How a Small Business Owner Spearheaded Retirement Savings for Employees

The co-founder of a small financial wellness service provider decided to join a pooled employer plan to provide employees with access to an employer-sponsored retirement account.

Saundra Curry, co-founder and chief operating officer of BC Holdings of Tennessee LLC, a financial wellness service provider, always wanted to offer a retirement program to her small group of employees, but initially found the task daunting.

Saundra Curry

Understanding the recordkeeping and administrative work involved with offering a retirement plan, as well as becoming a fiduciary, seemed intimidating to Curry, who leads a team of eight to 12 employees. But after Fidelity Investments launched its pooled employer plan, Fidelity Advantage 401(k), in 2021, Curry says using the PEP to offer a 401(k) plan to her employees was administratively easy.

Get more!  Sign up for PLANSPONSOR newsletters.

Fidelity’s PEP is only for businesses starting a 401(k) for the first time, and Curry said BC Holdings was one of the first companies to join the PEP. There are currently more than 1,000 employers enrolled in the Fidelity PEP.  

Cerulli Associates reported in December 2024 that the PEP market has surpassed $10 billion in assets, with more than 24,000 employers participating. The Investment Company Institute also reported that defined contribution assets were $12.5 trillion at the end of the third quarter of 2024.

BC Holdings’ Approach

Along with her husband, Sidney, Saundra founded BC Holdings in 2001 to bring financial wellness programs and services to companies, colleges, universities and nonprofit organizations and to empower employees and students with financial knowledge.

Curry previously worked as a senior lending officer in private banking, where she enjoyed educating her clients on personal finance, beyond just the transactional part of her job. She says that experience inspired the couple to launch their financial wellness education company.

Curry says she started investing at a very early age, which made her realize the power in accumulating wealth over a long period of time. Her parents also owned their own business, but when they retired, they had very little savings, she says. Because of these personal experiences, Curry says she understood the value in offering a retirement plan to her employees.

“One of the first things that we ask is, ‘What is your North Star?’” Curry says. “‘Where do you want to end?’ We start at the end, [because] that helps you make better financial decisions. … It’s always been a goal of ours, for all of our employees, to [help them] reach their North Star.”

BC Holdings began offering a 401(k) plan to its employees two years ago through the Fidelity PEP, offering an 80% match on 5% of employee contributions. Fidelity also provides calculator tools to participants, which Curry says allows them to see how much their contributions can accumulate over the next 10 to 30 years.

“We’ve had [almost] 100% of our employees invested in our workplace retirement plan because we take the time to sit down with them individually, go through their numbers, see what is possible and then allow them to make their decision,” Curry said.

How the PEP Helps

Up until recently, employees whose companies enrolled in the PEP had to opt into the plan, but as of this year, Fidelity now automatically enrolls new employees. All employees—full-time, part-time, seasonal and union—are immediately eligible to participate in the plan if they are at least 18 years old.

Fidelity Advantage is a safe harbor 401(k) plan. For employees to receive the full match, they must make an annual contribution of at least 5%. For each pay period, the employer matches dollar-for-dollar the first 3% of an employee’s compensation and about 50 cents per dollar for the next 2%. Employees are also immediately vested in the plan.

During monthly staff meetings, Curry says she takes time to educate employees on the Fidelity plan and even incorporates key facts into a trivia game to keep people engaged.

“We make it fun, because it can be daunting, [and] it’s something a lot of people don’t understand,” Curry says. “They can feel like it’s over their head, but we try to make it plain and simple.”

Curry also notes that the majority of her employees have opened investment accounts outside of the workplace plan—in many cases, for their children—which Curry encourages to create generational wealth.

She says employees at the company have been appreciative that they now have access to a retirement savings plan and generally understand the importance of having retirement assets outside of Social Security.

Curry adds that offering a retirement plan is “not like it used to be,” and the pooled plans available to small businesses require minimal administration and less fiduciary responsibility.

“I would tell [other employers] that employees appreciate the fact that you know you are investing in them—5% above their salaries, raises and bonuses,” she says. “It makes employees feel like you’re on their team, and they work harder and are more engaged.”

Kivett Appointed 1st Head of Defined Contribution at KKR

The veteran of TIAA and Prudential started in the new role in December.

Kivett Appointed 1st Head of Defined Contribution at KKR

Alternative investment manager KKR & Co. has appointed Melissa Kivett as the firm’s first head of defined contribution, a spokesperson for KKR said.

“We are thrilled to welcome Melissa to the firm. Across KKR we have nearly 50 years of private markets investing expertise and tremendous experience in annuities within Global Atlantic,” said Daniel Celeghin, KKR’s chief operating officer for global client solutions, in a statement. “Melissa brings deep knowledge and experience building partnerships with stakeholders across the DC ecosystem. She will help us to bring all the pieces together and lead our long-term focus on serving this segment of the market.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PLANSPONSOR newsletters to keep up on the latest retirement plan benefits news.

Kivett joined the firm last December from TIAA, where she oversaw corporate retirement solutions and business development. Her appointment comes at a time when many large alternative investment managers are seeking to enter the defined contribution market. While private equity has long been a piece of the portfolios of traditional defined benefit pension funds, these assets are relatively uncommon in DC plans.

At his firm’s investor day in October 2024, Apollo Global Management CEO Mark Rowan said there were opportunities for the firm in the $45 trillion retirement industry, especially in the defined contribution market. The firm is a large provider of annuities through its Athene subsidiary.

“Whether it is stable value, tax-advantaged products, going after 401(k) or guaranteed lifetime income, there is no shortage of opportunities in retirement, and we truly have not even gotten started. We need to imagine this business not as an annuity business, not as a pension buyout business, but as a retirement solutions business,” Rowan said.

In January 2024, KKR completed its acquisition of the remaining 37% stake in insurer Global Atlantic Financial Group, of which KKR already owned the majority, as a push into the retirement market. Global Atlantic had $management as of the end of 2023.

“The population of folks [age] 65 and older continues to grow meaningfully, and in the next five years, the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation will retire,” said Allan Levine, Global Atlantic’s co-founder, chairman and CEO, at KKR’s investor day in April 2024. “Here’s what we know about that cohort: No. 1, they are not prepared for retirement. No. 2, they can rely less and less on defined benefit plans. Our industry is uniquely positioned to be able to provide the products that this demographic needs.”

In KKR’s Q3 2024 earnings call, the firm’s head of investor relations, Craig Larson, noted that KKR would likely deploy its first alternative investment strategies in target-date funds as its first entry in the DC space.

“At the same time, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that we think there’s a lot of industrial logic to introducing alternative strategies into target-date strategies, as individuals invest behind their continued retirement,” Larson said. “We expect that’s where you’ll see alternative strategies first introduced. It’s a massive market. It’s one that we do view as being a really interesting long-term opportunity for KKR in the industry.”

Kivett was previously executive vice president of corporate retirement solutions and business development at TIAA, where she was responsible for identifying, managing and growing the firm’s distribution channels and sales pipelines in the 401(k) market. She had previous roles at Prudential and Assurant.

Kivett earned a bachelor of arts degree in psychology from the University of Massachusetts and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

«