Since becoming CEO of John Hancock U.S. Retirement this year, Wayne Park has been on an information-gathering tour with colleagues, peers, third-party administrators and retirement plan and financial advisers.

The whirlwind tour for the new leader, who will be moving to the firm’s Boston office, has not changed the former wealth manager’s view of the importance of relationships with a key constituent: the financial advisers who work with individuals on their retirement plans as well as business owners.

“I plan to continue the success that John Hancock has had with advisers and TPAs and others in the community,” Park says. “A lot of it is just onboarding and listening and learning about both our internal work, but also what our clients and partners are doing.”

Park took the role after his predecessor, Sue Reibel, retired after a 30-year career at John Hancock and parent company Manulife Investment Management. Park has held roles in institutional retirement plan services as well as personal finance solutions and wealth management. He says workplace retirement plans and managing participant assets continues to be a growing area of interest for financial advisers as the need for retirement guidance grows.

Wayne Park.

“I’m not saying it wasn’t there before, but it does seem to be heightening,” he says.

Park sees two key variables playing a role: first, advisers often work with families who own businesses and hear about or have a chance to talk about their employee retirement plans; second, retirement legislation including the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 and the opportunities it opens up for business owners and employers to boost or start retirement plans.

Park sees a role for John Hancock to help educate and engage financial advisers on the retirement plan sector as another opportunity for their practice. “It’s not something I think many advisers spend a lot of time on, and it is a lot of time,” he says. “But we can certainly play a role in educating.”

He sees wealth managers as the key to advising the Baby Boomer wave of retirees, as opposed to focusing only on in-plan product options.

“We think that the need for advisers continues and we want to be supportive and complimentary to that,” he says. “We focus on education, engagement, and advice tools. But for us, it’s not intended ever to replace advice [from a financial adviser].”

As more Baby Boomers retire, Park says, there will not only be a need for wealth management of their assets, but assistance with the transfer of wealth to spouses, and then to other younger inheritors. Finally, he notes, that there are also advisers who will be transitioning their wealth management practices.

“Having a strong succession plan is important,” he says, noting that the Baby Boomer retirement wave is a “multi-dimensional event.”

Park says that John Hancock, as part of Manulife, has a lot of resources when it comes to retirement-income solutions. For now, though, he continues to see the evolution of retirement income options working through financial advisement.

“The reality is that there’s no magic bullet [to solving retirement income],” he says. “We’ve tried a lot of different things from many different companies. And the primary answer has been thus far, and I think continues to be, work with a financial adviser.”

Park doesn’t rule out John Hancock bringing new insurance-backed products to market.

“I think having that the capability to tap into an insurance company and the actuarial abilities should and could play a really important role in the income space,” he says, noting that the firm already has a stable value guaranteed-income product.

“You could try to be all things to all people,” Park says. “But I think we’re going continue to lean in on the fact that we’ve been successful partnering with advisers, and third-party administrators, and making sure that we can be focused on the market where we can be really relevant.”