Jim Breen: Getting to know Lew Minsky and DCIIA.

Lew Minsky: That there should be a place in our industry where competitors can come together.

Jim Breen: Coopetition.

Karen Neeley: But really, how do we each lean on each other as competitors but also as partners to really get us to the place that we need to as an industry.

Jim Breen: And DCIIA's Innovation Forum.

Lew Minsky: Really wanted to do something that wasn't happening in the industry and was, you know, helping the industry think about what is possible.

Jim Breen: All this and more on today's episode of The Wave strength.

Voiceover: Welcome to The Wave Strength. Innovative solutions for a secure retirement. Presented by Pacific Life.

Jim Breen: Hello everyone and welcome to another exciting episode of The Wave Strength podcast series. I'm your host, Jim Breen, head of marketing with Pacific Life's institutional team. We are so excited to be joined here today, live in the studio with Pacific Life's Karen Neeley.

Jim Breen: And DCIIA's Lew Minsky, Lew, Karen, thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy days. Lew, in your case to fly on out. Karen, to come on down to the studio. So thank you both for being here.

Lew Minsky: Thanks for having me.

Jim Breen: Absolutely.

Karen Neeley: Pleasure to be here.

Jim Breen: Wonderful. So what I'd love to be able to do is share with our audience a little bit about each of your backgrounds.

Jim Breen: Karen, I know you've been a guest on the show many times. Perhaps we'll start with Lew as, as our guest here in the studio Lew, obviously you're known by many Lew Minsky, the, the founder and CEO of DCIIA, the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association, such a fantastic organization.

Jim Breen: Can you please share a little bit about DCIIA? And in your current role, before we go deep, deep into what you're working on.

Lew Minsky: Yeah. Fabulous organization, maybe not the best branding in the world, but, DCIIA for short, and we'll, we'll stick with it for now. Yeah, so I, I a recovering lawyer been through all 12 steps of the 12 step program and yeah, about 15, 16 years ago found myself,

Lew Minsky: getting more and more pulled into the retirement savings space and focused on public policy and, my frustration that at the time it felt like there wasn't enough focus on the things that really mattered. You know, how do we get more people in the system? How do we get them saving more? How do we, create choice architecture in the retirement saving system that leads to success instead of failure?

Lew Minsky: And you know, started talking about that with some peers and found that there were others that felt the same way. And yet at the time there didn't feel like there was a space within the retirement saving system for those conversations. And so we started going around to some of the existing industry association, some of the you know, the big conferences in the industry to see if we could you know, spur some dialogue around, you know, what we were calling at the time, the institutionalization of the DC model, the DBization of, of DC.

Lew Minsky: And you know, interestingly found, you know, we got pretty similar responses everywhere we would go, which was that, you know, that sounds great. In theory, motherhood and apple pie, you know, improving retirement security, but who wouldn't want that, but it's not for us. And that was usually followed by like a litany of reasons that that kind of seemed wrong or rang hollow, but for, for whomever we were talking to seemed real.

Lew Minsky: And so after banging our head against that wall for about a year, we thought, you know, let's start inviting in more peers to. You know, to kind of test our thinking and see if they agree with us that that there should be a place in our industry where competitors can come together. leave their competitive instincts at the door and work collaboratively and collectively to improve retirement security for American workers.

Lew Minsky: So, you know, about 15 years ago coming up in January will be our 15th anniversary. We finally decided to. kind of put a marker down and see if others would follow, and you know, so far, so good. You know, we've over time, I think built a, you know, a pretty nice community of competitors and peers that are willing to come together to work collaboratively on improving retirement security.

Lew Minsky: And I know at least for my part, it's a pleasure to get up every day and do my part to, to try to advance that mission.

Jim Breen: You and I had the opportunity to spend some time together ahead of the filming here. You talked about that collaborative nature that, you know, is one of the many things DCIIA brings to the table.

Jim Breen: And we want to dive into that a little further. First Karen Neeley perhaps you can share a little bit about your role as a VP and head of our Institutional Retirement Solutions Group at Pacific Life.

Karen Neeley: Yeah, would love to. Thank you. So I've been at Pacific Life for about a year now. I lead our Institutional Retirement Solutions Group.

Karen Neeley: So that includes our pension risk transfer and our defined contribution lifetime income business. And I like to say that's. The retirement of today in DB. And then as you talk about the DBization of the DC world, the retirement of tomorrow is defined contribution lifetime income. So, we've been a proud participant in DCIIA.

