Combs accepts private call

As a law student at George Washington University in the early ‘80s, Ann Combs landed an internship with the National Association of Manufacturers’ employee benefits committee.

As a law student at George Washington University in the early ‘80s, Ann Combs landed an internship with the National Association of Manufacturers’ employee benefits committee. “I loved the intellectual challenge and the social conscience, and I’ve stuck with benefits work ever since,” says Combs, who until recently was the highest-ranking pension regulator in the Department of Labor.

She stepped down in October after serving six years as assistant secretary for employee benefit security and shepherding the 2006 Pension Protection Act into law. This month Combs starts at Vanguard Group, where she will head a new unit within the U.S.'s second-largest fund company, overseeing policy issues, research and consulting relationships. “While the retail side of the business is clearly important at Vanguard,” she says, “the retirement side -- the institutional business -- is core.” She will focus on making sure that defined contribution plans provide participants with reliable retirement income, and on expanding coverage to the 50 percent of Americans who do not have a plan.

Combs has dipped in and out of the public sector throughout her career. In 1982'83 she served as staff assistant to former Commerce secretary Alexander Trowbridge on Alan Greenspan’s Commission on Social Security Reform. As a deputy assistant secretary at DoL in 1989, she expertly negotiated a knotty pension refunding. In the private sector she has worked as chief counsel for pensions and retirement at the American Council of Life Insurers and as a principal of William M. Mercer.

At Vanguard, Combs has found a good fit: “It’s a company I respect, with a strong culture and a sense of mission for retirement security. What is more, they had a job for me. They were quite specific. There was none of this, ‘Come work for us, and we’ll see what you can do.’”

Related