YouSaid · the spoken record

Zach Buchwald

lines on the record: 61
first: 2026-01-23
most recent: 2026-01-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I wish that 30 years ago I had the confidence to know that as an outsider, as a gay person, as an English major, someone coming at it from a different background that I could make it in this business, that I didn't have to constantly think about how am I going to prove myself, but just by being a good, productive contributor, by raising my hand and showing a little bit of ambition, by finding ways to help that can be enough. And sometimes that being an outsider can actually be a good thing, you know, that it can help you re-underwrite situations and come at it from a different angle. And if you know that and you're confident in it and you use it to your advantage, it can really help you in your career. I figured that out along the way, it would have been helpful to know when I first started.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right That's right. And now I'll give you a counterpoint. We do 360 reviews at Russell. And sometimes, you know, people that are relatively new in their careers, 25 or 28 year old will write a review on somebody that they work for a couple levels up that I read. And when I read a review that somebody has put a lot of thought into and there's some praise and constructive criticism how to make things better, I say to myself, this person would make a good manager. And I think about how can we use them in other places in the company. So it's not just about like when you're writing about avoiding the things that you don't want out there in the world that can harm you. It's also making sure that you're putting the time and the effort into writing things that are really going to help you.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, first, like, you know, be yourself. Like, we look for people at Russell from all different kinds of backgrounds, not just economics or finance backgrounds. Study what you want to study, do well and be committed. But if you come at it from an outsider's station or point of view, embrace that. This is a world where we want folks that have different kinds of backgrounds and approaches. I studied English Barry, and one advantage that that actually gave me early on in my career was that I knew how to write. And you think about how much of our business is done through writing, through email and other ways. Everything you write, this is the advice now. Everything you write is a reflection of you. And it can come up in something you put down on paper can come up again and again in all sorts of different ways. We all know that when you put something on the internet, it lives forever, truly.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's all toddler fare right now. I've got two, three year olds in the house, so we've got twins. Twins, yeah. It's you know full-time moana and frozen Daniel Tiger, bubble guppies, that sort of stuff.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. So I read a lot of fiction, like Cormac McCarthy and Tyler. I'm reading a book called The Inheritance Right now, which is like a family drama. It's an escapist for me to get away from. I don't read a lot of finance books.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's right. And, you know, this is the first time I've been to Bloomberg in a couple of years. But when I took the job at Russell, even before I'd started, Bloomberg invited me to come speak at a conference. And I was flattered and excited. And then I learned it was their diversity conference. That was the gay CEO. And I said, invite me back five times to talk about investing in retirement. And on the sixth time, I'll come talk about diversity.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just about everything that I do at, you know, at Russell and before that is thinking about what's working, what isn't working, what do I think we might be able to do better? What have we not, you know, the question that you asked, what are people not talking about? What have we not asked about? And that's often my starting point. And I think if I had come in with the insider status, it would have been harder for me to take that perspective.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. I had a great mentor at BlackRock, a guy called Mark McComb, who's a vice chairman of the company, and he put me into a couple of jobs. And he nurtured me and supported me. But he also, he encouraged me to think like the outsider that I am. You know, when he put me into the insurance job without having an insurance background, he sort of said, you know, bring all the capabilities and the perspective that you have from all the...”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right Right. That's exactly how I see this playing out. And you still have to pay attention because we all remember during the first dot-com phase before every company started incorporating the internet into its business strategy and its operations. There were winners and they were losers. And the winners are still around and they essentially run global commerce today. And the losers went away. We're going to see some of that across sectors. And that's something that investors need to pay close attention to. But writ large, I see a lot of value creation.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. Well, Barry, I'm still really positive on AI and how much more room to run we have. You know, there's been so much to talk about, how we haven't seen a broadening in the markets. Most of the value capture has happened within the technology industry. But I think every sector is going to be transformed almost every sector, transformed by AI as much as it was by the Internet. And we just haven't seen that come through yet. But I can tell you every company that we invest in is thinking about this and working on it behind the scenes, even if it's not showing up yet in their quarterly earnings reports. But it's all happening. And you're going to start seeing, by the way, you'll see winners and losers, both sort of specific companies and sectors, but there's going to be enormous amounts of efficiency gains and enormous amounts of value creation that happens as a result of that. Now, I don't think it's going to be a straight line, but I do think it's coming shorter term rather than”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Liberation Day, right? The bounce back happens a week. Yeah, almost instantly and stronger than before. So, you know, this is a case where the phone really does not help you, right? If you're going to make a decision to pull out because you see something going on in the markets on an off day. And as we're thinking through how to implement new programs like the Trump accounts, my goal is you want to have lots of transparency, but you don't want to make it easy for people to make bad decisions. You have to help them make good long-term decisions.