NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Oct 2, 2014) - Building upon a 25-year history of organizing conferences in the DC space, Institutional Investor (II) announced it will launch the Institutional Investor Institute for Defined Contribution (IIIDC), a private membership for the country's largest and most innovative DC plan sponsors, in January 2015. The Institute, II's latest addition to a suite of 12 exclusive memberships, will establish a community and resource base for the nation's leading corporate and government DC plans.
"Institutional Investor has been organizing thought leadership conferences in the DC space for 25 years. As corporations continue to shift away from defined benefit pension structures, the DC industry has witnessed explosive growth from both a service provider perspective and from plan sponsors seeking to improve offerings to participants. The current environment illustrates an incomparable opportunity for the industry and real movement toward improving participant funded retirement structures going forward," said Diane Alfano, Chairman of Institutional Investor. "The need from plan sponsors for the information we can provide at the Institute's events and through our benchmarking and online services is growing exponentially, and there is no firm better positioned to deliver it than Institutional Investor."
Membership in IIIDC will offer access to exclusive thought leadership through comprehensive yearly meetings, an online community, benchmarking surveys and market research, and peer-to-peer engagement. The Institute's s three annual Roundtables will bring together plan sponsors supported by selected asset managers and DC providers, plus distinguished outside experts from across North America. The calendar of meeting will include the DC Forum in April in Chicago; the DC Symposium in September in San Francisco; and the DC Summit in November in New York.
Each IIIDC conference agenda will draw heavily on current best practices and the issues most relevant to the nation's larger plans. All IIIDC agendas will be driven by plan sponsors, including a distinguished group of advisory board members:
- Mary Buonfiglio, Deputy Director, Supplemental Retirement Plans, North Carolina Department of State Treasury
- Lisa Coutts, Director, Savings and Retirement Plans, Starbucks Corporation
- Jaime Erickson, Executive Director, Retirement Benefits Plans, Comcast-NBCUniversal
- Marc Keenan, Director, Pension Benefits & Investments, Pfizer Inc
- Bernie Knobbe, Vice President, Global Benefits Corporate Total Rewards, AECOM
- David Pulford, Manager Retirement Strategy, American Airlines Inc.
- Brant Vincent Suddath, Director of Benefits, Home Depot Inc.
- Carol Sung, 401(k) Product Manager, International Paper Company
- Diana K. Winalski, Director, 401(k) Investments, Xerox Corporation
- Carolyn Wood, Director of Retirement Benefits, Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc.
Expert-led roundtable discussions will seek to educate plan sponsors and senior industry executives on the opportunities, solutions and challenges of helping their firms' employees ensure a financially secure retirement as well as innovative communication, education and financial wellness strategies that serve to improve participant engagement and retirement outcomes.
"Our long history of providing high-level meetings with the nation's largest and most innovative DC plans has spurred interest among plan sponsors for the nation's first membership of this type, one in which leading asset management firms and DC providers work together with plan sponsors on solutions for the biggest challenges they face. Our aim is simple," said Steven Olson, Global Editor-in-Chief of II Forums and IIIDC, "We want to help plan sponsors make better decisions by putting them in touch with the best thinking in the business, including the lessons learned by their peers at other companies."
About Institutional Investor:
Institutional Investor magazine is the preeminent publication capturing the emergence and growth of institutional investors since the late 1960's. Institutional Investor covers all asset owners -- including pension, endowment and sovereign wealth funds -- and their impact on global financial markets. In addition to the flagship magazine, Institutional Investor publishes newsletters, books, research products, electronic databases and academic publications, as well as business to business financial conferences. Institutional Investor Forums and Memberships deliver the world's leading asset management firms and institutional investors to foster relationship-building and idea exchange during informal, interactive meetings as well as industry focused research in-between these meetings. Institutional Investor is wholly owned by Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC (ERM.L).