PSCA Honors Phyllis Borzi With Lifetime Achievement Award

Former Assistant Secretary of Labor recognized for career-long commitment to preserving retirement savings.

Former Assistant Secretary of Labor Phyllis Borzi has been awarded the Plan Sponsor Council of America’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award for 2020.

From 2009 to 2017 Ms. Borzi was head of the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) where she led the organization responsible for the regulation of approximately 700,000 employer-sponsored retirement plans in the private-sector as well approximately 2.3 million health plans, and other plans providing benefits to approximately 150 million Americans from 2009 through 2017.

“Ms. Borzi has been a leading voice focused on strengthening the nation’s retirement system throughout her career, and in a wide variety of roles; academic, legislative, and regulatory,” said Will Hansen, executive director for PSCA. “She is a tireless, universally respected advocate for investors and the industry at large and PSCA is proud to recognize her contributions with its Lifetime Achievement Award”

Ms. Borzi’s passion for protecting benefit plan participants is almost as old as ERISA itself. From 1979 to 1995, she served the House Education and Labor Committee’s Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations as pension and employee benefit counsel where she came to realize that many female constituents were not prepared for retirement, and later served on the advisory board of the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER).  Borzi went on to serve as a research professor in the Department of Health Policy at George Washington University Medical Center's School of Public Health, and was later of counsel with the Washington, D.C. law firm O’Donoghue & O’Donoghue LLP.

“Ms. Borzi has always been an ardent supporter of establishing strong investment advice standards that will protect all Americans,” said Tim Kohn, Vice President and Head of Defined Contribution at Dimensional Fund Advisors, and a PSCA board member.

Due to the global pandemic, Ms. Borzi will be honored in person at the PSCA 2021 National Conference.

PSCA’s Lifetime Achievement Award was established in 2015 and honors individuals for their contributions to the growth of the defined contribution industry. Previous PSCA Lifetime Achievement Award recipients include Dr. Zvi Bodie, Professor Emeritus at Boston University, Cindy Hounsell, President of WISER, the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement, Anna Rappaport, founder of Anna Rappaport Consulting, Nancy Webman, retired editor of Pensions & Investments, Karen Barnes, managing counsel for McDonald’s Corp. and David G. Booth, co-founder, co-CEO, and chairman of Dimensional Fund Advisors.