Jim: Continued growth of the institutional business team.

Karen: There is such a need in the market today for guaranteed income.

Jim: Welcoming Chris Stout, head of national markets.

Chris: I am beyond excited to be a part of the Pacific life team.

Jim: And a conversation with Karen Neeley.

Karen: Why are we here? Why do we show up to work every day?

Jim: All this and more on today's episode of the wave strength.

Wave Strength: Welcome to the wave strength, innovative solutions for a secure retirement. Presented by Pacific life.

Jim: Hello everyone. And welcome to another exciting episode of the wave strength. I'm your host, Jim Breen, head of marketing with Pacific life's institutional business team. Joining us today in the studio is Karen Neeley, head of the institutional retirement solutions group, and Chris Stout, head of national markets institutional business team. Want to thank you both for joining us today. Taking time out of your busy day to come on in and talk about the great work that's happening in our institutional business team. And in particular, as it pertains to this institutional retirement solutions group or IRSG, as we call it.

Jim: So Karen, Chris, thank you both for joining us.

Karen: Thanks for having us.

Jim: Absolutely. First let's welcome Chris Stout. Chris Stout, new to the team. An important role that has been added to our institutional business team head of national markets. So Chris, thanks so much for being part of it and coming out, to be in the show today.

Chris: It's my pleasure. I am beyond excited to be a part of the Pacific life team. Thanks.

Jim: Fantastic. And Chris, before we get into your background and understand What you bring to the table here, Karen, maybe you can lay that groundwork as to the why and the important work that has been done to lead to this appointment of Chris to the role.

Karen: Absolutely. Thanks. So as we think through institutional retirement solutions, there is such a need in the market today for guaranteed income. So as we've talked on previous podcasts, we support both pensioners transfer and the DC business. We like to think of that as the retirement of today and the retirement of tomorrow.

Karen: And as we think through how do we best serve the needs of our customers, and that's everyone from strategic partners to advisors, to consultants, to help support plan sponsors and ultimately participants. With their need for retirement security, it made perfect sense to add on this national markets function to the team to make sure that we're truly driving to plan sponsors that we're connecting with the advisor and consultant community that we're bringing to our strategic partnerships that we've launched in market.

Karen: And there's one we recently just released our press release for with our partnership with Franklin Templeton that we're super excited about. So as we're bringing these amazing partnerships and solutions to the market to help support this income need, we've got to make sure that we've got the power behind this to help deliver this to plan sponsors, like I said, with connection with advisors and consultants.

Karen: Ultimately, to make sure that we're doing what we need to, which is helping participants.

Jim: Karen, you talked a moment ago about the fantastic work that has been underway within our institutional business team and Pacific Life to focus on this growth, right? Bringing Chris to the table, among other things that your team has done recently to focus on that growth.

Jim: But Chris let's jump back to you here for a moment I'd love to really introduce our audience to you and more so your background and, those specifics that you bring to the table. Because from what I understand, you've been in the industry about 30 years now.

Chris: That's right.

Jim: Okay. So perhaps you can unpack a little bit about your background.

Chris: Yeah, this is it's a, it's been a wild ride over the almost 30 years that I've been in the industry, but I was one of those young adults that I really didn't know what I wanted to do coming out of school. So to find myself here now with this opportunity as head of national markets for the institutional retirement solutions group underneath Karen and working with these incredible professionals is is surreal to me.

Chris: I won't take you through the full history here, but going back to what I said there about being a young adult and having no idea. What I wanted to do, really, the one thing I knew I didn't want to do was sales. Here I am, Head of National Markets, which is all about distribution. And what is distribution?

Chris: It's sales. As a young adult, My first job was selling I took the first opportunity I had, it was selling fax machines and photocopiers door to door in Manhattan, which in 1995 was relevant.

Jim: A fax machine! So how did you have a sample with you? I wheeled those suckers around.

Karen: We may need to stop and define a fax machine for our audience.

Jim: A fax machine is a device that's similar to, yeah, it's a It was relevant. Not a very light piece of equipment.

Chris: It wasn't, and it wasn't easy to maneuver in Manhattan either. So My job was to go door to door the little mom and pops and sell them individual photocopiers and fax machines.

Chris: I looked around the city and I saw the two biggest buildings, which happened to be the Twin Towers. And I said, instead of selling one at a time, I'm gonna go try to sell a bunch all at once. I snuck past security. I spent the day riding up and down the elevator trying to sell fax machines and copiers to Fortune 100 companies.

Chris: And one of those companies happened to be Merrill Lynch. They said we don't need those machines, but we do need somebody that has the guts to, come in here and pitch us on that. They offered me a job. If you can be here tomorrow, you can work the overnight 8 p. m. to 8 a. m. shift on the call center.

Chris: And that began my career in financial services. And I mentioned that because I've worked with a lot of sales professionals over the years who have gone directly into sales. And that wasn't me because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I did some carpentry. I laid hardwood flooring. I worked in a hospital scrubbing pots and pans in the industrial kitchen.

