Voya Financial Hires 2 to Grow Retirement Distribution

Voya Financial has expanded its retirement products wealth solutions distribution team, adding two positions focused on new-market growth, the firm announced Monday.

Shelly Nolfi

Voya appointed Shelly Nolfi and Holly Monday to the newly created positions of assistant vice president for client management and expansion, with both starting last week.

Nolfi and Monday are responsible for leading the New York City recordkeeper and investment manager’s strategic growth in emerging, mid-market, large and government market segments. 

“Voya has an opportunity to expand our presence and further growth, particularly within the mid-market, which is why Voya is investing in additional resources within distribution to support this [market segment],” Sheila McCullough, Voya’s senior vice president and wealth solutions client engagement leader, said in the press release.

Holly Monday

Voya considers plans with assets between $50 million and $250 million the mid-market retirement plan segment. Voya representatives did not provide details for how the moves may affect their work with existing plan sponsor clients.

“These newly created positions within our client engagement team will allow for an even greater focus on being able to execute Voya’s plans to grow our existing scale and workplace benefits and savings products with our clients today, including solutions such as an entrance to the [health account solutions] market, managed accounts, executive benefits, emergency savings and Voya’s broader guidance and advice solutions,” McCullough wrote by email. “As we continue to purposefully expand our offerings where additional solutions may advance our customers’ overall experience, Shelly and Holly will play a critical role in our future success, given their broad breadth of client experience.”

Nolfi joined Voya eight years ago, working most recently with the client engagement division as a senior director focused on strategic planning and service delivery. Monday joins Voya from Fidelity Investments, working most recently as a vice president and managing director, and has extensive experience in sales, strategic planning, business development, relationship building and customer service.

Voya in June shuffled the client-facing retirement product distribution team following the exit of chief client officer William Harmon.

The new roles at Voya were added to build on “recently introduced positions” within the broader distribution team and, more specifically, Voya’s intermediary relations team, according to the release.

The firm expanded its wealth solutions retirement distribution earlier this month, moving to develop enhanced dual investment defaults.

Two of Voya’s competitors, Principal Asset Management and T. Rowe Price, expanded their retirement planning and product distribution capabilities with internal promotions and outside hires in July.

T. Rowe Price has plans to add headcount in retirement income distribution, expanding the core market field sales team to more than 30 heading into 2024, according to Mike Shamburger, head of core markets.

Principal recruited Jeff Cimini from Voya to take the newly created role vice president of planning, performance and transformation, and hired Sean Jordan as head of small and midsize business segments.

At T. Rowe Price, core market retirement plans are those with $50 million or fewer in plan assets. At Principal, small and midsize are defined as plans with $200 million or fewer in assets.