Industry moves, acquisitions, and partnerships, including the American Retirement Association, Hub International, and more. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Busy employee benefits pros in early summer this year include the following:

Benefitfocus has appointed Ken Haderer to the newly created role of Executive Vice President, Global Operations.In this role, Haderer will leverage his deep industry and operational experience to drive core process improvements and evolve customer best practices.

Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners, a nonprofit social enterprise and a national leader in financial counseling, and Best for NYC, a collaboration between the City of New York and B Lab, are partnering. Best for NYC is providing Trusted Advisor, Neighborhood Trust's workplace financial wellness benefit, as an exclusive offering to its 2018 business members. The service will be available to the 1,500 businesses within the Best for NYC community.

Financial protection benefits provider Unum has appointed Wade Hinton as vice president of diversity and inclusion effective August 20. Hinton will be responsible for strategic diversity and inclusion programming to ensure Unum's culture, environment and business approach in every area is inclusive and respectful to all.

BPAS, a national provider of DB, DC, HRA, and HSA plan administration, transfer agency, and collective investment fund and fiduciary services, has named Greg Woods, CIMA as its Senior Vice President of BPAS Fiduciary Services. Woods replaces Rick Shultz, who retired from BPAS at the end of June. Woods will oversee the BPAS Fiduciary Services division, including fund evaluation, portfolio management and business development.

Global insurance brokerage Hub International Limited (Hub) announced a new strategy, two new acquisitions, and a new executive appointment. With this new strategy, Hub aims to aggressively assemble best-in-class capabilities and entrepreneurial talent across Canada to develop a complete Employee Benefits solution. Its new acquisitions are Optimum Group Benefits & Insurance Services Ltd. (Optimum) based in Coquitlam, British Columbia, and Wm. W. Hammond Insurance Agency Incorporated (Hammond) based in Leamington, Ontario. Hammond will join Hub Ontario and report to Gregory Belton, Executive Chairman for Hub's Wealth Management Employee Benefits and Hub Ontario. Optimum will join Hub TOS, reporting to Carol Mills, Chief Sales Officer of Hub TOS. In addition to adding talent and capabilities via acquisition, Hub appointed Faizal Mitha as Chief Innovation Officer of Hub's Canadian Employee Benefits business. Mitha will focus on building a best-in-class employee benefits solution using artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Carillon Tower Advisers, a global multi-boutique asset-management firm, has hired four experienced sales professionals adding to its Strategic Accounts and Institutional Sales teams. With its affiliates, Carillon Tower has more than $67 billion in assets under management and advisement. The Strategic Accounts team has hired James “Jim” Haggerty, CFA, and Michael Mayhew, CFA, as Senior Vice Presidents, while Justyna Z. Barczynska, CMFC, has joined as Vice President. In the newly created roles, Haggerty, Mayhew, and Barczynska report to Lance E. Peterson, Head of Strategic Accounts, and are responsible for placing the firm's investment solutions with Carillon Tower's partner platforms. The three new team members bring the Strategic Accounts team to a total of ten professionals. In addition to the growth of the Strategic Accounts team, the Institutional Sales team has hired Kieran Stover as Senior Vice President, Institutional Sales & Consultant Relations, reporting to Don Pepin, Head of Institutional Sales. In his new role, Stover will be responsible for business development across the plan-sponsor spectrum including Public Funds, Corporate Pension Funds, Foundations and Endowments while working collaboratively with West Coast teammates.

The American Retirement Association (ARA) and Sal Tripodi of TRI Pension Services agreed to transfer the rights to The ERISA Outline Book (EOB) to the ARA. This will ensure the continuance of the publication beyond Mr. Tripodi's retirement. Updated on a regular basis to reflect the latest regulatory and legislative developments, the Online Edition of The ERISA Outline Book is a fully searchable and cross-referenced website.

Andrew Berman has been named the Central Intelligence Officer for Wink, Inc. where he is responsible for illustration benchmarking and competitive analysis for the company's life insurance competitive intel suite. Berman reports to Sheryl J. Moore, Chief Storyteller at Wink, Inc., and he is a member of her senior leadership team.

READ MORE:

Benefits newsmakers: Lincoln Financial, Finworx, Hub Int'l, and more

Employee benefits newsmakers: Vitals, PSCA, InHub, ADP

Benefits industry newsmakers: MetLife, National Tax-Deferred Savings Assoc., OneAmerica