Peer Intelligence | Summer 2022

Brenda is a Product Manager for CEM’s Pension Administration Benchmarking Service (PABS). She has been with the firm since 2000. Brenda leads the Pension Administration team and is responsible for all aspects of the service: surveys, reports, best practice research, conference, and the Peer Intelligence Network. 

What are some key things happening in the pension space right now?: Change is happening at a much quicker rate than ever before. Members and the environment we are living in now demand it. Some trends I’m seeing: moving from a transaction focus to greater emphasis on customer experience and organizing communication, services, work and staff around the customer experience/journey. I’m also seeing administrators prioritize IT security and balancing it with the user experience, improving cost-effectiveness through streamlined back-end processes, and maximizing digital transactions. Some big issues and clearly, some systems are better prepared and farther ahead than others.  

How does what you do at CEM inform how administrators improve the member experience?: Bringing clients together. We give clients an objective base for comparison, with their peers and themselves, and connect clients with similar issues to find solutions together.  

How does your team commit to continuous learning?: Listening to clients and asking questions. When we look at a client CEM report, we look for differences. Those differences tell us a lot about a client, and we follow up. We learn a lot from them, whether talking with clients directly, via their CEM reports, annual reports or websites. Oddly enough, there is not a lot of or enough about pension administration in the news, although we get bits via Google alerts. The Australian Investment Magazine is interesting as the Aussies are fairly advanced given their competitive pension/super market. The Dutch Pensioen Pro magazine is also good and Google Translate helps! In any case, we don’t hear as much about the pension administration industry as we do investments, so, it’s even more important to pay attention to our clients.

What has been your favourite CEM PABS Conference destination/experience?:  Everywhere we’ve gone has something special to offer, whether landscape, culture or just meeting colleagues year after year in a candid, almost family-like setting. Our clients are terrific and they make the CEM PABS product that much more fun to work on. 

How do you relax and recharge outside of work?: I am still finding that balance. I like to think that people have periods in their life where one or two of the big three play a bigger role than others, and it continues to evolve: family, work, self. Simultaneously though, you can’t let the other elements fall to the wayside. Right now, the former two are a big part of my life. With some planning, weekend mornings are specifically carved out for relaxing, whether long bicycle rides, reading or just enjoying the outdoors.  

How do you see yourself in retirement?: The irony! I am focused so much on my clients’ and their members’ futures, yet I haven’t thought much about mine. The work I’m doing now speaks to my values and I am still learning so it’s hard to see myself doing something different. Plus, I like CEM! But, back to the question: I’d like to spend more time with my family, contribute to my community, and increase my cardio (my target is 55bpm resting).