Zack Hubbard

PLANADVISER: Tell us about your role at your firm and how you contribute to its growth and progress.

Hubbard: I am the director of financial planning and participant engagement at Greenspring Advisors. In my role, I lead our (k)larity @ Work financial wellness platform that provides financial literacy education, one-on-one advice and a marketplace of solutions for participants in our retirement plans. I also manage a team of financial planners and am responsible for training and developing new financial planners as they enter our firm and the industry. My team sits at the core of everything Greenspring does, creating critical financial plan analyses for our private wealth clients, as well as serving as the day-to-day contacts for participants as they navigate their financial journeys.

PLANADVISER: Where do you hope to take your career in the retirement industry in coming years?

Hubbard: My goal is to maximize impact. I want to expand access to high-quality financial planning and advice to as many people as possible. To accomplish this requires continued expansion of our (k)larity @ Work platform to reach more companies and employees, and continued innovation on the services we provide. It also requires me to be involved in the industry and in expanding opportunities for other advisers to follow a similar model. In the coming years, I plan to continue to have more industry-specific speaking engagements, continue to be heavily involved in industry organizations and continue to expand our reach.

PLANADVISER: How did you end up in the retirement advisory industry?

Hubbard: My journey to the retirement advisory industry was very winding. I started my career in wealth management in an operations role, having no real experience with the business. Through this role, I fell in love with the profession and took on numerous roles to expand my knowledge. Then I fell in love for a second time with financial planning and the impact it could have on clients and their lives. I came to a crossroads where I had to decide if I wanted to be a wealth management adviser and “make rich people richer,” or if I wanted to go a different direction. My passion was and still is to bring the level of financial planning and advice that has been traditionally reserved for only the wealthiest Americans to everyone. I found an opportunity to do that at Greenspring through what was previously called our participant advisor role (now financial planner), and the rest is history!