EBRI-Milken Institute Retirement Symposium: The Forces Transforming Retirement
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
The REACH at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington,
D.C.
Event Mission
EBRI-Milken Institute Retirement Symposium: The Forces Transforming Retirement will convene high-ranking thought leaders in the retirement industry, including financial firm experts, employers, consultants, policymakers, and regulators, to discuss what’s next in retirement, focusing on innovative solutions and potential policy and practice changes on the horizon.
Symposium participants and attendees will:
- Learn how principles of behavioral finance can enhance retirement planning and hear about related AI developments.
- Discover new FinTech and AI products and solutions that enhance retirement planning and encourage saving.
- Hear about EBRI’s research on retiree spending decisions, including the impact of changes to required minimum distribution (RMD) rules.
- Learn how plan sponsors are facilitating employee decision-making regarding health and savings plan choices.
- Hear what the Milken Institute has learned from information gathering on in-plan income solutions providing guaranteed, lifetime income.
- Hear updates related to financial security and social insurance in the post-election 2025 policy environment.
- Learn about impactful actions and policies to help expand private retirement plan coverage for employees of small businesses.
Audience
The audience for the Symposium will be employers, service providers, the media, policymakers, and regulators.
Expected Outcomes
The ideas and take-aways from the presentations and discussions will help identify innovative solutions and practical changes and encourage continued dialogue and debate. Learnings leading to research topics will be included in the 2025 (and beyond) research agendas for EBRI and the Milken Institute either in collaboration or independently. The Symposium will also inform topics for the EBRI Policy Forums and the 2025 Milken Institute Global Conference.
Agenda
8:15 – 8:45 a.m. — Breakfast
8:45 – 9:00 a.m. — Welcome and Introduction
9:00 – 9:35 a.m. — Keynote Opening Speaker — Humanizing Retirement: Behavioral Finance 2.0, AI, and the Future of Engagement
- Brian Portnoy, Author of The Geometry of Wealth and How I Invest My Money, and CEO, Shaping Wealth
9:35 – 10:30 a.m. — Innovations and FinTech Developments that Help Savers Help Themselves
- Sunil Gangwani, Co-Founder, Plootus
- Ana Mahony, Founder and CEO, Addition Wealth
- Cash Lafferty, Founder and CEO, PandoAlts
- Dan Beck, CEO and Co-Founder, 401Go
- Moderator: Yaqub "Qub" Ahmed, Global Head of Retirement, Workplace and Wealth, Franklin Templeton
10:30 – 11:00 a.m. — Networking Break
11:00 – 11:45 a.m. — Plan Sponsor View – Supporting Employee Decision Making Across Demographics
- Justin Roberts, Sr. Manager, Financial Benefits, Amazon
- Laura Schumann, Vice President, Product Development & Management, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
- Alexander Alonso, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, SHRM
- Moderator: Barb Marder, President and CEO, EBRI
11:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. — EBRI Research Presentation & Table Dialogue — At/After Retirement Decisions
- Craig Copeland, Director, Wealth Benefits Research, EBRI
12:15 – 1:00 p.m. — Lunch
1:00 – 1:30 p.m. — Milken Research Presentation & Table Dialogue: Next Steps in Moving Forward with In-Plan Lifetime Income
- Cheryl Evans, Director, Lifetime Financial Security, MI Finance, Milken Institute
1:30 – 2:10 p.m. — Advancing AI in Retirement Update
- Randy Blaha, Vice President, Retirement Solutions Technology, Nationwide
- Sri Krishnamurthy, CEO & Founder, QuantUniversity
- Bridget Bearden, Research and Development Strategist, EBRI
2:10 – 2:35 p.m. — Post-Election Retirement Update — What Is on the Horizon?
Fireside Chat — Edmund Murphy, President and CEO, Empower, and Stephanie Dhue, News Producer, CNBC
2:35 – 3:05 p.m. — Networking Break
3:05 – 3:45 p.m. — Expanding Retirement Coverage for Small Businesses
- Renee Grimm, Senior Vice President, Retirement Plan Division Manager, Capital Group
- Shelly Horwitz, Managing Director, World Investment Advisors
- Moderator: Amy Resnick, Executive Editor, PLANSPONSOR Digital, and Chief Investment Officer, ISS-Stoxx Financial Publications
3:45 – 4:30 p.m. — Working and Saving for the Generations Ahead
- The Honorable Laura M. Montoya, New Mexico State Treasurer
- Rob Shapiro, Senior Advisor, Milken Institute
- Lauren Palumbo, Leader of Future Growth Initiatives, Prudential Financial
- Moderator: Michael Piwowar, Executive Vice President, Milken Institute
4:30 – 4:45 p.m. — Closing Remarks and Takeaways
5:00 – 6:00 p.m. — Reception
Thank you to our Sponsors!
