Labor Department appoints new members to ERISA board - SmartBrief

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Labor Department appoints new members to ERISA board

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This post was written by SmartBrief’s Tom Anderson.

The Department of Labor appointed five new members to a board that gives the government advice on employee benefit plans. The new members, who will serve three-year terms on the 15-person ERISA Advisory Council, are:

  • Marilee Lau, past chair of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center Executive Committee
  • Gary Thayer,  an attorney with Archer, Byington, Glennon & Levine who represents single and multi-employer benefit funds
  • Richard Turner,  vice president and deputy counsel with The Variable Annuity Life Insurance Co. and past chairman of the Pension Committee of the American Council of Life Insurers
  • Karen Barnes, managing counsel for McDonald’s where she is responsible for employee benefit plan governance and compliance as well as strategic design and employee communications for all the company’s U.S. retirement plans
  • Portia Wu, vice president of the National Partnership for Women and Families and past chief labor and pensions counsel for the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

The Labor Department also appointed current member Theda Haber, a managing director at BlackRock, as chair of the council and Mildeen Worrell, a former tax counsel to the House Ways and Means Committee, as vice chair.