I'm noticing a trend with the themes from a few recent episodes, leadership, stewardship, foresight and now I'm throwing courage into the mix! While all of these characteristics are important to run a successful and valuable workplace retirement plan, courage is sometimes underrated! To share some of her insights on the topic of courageous retirement plan design I was excited to have Shannon Nutter Weirbinsky who heads Participant Strategy and Development for Vanguard's institutional business join me on the podcast. During our conversation we hit on why she thinks its important for employers to embrace courageous plan design and how it will help both the company and your employees! We also chat about overcoming inertia with retirement savers, there was talking of how to eat and elephant, quick disclosure no animals were harmed in the recording of this podcast and why it is important to put yourself in your participant's shoes from time to time. Really good stuff!

Shannon has also done some great writing on topics that are helpful for employers and I posted a few of her articles on the website at www.401kfridays.com/snw. Check it out! While you are there, be sure to join our email list and subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already.

Guest Bio

Shannon Nutter-Wiersbitzky heads Participant Strategy and Development for Vanguard's institutional business. In prior roles, she served as head of Institutional Marketing and as head of Market Research and Voice of Client for all U.S. and international businesses. She joined Vanguard in 2007 and has more than 15 years of experience in both consumer and B2B markets, focused on strategic planning, marketing, product development, business consulting, and market research. Additionally, she originated and led the development of My Classroom Economy® (myclassroomeconomy.org), a free program built by Vanguard volunteers for grades K through 12 that teaches children key life skills through experiential learning. Ms. Nutter-Wiersbitzky earned a B.A. from Macalester College and an M.B.A. from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.

401(k) Fridays Podcast Overview

Struggling with a fiduciary issue, looking for strategies to improve employee retirement outcomes or curious about the impact of current events on your workplace retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over 100 prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!