$4 Trillion Savings Gap: TIAA’s CEO on The Retirement Crisis

**Alyson Shontell** (0:01)
Retirement in the United States used to feel more achievable.
Today, the road to living comfortably once you stop working is much more complicated, and many of us are wondering if we will ever be able to retire at all. Thasunda Brown Duckett, the president and CEO of TIAA, wants to make retirement a given again.

**Thasunda Brown Duckett** (0:19)
There is a real crisis. 59 million Americans do not have access to a retirement workplace plan.

**Alyson Shontell** (0:25)
After rising through JPMorgan Chase, Thasunda got tapped in 2021 to lead a Fortune 100 company, TIAA. Today, she's leading the company through a period of massive change, expanding beyond TIAA's traditional markets and advocating for something she calls lifetime income that she hopes can redefine retirement for the next generation, while also increasing TIAA's bottom line. I sat down with Thasunda to discuss why so many Americans are in danger of running out of cash, the non-scary ways she's using AI to fight fraud, and the leadership philosophies that have guided her rise from a Fannie Mae intern in Texas to one of the most powerful executives in the world. I'm Alyson Shontell and this is Fortune 500 Titans and Disruptors of Industry. We'll be back with Thasunda Brown Duckett after a message from our sponsor.
Fortune spoke with Deloitte US. CEO Jason Garzatas on understanding quantum computing and how he sees it transforming industries.

**Jason Garzatas** (1:28)
Quantum computing has been a topic for some time in research circles, certainly closely watched by business. But it's fundamentally a different computing paradigm that uses the principles of physics instead of mathematics to drive the computing outcomes. And I think the real uses will be ultimately around very complex optimization scenarios, further enhancements to scaling machine learning, and also very complicated simulations that could be relevant to a whole host of different business applications.

**Alyson Shontell** (2:07)
What steps should leaders take to prepare their organizations for quantum computing?

**Jason Garzatas** (2:12)
It's really about readiness planning right now and preparing an organization to understand the implications, understanding what skill sets would be required, what type of cybersecurity protocols would need to be in place, to make it viable in an enterprise context, and begin to think about the types of use cases that would be very germane around optimization and simulation.

**Alyson Shontell** (2:40)
Thasunda Brown Duckett, we are so thrilled to have you here today. You were just recently recognized, again, on our most powerful women in business list. It's a global list, and you came in at number seven.
TIAA just rose four rankings on this year's Fortune 500 to number 94 Y'all are doing about $50.6 billion in annual revenue, so nothing too small there. A huge amount of accomplishments to you for five years at the helm of the company.

**Thasunda Brown Duckett** (3:05)
Thank you.

**Alyson Shontell** (3:05)
I'm thrilled to have you here today.

**Thasunda Brown Duckett** (3:07)
Thank you. It's such a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

**Alyson Shontell** (3:09)
So the first thing I want to talk about is retirement. It feels unachievable for many. It feels like the goalposts has changed from generation to generation. And I'm wondering, from your vantage point of running TIAA, what is the state of US retirement today? What's the age, the amount? Is it achievable?

**Thasunda Brown Duckett** (3:26)
I think to understand where we are today, it's good to go back. And you think about what was happening, let's say, in the 70s. And in the 70s, people had pensions. You know, close to two thirds of Americans had a pension. So when we in the US was experiencing some of the highest inflation, people could still retire and know what their paycheck would look like. When 401k plans were introduced, it was never designed to be everything. But over time, what has happened is that the risk has shifted to the individual to decide and to create and to ensure they have a secure retirement. And the reality is over 40 percent of Americans run the risk out of running out of money. And so there's a real crisis. There's a four trillion dollar savings gap in this country.
And when you think about what are the problems that we have to solve, one, there's an access gap. Fifty nine million Americans do not have access to a retirement workplace plan, which is so important because most of us get introduced to a secure retirement through work.
We also know that there's a savings gap. As I mentioned, people are not saving enough. And so many times you'll ask them, when do you have your retirement plan? Like, yes, I contribute to my 401k plan or my 43B plan. But is it enough? And many times they're not contributing enough. And then lastly, there's a guarantee gap.