< The 2014 Pension 40: The Battle Is On
15
Phyllis Borzi
Assistant Secretary for Employee Benefits Security
U.S. Department of Labor
Last year: 13
Since she was appointed to oversee employee benefits at the Department of Labor in 2009, Phyllis Borzi, 67, has manned the trenches against the financial providers of retirement benefits. But time grows short as the Obama administration winds down. Borzi’s big issue — applying a fiduciary standard to advisers, including brokers — has run into a buzz saw of lobbying by industry groups that insist the plan will slash broker commissions and eliminate advice for lower-cost plans. Borzi, who continues to press for better disclosure on 401(k) providers, first proposed the fiduciary standards plan in 2010 and has battled the industry and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and faced pressure from the White House. Now there will be further delays until January while new Labor Secretary Thomas Perez meets with the financial providers. And to make matters worse, GOP Senator Orrin Hatch (No. 16), who wants to transfer 401(k) oversight from DoL to the Treasury, will be chairing the Senate Finance Committee. Borzi, a lawyer and former House staffer on pension issues — she’s known as the “mother of COBRA” — is an advocate for defined benefit plans and has long urged lifetime income options. In a speech before the Financial Services Roundtable, Borzi spoke of the 40th anniversary of ERISA in September 2014 and the shift of retirement benefits from defined benefit to defined contribution plans. “It’s not the same,” she said. “Our regulatory structure has not evolved.” Still, she says, “the reality is that defined contribution and IRA holdings have far outstripped the assets of DB plans, and it seems unlikely that we are turning back from that.”
The 2014 Pension 40
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Bruce Rauner Illinois | John and Laura Arnold Laura and John Arnold Foundation | Randi Weingarten American Federation of Teachers | Rahm Emanuel Chicago | David Boies Boies, Schiller & Flexner |
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Randy DeFrehn National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans | Damon Silvers AFL-CIO | Laurence Fink BlackRock | Chris Christie New Jersey | Robin Diamonte United Technologies Corp. |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| Ted Eliopoulos California Public Employees’ Retirement System | John Kline Minnesota | J. Mark Iwry U.S. Treasury Department | Gina Raimondo Rhode Island | Phyllis Borzi U.S. Labor Department |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| Orrin Hatch Utah | Abigail Johnson Fidelity Investments | Ted Wheeler Oregon | Caitlin Long Morgan Stanley | James Hoffa International Brotherhood of Teamsters |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| Amy Kessler Prudential Financial | Alejandro García Padilla Puerto Rico | Christopher Klein U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Caifornia | Steven Rhodes Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan | Kevin de León California |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| David Draine Pew Charitable Trusts | Jordan Marks National Public Pension Coalition | Sam Liccardo California | Joshua Rauh Stanford Graduate School of Business | Karen Ferguson and Karen Friedman Pension Rights Center |
| 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 |
| Timothy Blake Moody’s Investors Service | Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Center for Retirement Initiatives, Georgetown University | Edward (Ted) Siedle Benchmark Financial Services | Daniel Loeb Third Point | Judy Mares Employee Benefits Security Administration, U.S. Labor Department |
| 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 |
| Andrew Biggs American Enterprise Institute | Andy Stern Columbia University | Kenneth Mehlman KKR & Co. | Teresa Ghilarducci New School for Social Research | A. Melissa Moye U.S. Treasury Department |
