IRI Names Advisor Group President and CEO Larry Roth Chairman of the Board

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) today announced the election of Larry Roth, the President and CEO of Advisor Group, as IRI’s new Chairman of the Board of Directors. As Chairman, Mr. Roth will succeed Lynne Ford, Executive Vice President for Calvert Distributors Inc. Ms. Ford’s tenure as Chairman concluded yesterday at the IRI Board of Directors meeting in San Diego. She now holds the position of Past Chairman and has been reelected to serve another term as a member of the Board of Directors. That term will expire in 2015.
 
Cindy Vogl, Executive Director of Defined Contribution and Retirement Solutions for UBS Global Asset Management (Americas) Inc. also was reelected to serve a full term, expiring in 2015, as a member of the Board of Directors.
 
Three members of the Board of Directors, who filled vacancies during the past year, were elected to full terms that will expire in 2015. They are Robert DeChellis, President of Allianz Life Financial Services; Elizabeth Forget, Senior Vice President of MetLife Retail Annuity Products; and Nick Lane, Senior Executive Vice President and President of Retirement Savings for AXA Equitable.
 
Joining them are seven new Board members who were elected to serve terms that will expire in 2015. They are Maliz Beams, CEO of ING U.S. Retirement; Michael Falcon, Managing Director and Head of Retirement for J.P. Morgan Asset Management; Bruce Ferris, Executive Vice President of Sales and Distribution for Prudential Annuities; Drew Lawton, Executive Vice President and Head of Retirement Solutions for New York Life Investments; Bill Lowe, President of Sammons Retirement Solutions; Robert Moore, President and Chief Operating Office of LPL Financial; and Paula Nelson, President of Forethought Distributors.
 
IRI also announced the election of three members of the Board of Directors to officer positions. John Carter, President of Nationwide Financial Distributors, was elected Vice Chairman; Thomas Streiff, Executive Vice President and Retirement Product Manager for PIMCO, was reelected Secretary; and LPL’s Moore was elected Treasurer.
 
Statement from Larry Roth: I am thankful for the opportunity to serve as the Chairman of the IRI Board of Directors. IRI is growing in a strategic way to best serve the needs of our diverse and expanding membership. Over the next year, this growth will continue. We will determine and unveil new ways to provide resources to our members, and we will expand our influence with policymakers to achieve the advocacy goals most sought by the financial services industry. Now, more than ever, people understand and value the solutions IRI members offer, and I am eager to expand our reach and even better serve members and their clients.
 
Statement from Lynne Ford: It truly has been a privilege to serve as the IRI Chairman of the Board. When I accepted this responsibility, I committed to intensifying our efforts to engage financial advisors and expand our membership among this key constituency. I am happy to report that we have made tremendous strides toward that goal. A year ago, our membership included 80,000 financial advisors; today we have 150,000 within our membership. But we’re doing more than adding members. We are deepening our engagement with them and presenting IRI as a trusted resource of information and an active voice for them on legislative and regulatory issues. I encourage us all to continue to foster that engagement as I believe that it is the key to our growth.
 
About the Insured Retirement Institute: The Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) is a not-for-profit organization that for twenty years has been a mainstay of service, commitment and collaboration within the insured retirement industry.  Today, IRI is considered to be the authoritative source of all things pertaining to annuities, insured retirement strategies and retirement planning. IRI proudly leads a national consumer education coalition of nearly twenty organizations and is the only association that represents the entire supply chain of insured retirement strategies: Our members are the major insurers, asset managers, broker dealers, and more than 150,000 financial professionals. IRI exists to vigorously promote consumer confidence in the value and viability of insured retirement strategies, bringing together the interests of the industry, financial advisors and consumers under one umbrella. IRI’s mission is to: encourage industry adherence to highest ethical principles; promote better understanding of the insured retirement value proposition; develop and promote best practice standards to improve value delivery; and advocate before public policy makers on critical issues affecting insured retirement strategies and the consumers that rely on their guarantees. Visit www.IRIonline.org today to experience the vast resources of the Insured Retirement Institute for yourself.