Karen Neeley: We are, we're thrilled to be able to host the 2024 Innovation Forum and then next year looking at sites of hosting the 2025 Innovation Forum here in Newport Beach and just, you know, love the mission of DCIIA and being a part of that collective community really working to drive this forward.

Jim Breen: You know, Lew, you talk a little bit.

Jim Breen: Thank you, Karen. Very much. And obviously, you know, starting here. Thanks again for both of you being here. Lew, let's bring it back 15 years ago. You know, you talked about having those conversations and you know, perhaps you can share, what was the why behind this? You explained what you saw in the market and maybe some of the feedback you had from some of your peers.

Jim Breen: But, you know, was this something that even 20 years ago you thought you'd be starting? What was the why?

Lew Minsky: Definitely not something I thought I'd be starting. You know, so I had served as a lawyer first as in a big law firm, and then in house at what's now NextEra Energy, a Fortune 100 energy company based in Florida.

Lew Minsky: And made a shift in my career and got involved, ran total rewards for the company for a little while, and got involved in the business side and just kind of through a sort of twist of fate at the time I was serving on the boards of a couple of industry associations in the retirement savings space, and there was a big push in Congress to create, legislation around fee disclosure.

Lew Minsky: And, you know, honestly, to this day, I don't really know why, but some, for some reason, I was identified as somebody who, maybe could testify on behalf of the employer community. And so I got dragged into testifying at a bunch of hearings on Capitol Hill. This is like 2007, 2008. And you know, found myself kind of bitten by the policy bug and through that, started just increasingly thinking about, while, you know, I had a great day job, I wasn't as animated by it as by the idea of really leaning into the opportunity to focus on improving retirement security for American workers and, saw real opportunities to do it. And so that's the why and then the, the how's kind of evolved over the years.

Lew Minsky: But yeah. At least for me, it's it's what animates me when I get up in the morning and just, really lucky to be able to work on it.

Karen Neeley: The incredible thing about that is just how much the industry has evolved in the past decade and a half. You think about, like, where this was when DCIIA started and where we are now, and it's at such a different point.

Karen Neeley: And I feel like the conversations have changed, the, you know, the awareness around this has changed, the heightened importance around this in the conversation. So. Like what you've started through DCIIA has really created this ripple effect in the market in terms of where we are today, which is just absolutely phenomenal.

Lew Minsky: Yeah, well, definitely thrilled to have been a part of it. I would say the biggest thing that I've been able to do over the years is get the right people together sitting around the table and then get out of their way. So, if there's anything I've done well over the last 15 years, it's get out of the way.

Jim Breen: But we've seen that, you know, we had the, the opportunity and the privilege to host the 2024 DCIIA Innovation Forum, Karen you mentioned that a short time ago and, and working with the DCIIA team, it's, it's amazing how you're able to accomplish so much with, with such a tight team. And you know, the way in which DCIIA brings people together.

Jim Breen: We talked at lunch earlier today, Lew about the, the academic forum, for example, and the, the level of information. The data the way in which that information is presented and shared to that body is unique.

Lew Minsky: Yeah, I think you know, it's a good example of something that, you know, we saw an opportunity, to sort of change the way the conversations were happening between the academic community and the industry and at least so far, I think it's proven to be successful.

Lew Minsky: So, you know, back when we started, there were a couple of academic oriented events that would happen that some people in the industry would attend, and, some academic leaning think tanks that would engage around the of periphery of the industry, but what we were hoping to do with the academic forum, and I think have been relatively successful at, is bring the academics to the industry but force them to think about how they could make their ivory tower thinking more actionable and practical and ultimately lead toward implementation.

Lew Minsky: And it really started in the early days with a lot of focus around behavioral finance and, choice architecture, but, over the years we've, delved into topics all across the spectrum.

Jim Breen: Fantastic. Yeah, I know we've talked a lot and Karen, you have thoughts on BFI and you know, a lot of the work that you've done.

Karen Neeley: Yeah. And you think about, I go back to where the industry has gone in the last decade and a half, two decades really. And a lot of it is about getting over that inertia. So first it's working with record keepers and then it's working with plan sponsors and ultimately, you know, it's participants. It's employees saying yes to these solutions.

