In The News

While the drumbeat grows for incorporating alternatives into defined contribution plans, consulting firms are split on whether to include those investments in their pooled employer plans — some are holding off despite mounting pressure from the industry while others have already begun adding private real estate and infrastructure to those plans.

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On March 16, NEPC became the latest investment consultant to announce it was launching a PEP, allowing unrelated businesses to join together in a single, shared DC plan.

NEPC’s plan — Stratum One — will be available beginning May 1.

Mikaylee O’Connor, partner and DC team leader at NEPC said in an interview earlier this month that the firm has “spent decades advising plan sponsors on best practices in governance, investments, and fees, and the timing felt right to apply that experience within a PEP structure as the market continues to mature.” NEPC has $1.9 trillion in assets under advisement.

One asset class that won’t be part of NEPC’s PEP, at least initially, is alternatives.

“We believe adoption (of alternatives) should be thoughtful and deliberate,” O’Connor said. “Our approach is to prioritize simplicity, transparency, and cost efficiency — particularly important considerations for pooled plans with diverse participating employers and participant demographics.”

She noted the firm will continue to monitor regulatory developments, market innovation, and evolving best practices, and “may consider private or alternative investments in the future where they clearly enhance participant outcomes and can be implemented in a fiduciary‑prudent manner.”

In January, Sarah Samuels was promoted to chief investment officer at NEPC, a Boston-based investment consulting firm with $1.9 trillion in assets under advisement.

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“The power of capital is tremendous, and the work that we do truly changes lives,” she says, from helping parents save for their children’s college educations to making sure retirees can live comfortably.

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She says “nonlinear careers‘’ are valuable—she was a German major at the University of New Hampshire and earned an M.B.A. at Boston University. “I encourage people to take some risks with their careers because careers are pretty resilient, and the risks will pay off.”

In Greek mythology, the goddess Athena offered guidance and mentorship during periods of uncertainty and transition. The people on Barron’s 2026 list of the 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance are modern-day Athenas, helping their firms, clients, investors, and in some cases, the country, through a period of unusual geopolitical, technological, and economic flux.

Wealthy families are abandoning the traditional 60/40 portfolio for a new allocation model — one that devotes 30% to alternatives, from private equity and infrastructure to hedge funds and secondaries. As multifamily offices enter 2026, they’re betting that differentiated returns lie in private markets, not public ones, and they’re building portfolios with longer time horizons and less liquidity to match.

Findings from NEPC’s Defined Contribution (DC) Plan Trends Survey analyzed shifts in plan participant behavior, including how accountholders are investing retirement savings.

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“As target date funds represent a growing share of participant assets and contributions, plan sponsors are placing greater emphasis on glidepath construction, cost efficiency, and how default strategies address longevity risk,” said Emma O’Brien, partner at NEPC.

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“Where private assets are used, sponsors tend to incorporate them selectively through custom solutions,” said Mikaylee O’Connor, partner and DC Team Leader at NEPC. “The emphasis remains on understanding how these assets function within a DC framework and ensuring they align with fiduciary objectives.”

U.S. retirement plans in Pensions & Investments’ latest annual survey reported positive gains in assets for the third year in a row, despite considerable market volatility.

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After years of rapid growth as pension funds have built their alternative asset classes from scratch, those allocations have now settled a bit and sponsors say their discussions have evolved to topics around the construction of those existing portfolios, said Aaron Chastain, partner and corporate solutions leader at investment consultant NEPC.

“So we’ve got a private equity book. How do we make sure we re-up with strong GPs? How do we think about trimming our roster in some circumstances?” said Chastain.

In private debt, for example, a few years ago direct lending was a much smaller subset of investment managers.

“It was relatively easy to choose strong managers. Expected returns were all very similar,” said Chastain. “Now we’re focused a lot more on the portfolio construction aspect of whether you want regular direct lending, or are you thinking about other types of strategies that have come to market a little bit more specialized and nuanced? That may be more appropriate going forward, have a better return opportunity.”

Plan sponsors are much more focused now on manager selection, he said.

“With a lot more players in the space, it’s going to be very important to make sure you’ve got strong underwriting capabilities and you’re not going with covenant-lite managers that may be newer entrants and don’t have as much negotiating leverage. That’s where the focus is. It’s more to looking at within alternatives, rather than, ‘Let’s just continue to increase them at all costs.’”

For alternatives asset managers coveting the DC market, questions of cost, transparency, administration and financial returns converge on one word: education.

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“Most plans have significant allocations to target-date funds,” said Mikaylee O’Connor, partner and team leader of NEPC’s defined contribution practice. It’s the easiest for sponsors to understand from a liquidity and allocation standpoint, she added.

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“Where we get hung up the most is the implementation” of new products, O’Connor said. “Who will create the best DC-friendly vehicles”

Sponsors also must be vigilant in assessing the quality of private markets asset managers, O’Connor said.