Ascensus Restructures Sales Team

Ascensus has continued with retirement-related restructuring with an announcement Monday of various leadership team moves in its retirement sales team that took effect May 25.

The moves are all internal promotions and reshuffling with an eye toward enabling “long-term growth,” according to the announcement. In February, Ascensus restructured its retirement division into four units, including a core retirement division led by Jason Crane.

“Our ability to make these changes from within recognizes both the talent and leadership strength inherent in our organization,” Crane said in a statement with the most recent sales changes.

The moves include:

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  Anthony Bologna

  Anthony Bologna has been promoted to a newly created role of national sales director. Bologna has been with Ascensus for over 25 years and will oversee leadership of retirement sales across field-based and internal operations. He was most recently division vice president, Eastern region. Jeff Simes, meanwhile, will be promoted to Bologna’s former role. He joined Ascensus in 2018 as regional vice president, Northeast.
  
  
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  Mickie Morley

  Mickie Morley will in turn take Simes’ place, assuming responsibility for Eastern Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. She joined the firm in 2019 in internal sales.
  
  
• Jim Walker, previously director, internal sales, has taken a newly formed role as head of enablement in core retirement. Walker joined the firm in 2019 and will report to core retirement head Crane. He will be focused on “accelerated delivery of data and analytics-driven insights used to optimize deployment of resources” along with governance and organizational readiness.
  
  
• 

  Russ Winchester

  Finally, Russ Winchester will take Walker’s prior role overseeing the internal sales consultant team. He joined Ascensus in 2020 after leading sales teams at Newport, Transamerica and LPL Financial.

The moves come under the leadership of Nick Good, who assumed the role of president in July 2023, and CEO David Musto, who previously held the role of president. The company was acquired by private equity firm Stone Point Capital in 2021.

Ascensus oversees more than $808 billion in assets under administration and provides services for qualified and nonqualified plans, third-party retirement administration through its FuturePlan by Ascensus, 529 education and ABLE savings program administration, corporate and bank-owned life insurance solutions and fiduciary and total rewards services.