New ERISA Advisory Council Members Named

The Department of Labor Thursday announced the appointment of five new members and leadership for the 2025 ERISA Advisory Council, formally known as the Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans.

The 15-member council gives advice on policies and regulations affecting employee benefit plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

Most recently, the recent ERISA Advisory Council meeting the group voted unanimously to send three proposals to the DOL on qualified default investment alternatives. The proposals are aimed at improving participant awareness and retirement income utilization of QDIAs in defined contribution plans.

The proposals include issuing guidance to help plan fiduciaries select and monitor retirement income options, enhancing participant education on QDIA investments across all retirement phases, and amending safe harbor rules to allow automatic rollovers into the same QDIAs as employer-sponsored plans.

The new council members’ three-year terms are staggered and include people with experience in nine fields. Three members represent employee organizations, three represent employers and three represent the general public. One member each is selected from the fields of accounting, actuarial counseling, corporate trust, insurance, investment counseling and investment management.

“The ERISA Advisory Council plays an invaluable role advising the Department of Labor on important issues,” said Assistant Secretary for Employee Benefits Security Lisa M. Gomez in a statement. “We look forward to the contributions of the new members and are thankful for the extensive expertise and experience they will bring to the council, and we thank the outgoing members for their time, service and contributions to the work of the council.”

The 2025 council appointees and their areas of expertise are:

Actuarial Counseling: Christian Benjaminson, a vice president and principal consulting actuary at Cheiron Inc. primarily advising multiemployer plans. Benjaminson has more than 25 years of experience as an actuarial consultant.

Employee Organizations: Wendell Young, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 Keystone State as well as vice president of the UFCW International Union. Young serves as a trustee overseeing health and pension benefit trust funds for the union’s 35,000 members. He also serves on the Strategic Initiative Steering Committee for the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.

Employers: Jay Dorsch, chair of the employee benefits and executive compensation practice of the Cozen O’Connor law firm. Dorsch represents clients before the IRS, the Department of Labor and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

General Public: Elizabeth Hopkins, a senior partner at Kantor & Kantor LLP and head of the firm’s pension practice. Hopkins joined the firm in 2018 after a long career at the Department of Labor where, for 15 years, she served as head of the ERISA appellate and amicus program.

Investment Counseling: Craig Wright, a founding partner at Strategic Financial with 15 years of experience as a financial adviser. Wright received a master’s degree in business administration from Southwest Baptist University. He is a Certified Financial Planner and has holds a Chartered Financial Consultant designation.

Current council Chair Mayoung Nham will continue to serve as chair in 2025. A principal with the law firm of Slevin & Hart PC, Nham has over 15 years of experience in employee benefits law, representing multiemployer pension plans and welfare funds on plan design, tax qualification, disclosure, contracting, compliance and other issues.

Council member Anusha Rasalingam will serve as the council’s vice chair in 2025. A partner at Friedman and Anspach, Rasalingam has 20 years of experience in employee benefits law. She advises on healthcare and retirement benefits issues for single and multiemployer plans, and counsels on compliance with multiple areas of ERISA.

The outgoing members are Actuarial Counseling: Tonya Manning, Shaun C. O’Brien, Holly Verdeyen, Jeffrey Lewis and Beth Halberstadt.

Information about the ERISA Advisory Council, including the council’s reports, can be found on its web page.