Chris: And as somebody in the financial services industry, I've answered calls in the call center. I've been a relationship manager, I've helped transition plans. And so I have this deep appreciation for not only the average worker who's participating in our retirement plans. But also the employees who are not in sales that are critical to us distributing our products and services, people in service and operations.

Chris: I like to say your proximity to the sale is not directly correlated to your importance to the sale. And that genuinely. It's a team effort. To distribute these products. Here I am now I've been I've been an individual producer. I've been a national sales manager. And when this opportunity was presented to me by, by Karen, I couldn't refuse it.

Chris: It was exciting to me in a way that I haven't been excited in this industry in literally 30 years. This is an opportunity to do something to revolutionize, to transform our industry, but to do something that is critically important to participants.

Jim: That's so great to hear you say that and Karen, a lot of what you've brought to the table to this kind of innovative mindset.

Jim: And I can go back to the stage presentation that you did at The 2024 DCIIA innovation forum of which Pacific Life hosted where you had that opportunity to be up there with a, an AI manifestation of a participant having that conversation a lot of the great work that you've done to really help the team think differently. And clearly, this is an example, Chris coming to the table here to think differently, right?

Karen: We are absolutely, and we are absolutely thrilled to have Chris here. We, he couldn't embody the Pacific Life values and culture any more than he does. And I think you're seeing that even just in this brief conversation.

Karen: And I go back to the need, like, why are we here? Why do we show up to work every day? There are 11, 000 Americans, more than 11, 000 Americans turning 65 every day. It's 4. 1 million a year. And that number is growing. And I look at the overall guaranteed income space, 45 percent of people two decades ago had access to a pension plan.

Karen: Now fast forward to 2024. We're down to less than a third. There is a huge need as we continue to see, our population age, and we're continuing to see our population age without that security and without that protection of a pension plan. So what we're building here and what Chris brings to the table to help connect these solutions to the market is solving a critical societal need.

Karen: So Thrilled for him to be here to help support this as we drive this forward.

Jim: That's great to hear you say that, Karen, and Chris, to jump off of what Karen was saying here, the experience you bring to the table, perhaps you can share as we begin to wrap up here. One thing, that you see as a deep opportunity.

Jim: Something that, obviously, Pacific Life, 150 plus years of financial strength and stability, you've mentioned those things that you're so excited to be part of this company, but in the industry, something that you are excited about.

Chris: So much to be excited about. And I told you I ran to this opportunity at Pacific Life.

Chris: And as I look across the spectrum of providers in our industry, there's a lot of institutions that are trying to manage assets. They're trying to be record keepers and they do that exceptionally well. What I love about what Pacific Life is doing is they're partnering with the right strategic partners, asset managers, record keepers, middleware providers, advisors and consultants, and eventually plan sponsors and participants.

Chris: It's not about driving our products, it's about partnering with the right people to make these incredibly important solutions available to, the participants who need them. And we do want to partner with everyone out there that is interested in partnering with us on building these solutions.

Chris: The great thing about this and one of the other things that attracted me to Pacific Life was so much incredible product has already been built and what's so incredibly exciting is that I'm able to join a team and further distribute the incredible content and tools that have already been built and are available to plan sponsors and participants.

Jim: It's so great to hear you say that, Chris, I know we're so excited for this next stage as the institutional business team evolves and Karen, Chris, I want to thank you both for sitting down, taking time out of your busy days to join. The wave strength with our audience and have this conversation.

Karen: Thanks so much, great to be here.

Jim: Absolutely. And to our audience, thank you for taking time out of your day to join us. I want to encourage you to head over to YouTube, Spotify, and audible hit, like hit subscribe so that you can stay current as new content becomes available. We'll see you next time everyone.

Wave Strength: This has been another episode of the wave strength presented by Pacific life. Don't forget to catch us on YouTube and make sure to subscribe. Although this podcast is presented by Pacific Life, the opinions and views expressed are those of the hosts and participants and do not necessarily reflect Pacific Life's views on any of the topics discussed.

Wave Strength: Unless otherwise noted, Pacific Life is unaffiliated with any other individual or company mentioned. Pacific Life is a product provider. It is not a fiduciary and therefore does not give advice or make recommendations regarding insurance or investment products. Pacific Life, its affiliates, its distributors, and respective representatives do not provide any employer sponsored qualified plan administrative services or impartial advice about investments and do not act in a fiduciary capacity for any plan.

Wave Strength: Pacific Life refers to Pacific Life Insurance Company and its subsidiary Pacific Life Annuity Company. Insurance products can be issued in all states except New York by Pacific Life Insurance Company and in all states by Pacific Life Annuity Company. Product availability and features may vary by state.

Wave Strength: Each insurance company is solely responsible for the financial obligations accruing under the products at issues. This podcast was recorded on July 17th, 2024.

Jim: Thanks for joining us on today's show. We'd love to hear from you join the conversation below and leave a comment on your thoughts on what the industry can do better for participants as it pertains to lifetime income solutions. And if you'd like more interesting content, click one of these links over here.