The “retirement and wealth convergence” is real and is happening, according to a panel of experts at the National Association of Plan Advisors’ 2025 conference in Las Vegas. Financial advisors who can work effectively across both marketplaces are poised for significant success, they said.
But just because millions of people roll money from workplace 401(k) accounts to retail individual retirement accounts every year, the panel emphasized, doesn’t mean that it’s easy to capture that business. It’s not a simple proposition to win the confidence of discerning business owners, HR professionals and C-suite executives looking for help in running their retirement plans.
Speakers on the panel included Dawn McPherson, a senior director of business development at Captrust; Mike Griffin, head of workplace wealth solutions sales at UBS; Laurel Taylor, founder and CEO of Candidly; and Eric Garofalo, an executive director and wealth advisor at Morgan Stanley.
Attracting more wealth management business by serving retirement plan participants and employers alike requires a thoughtful strategy and dedication to the effort, the panelists explained. It also requires what each speaker repeatedly called a “holistic” approach to wealth and retirement — one encompassing much more than investments.
Trust and Confidence Needed
This convergence is far from an easy way to win new business, Garofalo said.
"Just because the strategy looks like a slam dunk on paper doesn’t mean it’s easy to execute," he said. "When you are serving as a plan advisor, you have to work hard to earn the confidence and trust of people before you earn the right to have the wealth conversation.”
While rollovers are very common, the panel agreed, the destination isn’t a given. A rollover from a 401(k) doesn’t automatically go from the retirement plan to the advisor who is serving that plan. Rather, it goes to the advisor (and their firm) who has built a relationship with the account owner by helping the client solve manifold financial challenges.
“To become that winning advisor, you need to be meeting with the employees and helping them with what they need help with,” Garofalo said. “Is it the portfolio? Is it building a financial plan? Is it tackling debt or saving for college? Whatever it is, if you do this work, you can build a relationship that lasts a lifetime, even if that employee leaves that employer or you are no longer working with their plan.”
Taylor concurred with that perspective.
“You can make yourself that rollover destination by building great relationships, and that takes providing real value and building real trust and confidence,” she said. “Another way advisors stand out is by connecting employers and their people with a more expansive set of services, like student loan debt management, in our case.”
Evolution of Employer Viewpoints
In the past, many people separated wealth advice from the workplace, McPherson observed, in part because "employers were commonly afraid of employees facing aggressive sales tactics by advisors. Today, she added, "the opposite view is more common. Employers know their employees want help from professional advisors.”
It’s still important for advisors to be wary of conflicts of interest, the panel agreed. That’s true from a regulatory perspective, they noted, but it’s also true from a client perception perspective. In other words, just because employers want advisors to serve their people doesn’t mean they’re going to allow advisors to take advantage of their access to sell high-fee products on commission.
“Those larger employers who make really attractive prospects also really want to see a scalable approach to wealth management that isn’t just reserved for the managers and senior executives,” Griffin pointed out. “It doesn’t have to be the same level of service for all levels of employees, but there needs to be a robust approach that delivers real tangible benefits across the board.”
What this looks like in practice will vary, the panelists said. One basic strategy could be to assign senior advisors to work with C-suite executives, while a less experienced advisor could be assigned to serve managers and staffers with more wealth — and thus more complex planning needs. Scalable technology, digital meetings and service from junior staff at the advisory firm could be deployed to serve the rank and file.
“We’re actually seeing questions about this scalable model come up in a lot of [requests for proposal] that come in today as prospects are shopping for a new plan advisor,” McPherson pointed out.
Why Advisors Can’t Avoid This Trend
Many advisors with successful retail wealth management business aren’t all that interested in breaking into the retirement plan space, Garofalo noted, but that perspective misses an important point.
“A lot of advisors may have many millions or billions in wealth management assets without ever having served a retirement plan, and that’s great,” Garofalo said. “But questions start to arise when you look at their client demographics and see the average client is in their 60s or 70s. One of the best ways to get ahead of the great wealth transfer is to work with retirement plans and start building relationships with younger people who might not yet be all that wealthy.”
Griffin agreed wholeheartedly.
“It reminds me of my relationship with my own advisor,” he said. “He took me on as a client when I was fresh out of law school and under a mountain of debt. He helped me start to sort that out and I’m sure he’s happy with his decision, as he’s still my advisor decades down the road.”
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