Michael "Mike" Geist has over twenty-three years of experience in the retirement plan, database marketing, consulting, and legal industries. As part of ClearSage Advisory Group, Mike currently provides consulting services in the retirement plan, recordkeeping, and asset management industries and also provides corporate coaching, training, and educational services. 

 

Mike provides deep expertise regarding recordkeeping fees and fee negotiations, revenue sharing, fee leveling solutions, and other strategic issues related to the retirement plan industry. This includes financial and market analysis, including pricing, related to the retirement plan industry.  His expertise also includes the interrelationship between different asset management distribution channels, including retail, third-party, and institutional distribution as well as distribution through retirement plans.  It also includes the analysis of the distribution of new or improved services through retirement plans.  In conjunction with these consulting services Mike also provides litigation support services and has been retained as an expert witness in retirement plan and recordkeeping fee litigation.
 

Before founding ClearSage Advisory Group Mike spent over eleven years working for the Retirement Plan Services division of T. Rowe Price. Mike held a variety of senior level roles in multiple functional areas including Pricing, Business Development, Finance, Product Development, Sales, and Data Strategy.  Mike developed extensive expertise regarding fee negotiations and best-practices utilized by effective plan fiduciaries while he was responsible for governing, evaluating, and approving thousands of retirement plan pricing proposals.  Mike also gained expertise in comprehensive business process optimization and governance in the sales, service, marketing, finance, and legal functions of retirement plan services and recordkeeping providers.

 

While at T. Rowe Price, among other things Mike led the development of revenue sharing allocation solutions and recordkeeping pricing solutions, led and supported several regulatory and compliance projects, led the implementation of a new CRM system, redesigned the sales process (including the bidding, pricing, and negotiation process) in the retirement sales distribution channel, served as the retirement plan distribution channel subject matter expert on a firm-wide global asset management distribution strategy project, and was responsible for delivering, governing, or evaluating over 20,000 retirement plan services pricing proposals.

 

Mike has been a frequent speaker at retirement plan industry conferences covering topics including: Fees, Pricing, and the Future of Revenue Sharing; The Effect of Fee Disclosures on DC Plans; The Data Partnership Between DCIOs, Recordkeepers, and Broker-Dealers; and Tackling Data Gaps and Reporting Challenges.
 

For the past fifteen years Mike has also provided strategic coaching and training for corporate executives, executive MBA students, and other MBA students to enhance their resource allocation and decision-making effectiveness.

 

Prior to joining T. Rowe Price, Mike served as the Director of Marketing for E-centives, an online database marketing company.

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Prior to joining E-centives, Mike practiced law for over five years primarily in the areas of small business representation and domestic relations.

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Mike earned his MBA from University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business and his JD from the University of Baltimore School of Law.  While working for T. Rowe Price Mike passed the Principal/Supervisory Exam (Series 24 - General Securities Principal Examination), the General Industry/Products Exam (Series 7 - General Securities Representative Examination), and the Maryland State Securities Law Exam (Series 63 - Uniform Securities Agent State Law Examination).