Five winners of the third annual Innovator Awards were announced Monday by Pensions & Investments and the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association.
The awards, presented at P&I's West Coast Defined Contribution conference in San Diego, honor plan executives who took creative and unusual steps to improve participants' retirement income security.
The winners are:
- Rosemary Vilgan, CEO, QSuper, Brisbane, Australia, for increasing the sophistication of her defined contribution program through a more customized asset allocation strategy based on age and account balance;
- Carol Sung, 401(k) product manager, International Paper Co., Stamford, Conn., for employing a retirement income solution for participants 55 and older that establishes a steady stream of payouts in retirement and encourages participants to remain in the plan after retirement;
- Jeannie Lowe, vice president, human resources business partner for Buck Consultants in San Francisco, for implementing a financial management program that calculates participants' unique savings rates, specific retirement spending targets and financial assumptions such as future salary increases and investment returns;
- Steven Grossman, Massachusetts state treasurer and receiver general, Boston, for developing a system to create defined contribution plans for members of small not-for-profit employers, enabling them to pool assets with the state's 457(b) plan; and
- Georgette Gestely, director of the New York City Employee Benefits Program, Office of Labor Relations, for creating a new approach to encourage increased participation by women in the New York City Deferred Compensation Plan.
The judges also gave awards of excellence to:
- Brant Suddath, director of benefits, The Home Depot Inc., Atlanta;
- Hugh Penney, senior director, compensation and benefits, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.;
- Kari Steen, group manager, financial well-being, Target Corp., Minneapolis;
- Ron Virtue, director of investments, JM Family Enterprises Inc., Deerfield Beach, Fla.;
- Sonja Kellen, director of global retirement benefits, Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash.;
- Steve Montagna, plan manager, City of Los Angeles Deferred Compensation Plan;
- Tammy Jurinsky, the Maryville, Tenn.-based senior manager, North America benefits, DENSO International America Inc.; and
- Pete Apor, director of retirement services, Fujitsu Management Services of America Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif.
