< The 2014 Pension 40: The Battle Is On
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Robin Diamonte
Chief Investment Officer, Director of Pension Investments
United Technologies Corp.
PNR
Overseeing a $24.9 billion defined benefit plan might seem like a big job — but not to Robin Diamonte. In the decade since Diamonte became CIO of Hartford, Connecticut–based United Technologies Corp., she has worked to enhance retirement income security for the multinational’s 200,000 employees, while conducting a dialogue with federal pension officials on everything from the legality of pension changes to suggestions about rules and regulations (see “United Technologies CIO Is Changing the Retirement Game”). When UTC’s defined benefit plans, both traditional and cash balance, closed to new employees in 2003 and 2010, respectively, Diamonte beefed up the company savings plan. “We said as a group, ‘We need to make the defined contribution plan as much like a defined benefit plan as possible,’” she recalls. In 2012, with help from investment director Kevin Hanney, UTC was the first major corporation to launch a lifetime-income strategy as the qualified default option in its savings plan. Diamonte, 50, who holds a BS in electrical engineering and an MBA from the University of New Haven, chairs the Committee on Investment of Employee Benefit Assets, an organization of the top 100 U.S. pension funds, which regularly sends her to Washington to offer her views to lawmakers and regulators, and serves on the advisory committee for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.
The 2014 Pension 40
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Bruce Rauner Illinois | John and Laura Arnold Laura and John Arnold Foundation | Randi Weingarten American Federation of Teachers | Rahm Emanuel Chicago | David Boies Boies, Schiller & Flexner |
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Randy DeFrehn National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans | Damon Silvers AFL-CIO | Laurence Fink BlackRock | Chris Christie New Jersey | Robin Diamonte United Technologies Corp. |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| Ted Eliopoulos California Public Employees’ Retirement System | John Kline Minnesota | J. Mark Iwry U.S. Treasury Department | Gina Raimondo Rhode Island | Phyllis Borzi U.S. Labor Department |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| Orrin Hatch Utah | Abigail Johnson Fidelity Investments | Ted Wheeler Oregon | Caitlin Long Morgan Stanley | James Hoffa International Brotherhood of Teamsters |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| Amy Kessler Prudential Financial | Alejandro García Padilla Puerto Rico | Christopher Klein U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Caifornia | Steven Rhodes Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan | Kevin de León California |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| David Draine Pew Charitable Trusts | Jordan Marks National Public Pension Coalition | Sam Liccardo California | Joshua Rauh Stanford Graduate School of Business | Karen Ferguson and Karen Friedman Pension Rights Center |
| 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 |
| Timothy Blake Moody’s Investors Service | Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Center for Retirement Initiatives, Georgetown University | Edward (Ted) Siedle Benchmark Financial Services | Daniel Loeb Third Point | Judy Mares Employee Benefits Security Administration, U.S. Labor Department |
| 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 |
| Andrew Biggs American Enterprise Institute | Andy Stern Columbia University | Kenneth Mehlman KKR & Co. | Teresa Ghilarducci New School for Social Research | A. Melissa Moye U.S. Treasury Department |