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's anathema to how you're supposed to manage a retirement portfolio, though. By the way, you can make adjustments over time, but the goal is not to pull out when you think the market is going to be down. We all know that the bounce backs, by the way, happen faster and stronger than ever. I mean, you think about what the bounce back looked like during the financial crisis or during the dot-com bus. It took years to bounce back. And then you think about COVID or...”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, this is a place, by the way, where technology has not actually served people in their retirement portfolios, because if you can pull up your phone and in three seconds, you work as a teacher or a nurse or whatever, and you pull up your phone, and in three seconds you see your portfolio is down one and a half percent. And at some level, it flips a switch and you think my portfolio is in trouble, or I should sell. That's how you get to really bad decisions because we all, you know, we all know long-term, like you're doing.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There was It does give you a perspective on what's on people's minds, though, even though some of the comments are unhinged. You can tell what's coming through, what are people's fears and worries and concerns. If you can read it through the craziness.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We want you to save this. That's the idea. And to understand what the difference is from a savings account or a treasury bond versus investing it into the markets and getting to see long-term compounding. So it was honestly it was a little bit of a refresher for me that we have a lot of work to do to help people understand why a program like this can actually help them.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which is what we got during COVID, by the way, like stimulus type checks. And it was the opposite of the point that I was trying to make.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You'll be all right. But think about all those folks that don't, you know, the average income in America is still $70,000, right? All those folks that don't have access to investments. And they're not thinking about, am I going to be able to make my contribution at age 22 because they're thinking about, can I?”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's exactly right. And the trick here is you have to get people to actually understand because that 16-year-old, when they're 22, they're going to get a job that's going to have a 401k. And they have to understand why am I taking 6% out of my paycheck when my starting salary might not even be enough to pay my rent and my other bills? Why would I want to do that? And they really, if they understand the power of compounding and the long-term implications of that, they're going to buy into it.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'm not a stock picker, but Bauli's a great company, having diversified exposure in these accounts is the way to go. And, you know, listen, a generation ago, Barry, the version of that was not so much Lily Stock. It was very typically a U.S. Treasury bond, right? That's what you got when you turn 13 or 16 or had that milestone birthday. And a treasury bond in the long term, you know, you'd rather be in the stock market.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“College education with the compounding. But over time, there's six or seven of these programs and eventually we can pull them all together and create a national program that actually funds people's retirement.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There is a thousand dollars to kickstart it from the government, but there's going to be lots of avenues for families to make continued contributions for employers to make contributions, for philanthropies, to make contributions over time on hopefully a tax advantaged basis. And folks are going to see the way compounding really works. So it's not the $1,000 contribution, which, as you said, is kind of a drop in the bucket, at least as a burden on society. What can you pull together from all of the different constituents that are going to want to contribute to a program like this? So we're really excited. And I think that ultimately, I hope this will dovetail with retirement security. You said it when you asked, what can happen in 50 or 75 years? I think initially, you know, the thought is these might help fund college education. And by the way, with a little bit of contributions on an ongoing basis, it will fund a college education.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Became legislation and treasury is working hard now thinking through the implementation and we're helping along the way. It's an awesome program because fundamentally what it does is it makes investing universal. You know, all of these families in the United States that think that investing is not for them or they never had any exposure to it. And that's, by the way, most of America. Now to the extent they have a kid, they are going to have an investment account that's, you know, there is a”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's nothing in the grand scheme of things. And you know you're onto something because it actually got criticized by both the right and the left and the right said, oh, this is another entitlement program. Oh, anyway, we put this thing into barons. And to my surprise and delight, it ended up in the big, beautiful bill. And it actually passed.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“50, 75, 100 years later. Now you're really talking my language. When Trump was elected, I wrote a piece that we put into Barrons that Barrons published saying that we should give $1,000 to every kid in America and open an investment account and let them actually learn about the power of compounding because it's different when you actually own the assets. And, you know, when you give people an investment account, you can find lots of ways to create some investment education that goes along with that.