Karen Neeley: What's helping people to get to? Yes, is that level of research? It is the understanding. It's the outcomes that we're able to prove. So by bringing together the academics by really being able to triage the research in a way and help people get to that overcoming inertia. Same thing happened on the accumulation side of this industry as we think through that and really the importance of behavioral finance as it related to the autos and everything to get people to the right balance, we need to bring that same level of learning that same level of effort as it relates to the decumulation side of the curve.

Jim Breen: Absolutely. You know, and the academic forum. Yes. Amazing. Let's switch gears a little bit and talk about the DCIIA Innovation Forum. You know, that word innovation, it's used, in many different areas of various industries. And sometimes to a fault, we just hear the word innovation, innovation, innovation.

Jim Breen: I would say though, that the DCIIA Innovation Forum, truly an opportunity where, we are seeing tangible efforts being made in our industry to bring change and to bring new ways of thinking. Karen, I know you actually use a word that Lew used at lunch, the coopetition that exists out there in the environment.

Jim Breen: I'd love to discuss with the two of you, your thoughts about how, for example, at the innovation forum earlier this year, we saw these firms coming together to have these open conversations, sharing even Pacific Life with the AI presentation, Karen, that you made these unique ways in which we're rethinking the landscape, Karen, perhaps you can begin.

Karen Neeley: Sure. I'd love to. So as we think through again, what is it going to take to get people to the decumulation point? How do we support them? One of the things that I love is that we're thinking through this in a, not just in the walls of Pacific Life, we're thinking of this in the industry, and you mentioned putting the right people at the right tables to have these conversations.

Karen Neeley: We know that we don't have all of the pieces, right? Whether we're the insurer, whether it's the record keeper, whether it's the plan sponsor, whether it's the middleware provider, there's so many critical components, the asset manager. So many critical components to solving this puzzle and it's going to take us all working together.

Karen Neeley: And it's that, that idea of coopetition of together, you know, rising tide lifts all boats, if I can use a nautical term here at Pacific Life. But in terms of that, how are we thinking through some of these, some of these ideas that have been the roadblocks that have been the barriers for the industry, not to say that we're going to be stacking hands as we go through the next decade, but really how do we each lean on each other?

Karen Neeley: As competitors, but also as partners to really get us to the place that we need to as an industry. So I feel like that's one of the things from a Pacific Life standpoint, we value being part of the academic forum, being able to host the innovation forum and really make those connections with our competitors, because we believe that that's going to be a critical piece to solving this puzzle.

Lew Minsky: But I definitely can't miss the opportunity to say thank you, first of all, because, you know, the innovation forum is something we've been doing for a few years now, but, through the partnership with you, we were able to take it to, I think, another level this year and really looking forward to building on that in 2025.

Lew Minsky: So really feel the same way. Just appreciate the partnership and you know, taking a step back for a few years before we started doing the innovation forum during that same time on the calendar we had what we were calling an investment forum and, when we reflected on it with our our executive committee you know, it was, good content we were putting out there, but it felt like it wasn't differentiated enough from the kinds of things that were happening elsewhere in the industry.

Lew Minsky: I mean, there are lots of different investment focused forums out there, and we really wanted to do something that wasn't happening in the industry. And, what was, helping the industry think about what is possible as we go forward. So you know, I really love the fact that the membership comes together every year in the innovation forum in a spirit of coopetition, and even cooperation in some cases in sharing these ideas and thoughts about the future.

Lew Minsky: Even in some cases where, maybe that's giving competitors a sense of, some of your best thinking understanding that at the end of the day we're going to create a rising tide here, and it's going to going to raise all boats.

Jim Breen: Because there is a need for us to some extent, share these ideas. And, the more we can come together, the more that an organization, like DCIIA and others can bring folks together to have those conversations be at the academic or the innovation forum. And again, I think one of the more exciting things about the innovation forum, it was this sandbox, if you will, where all these ideas were brought to the table and you have that opportunity for the folks that are really out there making a change in our industry.

Jim Breen: Bringing that access right and having those opportunities, we're all busy. Everybody is just, you know, Lew, we were talking about your crazy travel schedule lately. Mine as well. Karen, I know you're all over the place and to have that opportunity where we can just very, in a very strategic way, have those conversations. It's beneficial.

