TIAA Hires, Adds New Consultant-Facing Roles

TIAA this week announced significant changes to the company’s sales and consultant relations team made in recent weeks to position the company to expand distribution of its guaranteed lifetime income default products, according to a memo provided by the firm.

Since the final week of August, TIAA has appointed Heather Peters as senior director of consultant relations; promoted Ciaran Murphy to senior director and lifetime income research specialist; and promoted Dustin Benton to director of consultant relations from transition specialist, wrote David Swallow, TIAA’s head of consultant relations and lifetime income default solutions, in the memo.

“The consultant relations and lifetime income default solutions team is continuing to drive positive results and is helping put TIAA Retirement Solutions on the path to exceed key goals for 2023,” Swallow wrote. “Today I am announcing changes designed to keep the momentum going. This will better position our team to support the full suite of lifetime income default solutions, grow a new opportunity pipeline for recordkeeping mandates, and continue to provide top level support to our consulting partners.”

Swallow’s memo was distributed to the sales and consultant relations group, key partners and the retirement solutions leadership team at TIAA.

Peters, who joined TIAA from Corebridge in August, is responsible for working with retirement plan advisers, positioning TIAA as a “trusted partner and thought leader,” the memo stated. Murphy will focus on educating and evaluating TIAA’s traditional and CREF lifetime income products with consultants; and Benton will be responsible for managing and developing consultant relationships and driving growth.

Peters and Murphy will report to Swallow, and Benton will report to Eileen Finnegan, managing director of consultant relations at TIAA, according to the memo. Murphy was a senior investment strategist and client portfolio manager; and Benton worked at TIAA as a transition manager.

The firm has plans to increase the consultant relations team’s staffing by 50% by the end of the year to support and enhance its consultant coverage model, according to a company spokesperson. In addition, it has plans to expand staffing by 50% for the lifetime income default solutions team to support TIAA’s RetirePlus and lifetime income solutions, including the recently announced Nuveen Lifecycle Income collective investment trusts.

The insurance company and recordkeeper is recruiting for three new unidentified positions under Tim Pitney—who was promoted to head of lifetime income default solutions earlier this year. TIAA has also created two new positions under Swallow that will support consultants: leader of key accounts for consultant relations and senior director of key accounts for consultant relations, the memo added.

The personnel decisions come as TIAA seeks to execute a five-year strategy to grow its business in the not-for-profit retirement plan market, joining all sales directors that support these plans under institutional sales, it announced internally in an August 16 memo.