As a listener to the podcast, you might be "in the know" about the current retirement plan trends and motivated to tackle new ideas or strategies to put your employees on track for better retirement outcomes. But what can you do when not everyone in the company or on your retirement plan committee is on board with you. How do you either get the ball rolling, get the right people to the table or otherwise remove roadblocks that might stand in your way to improving employee retirement readiness? Well, Laraine McKinnon, a Retirement Readiness Strategist with BlackRock has worked with numerous employers to do just that and shares her strategies and experiences on the podcast!

Guest Bio

Laraine McKinnon is a retirement readiness expert who works with major employers and advisors to help improve participant outcomes and drive employee engagement.

Laraine advocates for retirement readiness through her thought leadership including breakthrough research on retirement engagement and innovative new tools to help quantify the implications of participants' savings and investment decisions on future outcomes. She also frequently speaks on retirement at conferences for industry groups, financial advisor firms and plan sponsor forums.

Laraine's tenure at BlackRock dates back to 1994. A retirement readiness strategist at BlackRock, she also served as a fiduciary on the BlackRock Retirement Savings Plan. Her experience also includes roles at BlackRock's legacy firms: Barclays Global Investors (BGI) where she managed multi-billion dollar relationships and Wells Fargo Nikko Investment Advisors (WFNIA) where she supported index and asset allocation products, including LifePath, the industry's first target date fund.

Laraine is also an advocate for women's leadership. She helps women in in Silicon Valley accelerate their careers and fulfill their personal potential through an incubator program and sits on the Board of The CLUB Silicon Valley.

Laraine earned a BA degree, cum laude, in political science and women's studies from Wellesley College. Her hobbies include hiking and sailboat racing. She lives in Silicon Valley with her husband and two daughters.

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 retirement plan? We've had conversations with retirement industry leaders to address these and other relevant topics! You can easily explore over fifty prior on-demand audio interviews here. Don't forget to subscribe as we release a new episode each Friday!