Bradley Belt is an American businessman. He is the CEO of Palisades Capital[1] and a former managing director of the Milken Institute. [2] He is vice chairman of Orchard Global Asset Management. In 2024, he was elected mayor of Kiawah Island.[3]
Belt has extensive executive management, operations, finance and policy experience in the private, public and non-profit sectors. His previous government service includes senior staff positions with the Securities Exchange Commission and the U.S. Senate, including as counsel to the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. In the private sector, he has been an executive of a financial services and technology company, and managing director of merchant banking and public affairs strategy firms. He also served as senior vice president of the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Belt became the executive direction of PBGC in April 2004.[4] The PBGC was set up by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974, to guarantee defined benefit pension plan benefits for plan sponsors that become insolvent when there are too few pension plan assets to fully pay all insured pension benefits. As the chief executive officer of PBGC, Belt oversaw the U.S. government corporation that insures the pension benefits of private sector workers and retirees. He also played a leading role in the historic overhaul of U.S. pension rules, giving millions of Americans a better chance of getting the retirement benefits they earned. The bill also created added incentives for greater worker participation in 401(K)s. During Belt's tenure as director, the PBGC took on extensive liabilities from terminated pension plans, including United Air Lines, and became massively underfunded. On March 23, 2006 he announced his intention to resign effective May 2006.[5]
He previously served as senior vice president of CSIS, responsible for policy development, corporate strategy, and oversight of the Center's international finance, information technology, and domestic policy initiatives.
Belt has served in senior roles at the Securities Exchange Commission, the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and as a senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.[citation needed] He was named by SmartMoney as one of its Power 30 in finance and by Workforce magazine as one of its "10 Most Forward-Thinking Leaders in Workforce Management."[citation needed]
Belt joined the Milken Institute from Palisades Capital, a boutique restructuring advisory and investment firm he co-founded. Prior to establishing Palisades, he served in the Bush administration as the executive director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. As the chief executive officer of the PBGC, Belt was responsible for the operations and management of a $50 billion investment portfolio. Under his leadership, PBGC restructured its operations, adopted a new liability-driven investment policy, implemented performance-based human capital management strategies, established new risk management and internal control systems, and oversaw the resolution of many of the agency's largest and most complex financial settlements. Belt had been previously appointed by President Bush to the Social Security Advisory Board, and he helped shape and communicate administration policy on pension and retirement security issues.
Belt is CEO of Palisades Capital,[1] as well as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation (the oversight board for Washington National Cathedral, and St. Albans, Cathedral, and Beauvoir schools), the Board of Directors of Zurich American Life Insurance Company, and the Advisory Board of Norfolk Markets. He is also a senior fellow with the McDonough School of Business (Georgetown).
An Eisenhower Fellow, Belt completed an executive management program at the Kennedy School at Harvard University, received his Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown and obtained his undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of Nebraska. He is a member of the New York, District of Columbia, and U.S. Supreme Court bars."
Bradley Belt is senior managing director of the Milken Institute, heading its Washington office and co-chairing the Center for Financial Markets. He is a co-founder of Palisades Capital Management LLC, a restructuring advisory and investment firm that focuses on pensions, insurance and financial services. Previously, he was the CEO of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., a federally chartered corporation that insures the defined-benefit plans of private employers, overseeing a $60 billion investment portfolio. Belt has extensive experience in executive management, operations, finance and policy development in the private, public and nonprofit sectors. He has held senior staff positions at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Senate and serves on several corporate and nonprofit boards. Belt was named one of SmartMoney's "Power 30" in finance and one of Workforce magazine's "10 Most Forward-Thinking Leaders in Workforce Management." He received a J.D. from Georgetown University and a B.S. from the University of Nebraska. -- Bradley Belt is one of the nation’s leading experts on retirement security and its impact on financial markets and the economy. He has had a distinguished career in both the public and private sectors. He served under President George W. Bush as the chief executive officer of Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), where he oversaw a $60 billion investment portfolio and helped shape the administration’s retirement security policy. He was also appointed by the president to the Social Security Advisory Board and previously served in senior staff positions in Congress as counsel to the Senate Banking Committee and at the Securities and Exchange Commission.[citation needed]
Exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau, Belt discusses broad trends in pension policy – and the associated opportunities and risks – and the fragility of retirement security structures, including the long-term deficit in Social Security, the erosion of defined-benefit plans, and the shifting of investment risks in defined-contribution plans. With gravity and good humor, he looks at demographics, financial markets, and the economy to help organizations assess risk and develop a strategy for managing the retirement plans they offer. -- Belt is currently Vice Chairman of Orchard Global Asset Management.
Related Research Articles
A pension is a fund into which amounts are paid regularly during an individual's working career, and from which periodic payments are made to support the person's retirement from work. A pension may be:
A pension fund, also known as a superannuation fund in some countries, is any program, fund, or scheme which provides retirement income.
A financial analyst is a professional undertaking financial analysis for external or internal clients as a core feature of the job. The role may specifically be titled securities analyst, research analyst, equity analyst, investment analyst, or ratings analyst. The job title is a broad one: In banking, and industry more generally, various other analyst-roles cover financial management and (credit) risk management, as opposed to focusing on investments and valuation.
