The 2014 Pension 40: Robin Diamonte

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.

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	詹姆斯·霍法 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	凯文·德莱昂 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