About Us

Who we are

NARPP is a San Francisco-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to advocate for individual savers. Through pioneering research, independent coalition building, and innovative educational programs, NARPP is making financial information transparent and universally accessible for the 145 million working Americans saving for retirement. 

Why NARPP matters

NARPP is the only organization in the country that is solely dedicated to the 145 million working Americans saving for retirement. We are completely independent, unbiased and transparent. We support programs and policies that are in the best interest of the individual saver. We promote financial empowerment through innovative programs designed to help people achieve their goal of a financially secure future. We believe that everyone should have access to simplified, independent, conflict-free information on financial decision-making. 

NARPP was founded by a group of passionate and determined problem solvers who are committed to seeing a more financially secure future for everyone. This group includes: retirement industry experts, behavioral finance academics, world-class designers and technologists.

Team

Laurie Rowley

Co-Founder

President, NARPP
Laurie is a passionate advocate who is at the nexus of initiatives to increase financial literacy, make information transparent and accessible and improve outcomes for the millions of Americans saving for retirement. Laurie is a performance driven leader and entrepreneur known for successfully executing an organization’s vision and overcoming challenges. Laurie has over 25 years of experience in financial services. Over her career she started several research firms including helping launch the Behavioral Finance Forum. Her expertise is in financial decision-making, research, operations and managing large scale, high impact projects.

Bill Cahan

Co-Founder

President, Cahan & Associates
Bill is the President and Founder of one of the most successful strategic design and branding firms in the country, having received more awards than any other firm. Bill specializes in transforming and presenting difficult to understand concepts into simple, understandable and engaging formats. His work has been featured on CNN and CNBC and is in the permanent collections of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of architecture and design, The Library of Congress, the SF MOMA and others.

Professor Shlomo Benartzi

Co-Founder Emeritus

Professor Shlomo Benartzi is a leading authority on behavioral finance with a special interest in household finance and participant behavior in retirement savings plans. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, and he is currently a Professor and co-chair of the Behavioral Decision-Making Group at UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Professor Benartzi’s most significant research contribution is the development, with Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago, of Save More Tomorrow (SMarT), a behavioral prescription designed to help employees increase their savings rates gradually over time.

Punam Keller

Professor, Dartmouth College

Professor Punam Keller is the Charles Henry Jones Third Century Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. She received her Ph.D. in marketing from Northwestern University. She was past President of the Association for Consumer Research and Area Editor of the Journal of Consumer Research. Her research has appeared in leading marketing, psychology, and public policy journals including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. She has shared her expertise on marketing, decision-making and choice behavior with the FINRA and NYSE foundations, OFEFA, U.S. Department of Treasury, Social Security Administration, DCIIA, OECD, NEFE, and CFA. Her research focuses on designing and implementing behavior-changing health and personal finance programs.

Warren Cormier

CEO Boston Research Technologies and Co-Founder RAND Behavioral Finance Forum

NARPP Chief Behavioral Officer
Mr. Cormier has more than twenty five years of quantitative and qualitative experience in financial services and consumer financial decision-making. He is the Co-Founder of Rand’s Behavioral Finance Forum, and is regarded as an expert in the field of behavioral finance and retirement savings.

Lindsay Owens

Retirement and Economic Policy Advisor Office of Senator Elizabeth Warren

Lindsay A. Owens, Ph.D., is the 2014-2015 American Sociological Association Congressional Fellow. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from Stanford University where she was a National Poverty Fellow at the Center on Poverty and Inequality and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. She is a frequent author of opinion pieces and editorials, coeditor of a chartbook of 100 facts and figures on inequality (Inequality in the US: Understanding Inequality with Data), and a contributing author to the 2011 book, The Great Recession. Her research has appeared in some of the leading social science journals including Social Forces, Public Opinion Quarterly, and The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Her research interests are in inequality, economic sociology, housing, debt, consumption, and political attitudes.

Ian Kopelman

Attorney and Partner, DLA Piper

Ian Kopelman is an attorney and Partner in the law firm DLA Piper where he chairs the firm’s U.S. Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Group. He is also responsible for benefit plan aspects of mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, the establishment of processes to ensure compliance with fiduciary responsibilities and employee communications. He regularly counsels insurance and other financial service providers on product development. He is Chair of the Board of Trustees of his Firm’s over $1 billion retirement plans. 

Mr. Kopelman is a frequent speaker and author on employee benefit topics, and has testified before the Department of Labor ERISA Advisory Council. He is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in American Law, and has been named an Illinois Leading Lawyer by the Leading Lawyers Network and an Illinois Super Lawyer by Law & Politics and Chicago magazines. He has also been included in the annual editions of Best Lawyers in America for Employee Benefits Law since 2007.

Dr. September Williams

Bioethicist, Writer, Filmmaker

Dr. September Williams trained at Creighton University School of Medicine and Cook County Hospital’s internal medicine residency. Some of her fellowships include: Lowell T. Coggeshall Fellow at the University of Chicago MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics and a HERSA Clinical Fellow in Geriatric Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Williams studied screenwriting and directing in the MFA programs at Columbia College Chicago, and Boston University. She has shared her expertise with the CDC, The National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care at Tuskegee University, and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Contributors

Erik Adams

Design & strategy

Craig Williamson

Design & strategy

Tucker Nichols

Strategy & Illustration

Rich Binell

Strategy

David Stolberg

Communications

Korri Roach

Communications

Eric-Vincent Guilmette

Operations

Molly Vaillincourt

Member services

Funding Sources

NARPP is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. NARPP is completely independent and is not affiliated with any other group or organization.

100% of all public donations are used to support our education and advocacy initiatives. Our operational costs are supported by contributions from private donors, membership fees, licensing fees from our research, and support from foundations.

Working with employers

Strengthening employees’ financial security and improving retirement savings outcomes is a top priority for many employers — at NARPP it is our singular mission.

By becoming a member of NARPP you are not only supporting a non-profit whose mission is to help your employees plan for financial security, you’ll also be taking an important step towards strengthening your employees’ trust, engagement, and loyalty.

We currently have over 1,000 employers who are members of NARPP. 

Join us.

For more information on membership click here.​