News from Allianz Partners, Amalgamated LifeInsurance, American Family Life Insurance, American National Bankof Texas and more.(Photo: Shutterstock)

Quite a few new hires, promotions, partnerships, andanniversaries in the employee benefits and retirement industry.Take a look:

Akin Gumpannounced that Jon Chatalian has joined the firmas senior counsel in its labor and employment practice inWashington. He most recently served as Deputy Assistant GeneralCounsel with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC),responsible for overseeing, managing and coordinating the work oflegal and actuarial teams for all multiemployer pension planprogram litigation, compliance and regulatory matters. In additionto his multiemployer pension plan work, Mr. Chatalian representedthe PBGC before U.S. bankruptcy and district courts in variousERISA cases.

Allianz Partners  announced that JeffWright joined the company as Chief Financial Officer andthat Jim O'Connor has joined as Head ofOperations.  Wright succeeds Diane Babson, who took anassignment with another Allianz Partners business unit, whileO'Connor fills a new role helming the company's expandingOperations Division.   Prior to joining AllianzPartners, Jeff worked at Genworth Financial, where he was CFO ofthe US life insurance division.  Prior to joining AllianzPartners, Jim worked in the financial services industry, where heredesigned processes to improve customer experience and reducecomplexity, cycle times and costs.

Amalgamated Life Insurance Company announcedthe appointment of Ray Moore as Sales Executive,Voluntary Worksite Products. Moore will be marketing AmalgamatedLife's voluntary worksite products across the U.S. Southern Region.Moore previously served as vice president, Field Operations &Sales at Employee Benefits Systems.

American FamilyLife Insurance Company is partnering with Votaire, a financialwellness and benefits platform, to offer Votaire participants a newoption for purchasing life insurance online via Life Direct. TheVotaire app analyzes users' financial health through a series ofquestions and identifies gaps in their financial forecasts based onwhat they have and what they aspire to have. If a gap is identifiedin life insurance, Life Direct is presented as an option to helpfill that gap.

Aon appointed Dave Guilmette asPresident of Health Solutions.In addition to previous consultingroles, Guilmette spent more than nine years at Cigna Corporation ina series of positions with increasing responsibility.

AmericanNational Bank of Texas announced its partnership with BPAS and LincolnFinancial to service the YOUR kPlan 401(k), a group trust. BPASwill provide bundled plan administration and recordkeeping servicesand Lincoln Financial will provide unbundled recordkeepingservices. National Benefit Service (NBS) will continue providingthird-party administration services for the platform.

Burnham Benefits is expanding to offer a property andcasualty division, Burnham Risk, with theacquisition of Pacific Unified SeaTech, effective September 1st,2019. SeaTech CEO John Huttinger joins asExecutive Vice President and Partner.  SaraOwens becomes Chief Operating Officer andPartner, effective September, 1st 2019, with a dual role as VicePresident of Corporate Development at Burnham Benefits.

Cavignac &Associates announced Diana Dix, SPHR, SHRBP,HCS, has been appointed human resources risk advisor. Dixpreviously served as human resources business partner at ADPPayroll Services, where she was employed for 13 years.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas announced it willsuspend normal business operations for two days so its staff ofprofessional job-search coaches can provide free career advice tocallers from across the country. The firm's 34th annual nationaljob-search call-in will be held on December 26 and 27, from 9:00a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CT. The telephone number is 312-422-5010.

The EmployeeBenefit Research Institute (EBRI) named Anna Rappaport as thisyear's winner of the annual Lillywhite award. Named after RayLillywhite, a pioneer in the pension field, the award honorsemployee benefits professionals for extraordinary lifetimecontributions to Americans' economic security.

The HR PolicyBoard announced several important senior leadership changes,with the appointments in March 2020 of Tim Bartlas Chief Executive Officer of the Association (replacing Dan Yager,who will move into a senior advisory role), and AniHuang as Chief Executive Officer of HR Policy's Center OnExecutive Compensation.

Ideagen, aglobal supplier of integrated risk management software, hasannounced a new Board appointment following the retirement of oneits non-executive directors. Jonathan Wearing will step down at theend of November after 16 years, with former AVEVA Group Plc chiefexecutive officer, Richard Longdon, replacing him– moving into his position officially from November 1st.

Randstad announced a collaboration with CISCOto help military veterans launch careers in cybersecurity. CyberVets USA is a CISCO-led partnership ofcybersecurity, IT and non-profit organizations which share apassion for supporting military service members and veteransthrough free training and certifications. Randstad is now providingthose veterans access to career resources following theircompletion of the program. CyberVetsUSA currently operates out ofVirginia, Maryland and North Carolina, with expansion plans forArizona, California and Texas.

Torchlight has partnered with KeyBank to provide acaregiver support platform for its 18,000 employees. The platformprovides "roadmaps" for a wide variety of care situations orissues, advice from caregiving experts, and help finding national,regional and local resources.

The Women in Pensions Network (WiPN) recently markedthe organization's tenth anniversary on October 1. The Women inPensions Network (WiPN), founded in 2009, is a national non-profitorganization with over 1,000 members, 50 sponsors and a reach of4,000 retirement industry professionals. WiPN welcomes members fromall segments of the retirement industry.

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