Episode Intro: The GAP with The 401k Girls

If you’re judging a 401(k) advisor only by fees and investment options, you’re probably missing the part that actually changes outcomes: whether employees understand the plan well enough to use it. We dig into what plan sponsors should demand from a retirement plan advisor, from fiduciary guidance and plan design decision support to evaluating service providers and removing unnecessary complexity that drives up costs without improving the participant experience.

Episode Description:

A big theme is visibility and education. We talk about why advisors cannot just “show up once a year,” and why the most important interview question for employers is simple: How do you plan to connect with our employees? From meeting employees where they are to using normal language, stories, and real questions as content, the goal is higher engagement, better participation, and stronger workplace retirement outcomes, especially for people whose 401(k) may be their only investment account.

We also zoom out to what makes us optimistic about the future of workplace retirement plans: automatic enrollment requirements that harness inertia, technology that reduces friction, and a growing push to make financial education accessible. Because financial guidance should not be reserved for people who already have money, and the people who could benefit most are often the least likely to get it.

If this conversation sparks a new idea for how you support employees or clients, subscribe, share the episode with a colleague, and leave a review so more people can find it.

Guest Bio:

The 401(k) Girls is a financial education platform founded by financial planners Jessica Porter and Hayley Porter to make retirement planning and investing simple, approachable, and fun for younger professionals and clients.

Connect with The 401(k) Girls:

The 401(k) Girls: LinkedIn
Jessica Porter: LinkedIn
Hayley Porter: LinkedIn

Securities and advisory services offered through Osaic Wealth, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. Osaic Wealth is separately owned and other entities and/or marketing names, products or services referenced here are independent of Osaic Wealth.

Contact Our Host:

Shannon Edwards
President
TrisStar Pension Consulting
TriStarPension.com
LinkedIn

**NAPA Top Women Advisors – Rising Stars award issued by National Association of Plan Advisors (NAPA) on October 24, 2025 for the year 2025 was awarded to women making significant contributions to the retirement industry. Hayley Porter applied for the recognition. Nominees were asked to respond to a series of questions, both quantitative and qualitative, about their experience and practice. Those questionnaires were then reviewed on an anonymous basis by a panel of judges who, over the course of several weeks, selected the women honored. 103 were selected in the Rising Stars category; those with less than five years in the business and are either emerging team leaders or new producers. No fee was paid for the nomination, receipt, or promotion of the award. Third-party ratings are no guarantee of future investment success and do not ensure that a client or prospective client will experience a higher level of performance or results. These ratings should not be construed as an endorsement of the advisor by any client nor are they representative of any one client's evaluation.

Episode Intro: The GAP with Eric Dyson

Your retirement plan advisor can be the difference between a 401(k) that simply exists and a plan that actually changes employees’ lives. We sit down with Eric Dyson, executive director of 90 North Consulting and host of Be More Than a Fiduciary, to get brutally practical about how plan sponsors can evaluate an advisor, run a meaningful advisor search, and avoid getting fooled by the best presentation in the room.

Episode Description:

We start with the fundamentals that protect you as a fiduciary under ERISA: understanding your duties, defining what you need before you hire, and setting priorities that reflect the reality of your workplace. Eric shares what strong RFPs and competitive bids look like today, including how to spot copy-and-paste answers, why case studies and sample reports matter, and how great advisors tailor solutions to your plan demographics, participant behavior, and internal bandwidth.

Then we dig into what sponsors should expect as “table stakes” from a retirement plan advisor: recurring investment reviews, a usable investment policy statement, and ongoing fee and service benchmarking. We also get specific about participant education, how to measure whether it’s working with clear KPIs and employee feedback, and why culture fit and true partnership with your recordkeeper and TPA can make or break outcomes. If you’re a small business owner, CFO, or HR lead with no committee and no benefits department, you’ll leave with a simple roadmap to find the right advisor and an annual habit that strengthens your due diligence: reviewing your 408(b)(2) fee disclosure to understand what you pay, what you get, and whether your advisor is a fiduciary.

Subscribe, share this with a fellow plan sponsor, and leave a review with the #1 question you wish more advisors would answer.

