LiveRamp, Inc.

FINALIST

San Francisco, California

Sharawn Tipton
Chief People Officer

Plan(s):

401(k); nonqualified supplemental executive retirement plan
Total Plan Assets:

$422.7MM
Participants:

3,783
Participation Rate:

90.4%
Average Deferral Rate:

9.8%
Default Deferral Rate:

6%
Default Investment:

T. Rowe Price Target Date Collective Trusts
Auto-enrollment:
Auto-Escalation:
Employer Contribution:

100% of 6%
Provider(s):

Recordkeeper: T. Rowe Price; Adviser: T. Rowe Price, UBS Financial
Financial Wellness Educator(s):

T. Rowe Price

Headquartered in San Francisco, LiveRamp Holdings, Inc. enables companies and their partners to better connect, control and activate data to transform customer experiences and generate more valuable business outcomes. The company has been busy since breaking off from former parent company Acxiom in 2018. On the benefits side, LiveRamp has aggressively added useful and popular features to its retirement plan, such as moving matching contributions (now at 6%) to cash from company stock, implementing a safe harbor match, moving to an immediate vesting of matching contributions from a three-year cliff vest and introducing a Roth option.

While implementing these new features, LiveRamp also considered a student loan repayment option but discovered that most of its employees would not benefit from such a feature. Instead, LiveRamp provides $2,500 annually to further employee education. This money may also be used toward payment of student debt.

LiveRamp also created a flexible spending account through which it provides $1,500 per employee per year that can be used for nearly anything. This was done in part to make it easier for employees to save for retirement.

Rajani Koduganti, Senior Director, Total Rewards & Strategy, says the company is always looking to improve its plan and to study new trends, an ethic which is backed by its actions.

She says it is important that participants have an immediate vesting schedule for their match so they immediately “realize the benefits of being a LiveRamp team member.” LiveRamp also offers a true-up feature so that participants who contribute irregularly can still benefit from the match; an impressive 96% of participants in the plan get the full match. LiveRamp employees have an average tenure of three years, which underscores the value of moving from a three-year cliff vest to an immediate one. The change accounts for the turnover typical of the industry and delivers the full match to participants.

The plan has an average deferral rate of 9.8%, more than 1.5 times the amount needed to receive a full match, and that is partially due to the automatic escalation feature, which brings participants up to 15% in 1% annual increments.

For employees who want to invest in LiveRamp itself, participants can purchase company stock at a 15% discount and with a six-month lookback period. The employee stock purchase program encourages employees to be invested in the long-term health of the company while also earning additional retirement security at a bargain.

“We believe our people matter most,” Koduganti says. “Our plan is designed such that we enable people to focus on their retirement savings. We provide all employees with the same opportunity for financial security in their retirement.”

—Paul Mulholland

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