PLANADVISER: Tell us about your role at your firm and how you contribute to its growth and progress:
Ahmadi: As an account executive, I act as the lead adviser for my clients; I lead them through strategy, service and investments. I give our sales team the bandwidth to focus on their pipeline and contribute to the growth of the practice. My high client retention rate ensures that our firm’s growth continues to trend upwards. I have also created new products, such as our small market solution FutureFront, that has created efficiencies that allow our team to scale. It has also increased both revenue and assets under management.
PLANADVISER: What steps do you think will help improve the retirement industry and participant outcomes in the future (particularly ways in which your firm can help with that progress)?
Ahmadi: Simplified: tech-forward, cost-effective solutions. The retirement industry is still very archaic in many ways. There are a few different steps my firm, and I as an adviser, take to drive desirable participant outcomes.
- Fee Transparency: We will always look to eliminate antiquated concepts such as revenue sharing. Fee equalization across 401(k) participants creates greater fee transparency for employees in regard to the fees they are paying.
- Emphasis on fees: We will always benchmark fees to ensure employees are paying a fair price and that their retirement savings are going toward their retirement. We also always ensure our clients are using the lowest-cost share class available to them.
- Straightforward investment lineups. We aim to eliminate sector overlap where possible and provide an easy-to-use investment lineup for participants. Behavioral economics tells us that too many options create an environment in which it is difficult to make decisions.
- Tech-forward solutions: We emphasize products that have made an investment in technology. We also create tech-forward products and methods that engage with participants.
PLANADVISER: What have you done that you are most proud of?
Ahmadi: My greatest accomplishment over the past 12 months was the creation and successful launch of FutureFront, our team’s “group of plans” solution. FutureFront is an innovative solution that has led to growth in revenue and assets under management. FutureFront is designed to provide a tech-forward, cost-effective, scalable solution for our startup community and small business segment. It has received industry recognition via [retirement industry] publications, which has led to opportunities for our team. For clients, FutureFront delivers optimal solutions, regardless of their life-cycle stage, as we are able to get them into our award-winning Newfront ecosystem earlier, accelerating client results. This was a comprehensive project that entailed determining vendor solutions, compliance and marketing.