Fast Track: GoldK, out to tap adviser vein, hires a veteran from Putnam

For those financial advisers who haven’t yet realized it, there is gold in the 401(k) marketplace.

At least that’s the message Jeffrey Miller hopes to deliver in his new role as executive vice president and global director of distribution at GoldK Inc., an online retirement services company in Waltham, Mass.

Mr. Miller, 42, comes to GoldK from Putnam Investments Inc. in Boston, where he served as managing director heading the private-asset-management business.

While he worked in several capacities during his seven years at Putnam, including the lead role in moving the company into separately managed accounts and helping to establish a European fund family, Mr. Miller has a long history in the retirement plan field.

Before joining Putnam, he was director of retirement plan services at Smith Barney in New York, where he spent eight years. Before that, he worked as an Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawyer in Washington.

“I feel like I’m someone who has helped to establish the 401(k) industry,” he says.

At GoldK, he aims to help advisers and brokers across the financial services industry to realize the opportunities that exist, primarily in the smaller plans.

“Financial advisers, by and large, have been disappointed with the promise of 401(k) plans to their own business,” he says. “Many of them turned away only because it became too difficult.”

MULTIPLE CHANNELS

In his new capacity, Mr. Miller will be charged with reaching out to financial intermediaries in multiple distribution channels – banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies, as well as the independents – and introducing them to the GoldK model.

GoldK was launched in July 2000 with the financial adviser in mind. The basic platform, which includes a record-keeping package as well as access to investment options, is designed as a turnkey retirement plan product for small businesses.

GoldK has selling agreements with 120 broker-dealers. The company maintains more than 1,000 plan sponsor relationships and oversees $1.8 billion in retirement assets, managed by 30 investment management firms.

According to Cerulli Associates Inc. in Boston, there are 400,000 employer-sponsored 401(k) retirement plans, with $1.6 trillion under management. Plans at companies with fewer than 100 employees represent 88% of the market, or 351,000 plans, and 11% of the assets, or $177 billion.

Clearly, the economies of scale are realized most easily in administrating plans at the top 1,000 companies, which each have more than 5,000 employees. But as Joshua Dietch, a Cerulli consultant, points out, less than 20% of the companies with fewer than 100 employees have 401(k) plans.

“GoldK is seeking to provide advisers with a packaged 401(k) product that can be sold to the small- and microsize-plan market,” Mr. Dietch says, adding that bringing Mr. Miller aboard is a significant step in that direction.

“If you’re stockpiling talent, as they have been doing at GoldK, [hiring Mr. Miller] certainly helps,” he says. “The relationships that he brings to the table will be valuable.”

Even though GoldK originally was developed to help advisers provide smaller companies with retirement plans, Mr. Miller is subscribing to a considerably wider perspective.

“Domestically, I think GoldK has the potential to become a dominant player in most of the distribution channels,” he says. “And internationally, we think there are opportunities as well.

“Around the world, there is recognition that state-run retirement programs have limited futures. There is a need for more employer-sponsored programs that will require architecture and communication and efficiency.”

Mr. Miller, a graduate of Boston University’s School of Management and American University’s Washington College of Law, says he was attracted to the entrepreneurial challenge of GoldK.

“Putnam was a tough place to leave, because they do so many things well,” he says. “But I’ve spent many years at big companies, and [GoldK] is a smaller company with just 160 employees.”

A STRATEGIC FIT

GoldK vice chairman Troy Shaver, to whom Mr. Miller will report, says Mr. Miller is a strategic fit in a “premier retirement plan sales team.”

“Jeff’s arrival further strengthens our team and will help put us in a position to take our sales to the next level,” Mr. Shaver says. “He joins a growing list of GoldK executives with top credentials.”

Citing the opportunity to provide retirement plans to smaller companies, combined with the challenge of helping advisers understand and accept the process, Mr. Miller is nothing if not confident.

“We’re aligning all the players in the 401(k) business, and we think we have a formula that will make it easier and more efficient, and will bring people back to the business,” he says. “The 401(k) business should be like online bill payment — it should be that easy.”

Related Topics: Retirement