James Olson
Managing Director
With more than 20 years in the retirement plan industry, James Olson is a recognized leader with demonstrated success developing forward-thinking product and service model designs that have had a significant impact on the retirement plan marketplace.
James got his star in the retirement industry in 1990 as a Client Services Manage at Bank of America Retirement Services and obtained his Series 7 and 65 licenses. In 1994, James secured a position with Charles Schwab & Company as Senior Product Manager in the Retirement Marketing department responsible for the small business retirement product line which included SEP, SIMPLE, Profit Sharing, Money Purchase, 403(b)(7) and Pension Trust brokerage accounts that totaled over $100 billion in assets.
After five years with Charles Schwab & Company, James was recruited by Decimal Inc. (now Ubiquity). As Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, he developed business requirements for an online 401(k) platform and the marketing strategy for institutional sales channels that increased their client base by more than 35%.
In 2002, James became one of the founding partners of ASPire Financial Services. During his tenure, he helped grow the company from a start-up with 1 employee to 165 employees with $18 million in revenue, making ASPire #18 among the Tampa Bay Business Journal’s 2010 Fast 50 (honoring the 50 fastest-growing privately held companies in Tampa Bay) and making ASPire a 2010 Florida Finalist for Ernst & Young’s prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year award. As a co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at ASPire, he developed and executed product strategies that have made ASPire a recognized institutional brand in the financial services market, with more than $6 billion of recordkeeping assets under administration, approximately 175,000 participants, and serving 5,700 retirement plans.
With a strategic vision to influence the retirement markets again, James joined the Bluff Point Associates team in October 2013 to develop the Investment Provider Xchange (IPX) platform for the 403(b) marketplace. The IPX platform addresses the operational administrative governance of 403(b) plans with multiple investment product providers and their distribution channel partners in a single processing environment. As the lead executive in charge, James is responsible for the overall strategic direction to achieve business goals.
In addition to helping the retirement plan industry efficiently and effectively serve American savers, James loves to make music. He is an accomplished guitarist, has amassed an impressive “axe” collection and likes to jam with his band The 402(g)s.
