Retirement Plan Specialist

Sequoia Financial Group is a growing Registered Investment Advisor (RIA), headquartered in Northeast Ohio, offering financial planning and wealth management services. At Sequoia, we exist with a singular purpose: to enrich lives. Our values define how we behave and guide us through the pursuit of our purpose to enrich lives. At Sequoia, our core values are:

• • Integrity. We act in the best interests of others by providing an honest, consistent experience for our clients and team.
  • Passion. We pursue our full potential, seeking to continually enhance and evolve our ability to serve our clients and team.
  • Teamwork. We subordinate our egos to work together for the benefit of our clients.

Our promise to team members is that you will grow with us. From experienced advisors to new college grads to transitioning principals, every team member will find Sequoia a place to refine their professional mission, move into new opportunities, go deeper, and lead further. We are built to help you build a career here as a long-term contributor in our work to enrich lives for generations.

Summary of the position

We seek a motivated, self-starting, passionate team player to join our firm in the role of Retirement Plan Specialist for our Retirement Plan Services team. Our Sequoia Retirement Plan Services team offers customized 401(k) retirement plan solutions to small and mid-sized businesses and their employees—proudly serving as a fiduciary for plans and extending personalized counsel and financial education to plan participants. The Retirement Plan Specialist works with Retirement Plan Advisors to support the day-to-day needs of our clients.

We are targeting a base salary range of $70,000 to $80,000 for this position, along with bonus incentives and a competitive benefits package provided to our employees.

Responsibilities

This position will support a team of Retirement Plan Advisors who provide advisory services for our retirement plan clients that enable them to achieve their goals and objectives for their retirement plan, in addition to the plan participants. Responsibilities to include but not limited to:

• Coordinate with our clients, advisors, and recordkeepers to set up new accounts, transfer assets, process paperwork for plan amendments, assisting with rollovers and distributions.
• Coordinate with clients and advisors to schedule meetings using email, Salesforce and calendar software, or Webex.
• Prepare for client meetings by updating agendas in Word or Excel and running reports in our practice management software - RPAG.
• Proactively supporting advisors by anticipating client needs and enabling advisors to maximize their time.
• Complete requests from advisors and clients within 24-48hrs, ensuring accuracy, and effectively keeping everyone in the loop throughout the process.
• Coordinating with our recordkeepers and internal team members to follow up on and execute operational items in a timely manner.
• Researches and collaborates with others to create solutions for clients and advisors. These resources include but are not limited to internal departments, team members and recordkeepers and Third-Party Administrators (TPA) when applicable.
• Monitoring, prioritizing and resolving daily time sensitive matters such as assisting plan sponsors and participants with direct requests, answering emails and phone calls and engaging other team members as needed.
• Coordinating compliance activities with plan sponsor and recordkeepers/Third Party Administrators to ensure timely adherence to Department of Labor & IRS deadlines.
• Understanding and utilizing Salesforce to document client information, take detailed notes, document work done on cases, and understand workflows and reporting.
• Operating in a team-based environment where teammates help each other in times of heavy workload and are all working toward meeting the needs of the client.
• Confidently engaging plan participants through one-on-one consultations and informative group presentations.
• Educating plan participants through on-site visits, schedule remote meetings, email and phone communication.

Required Skills/Experience

• Minimum 3 years of demonstrated project management skills.
• Ability to learn and become proficient in a process-driven fast-paced work environment.
• Excellent oral and written communication with a professional demeanor.
• Robust PC knowledge, typing skills and proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite.
• Leverages problem solving skills and available resources through research and collaboration with others to create solutions for clients and advisors.
• Experienced in communicating professionally with responses to clients, advisors, and team members by phone, email, in person and written communications.
• Comfort with presenting to large groups and one-on-one interactions for education.
• Ability to travel locally to company locations about 25% of the time.
• Some flexibility required to occasionally assist shift workers during early or late meetings.

Preferred Skills/Experience

• Minimum 3 years of experience in the retirement industry is preferred.
• Working daily with a workflow technology system.
• Experience in retirement plan services industry.
• Prior experience with financial industry CRM a plus (Ex: Salesforce, RPAG, Venrollment etc.)
• Prior experience with RPAG a plus.
• Prior experience with DocuSign a plus.
• Bachelor’s degree preferred.

Competencies

• Exceptional attention to detail and organizational skills.
• Ability to handle multiple priorities and requests from advisors and clients.
• Persistence in follow up to accomplish objectives.
• Interact with co-workers and clients with a resilient, positive attitude. Reaching out to others if help is needed.
• Conduct oneself with great emotional intelligence.
• Strong problem-solving skills to identify challenges and develop effective solutions.
• Always striving to deliver top-tier service and maintain client satisfaction.