The timing couldn’t have been better. Penelope, a digital retirement plan recordkeeper, launched roughly a year and a half ago—right before SECURE 2.0 passed.
Since then, founder Jean Smart has been (very) busy.
“We were fortunate in our timing for sure—we’ve got plans that maximize SECURE 2.0 tax credits in every way,” Smart said. “We have a Safe Harbor plan and a Starter 401(k).”
She emphasized that, first and foremost, Penelope is a software company that can flexibly provide simple plans to businesses, white-label solutions to advisors, and recordkeeping for administrators.
“We first built our recordkeeper to provide plans designed for small businesses,” Smart explained. “We’re expanding our platform now to power advisors and administrators."
Penelope aims to make establishing a plan and onboarding participants as simple as possible, which, given the firm’s 100% client satisfaction score and 85% to 95% participation rate, is paying off. It's also creating licensing and white-labeling opportunities, which will be a focus for the next phase of growth.
“We’re on a fully modern tech stack,” Smart said when asked about the firm’s differentiating factors. “Technology is rapidly different from even a year ago. We’re newer so we don’t have to struggle with legacy technology and operational complexity. We literally started from scratch with a focus on the future.”
Smart spent most of her career in wealth management and retail brokerage, primarily in workplace strategy and product solutions. She claimed technology is the biggest barrier to modernization.
“We started with a simple question—what do you absolutely need?” she said. “We can help plan providers become more cost-effective and de-risks a lot of it for them so they can expand, go to new markets, sell more, and grow organically. There’s a net benefit to folks who are building this efficiently.”
She had a surprising answer when asked if the platform is more for retirement plan specialists or “two-plan Tonys.”
“It’s funny because everyone uses the same term because that’s all we’ve heard in the industry," Smart concluded. "Same with me. That’s all I’ve been around, but there are other groups providing benefits to businesses of all sizes in the health and employer benefits space. And we speak with them too. It’s not easy and looking back I can’t believe how far we’ve come. I’m not turning back. I’m looking at the next 10 years. It’s wildly exciting and interesting.”
