< The 2015 Pension 40: The Long Climb

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Mark Mullet
State Senator / Washington
Last year: Not ranked

It took seven years and a dose of dedication for Mark Mullet to catapult from managing currency options trading at UBS in London to helping lead the U.S. retirement security debate as a Washington state senator. After switching in 2007 from finance to a new career as an owner of Issaquah, Washington’s Zeeks Pizza restaurant and a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop, Mullet sought a retirement plan for his 50 employees. When he discovered the outsize expense of small-business plan offerings for both employer and employees, a public servant was born. Mullet earned a master’s of public affairs in 2008, won a seat in the state senate in November 2012 and introduced his first retirement plan bill with Republican senator Don Benton in January 2014. That bill, which sought an inexpensive solution piggybacking on the Washington State Investment Board’s defined contribution plan for public employees, was quickly shot down by financial services lobbyists. Undaunted, Mullet reintroduced a bill in 2015 that mutual funds and insurers could live with: a voluntary individual retirement account marketplace for employers with more than 100 workers. He was able to negotiate low plan fees of no more than 100 basis points (1 percent). In May, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed the Small Business Retirement Marketplace into law. Now Mullet, who hopes the marketplace will be up and running at the end of 2016, is looking for a million-dollar donation to promote the plan to employers statewide.

 

 
The 2015 Pension 40

1. Bruce Rauner Illinois 2. John & Laura Arnold Laura and John Arnold Foundation Global Real Estate Rebound: Signs of Sustainable Recovery and Opportunity Sponsored by Nuveen June 24, 2025 3. Chris Christie New Jersey 4. Randi Weingarten AmericanFederation of Teachers 5. Phyllis Borzi U.S. Department of Labor

6. Kevin de León California 7. Alejandro García Padilla Commonwealth ofPuerto Rico 8. Laurence Fink BlackRock 9. Rahm Emanuel Chicago 10. Sean McGarvey North AmericanBuilding Trades Unions

11. John Kline Minnesota 12. J. Mark Iwry U.S. Treasury Department 13. Damon Silvers AFL-CIO 14. Jeffrey Immelt General Electric Co. 15. Joshua Gotbaum Brookings Institution

16. Robin Diamonte United Technologies Corp. 17. Mark Mullet Washington 18. Terry O'Sullivan Laborers' International Union of North America 19. Raymond Dalio Bridgewater Associates 20. Ted Wheeler Oregon

21. Thomas Nyhan Central States Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund 22. Karen Ferguson & Karen Friedman Pensions Rights Center 23. Randy DeFrehn National Coordinating Committee forMultiemployer Plans 24. Robert O'Keef Motorola Solutions 25. Caitlin Long Morgan Stanley

26. Kenneth Feinberg The Law Offices of Kenneth R. Feinberg 27. Orrin Hatch Utah 28. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Center for Retirement Initiatives, Georgetown University 29. Ian Lanoff Groom Law Group 30. Joshua Rauh Stanford Graduate School of Business

31. Ted Eliopoulos California Public Employees' Retirement System 32. Edward (Ted) Siedle Benchmark Financial Services 33. Teresa Ghilarducci New School for Social Research 34. Denise Nappier Connecticut 35. W. Thomas Reeder Jr. Pension BenefitGuaranty Corp.

36. Hank Kim National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems 37. Paul Singer Elliott Management Corp. 38. Bailey Childers National PublicPension Coalition 39. Amy Kessler Prudential Financial 40. Judy Mares U.S. Labor Department