitts & CO., www.sherifitts.com

Available to qualified attendees

Beverage Break

Vision “Statements”: Developing (and Redefining) Your Vision and Strategic Plan

Yogi Berra once famously said “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might wind up somewhere else.”

Identifying and redefining your vision and strategic plan gives you and your team something to aim for and a map of how to reach the preferred destination. We’ll cover how to create or redesign your plan – and once in place – how to communicate it and ensure your team both understands, embraces, and lives it.

Genelle Brakefield, QKA, TGPC, QPFC, Vice President, Ekon Benefits
Kirsten Curry, APM, J.D., CEO & Founder, Leading Retirement Solutions LLC

Available to qualified attendees

Leader “Shifts”: How Leaders Create and Master a Service Oriented, Engaged Culture that Fosters Employee Growth and Improves Employee Retention

Recruiting and retaining talent are some of the biggest challenges that leaders and business owners face – particularly in the midst of what some have termed the “Great Resignation.” As a leader, how can you create a service oriented culture where team members never want to leave and feel lucky to work where they do? How do you create a culture that fosters service, employee engagement and growth, and leads to employee retention because employee turnover is not only costly to you as a leader, but it can have a huge impact on team morale, draining focus for training and spread thinner taking on additional work – AND, it can cost you clients! In this session, you’ll find out:

• What exactly does company culture mean – and what could it mean?
• How to create a service oriented, engaged culture?
• How to design a roadmap for creating or building on current company culture.
• Action items to take back to your team.

Shannon Edwards, QPA, QKC, QKA, ERPA, President, TriStar Pension Consulting

Natalie Wyatt, Senior Vice President, Head of Account Management, SS&C Technologies

Available to qualified attendees

The Business Owners Roadmap: Seven Steps to a Business That Works (Part 1)

This EMyth session will present a way of thinking about your business, your life, and the relationship between the two that can forever change your business into one that not only truly works but gives you more life. EMyth a model for how to productively relate to the development of your business, your own growth as a leader and the results that you want your company to produce. The essence of this roadmap was originally created in 1977 when Michael Gerber founded the company. Since then, Michael’s ground-breaking ideas about building a small business that works have been incorporated into his series of EMyth books, including his bestselling, The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, first published in 1986.

This keynote will set the stage and introduce EMyth’s Approach–the philosophy, core principles and a proprietary process–for developing a business that works.

Tricia Huebner, Coach Emeritus, www.emyth.com

Available to qualified attendees

The Business Leaders Roadmap: E-Myth Hands on Peer-to-Peer Roundtable – Let’s Get to Work

During this roundtable follow-up workshop, we’ll drill down into the seven steps to:

• Discover ways to manage your time so you can go to work on your business, not just in it
• Ask the question: is your business giving you more life?
• Determine what you need to start/stop/continue doing to be an effective leader
• Assess your business operations and level of systemization
• Give you a template for creating a vision for your business, and your life, that inspires you
• Learn how to develop a high-performing team using a key EMyth management tool

Tricia Huebner, Coach Emeritus, www.emyth.com

Available to qualified attendees.

Roundtable groups will be assigned in advance and attendees be notified the week before the conference of their assigned roundtable group.

TPA Growth Summit Reception

Sponsored by

Available to qualified attendees

Robot “Tics”: The Ins and Outs of Automation: How to Get Started, Areas to Use it, Pitfalls to Avoid

You may not be familiar with Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, but it’s time to take the robot out of the human, courtesy of Automation or Robotic Process Automation (RPA) – a key component in digital transformation. It can help you boost productivity, reduce manual errors, and free your teams to focus on more fulfilling, high-value, strategic tasks, driving engagement, growth and profitability. Together, we’ll explore:

• What’s RPA
• Where to start
• How to get the buy-in
• Mistakes to avoid
• Lessons we’ve learned

Available to qualified attendees

Growth “Spurts”:  How to Manage Business Risk when Practices are Growing and Evolving

Growth and change often are accompanied by increased business risk(s), and whether your firm is growing organically or through acquisition, growth often requires new (or revised) processes, new collaborations, new employees, and obviously new clients.  That calls to mind key considerations like:

• How do we get our sales teams to sell plans where we have the expertise?
• How do we know a plan is a problem before we are engaged? What happens when you acquire a practice and inherit problems?
• Is it possible to motivate team members to follow processes (and be willing to change processes) to keep up with changing demands?
• What processes are in place to ensure every engagement has an Engagement Service Agreement and no deadlines on the engagement are missed?

