Greg Carpenter founded Employee Fiduciary in 2004. With 29 years of experience in accounting and finance, Greg has brought his expertise to a variety of advisory, senior and executive management roles. Greg has worked for a national accounting firm, a Fortune 500 plan sponsor, a major brokerage firm, and he served as the CEO of a major 401(k) TPA firm. He is a CPA and earned his BA from Yale and his MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Here are a few of his thoughts on Employee Fiduciary:
“I started the company because I thought small businesses were being underserved and charged way too much for their 401(k) plans and 401(k) ETFs. The business model is simple – observe industry best practices and compete on price. The challenge was to deliver the service and still make money at a low cost.
To be viable, we have focused on five key aspects of the business:
First, ditch the legacy systems and unused, old technology. For example, we don’t offer voice response systems (VRUs) where a participant can call an 800 number and make trades over the phone. In 2004, this was a non-trivial decision.
Second, use a 21st century marketing approach. Many of the largest plan providers used (and still do) old-fashioned traveling salespeople who work on commission and rack up large travel expenses. We decided to appeal directly to the market and use the web to get our message across. It’s much cheaper.
Third, realize that service delivery is all about defining your client’s expectations and meeting those expectations. What this means for us is that we can’t be all things to all clients. We will say no sometimes if it means going beyond our service standards and risking doing something inefficiently.
Fourth, set internal processes and procedures and stick to them. NO MATTER WHAT. Our people know that the highest praise is commitment to our procedures, whether setting up 401(k) plans or answering your questions over the phone.
Finally, don’t use leverage. Ours is a professional service organization, just nerdier than most. Keep it simple and only sweat the big stuff.
So far, we have been very successful executing our business model.”
To learn more about Employee Fiduciary, 401(k) plans or other mutual funds, please contact us today.