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) is a U.S. federal tax and labor law that establishes minimum standards for pension plans in private industry. It contains rules on the federal income tax effects of transactions associated with employee benefit plans. ERISA was enacted to protect the interests of employee benefit plan participants and their beneficiaries by:
A retirement plan is a financial arrangement designed to replace employment income upon retirement. These plans may be set up by employers, insurance companies, trade unions, the government, or other institutions. Congress has expressed a desire to encourage responsible retirement planning by granting favorable tax treatment to a wide variety of plans. Federal tax aspects of retirement plans in the United States are based on provisions of the Internal Revenue Code and the plans are regulated by the Department of Labor under the provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).
Morgan, Grenfell & Co. was a leading London-based investment bank regarded as one of the oldest and once most influential British merchant banks. It had its origins in a merchant banking business commenced by George Peabody. Junius Spencer Morgan became a partner in 1854. After Peabody retired the business was styled J. S. Morgan & Co. In 1910, it was reconstituted as Morgan Grenfell & Co. in recognition of the senior London-based partner, Edward Grenfell, although J. P. Morgan & Co. still held a controlling interest. In the 1930s, it became a commercial bank and the Morgan family relinquished their controlling interest in the business. After a period of retrenchment, it expanded under the management of second Viscount Harcourt in the 1960s. The link with J. P. Morgan & Co. ended completely in the 1980s. The business also became embroiled in the Guinness share-trading fraud at that time. In 1990, Morgan Grenfell was acquired in an agreed deal by its minority shareholder, Deutsche Bank. The use of the Morgan Grenfell name was discontinued by Deutsche Bank in 1999.
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is a United States federally chartered corporation created by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to encourage the continuation and maintenance of voluntary private defined benefit pension plans, provide timely and uninterrupted payment of pension benefits, and keep pension insurance premiums at the lowest level necessary to carry out its operations. Subject to other statutory limitations, PBGC's single-employer insurance program pays pension benefits up to the maximum guaranteed benefit set by law to participants who retire at 65. The benefits payable to insured retirees who start their benefits at ages other than 65 or elect survivor coverage are adjusted to be equivalent in value. The maximum monthly guarantee for the multiemployer program is far lower and more complicated.
A custodian bank, or simply custodian, is a specialized financial institution responsible for providing securities services. It provides post-trade services and solutions for asset owners, asset managers, banks and broker-dealers. It is not engaged in "traditional" commercial or consumer/retail banking like lending.
Pensions in the United States consist of the Social Security system, public employees retirement systems, as well as various private pension plans offered by employers, insurance companies, and unions.
The Pension Protection Act of 2006, 120 Stat. 780, was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on August 17, 2006.
Steven A. Kandarian was the president, chairman, and chief executive officer of MetLife. He became president and CEO on May 1, 2011, and chairman in January 2012 succeeding Robert Henrikson, who retired from those roles. Kandarian retired from MetLife on April 30, 2019 and was succeeded as president and CEO by Michel Khalaf and as chairman by Glenn Hubbard.
Charles E. F. Millard is an American political figure and business executive specializing in pensions and investments. He is the former Director of the United States Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Appointed by President George W. Bush, Millard was the first Director of the PBGC to be Presidentially appointed and confirmed by the United States Senate. As Director, Millard was the chief executive officer of the PBGC and carried the rank of Under Secretary.
James B. Lockhart III is an American U.S. Navy officer, business executive, and, since September 2009, Vice Chairman of WL Ross & Co, which manages $9 billion of private equity investments, a hedge fund and a Mortgage Recovery Fund. It is a subsidiary of Invesco, a Fortune 500 investment management firm. He coordinates WL Ross's investments in financial services firms and mortgages. Lockhart serves co-chairs the Bipartisan Policy Center's Commission on Retirement Security and Personal Savings.
Defined benefit (DB) pension plan is a type of pension plan in which an employer/sponsor promises a specified pension payment, lump-sum, or combination thereof on retirement that depends on an employee's earnings history, tenure of service and age, rather than depending directly on individual investment returns. Traditionally, many governmental and public entities, as well as a large number of corporations, provide defined benefit plans, sometimes as a means of compensating workers in lieu of increased pay.
Peter R. Fisher has been an attorney, a central banker, a U.S. Treasury official, an asset management executive, and an educator. He is currently a Managing Director in the Strategy Function leading the firm’s global retirement initiative at BlackRock.
Jeffrey A. Goldstein is a United States economist who was Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance from March 27, 2010, to 2011. Jeffrey is currently the chairman of the board of directors of Fidelity National Information Services (FIS).
Suneet Kumar Maheshwari is an infrastructure business evangelisand is the founder and managing partner of Udvik Infrastructure Advisors LLP, a new boutique infrastructure financial services firm set up comprising a group of senior infrastructure and financing evangelists along with another ~25 mid-senior professionals. Till recently he was the group executive vice-president of L&T Financial Services. He was also on the board of L&T Infrastructure Finance Company Limited, L&T Infra Debt Fund, L&T FinCorp, L&T Infra PE. He was the managing director and chief executive of L&T Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd since its inception in 2006 till March 2014, which is now a Rs 25,000 crores asset base company. He has over 34 years of experience in infrastructure finance, investment banking, corporate finance and private equity at management board level.
JPMorgan Chase is an American multinational banking corporation with a large presence in the United Kingdom. The corporation's European subsidiaries J.P. Morgan Europe Limited, J.P. Morgan International Bank Limited and J.P. Morgan Securities plc are headquartered in London.
The American Benefits Council (the Council) is a national trade association based in Washington, D.C. that advocates for employer-sponsored benefit plans. The Council's members represent the private employee benefits community and either sponsor directly or provide services to retirement and health benefit plans both nationally and internationally.
Gordon Hartogensis is an American businessman, investor, and government official who served as the Director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) from 2019 to 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
