Charles Schwab: PSNC Keynote

When a company leader has a prime keynote slot at one of the industry’s most-attended conferences, they need to make sure that their message is on point and their story is compelling.

Art Director: Nikki Rodriguez

We started by coming up with a central theme to build the keynote on.

Then, we outlined and wrote the speech and developed accompanying slides—which relied on imagery and graphics with minimal content to let the speaker’s words take center stage.

Speech intro
I’m Catherine Golladay, and today I want us to talk about something that I believe is an important component of retirement plan services.

For the first 10 or so years of my career, I worked on the ERISA compliance testing, tax, and
consulting side of things. I was what I like to lovingly call an “ERISA nerd.” But shortly after joining Schwab, I had this sort of aha moment: While I was focused on ensuring that plans followed the guidelines that were put in place to protect participants, I’d spent very little
time actually getting to know participants.

It was at that point that I set out to spend time with our service teams, listen to calls, and talk with participants themselves. I wanted to make my career about more than meeting plan requirements for participants. I wanted to actually understand their needs and work to do what’s best for them on a more personal level.

And so, I’ve spent the past 20 years doing my best to advocate for participants in each role that I take on.

It’s important to me that we all remember that helping participants is at the center of everything we do. That’s why I want to share more about the role of engagement in participant outcomes.

We tend to believe that engagement is the marker of a successful retirement plan. When we see participants engaging with their plans by making regular contributions, increasing their savings rates over time, and rebalancing their investments, we assume that we’re doing the best we can for them.

But I believe that there’s more we can do for participants. I believe that we can help them create more meaningful outcomes not only for their retirement but for the rest of their financial lives.