Austin Gwilliam, HUB International

Business at a Glance as of 12/31/22

• Plan assets under advisement: $1.2 billion
• Median plan size (in assets): $16 million
• Plans under administration: 52
• Total participants served: 22,404

PLANADVISER: Tell us about your practice and how you got into advising retirement plans.

Gwilliam: Our team is a co-fiduciary to roughly 150 retirement plans and around $3.5 billion in assets. My two other partners and I founded our company in 2014 and grew from zero to more than $3 billion in assets and then sold to HUB in December 2021.

I started in the retirement plan industry in 2001, but when I was 15, I knew this is what I wanted to do in life. I was impacted at that time by grandparents, who didn’t save enough for retirement and had to live in my parents’ house until they could collect full social security. Seeing the impact this had on my family and my grandparents is why I became an adviser. Knowing I have the ability to help more than 20,000 people directly or indirectly have a more comfortable retirement is an extremely rewarding and heavy responsibility.

PLANADVISER: As a retirement plan adviser, what do you take the most pride in?

Gwilliam: At a macro level, professionally, I take a lot of pride in knowing that I was integral in growing a company from scratch to more than $3 billion in about 7 years. That was a lot of risk, and it’s exciting to see the fruits of our labors.

At a micro level, I take pride in putting in the time to identify details that matter. Whether it’s searching for the best investments at the lowest cost, finding out which asset managers have CITs available or meeting my internal standard of responding to clients within 24 hours, I pride myself in the details because, often, they matter most.

PLANADVISER: How do you grow your business? What changes to your practice or service model are you planning for 2023 or 2024?

Gwilliam: Cultivating relationships with HUB producers will be a major focus for 2023 and beyond. Those relationships will lead to trust and referrals and growth. Our practice will continue to adapt to our fast-paced growth as we plan to find and hire key talent.

PLANADVISER: Why do you feel that retirement plan advisers should get involved in the expansion of the DC retirement plan system to cover more types of employers and employees?

Gwilliam: Advisers provide a unique perspective that others in the industry cannot. We work directly with employers and participants and have a better understanding of the challenges and obstacles they face. This understanding allows us to see things in a way that can accomplish measurable change faster than if we don’t get involved. It is our duty to share our knowledge to help everyone be better positioned for a comfortable retirement and help close the ever-growing coverage gap.

PLANADVISER: What are the biggest challenges preventing the broader delivery of tax-advantaged retirement savings opportunities in the workplace, and how might these be solved?

Gwilliam: Our sale to HUB has opened my eyes to this problem a little more than in prior years. There are still so many employers and individuals who do not have an effective vehicle for retirement or an appropriate understanding of what that means. California mandated all employers with more than five employees to offer a retirement plan in June 2022, and we still come across companies all the time with nothing. The message has still not been effectively communicated. I think direct marketing to participants from the financial industry is one way to make the biggest change. Many employers don’t think their employees care. If employees were marketed to similarly to that of the pharmaceutical industry, the coverage gap would be greatly reduced. If employees knocked on their employer’s door clamoring for a 401(k), it would happen. This method has proven successful in the medical industry; it will work in the financial industry as well.