BofA Merrill Lynch Adds Two to Retirement Team
Assuming the role of head of Business Retirement Solutions, Rich Linton will be responsible for managing the company’s small business retirement solutions including the Advisor Alliance platform, formerly MLConnect (see “BofA Merrill Revitalizes Recordkeeping Platform”), and the SEP/Simple offering.
Linton comes to Bank of America Merrill Lynch from Fidelity Investments, where he held a variety of senior leadership roles over 20 years at Fidelity focused on mid-market clients, sales strategy, financial operations, client service management, and client reporting. He most recently served as the Executive Vice President of the Advisor Retirement Group.
Steve Ulian will join RPS as the head of Institutional Retirement & Benefits Solutions, responsible for the proprietary 401(k) platform, defined benefit plan administration, RFPs, pricing and underwriting, and Equity Plan Services. He will focus on delivering integrated benefits solutions to mid- and large market companies, according to a memo from Andy Seig head of RPS.
Ulian also comes from Fidelity Investments where he was Executive Vice President in Sales and Relationship Management for the Workplace Investing group. He has also held a number of roles at Fidelity including head of product development and management, head of the defined contribution investment only business, and sales manager for the large market segment.
“I am confident that Rich will partner across Global Wealth & Investment Management and the broader enterprise to ensure greater alignment of our small business resources to drive maximum growth. Steve will work closely with our partners in the Global Commercial Bank, Global Corporate & Investment Bank and U.S. Wealth Management to deliver integrated benefits and solutions to a broad range of clients,” Seig said in the memo.
Both Linton and Ulian will report directly to Seig.
“To drive growth and capitalize on opportunities in our retirement business, [Linton and Ulian’s] roles have been designed as a combination of newly formed positions on our retirement leadership team and responsibilities previously held by John Furlong, who left the company in January 2010,” according to Matt Card, a Bank of America Merrill Lynch spokesman. “We continue to assess our leadership team across RPS to identify where additions are needed to support growth and our strategic objectives.”
David Roberts, who leads Equity Plan Services, including equity administration, Equity Methods, the employee stock purchase program, executive services and non-qualified deferred compensation, will report to Ulian.