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. So we haven't seen a ton of fee compression. I mean, those are cases where I think the value proposition is crystal clear. And, you know, the high performing managers can charge higher fees or substantial fees because they've really delivered. And in general, they continue to deliver. I think if they stop delivering or we start seeing what look more like public markets performance or even weak public markets performance, it's going to be much harder for them to charge those fees. But that hasn't happened yet, you know, especially within private credit and private equity. There's been real outperformance, especially at the top of the heap versus the public market. So it becomes easier to justify those fees.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We run a completely open architecture. And we're unique in that it's true open architecture. 80 plus percent and sometimes 100% of the assets come from third party managers. But we still have to compete against organizations that are running their own version, which might be closed or semi-closed. And, you know, if you have a whole lot of underlying products you're putting into the portfolio, it gives you a lot of leeway to change the fee or to compress the fee at the OCIO level because you're making money in all sorts of other ways. Russell doesn't do that. So it does mean that we were susceptible to some of the fee compression and our fees have narrowed. But the way I see the solution here is just to make sure that the value proposition that we're offering, the way we go about building an OCIO, the costs that it takes, the human capital that's required, we put over $100 million into our technology system that allows us to build these open architecture portfolios. When clients understand what it is that they”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, fee compression in our space is, you know, it comes through in different ways globally. OCIO is the place where we've been sort of most susceptible to fee compression, Barry. And if I think about who we compete against, the landscape has changed for us over the last 10 years. 10 years ago, I competed largely against the traditional consultants. And we had a very different offering. We actually implemented the portfolio. We weren't just doing manager research sort of on paper. We were actually trading the portfolio. you know, doing the risk management and the overlays and the completions, things that were a very big value add. And we were unique in that respect. And then along came the really big asset managers that saw OCIO in part as sort of a distribution function. You know, if I can deliver the entire portfolio, I can put a lot of my own underlying products into that portfolio. And by the way, that can be a great business for you if you have a bunch of...”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, the governing precept, Barry, is always to make sure we're providing value to the clients. And we do that by charging a fair and appropriate fee for what it is we're doing. If I'm going to focus on anything, it's less about what's the fee that I can charge and more about making sure that I'm invaluable to these clients and that we're really helping them achieve their goals. The truth is when you do a great job for the client, the fee almost becomes not an issue. Now, having said that, we have some businesses that are scaled businesses and that I compete with other good providers and I have to make sure that we're staying competitive. So we're not in any way immune to fee compression. But if you can provide a really good value proposition, it's not such a big deal.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, and making a company better and selling that company, which historically is where private equity made its name and its reputation. And the return stream that we've seen. So, you know, another thing I think about is how am I going to make sure that the risk and return profiles I'm putting into these portfolios that we can reasonably predict what they're going to look like and that we can manage them sort of appropriately given that the asset pools might look a little different than what we were investing in 10 years ago.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know where it gets to. It's certainly going to be north of 7%. You know, I think it's think not only about what's appropriate for the portfolios. Listen, if you do a backward-looking analysis of private equity and private credit, which outside of specific real estate investments that people choose themselves, those are like the two biggest food groups. If you run an analysis of what those investments looked like over the last 20 years, Barry, it's going to be different than what you're going to get in the next 20 years for a lot of reasons. But I'll tell you from my personal perspective, right now, in the last two years, my vet's office has been bought by private equity. My landscaper, my garbage collection, my dentist, they're all owned by private equity now. And, you know, they're doing these roll-ups and there's lots of efficiencies to be created on bringing these practices together. But, you know, that's a pretty different investment than buying a company.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Need to be considered with individuals. Are these appropriate investments? Do they help with financial security? Can you get your money back when you need it? Are the fees fair and appropriate? And so I think you need to be extra careful with sort of true working people, working families and their retirement nest eggs. But wealth writ large, there's a ton of room for private markets.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, privates represents about 7% of the portfolios that we manage. It's heavier in the institutional portfolios. It's lighter right now within wealth portfolios. There's a lot more growth that's going to happen, especially in wealth. I think the average wealth client has something like one or two percent of their portfolio outside of their real estate holdings, about 1 or 2 percent in privates. And that number is going to grow and should grow, right? Because this is a really important source of return and risk diversification. And if you rely on the historical precedents, it's been an enormous outperformer writ large. And so, you know, kind of delivering access is a very important function that we do at Russell, but also that we work with our financial advisor partners to figure out the best ways because it's how you deliver privates to institutional investors is different. There's tax considerations and reporting considerations, liquidity considerations that all”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Still not seeing all the potential and the benefits of AI showing up in some of these, what we think of as sectors that are peripheral to technology. In truth, technology is like critical to how we all exist.