Guest Bio: Eric Dyson
Eric Dyson is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy. After graduation, he served for ten years as a highly decorated nuclear-trained submarine officer. Eric has been a professional in the financial services industry for over 30 years, serving ERISA plan sponsors for over 25 years. He is currently the Executive Director of 90 North Consulting, where he provides services including advisor and broker RFPs, fiduciary training, best practices audits, and adjunct committee membership. Eric is also the host of the Be More Than a Fiduciary Podcast and delivers keynotes focused on actionable lessons from ERISA litigation.

Contact Our Guest:

Eric Dyson
Executive Director
90 North Consulting
https://90northllc.com/
LinkedIn

Contact Our Host:

Shannon Edwards
President
TrisStar Pension Consulting
TriStarPension.com
LinkedIn

Episode Intro: The GAP with Will Hansen

Your 401(k) committee can be doing its best and still be one missing document away from a compliance mess. That tension, doing meaningful work under complicated rules with limited time, is exactly what we unpack with Will Hansen, Chief Government Affairs Officer at the American Retirement Association and Executive Director of the Plan Sponsor Council of America (PSCA).

Episode Description:

In this episode We get practical about what strong retirement plan governance actually looks like: a consistent fiduciary process, clean documentation, and decisions you can defend later. Will explains why “process” is the common thread across the best-run committees, where documentation gaps really start, and how shared drives and scattered emails quietly become governance risks. We also zoom in on one of the most common technical traps for plan sponsors: the plan document, especially the definition of compensation, and how a mistake there can ripple into deferrals, match calculations, and testing corrections.

Then we dive into Knowa powered by PSCA, an AI-powered plan governance solution designed to bring plan documents, compliance dates, collaboration, meeting agendas, and institutional knowledge into one system. We talk about capturing conversations from Outlook, onboarding years of scattered files, and using AI in a way that relies on trusted sources, your plan records plus PSCA guidance, without replacing fiduciary judgment. We also highlight PSCA research and the CPSP credential as a free, practical education path for plan sponsors.

If you want fewer fire drills and more time to focus on participation, savings, and participant outcomes, hit subscribe, share this with a committee member, and leave a review with the governance challenge you want solved next.

Guest Bio: Will Hansen

Will Hansen joined the American Retirement Association (ARA) in January 2019 in the new role of Chief Government Affairs Officer. In this position, Will oversees all advocacy activities at the federal, state, and local levels on behalf of the five trade organizations within ARA. In addition, Will is the Executive Director of Plan Sponsor Council of America (PSCA) as of January 2020. Founded in 1947, PSCA has been at the forefront of protecting the American retirement system and is committed to improving workers’ retirement security by providing advocacy, insights, and education to plan sponsors.

Hansen, an attorney with an LLM in Employee Benefits from The John Marshall Law School, joined ARA from The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC), where he was the Senior Vice President of Retirement and Compensation Policy. He joined ERIC from the Holland America Group where he served as Senior Manager of Global Employee Benefits overseeing employee benefit programs for five cruise brands under the Carnival Corporate umbrella. Hansen previously served as the Executive Director of the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee, as well as Legislative Counsel for Senator Robert Casey, Jr. (D-PA), advising the Senator on tax, pension, budget, and social security issues, and as Legislative Director for Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). He also has experience as an employee benefits attorney with McDermott Will & Emery LLP, where he focused on qualified and non-qualified retirement plans.

Contact Our Guest:

Will Hansen
Chief Government Affairs Officer
American Retirement Association
https://araadvocacy.org
LinkedIn

Contact Our Host:

Shannon Edwards
President
TrisStar Pension Consulting
TriStarPension.com
LinkedIn

Episode Intro: The GAP with Erika Goodwin and Madison Oakley

Women retire later, live longer, and often try to do it with less money and less margin for error. That isn’t a personal failure, it’s a system of pay gaps, caregiving interruptions, and uneven access to workplace retirement plans colliding over decades. We sit down with Erika Goodwin and Madison Oakley from the American Retirement Association to introduce the first annual National Women’s Retirement Security Day and explain why it’s designed as a call to action, not just another date on the calendar.

