DOL Appoints New Members to the ERISA Advisory Council

The Department of Labor (DOL) on Jan. 19 announced the leadership of the 2021 Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans—also known as the ERISA Advisory Council—as well as the appointment of five members.

Chair of the 2021 Council will be current member Glenn Butash, who is Managing Counsel, U.S. Compensation and Benefits, at Nokia. He provides legal advice in connection with the design and operation of large, complex benefit plans as well as to Nokia’s plan administrators, fiduciary committees and in-house investment manager.

Vice chair of the 2021 council will be current member James Haubrock, a shareholder with Clark Schaefer Hackett and certified public accountant with experience in employee benefit plan audit services.

The appointees and the expertise they represent are:

• Megan Broderick, Senior Director for Global Retirement and Financial Wellbeing at PepsiCo, in which capacity she leads the company’s strategy, design and governance for more than 120 retirement programs. Broderick represents the employer community.
• Dave Gray, Head of Workplace Retirement Offerings and Platforms at Fidelity Investments, who leads the company’s teams that develop and manage solutions and experiences for more than 24,000 plan sponsor clients. Gray represents the corporate trust sector.
• Mercedes D. Ikard, Director of Retirement Planning for Atrium Health, who has experience in the design, administration, implementation and communication of corporate benefit programs for large multi-location organizations. Ikard represents the public.
• Anthony Marc Perrone, International President of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) and Chairman of its Industry Pension Fund, and has experience with employee organizations. Perrone represents the employee organizations sector.
• Edward A. Scwartz, President of Scwartz & Co. and a registered investment advisor and broker-dealer. Scwartz concentrates on serving ERISA-covered institutional retirement plans and has experience in the investment field. He represents the investment management sector.

About the ERISA Advisory Council

“The ERISA Advisory Council is an important resource for the Department of Labor,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) Jeanne Klinefelter Wilson. “We look forward to the contributions of these talented new members and appreciate their willingness to serve.” 

The 15-member council provides advice on policies and regulations affecting employee benefit plans governed by ERISA. By law, members serve for staggered three-year terms representing the following nine fields:

• three members are representatives of employee organizations (at least one of whom represents an organization whose members are participants in a multiemployer plan);
• three members are representatives of employers (at least one of whom represents employers maintaining or contributing to multiemployer plans);
• three members are representatives of the public; and 
• there is one representative each from these fields: insurance, corporate trust, actuarial counseling, investment counseling, investment management and accounting.