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The 2014 Pension 40: Kevin de León

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Kevin de León
State Senator and Senate President pro Tempore
California
Last year: 16

In the past 12 months, California State Senator Kevin de León has raised $1 million for two studies that will help bring the California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program to life. One is a market analysis and feasibility study, the other a legal analysis of ERISA-related issues. Funds have been secured from donors that include AARP, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (No. 2) and the Service Employees International Union, and requests for proposal are going out to academics and consultants. The new public-private retirement program was designed with help from the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems to provide retirement income for 7 million private sector workers in California who lack access to workplace plans. It took shape in 2012, when the California senate passed de León’s Bill 1234 and Governor Jerry Brown signed it. “It is the biggest disrupter to the financial retirement security community,” says de León, 46, who was elected to the senate in 2010 from Los Angeles County. In March, de León convened a symposium at the UCLA Anderson School of Management at which some of the largest institutional investors — BlackRock, Aon Hewitt, Prudential Financial, TIAA-CREF and State Street Global Advisors — presented design options for Secure Choice. “It will be a game changer,” he says. “If you’re in the private sector, you’ll automatically be enrolled in this program.”

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


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