Episode Description:

We dig into the stats that should make plan sponsors and advisors pay attention, including how women’s 401(k) balances can be dramatically lower than men’s and how small differences in contribution rates turn into thousands of dollars when income is lower. We also talk about the practical fixes that already work in the private retirement system, like expanding access to employer-sponsored retirement plans, automatic enrollment, and automatic escalation, plus what recent retirement legislation has unlocked for small employers and savers juggling student loans and long-term goals.

Then we get tactical. We share how RaiseHER gives communities a ready-to-use financial literacy program, what success looks like in year one, and the simplest actions anyone can take right now: log into your account, reset your password, check your contribution rate, confirm beneficiaries, and ask HR who you can call for help. We also talk about the added hurdles women of color face, and why the most powerful form of advocacy can start with one conversation at a cookout or dinner table.

If you want clearer next steps, better language to talk about retirement, and resources you can trust, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend or colleague, and leave a review so more people can find Women’s Retirement Security Day and join the movement.

Guest Bio: Madison Oakley

Madison is the Advocacy Engagement Manager for the American Retirement Association (ARA). In this role, she executes strategies aimed at enhancing member engagement in advocacy initiatives, including D.C. Fly-in meetings for constituents, grassroots advocacy campaigns, and the Political Action Committee. She also facilitates volunteer committee activities for ARA members, including the Thrive Mentoring Program for women, Third Thursdays with Women in Retirement, and the ASPPA and NAPA Government Affairs Committees.

Madison has a background in political fundraising. Prior to joining ARA, she spent four years Molly Allen Associates LLC where she was responsible for PAC fundraising strategies for several Members of Congress and candidates. Previously, she was Deputy Finance Director for a congressional campaign in Nevada and interned for a Senate campaign in Wisconsin. Madison has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Critical Identity Studies from Beloit College, and a Certificate in PAC and Grassroots Management.

Madison lives in Arlington, VA with her husband and two cats. In her spare time, she enjoys knitting, crocheting, reading, and spending time with friends.

Guest Bio: Erika Goodwin

Erika Goodwin is the Director of Advocacy Engagement at the American Retirement Association (ARA), where she leads select advocacy engagement strategy at the federal level and grass top engagement to advance retirement security solutions.

Erika leads Women's Retirement Security Day, a national initiative focused on raising awareness of the challenges women face in preparing for retirement and bringing together advocates, policymakers, and industry leaders around solutions. She has also led several initiatives to advance women and expand opportunity within the retirement industry, including the Women in Retirement Conference (WiRC), the Nourishing Our Wealth and Thrive mentoring programs, the ARA Council for Women, and efforts to create pathways for HBCU students to earn ARA professional certificates.

A graduate of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, Erika holds Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) designations. Outside of work, she is an urban farmer and a Caribbean carnival enthusiast.

Contact Our Guests:

Madison Oakley
Advocacy Engagement Manager
American Retirement Association
MOakley@usaretirement.org
703-516-9300

Erika Goodwin
Director of Advocacy Engagement
American Retirement Association
EGoodwin@usaretirement.org
703-516-9300

Website: https://www.usaretirement.org

Episode Intro: The GAP with Grant Ellis

Your 401(k) plan might be “working” on paper, but are your people actually getting clearer, calmer, and more confident about retirement? We sit down with Grant Ellis, founder of Ellis Retirement Services, to talk about what plan sponsors are up against right now: nonstop vendor outreach, confusing regulatory updates, payroll integrations that break, and a flood of tools that often adds friction instead of results.

Episode Description:

We get practical about what helps sponsors cut through the noise. Grant shares why independence matters in the retirement plan advisory space, especially for fiduciary decisions like recordkeeper selection, fee benchmarking, and building a defensible investment process. We also make the case for the often-underappreciated “engine” of the system: the third-party administrator. When a specialist advisor and a strong TPA work as true partners, sponsors get better plan operations, smarter plan design, and real checks and balances that reduce risk.

