Adviser profile

These candidates have moved through the last year and a half with empathy, thoughtfulness and a dedication to innovation.

Ben Conner, CEO of Conner Insurance, knows that benefits is a relationship-based business.

“The fire is on right now to say, ‘Why can’t I do that?’” says Marilyn Espinosa, vice president of employee benefits at HUB International.

We have extended our deadline. To nominate a Rising Star please fill out the online form by Feb. 5, 2021.

When the pandemic hit, Benny award winner Bryan Aycock expanded his firm’s benefits programs and ramped up new initiatives to support Zynga employees.

COVID-19 has forced changes in work behavior as employees adjust to a new reality. Here’s how the Advisers of the Year did it during a year of massive disruption.

“I’m on track in saving for retirement because from a young age I learned these things,” says Adviser of the Year winner Julie Yusko. “I hope my experience can help others be in the best position so that we have fewer people who are approaching retirement age and wondering how they're ever going to retire.”

“She has this unique perspective, based on her legal background, her advisory background,” says Marah Funder, director of marketing at EBS. “She has always been the one to identify a need or a deficit before anyone else does.”

Kieran Pittman is director of strategic growth at BeniComp Health Solutions, a position that allows her to draw on her background in technology and health science to help clients.

Before the pandemic changed the way brokers work with their clients, Danielle Capilla was making a name for herself as an adviser who gets things done.