PLANSPONSOR - February/March 2020 - 44

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Research Driven
Lori Lucas' road to EBRI has been fulfilling and challenging
F
ebruary 6 marked my second anniversary as president and
CEO of the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). It's
an honor to be in this position and to advance EBRI's mission
of contributing to sound employee benefit programs and public
policy. And it feels like my entire career has led me directly here.
I entered the financial services industry in 1986 as one of
the first large waves of women professionals-complete with
shirts that had large floppy bows reminiscent of men's ties.
There, I utilized my Bachelor of Arts in English and my Masters
in critical theory in the world of analyzing
mutual funds, at a startup called Morningstar.
Don Phillips, then editor of Morningstar's
" Mutual Fund Values, " said it was easy to teach
investing-but difficult to teach writing and
analysis. Therefore, my role at Morningstar
became an important arrow in my EBRI quiver:
In my current position, I've sought to increase
our output of published research and the
quality of the publications.
Later, I sat for the Charted Financial Analyst
What
people say
and what
different.
(CFA) exams, becoming the first Morningstar
analyst to do so. Three years later, I was among the growing
number of women who boasted the designation. This spurred me
to become an investment consultant at J.H. Ellwood & Associates.
That experience made me question whether Don was correct
about the ease of teaching investing. In fact, it seemed absurd
to stand in break rooms, explaining modern portfolio theory to
workers in one-hour lunch-and-learns. I distinctly remember one
session at an engineering firm where the only question I got asked
was: " Is that an InFocus projector you're using for your slides? "
The research bug ultimately brought me back to analysis-
this time at Ibbotson Associates. I was put in charge of the firm's
asset allocation software, as well as its well-known " Stocks, Bonds,
Bills and Inflation " presentations and yearbook. At Ibbotson,
I used another important arrow in my future EBRI quiver: the
ability to visually represent and convey complex, highly technical
concepts and analysis. But what engaged me most was the work
we were doing in behavioral economics. This experimental analysis
provided a formal framework for what I had observed anecdotally:
Most 401(k) participants are ill-equipped to make sound
investment or even savings decisions.
Next, I went to Hewitt Associates to lead its defined contribution
(DC) research, as well as product development. The database
I built on 401(k) plan participants, drawn from recordkeeping
data, could be used to understand their saving and investing
44 PLANSPONSOR.COM February - March 2020
they do can
be very
behaviors, and also to test out plan communication, delivery
and design solutions that might improve outcomes and make
real inroads to workers' retirement income adequacy. To help
with the effort, I recruited researchers David Laibson of Harvard
University, Brigitte Madrian of University of Chicago-and Jack
VanDerhei of EBRI. A key takeaway from our studies was: There's
often a difference between survey findings and empirical research.
Or, what people say and what they do can be very different.
I then joined Callan, at a time when the products that had
been developed under behavioral economics
for 401(k) participants could be widely implemented,
given the provisions of the newly
passed Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA).
As the DC practice leader, I built a team to guide
sponsors through plan design solutions that
could best help overcome workers' obstacles to
successful saving and investing.
Simultaneously, I was taking a more active
role at EBRI. Jack and I wrote papers together,
and I eventually became vice chairwoman and
then chairwoman of EBRI's research committee.
My last member role was vice chairwoman of EBRI before I raised
my hand to be president and CEO. I was able to do so, working with
researchers I admired and leading research efforts to facilitate
better decisionmaking by policymakers, sponsors, providers, and
others based on the largest 401(k), individual retirement account
(IRA) and health savings account (HSA) databases in the world.
EBRI has recently partnered with the National Association
of Government Defined Contribution Administrators Inc.
(NAGDCA) to create the Public Retirement Research Lab, whose
purpose is to create a single data resource that will stand as the
national benchmark to help answer currently unsolved questions
related to public-sector defined contribution (DC) retirement
plans. We're also developing a financial wellness database
that lets us measure the effectiveness of initiatives such as emergency
savings help and student loan debt assistance for moving
the dial in a positive way, on workers' financial lives. The route
has not been a straight line, but certainly the stops along the way
have been fulfilling. My journey, I believe, provided me with the
path to success at EBRI.
Lori Lucas, CFA, is president and CEO of EBRI. She is responsible
for leading EBRI in its mission to supply unbiased, fact-based
research and data on retirement, health care and other
benefits that provide financial security for American workers.
http://www.PLANSPONSOR.COM
PLANSPONSOR - February/March 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of PLANSPONSOR - February/March 2020