Then we zoom in on the end user: the participant. Grant argues that participant education and financial wellness are where the industry too often mails it in, swapping human conversations for another app. We talk about what actually moves the needle, including simple explanations, live Q and A, thoughtful plan design tweaks, and when auto enrollment can help close the retirement coverage gap without making employees feel tricked.

Subscribe for more candid conversations about retirement readiness, share this with a plan sponsor who feels overwhelmed, and leave a review to help more employers find the playbook for better 401(k) outcomes.

Guest Bio: Grant Ellis

Grant Ellis began his retirement planning career in 2005 and has been serving the needs of his clients ever since. As an analytical person and a student of the industry, Grant loves the complexities involved with 401(k)’s and retirement planning. More than that, however, he loves that he gets to take those complex subjects and connect them to his clients’ needs and desires. Whether he’s working with a CFO, HR team, or an individual prepping for retirement, his goals are the same…helping them define goals and create a plan to achieve them.

When he isn’t serving his clients, Grant likes to live as full a life as possible. He plays guitar and sings at his church (he even got to sing with Garth Brooks once!). He used to own a peanut butter company, wrote a book, guest lectures at Universities, and plays a little golf every now and then.

More than anything though, Grant values the time he spends with his family. He and his wife Cara live in Eads, Tennessee with their two kids. Walker is nine and loves to play baseball, and Callan is eleven and loves to sing like her daddy.

Contact:

Grant Ellis
901-519-7734
hello@ellisretirement.com

Website: https://ellisretirement.com/

Episode Introduction - The Gap with Lisa Gomez

A retirement plan can look like a line item on a pay stub until you’re the person without one. That’s where this conversation starts, and why it gets so real so fast. I’m joined by Lisa Gomez, a nationally recognized employee benefits leader and the former head of the Employee Benefits Security Administration at the U.S. Department of Labor, the agency responsible for protecting the workplace benefits of more than 150 million Americans.

Episode Description

We sit down with Lisa Gomez to talk about what the retirement industry gets right, where the real breakdowns still happen, and how we can close the retirement savings gap and coverage gap without falling into defeatism or victory laps.

We dig into the practical reasons people don’t participate even when they have access to a 401(k) or workplace retirement plan: confusing communication, benefits that look good on paper but don’t solve day-to-day needs, and the emotional reality that money stress and mental health are tightly linked. Lisa pushes us to get out of the echo chamber and talk directly with workers and employers, especially the demographics that keep getting left behind, so we can design solutions that actually change behavior.

We also explore what financial advisors can do best when they serve as a whole-person guide, not just an account manager. From there we zoom out to policy and infrastructure: responsible financial data sharing that supports holistic planning, clearer and more consistent ERISA fiduciary expectations across shifting investment debates, and the opportunity for small employers through PEPs, state programs, and underused tax credits. We close with a challenge to plan sponsors and advisors: schedule real plan design reviews, strengthen governance, and keep asking whether the plan is truly helping people build retirement security.

If you found this helpful, subscribe, share it with a plan sponsor or advisor, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s the biggest obstacle you see to improving retirement readiness?

Guest Bio:

Lisa is the founding member of LMG Collaborative Consulting Solutions, a firm providing comprehensive public policy and other consulting services in all aspects of employee benefits, including compliance, plan administration, plan design, advocacy, communications, government agency engagement, and strategic planning. In this new chapter, Lisa seeks to partner with employers and other plan sponsors and administrators, labor organizations, service providers, and worker advocates and use her experience and voice to help them successfully achieve their goals. Lisa can also serve as a professional trustee or independent fiduciary, expert witness, arbitrator, or mediator.

Lisa was nominated by President Joseph R. Biden as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employee Benefits Security for the U.S. Department of Labor in July 2021 and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in September 2022. She was sworn in by Secretary of Labor Martin J. Walsh on October 11, 2022, and served in that position until January 20, 2025. Previously, Lisa was a long-standing partner with the law firm Cohen, Weiss and Simon LLP, representing labor organizations and employee benefit plan sponsors and administrators, and the chair of the firm’s management committee.

Contact Lisa M. Gomez:

LMG Collaborative Consulting Solutions
https://lmg-ccs.com
lisamgomez@lmg-ccs.com
917-757-5100

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gomezlisam/