We’ll examine these issues (and more) through the prism of Case Studies to evaluate how business risk can be managed and mitigated as you scale your business to meet your changing situation.

Justin Bonestroo, MSEA, CPC, CPFA, QPA, QKA, Senior Vice President, CBIZ, Inc.

Amanda Iverson, CPA, MBA, PHR, SHRM-CP, APM, Partner and COO, Pinnacle Plan Design, LLC

Kirsten Curry, J.D., APM, CEO & Founder, Leading Retirement Solutions LLC

Available to qualified attendees

Driving Change: How to Motivate and Inspire Today’s Salespeople to Maximize Sales in Your Organization

Let me be the first to tell you this is NOT your traditional, boring, old-school sales presentation filled with regurgitated sales language, pushy tactics, ABC mentality, and antiquated sales techniques. It’s 2022, not 1992, and it’s time we learn how to teach salespeople how to sell effectively to our potential clients, with honesty, integrity, and humility.

My commitment to ASPPA is to deliver a memorable experience and engage your members with relevant content, fresh ideas, and tangible takeaways that will leave a lasting impact to inspire growth both personally and professionally.

One critical factor that determines how slow or fast we grow our companies revolves around sales. Most of us want to know how to increase sales and how quickly we can do it. A few questions need to be addressed if we want to know the answer to those two questions.

• Do you understand how your salespeople are motivated and how to motivate them?
• Do you use the right tools to evaluate yourselves and your salespeople’s ability to sell?
• Do you effectively inspire your team with a purpose-driven, selfless, client-first culture?

Guess what? You’ll have concrete answers to all three of these very pertinent questions, amongst many others, and you’ll walk away with strategic initiatives, real-world solutions to these challenges, and specific processes to implement in your businesses to get your sales where they need to be.

Success in sales today isn’t about using magic selling systems built 50 years ago, manipulative techniques, or “used car salesman” techniques. Leading the salespeople of today is essential to your bottom line and must be an area of focus in your business if you truly want to thrive in this marketplace.

Steve Heroux, CEO, Victory Selling, www.victoryselling.com

Available to qualified attendees

Peer-to-Peer Roundtable: Looking to the Future and Driving Change

Steve Heroux, CEO of Victory Selling will follow-up his prior keynote and lead this peer-to-peer roundtable discussion where each roundtable will take what was learned in his previous session (driving change with new and different sales strategies) and determine how to apply these tactics to your firm.

Available to qualified attendees.

Roundtable groups will be assigned in advance and attendees be notified the week before the conference of their assigned roundtable group.

Recalibrate, Rewire and Reboot Your Brand (Part 1)

Each year you dive into your business. You look at topline and bottom-line numbers; evaluate what worked and what didn’t; discuss future goals and plans; and likely discuss marketing. Unfortunately, it’s very possible that your brand gets short shrift, unattended and dusty from years of neglect. At this point in the conference, you’ll have spent some time thinking about your business and drivers of success. This session? It’s all about how everything you’ve learned is absolutely related to how you show up in the world—your brand. What drives your brand’s success? What does it mean to recalibrate, rewire and reboot your brand? More importantly, how do you navigate this process without it costing more than 25 percent of your net profit? This is a two-part workshop. The concepts and considerations will be presented during the Part I. Deep industry research will be offered to support the case for retooling your brand and go-to-market strategy. In Part II, you’ll apply what you’ve learned through a step-by-step, practical workshop with a series of one-on-one hot seats with Sheri Fitts, a 30-year financial services sales and marketing veteran.

Sheri Fitts, Speaker, Consultant, Creator, Sheri Fitts & CO., www.sherifitts.com

Available to qualified attendees

Recalibrate, Rewire and Reboot Your Brand (Part 2)

This is a two-part workshop. The concepts and considerations were presented during the Part 1. Deep industry research will be offered to support the case for retooling your brand and go-to-market strategy. In Part 2, you’ll apply what you’ve learned through a step-by-step, practical workshop with a series of one-on-one hot seats with Sheri Fitts, a 30-year financial services sales and marketing veteran.

Sheri Fitts, Speaker, Consultant, Creator, Sheri Fitts & CO., www.sherifitts.com

Available to qualified attendees