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, that's a place where, you know, I'm still pretty optimistic that there's an enormous amount of value creation to come, Barry, because what we've seen from AI so far, at least how it's shown up in terms of in the market performance, has been almost entirely harvored in the technology sector. It's where sort of where AI exists. What we haven't seen yet is all of the other sectors that we know are going to be sort of enormously impacted by the proper use of AI, the creative and innovative use of AI. So, you know, you see a little bit of it in healthcare and life sciences, but logistics and shipping and consumer goods and investments, asset management, they're all going to get transformed by AI because it's changing things. And this is where I'm really optimistic that we have a lot more room to run in the markets today is because you're”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As you said, we have troves of information, of historical information that we're relying on and that we're using AI to sort of help build out that framework.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, Barry, we have a list this long of sort of desired use cases that we're working on for AI. And I think we're still in early innings here. But the kinds of things that we use AI for today very effectively are more task-oriented. We have it fill out our RFPs. We have it build pitch decks. Actually, we use AI to read 500-page filings, which we used to have a human being do back in the day. And it's very effective at that. The real goal for this company is that I want AI to actually help us with investment insights, with manager research insights that's going to actually drive performance at the end of the day. And I think we still have a fair amount of, we're making progress, but I think we still have a fair amount of work before that happens. But, you know, that's the view where having a portfolio where we look after 16,000 different strategies and managers, we're starting from a place where we like.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we still have a strong footprint within systematic Barry. And Russell manages on average between 10 and 20% of the portfolios that we look after and systematic typically is within that 10 to 20 percent. We use it not to make credit decisions or stock picking decisions. Like that's not our game. That's why we hire external managers who are true experts in that. We use it to round out the portfolio, to make adjustments, to make sure that the portfolio is complying with why the client hired us or whatever their investment, you know, their stated investment strategy says, but smart beta is one of the many places where Russell was an innovator and these things can sort of take on a life of their own as the industry adopts those practices.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it can be all of the above, also foreign currency. It can be hedging individual sectors. You might have a sponsor that's in the technology sector, and they feel like they already have enough exposure to technology. And so you can make some adjustments to the portfolio that way. You can also build in a values orientation for organizations that have a particular view of the world that they want to express in their investment portfolios.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With an open architecture framework. So the goal is not to have Russell run the whole portfolio, it's to bring in best of breed managers and to bring those together”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so OCIO represents the lion's share of the $370 billion that we manage, and it's a fast growing segment, not just at Russell, but it's growing because a lot of companies are outsourcing their pensions or their 401ks to folks that live and breathe the markets and that think about retirement security like we do all day long. So a typical day at Bloomberg might have one top story about a big U.S. corporate that's chosen to outsource their retirement portfolio. Now, we work with a lot of in-house teams as well. We help by bringing in any of those implementation services like transitions and hedging. We do that for a lot of companies that have internal teams. But sometimes sponsors decide to hire retirement experts to run their retirement portfolio. And that's when they would bring in an outsourced chief investment officer. We're a top five provider and it's some of the big, you know, the other big asset managers that also provide that. We're the ones who do it.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's all of the above. I mean, typically because of our size and scale, we don't invest in a ton of direct shared products. We do much more sort of separate accounts. But we do invest in mutual funds. We do invest in ETFs or index products where that makes sense. And that can help drive down cost or help with diversification. But the managers is for the active strategies. And active represents, I'm going to guess probably 85% of the assets that we manage overall. Remember, we're using different active strategies as the build.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, the data is everything. And we do have a historical trove of data, but it changes quickly. You think about how quickly the investment ecosystem evolves and managers have strategies that make sense on one day and then things change and those strategies don't make sense. So it really has to stay current, even though we certainly value the historical data and performance and use it. We start with 16,000, and the first layer is largely technology driven. So it's, you know, we have huge feeds that take into and analyze all of the available information that's provided to us by managers directly and also that we can find out there in the public domain.