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The finalization of the Department of Labor’s recent fiduciary ruling has left more than one out of three retirement plan service providers uncertain of their professional status, according to a new industry survey.

Out of the 72 ETFs created this year, most either have an overly complex design or track a trendy (yet less than substantive) theme.

Using discounts to gather assets from wealthy clients is economically perverse.

Jamie McLaughlin heads the management consulting firm J. H. McLaughlin & Co., specializing in business strategy for wealth management and investment advisory firms focused on the ultrahigh-net-worth segment.

Shannon Duncan, a licensed financial adviser, has spent almost 20 years in the retirement plan industry helping plan sponsors meet the goals for their participants, as well as working directly with participants to help them understand the importance of saving for their future. At blooom, Shannon works in business development and marketing.

Barry Riegelhaupt is a Practice Director at Top Tier Consulting (T2C). He has more than 25 years of experience as a management consultant and business leader having worked with health plans and providers in both commercial and government sectors.

The acquisition hungry firm added nearly 800 independent and employee advisers over the previous year.

As founder and CEO of Napier Financial, John Napolitano, CPA, PFS, CFP, RLP, is a practicing financial advisor with approximately three decades of experience, working with families and small businesses to provide proactive guidance to help them make sound financial decisions. Prior to founding Napier Financial (formerly U.S. Wealth Management), he led Napolitano & Co., an accounting firm serving small and midsized businesses as well as high-net-worth individuals. In 1992, he separated Napolitano & Co.’s wealth management operations from its accounting business, establishing U.S. Wealth Management as an independent firm. A well-known financial advisor, writer, instructor, broadcast commentator and noted authority on financial planning within the financial community, Napolitano holds a B.S. in Accounting from Bentley University, as well as an M.S. in Taxes from Bentley’s McCallum School of Business. He currently serves on the Advisory Board for Bentley University’s graduate programs in taxation and financial planning, and has been a member of the Board of the Financial Planning Association of Massachusetts for the past 10 years, serving as president in 2012 and as chairman for 2013.

A veteran with more than 22 years of experience in business-to-business publishing, Ortman previously served as Director of Publishing\/Editor in Chief with Thompson Publishing Group, a Washington, DC-based publisher of legal and regulatory information. In that role he was responsible for editorial management and strategic growth of the company’s stable of employee benefit and retirement plan publications.