Lew Minsky: Yeah. And I think, one of the nice things about our community is we've really tried to reach out to all the different parts of the ecosystem and. Bring them in, in the spirit of cooperation and so, it's rare that you can have those kinds of conversations with a group of consultants and advisors and plan sponsors and asset managers, insurers, record keepers, all in a room together.

Lew Minsky: And, because of that, it makes it feels like the conversations are, not just theoretical, they're actionable and my hope is they're going to drive change in the industry.

Karen Neeley: I think one of the exciting things is we're all here for a critical societal need. So as you think across all of the partners that are sitting at the table and all of that cooperation, Everyone's here for that higher level purpose at Pacific Life.

Karen Neeley: We believe in driving confidence for generations, and this is one of the ways that we're excited and thrilled to be able to do that. So as we think through the macro, why and why firms like Pacific Life joined DCIIA truly is because there's this higher order need for us to solve retirement and to solve this crisis that is upon us.

Jim Breen: Yeah, absolutely. And it fits perfectly into our it's almost like in our DNA, right? Especially in this institutional space that Pacific Life has carved out for the group in which you and I are a part of Karen here at Pacific Life. That ability to try something new, to think outside of the box, to really run with the ball explore the width of the road and try and bring change because this is, as you say, a societal need.

Karen Neeley: Yeah, absolutely.

Jim Breen: Lew, as we wrap up here, can you perhaps share, what's next for DCIIA? You know, I'm not, not asking you to reveal any trade secrets here, but...

Karen Neeley: In the spirit of competition.

Jim Breen: Spirit of competition, exactly. You know, what's next for DCIIA? You know, if you could wave that magic wand today to get to where you want to be in five years, what would that be?

Lew Minsky: Yeah, so I think a natural evolution of the conversation we've been having for the last 15 years is just thinking about, the, household more holistically. So while we started with a pretty. Direct focus on the institutionalization of the retirement savings DC system over time, we've had more and more focus broadly on how that fits into a bigger picture around financial well being around financial and retirement security for the household.

Lew Minsky: So, we'll continue to widen the lens. And make sure that we're doing what we can to, to be a constructive force in driving important conversations around financial and retirement security. And in doing that, I mean, I think naturally, you want to make sure that you have all of the right constituencies coming together to make those conversations actionable.

Lew Minsky: So, we'll continue to reach out to new communities as as that mission expands. So, as an example, we're very focused on, increasing the connection we have with some of the advisory firms that participate in the financial and retirement security space increasingly seeing fintechs that we're bringing into our community increasingly seeing investment in the retirement space by private equity and venture capital firms and making sure that, we're bringing their voice to the table.

Lew Minsky: So you know, no shortage of things to work on

Jim Breen: Fantastic, definitely a long list there and excited to be a part of that and into the future. You know, Lew, perhaps you can share a way for our viewers and listeners to connect with DCIIA, to learn more. How would they do that?

Lew Minsky: Sure. So first step is probably, DCIIA. org on the website, there's plenty of information about the community and, about membership, and you can always reach out to me directly, Lew. Minsky at DCIIA. org. But we, you know, we'd love to have a conversation with anybody who feels passionate about you know, financial and retirement security and welcome them into the community.

Jim Breen: Absolutely. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of great information out there. And I encourage our audience to head over even just a simple Google search for DCIIA and you'll learn a lot about this wonderful organization and everything that Lew Minsky and his team are currently doing and have underway.

Lew Minsky: Yeah, well, we definitely appreciate the support and the partnership from Pacific Life. Absolutely. Karen, thank you so much for joining us today.

Karen Neeley: Absolutely. I would just reiterate what you said, Jim. We're thrilled to be part of, DCIIA and look forward to the future and working collectively with co opetition.

Jim Breen: Yeah, co opetition, the word of the day. Lew, also thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us here in Newport beach. We really appreciate it to both of you.

Lew Minsky: Yeah. Glad to be here.

Karen Neeley: Thanks for having us.

Jim Breen: Absolutely. And to our listeners and our viewers today. I thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to check out today's show.

Jim Breen: I want to encourage you to head over to YouTube, Spotify, and Audible hit like, and subscribe so that you can stay current with new content as it becomes available. We'll see you next time, everybody.

Voiceover: 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!

Voiceover: 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.

Voiceover: 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.

Voiceover: Each insurance company is solely responsible for the financial obligations accruing under the products it issues. This podcast was recorded on September 25th, 2024.

Jim Breen: 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.