Richard H. Linton, Jr. joins Empower Retirement as Executive Vice President for Operations
GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo., April 11, 2016 — Empower Retirement today announced the appointment of Richard H. Linton, Jr. as executive vice president for operations. In his new role, Linton will oversee all aspects of the firm's recordkeeping and plan administration operations, including participant and plan call centers, compliance, conversion and implementation services, client service and financial controls. He will officially join Empower on April 25.
Linton brings over 25 years of experience in retirement plan administration to Empower -- including 14 years in operations management -- in addition to many years in sales, product, marketing and client service. He previously served as president of large corporate markets and retail wealth management for Voya Financial. Linton will report to Empower President Edmund F. Murphy III.
“Our objective at Empower is to continually deliver an outstanding experience for our clients and participants. Rich will be instrumental to our success as we work to achieve that goal every single day," said Murphy. “He has vast experience in operations, proven management and leadership skills and a wealth of knowledge about what clients and participants need."
Linton has managed all aspects of defined contribution businesses throughout his career. He spent two decades at Fidelity Investments where he rose through the ranks to become executive vice president in the advisor retirement business. He has deep operations experience having served as senior vice president of an operations and client services group consisting of several hundred associates supporting 800 plan sponsors and 3 million participants. He was responsible for a major part of Fidelity Investments' operations including tax services, non-proprietary fund trading, stock trading, and cash management, among other functions.
Linton joined Voya in 2012 as president of large corporate markets and retail wealth management and chief executive officer for both the company's broker/dealer and institutional trust and recordkeeping units. In this role, he was responsible for sales and marketing, relationship management, product development, platform management, field representative service, brokerage operations and strategic planning.
Prior to Voya, Linton was a managing director at Bank of America in the retirement solutions group delivering retirement plans and services to small businesses. During that time he implemented a three-year strategic plan focused on technology infrastructure redesign and build-out of the online 401(k) offering.
"Empower is an innovative and customer-centric organization that's providing the leadership that's needed in the retirement services market," said Linton. “There's no question that these factors have helped the company achieve the position that it enjoys today. I am looking forward to contributing to Empower's continued success."
In this new role, Linton will lead a team of 2,700 operations associates in the United States, Canada and India.
Linton is a graduate of Boston University, where he earned degrees in economics and mathematics. He will be based at Empower's headquarters in metro Denver.
Linton serves on the board of directors of the American Benefits Council and the Expect Miracles Foundation, an organization that encourages the financial services industry to invest in life-saving cancer research and advance patient care programs nationwide.
About Empower
Headquartered in metro Denver, Empower Retirement administers $411 billion in assets for 7.6 million participants. It is the nation's second-largest retirement plan record keeper by total participants (Pensions & Investments, April, 2016). Empower serves all segments of the employer-sponsored retirement plan market: government 457 plans, small, midsize, and large corporate 401(k) clients, non-profit 403(b) entities and private-label recordkeeping clients. For more information, please visit www.empower-retirement.com.
Media Contact:
Stephen Gawlik – 303-737-0899 (office), 617-417-4408 (cell)
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To learn more about how we're empowering plan sponsors and their participants to be more engaged in their retirement plans than ever before, call us at 800-719-9914.