Pinnacle is comprised of retirement industry veterans with deep experience in 401(k) and 403(b) plans. For two decades, Pinnacle has differentiated itself by making sure its client’s employees have an expert resource.
Pinnacle’s innovative strategy helps employees take full advantage of their opportunities to save and invest by bridging gaps and eliminating barriers.
Our process increases employee engagement by simplifying the employee experience and helping them with their decision-making. The result - better outcomes.
Pinnacle is uniquely well positioned to help transform 403(b) plans, given our decade-long track record and deep experience with TIAA. Our process proactively addresses the impact that individual contracts and investments in legacy annuity products have.
Whether it’s educating employees or tackling the issues that have been the focus of 403(b) litigation, Pinnacle’s expertise is second to none.
Simplify Retirement addresses two critical areas—simplifying the employee experience and proactively reaching out to employees to help them maximize their retirement plan.
Pinnacle now supports advisors and plan sponsors, offering a communications and education program that proactively delivers high-quality, plan-specific information and personalized calls-to-action to improve employee engagement.
Pinnacle realized it could have a much greater impact on retirement plan outcomes by building a collaborative model. By leveraging technology and figuring out how to streamline the employee experience, Pinnacle has created a new approach to helping employees and creating more value.
Creator of the Simplify Retirement Program
Chris created the Simplify Retirement program because he believes employees need more help planning for retirement and employers want employees to take full advantage of their 401(k) or 403(b) plan.
Greg is the founder of Pinnacle Pension Consultants and has been working with employer-sponsored retirement plans since 1999. Prior to founding Pinnacle in 2006, Greg was a retirement plan consultant at a regional benefits firm, advising plan sponsors of all sizes and types on investment advisory services, fee analysis, participant communication and product due diligence. Prior to that Greg was a Team Leader at Fidelity and started his career as an investigator for the Massachusetts Securities Division.
Ron has over 25 years of experience as an investment and retirement plan professional. Prior to joining Pinnacle in 2003, he was a Vice President at Diversified Investment Advisors (now Transamerica), a leading institutional retirement plan provider for both defined benefit and defined contribution plans.
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Yes. Pinnacle serves as a fiduciary and will put our status in writing so you have the confidence and certainty of knowing that we act in the best interests of the plan and its participants.
ERISA sets a high standard - fiduciaries must “operate their retirement plan with the skill, diligence and care of a prudent expert”. The Simplify Retirement Program helps plan sponsors achieve this level of service by connecting employees with the help they need.
No. We do not receive any compensation, direct or indirect, from selling or distributing investment products. Our sole focus is providing retirement plan and investment consulting services to help retirement plan sponsors, their advisors and their plan participants. Our service agreements clearly outline the services we offer and the associated fee so there’s full transparency.
Before joining Pinnacle, Chris spent six years at TIAA. He is an expert in TIAA’s investment products and how to manage projects like transitioning to open architecture, fund line up changes and communications and education campaigns.
He has invested multiple years figuring out streamline the employee experience and use digital process and tools to deliver easy-to-understand information on their retirement plan and a personalized calls to action. The Simplify Retirement Program is the result of his research and development efforts.
The first step in evaluating any new engagement is to look at what’s working and what’s not. More than likely the program can still add value. The focus often shifts to how to increase engagement and get employees to better utilize the resources they probably aren’t taking advantage of.
Pinnacle works with the advisor (if the plan sponsor is working with one) to take inventory of the resources that are available to employees and evaluate how effectively they are being used.
We also do an analysis of the plan to identify participants who are at risk or who likely need help and proactively reach out to them.
Finally, the reporting and documentation that plan sponsors receive helps mitigate risk, by demonstrating the rigor of the Retirement Committee’s commitment to fulfilling is fiduciary responsibilities.
An essential part of the fiduciary process is documenting the steps that have been taken and the rationale behind the decisions the Committee makes. The Simplified Retirement program proactively identifies problem areas, like excessive fees which have been the focus of class action lawsuits. These findings are used to develop a communications and education strategy to get employees personalized calls-to-action and resources to remedy these issues.
Pinnacle provides Retirement Committees a comprehensive report and documentation of the outreach, employee engagement and results in case the plan sponsor ever needs to show what they did to address known issues.