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because we actually do the investing on behalf of the managers. They typically give us model portfolios. And then all the things around the portfolio that can be very incremental. It's the transitions. It's the hedging, completion exercise, completion mandates, overlays. And those things can be alpha generative. They can be very important for risk management. You can add a values overlay for clients. And so it's a full portfolio delivery at the end of the day.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the index business is now owned by London Stock Exchange, and they do a magnificent job with it. And we still have a little bit of the aura every time I'm in the elevator. I see the advertisements for Russell. And I think I didn't have to pay for that. We get the benefit. The business is predominantly an active asset management business. And we really have one main function, Barry. It's about building and implementing great portfolios. And we do it for institutional clients and we do it for retail clients. So building the portfolios is really about sort of portfolio construction, its strategies and managers. For 90 years, we've done manager research at Russell. We have a huge team of people. Now it's augmented by AI and technology helping us look at 16,000 different managers and figuring out we invest with about 225 of them, you know, figuring out which managers and strategies we think make sense in the different portfolios we create. And then the implementation is one of the coolest”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, thanks, Barry. Our whole mission is built around helping people achieve financial security. And we do that on the institutional side by partnering with corporate sponsors and helping to ensure that the plans that they're putting in place and the role that they play through matching, through providing lifetime income, whatever the set of benefits are is going to serve the participants in the way that we think is going to help them retire with confidence and with security. But as the machine shifts and it moves more toward a 401k and then a lot of folks end up with a nest egg that they have to manage on their own, the goal is to make sure that on the wealth side, we also have sort of the right kinds of products and services and solutions that help them understand income, help them understand decumulation, help them get the right diversification, help them get fair fees. I mean, the goal is to make sure that we're really delivering sort of a set of products and services that's going to allow them to live the kind of retirement that they'll hope for.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To define contributions, right? So the standard pension model is shifting to the 401k. And today, still about half of retirees have access to a pension. And that plus social security more or less gets the job done. But in another decade, it's going to be less than a third. And in another two decades, it's going to be very little at all. So that means that now the 401k is the staple that's going to result in a secure, comfortable retirement or not. The big challenge with a 401k is that the risk of saving, investing, and also decumulation, taking that pot of money and knowing how long the longevity risk, knowing how thinking about how long you're going to live and how to allot it over time, all of that risk will now be borne by the individual.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Something going on in the background that's going to have a very big impact in the next couple of decades with retirees in America. And that is that really the risk has shifted now, the retirement security risk has shifted from organizations like the companies and the government.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Went away, and that was not the legacy that I wanted from my career. And, you know, I moved to BlackRock shortly after that where I was helping the government, the taxpayers, deal with really critical issues, like really big thorny problems that were going to have an impact on the quality of life of the people in this country. And it was a complete reset of my perspective. We build portfolios at Russell, but if I'm working for a pensioner or 401k or an insurance company, at the end of the day, I'm serving individuals. I'm helping them, and we don't lose sight of that. I'm helping them have a secure retirement. Now, by the way, they have to do their part too because it's also about saving, early, contributing, making sure that you're learning about the plan and making the right decisions. But the role that we play within the industry is a make or break in terms of whether they're able to achieve that. Now, you also have”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Financial security and retirement security especially took me a little bit of time to hone in on Barry. I mean, I think back to my years at Morgan Stanley, and the job there was very much about sort of like finding the arbitrage in the markets. It's where can we make money as a sales and trading function? And we help clients along the way by delivering the products and services that they want. But first and foremost, it was about the investment bank. And that changed for me. I had a review with my boss at the time. And she said to me something that she meant as a compliment. She said to me, Zach, you can really smell the money.”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, the legacy is a wonderful thing, but you know, you can't rest, like we all know we can't rest on our laurels. It's, you know, the job for me is to make sure that I'm taking sort of the best parts of the history and the legacy, the innovative spirit, all these cool things that we've done, and then evolving them for the world that we're in today. Our mainline business, we have sort of two central businesses. It's OCIO and its model portfolios that we do on the retail side, which is essentially same kind of ideas of the institutional business. It's building great portfolios and implementing them. 90% of our business is falls into those two categories. What I need to do today is make sure that I'm using all of the tools available. So as the market moves from, you know, active products to passive products, as the market starts integrating private assets with public assets, all of that is part of our portfolio today. And so the goal, you know, as the leader is to make sure that the strategy is incorporating we're open architecture, it's truly incorporating the”
2026-01-23 · Masters in Business · Managing the Shift from Pensions to 401k with Zach Buchwald · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source