529 Conf: Product Strategy, Trends and Outlook

Paul Curley is Director of Savings Research at ISS Market Intelligence, where he oversees data, research, consulting and events on 529 savings plans, 529 prepaid plans and ABLE accounts for institutional clients. He is also the Editor of the 529 Dash e-newsletter and 529 Insiders website for advisors, accountants and estate planners.

Derek is the Sr. Director of Upromise 529 Programs at Prodege, LLC. In this role, he is responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with 529 plan providers. Derek’s objective is to demonstrate the benefits of the Upromise service as a complement to all college savers.

Derek is also the President of DeLorenzo Consulting Group, LLC. He created the firm in 2016 and has over 20 years of experience building, administering and distributing financial service products.

Prior to starting his own company, Derek was Senior Vice President, Client Relationship Management at Ascensus College Savings. In that role, he provided oversight of all client-facing activities. Derek’s responsibilities included management of the Relationship Management team, Advisor Sales team, Investment Management team and Marketing team. Ascensus College Savings is part of Ascensus, the largest independent retirement and college savings service provider in the United States.

Prior to joining Ascensus College Savings, Derek held several positions supporting intermediary sold products at John Hancock Financial Services (a division of Manulife Financial). As Director of Operations for the John Hancock Freedom 529, he designed and implemented the operations platform for the advisor-sold, multi-manager 529 plan.

Derek is a graduate of Fairfield University. He is an SEC- and MSRB-registered Municipal Advisor Representative and has previously held FINRA Series 7 and 24 licenses.

Chris Cyr is currently responsible for all aspects of 529 plan business development from proposal generation through new client onboarding. Before his current role Chris managed the client relationships for a number of 529 programs and oversaw complex plan conversions. Chris also managed a team of seventeen field representatives responsible for community outreach and plan growth. Chris has 25 years of financial services experience. Chris holds a B.S. in Business from the University of Maine and is Series 7 & 63 licensed.

Rachel Ramos is a Senior product manager for Capital Group, home of the American Funds, responsible for the product development and management of American Funds’ education savings product suite, including CollegeAmerica® and ABLEAmerica®, and our Traditional IRA and Roth IRA business. She has 22 years of industry experience, all with Capital Group. Earlier in her career at Capital, she contributed to the firms’ marketing, conference and overall independent broker-dealer strategy, and distribution and service center efforts. Rachel is based in Los Angeles.