When MJP Wealth Advisors sought a better way to bring employer-sponsored retirement plans into their holistic advisory model, they turned to Pontera. By bringing 401(k) and other retirement plan assets into the advisory relationship—without requiring rollovers—they strengthened fiduciary alignment, improved planning precision, and gave clients greater choice in how their retirement assets are managed.

Customer snapshot

Firm: MJP Wealth Advisors
Founded: 1981
Leadership: Brian Vendig, President & Chief Investment Officer
Services: Family office fiduciary advice, investment management, estate and tax planning, insurance planning, life-cycle planning, and 3(38) fiduciary advisory services
Pontera Use Case: Integration and management of employer-sponsored retirement plan accounts within a holistic advisory relationship

The challenge: closing the gap in holistic retirement oversight

MJP Wealth Advisors has long operated under a fiduciary, advice-driven model. As a firm delivering family office-style services, they focus on integrating investment management, tax strategy, estate planning, and retirement outcomes into one cohesive strategy.

But like many advisors, they faced a structural challenge: employer-sponsored retirement plans often sat outside the advisory relationship, limiting visibility and oversight.

Without the ability to securely manage or validate allocations inside 401(k)s and other workplace plans, advisors were limited in their ability to:

• Ensure allocations aligned with a client’s risk tolerance and long-term goals

• Evaluate plan fees, expenses, and available investment options

• Inform tax planning decisions such as Roth vs. pre-tax contributions

• Adjust strategies in response to income or tax code changes

This created a gap between advice and implementation. True holistic planning requires visibility and oversight across the full retirement asset picture. Without it, important pieces of the strategy lived outside the advisor’s reach.

“It gives clients a choice, a choice to say: how do they want their total retirement plan asset picture managed?”
— Brian Vendig, President & CIO, MJP Wealth Advisors

The turning point: choosing innovation and data integrity

As MJP evaluated solutions, their criteria were clear: any platform had to prioritize data integrity, security, and fiduciary alignment.

After conducting due diligence across multiple providers, they selected Pontera for its focus on:

• Client-first alignment

• Seamless integration

• Strong data security standards

• The ability to support retirement plan management within an advisory framework

For a firm grounded in fiduciary responsibility, security and integrity were non-negotiable. Pontera stood out by enabling integration without disrupting plan structure, allowing retirement assets to remain within the employer-sponsored plan while still being incorporated into the advisory strategy.

The solution: bringing employer-sponsored plans into the advisory relationship

With Pontera, MJP Wealth Advisors brought 401(k) and other retirement plan accounts into their broader advisory process. The secure connection was seamless.

Now, employer-sponsored accounts can be:

• Evaluated alongside IRAs and taxable portfolios

• Assessed for allocation alignment with risk tolerance and capacity

• Reviewed for fee efficiency and performance

• Incorporated into detailed tax planning strategies
  
  

This enables more nuanced conversations, including:

• Pre-tax vs. Roth contribution strategy

• Accumulation planning decisions

• Coordinating retirement assets with broader estate and tax plans

• Adjusting strategy in response to income or regulatory changes
  
  

By linking employer-sponsored plans into the advisory relationship, retirement planning becomes more precise, more proactive, and more personalized.

“When you integrate an employer-sponsored retirement plan account and link that into an advisory service, you start getting into more detailed things like tax planning and accumulation goals.”
— Brian Vendig

The result: expanded choice and elevated fiduciary impact

Client impact

Pontera enabled MJP to deliver more comprehensive and thoughtful financial planning by:

• Bringing held-away retirement assets into the advisory conversation

• Aligning allocations more precisely to long-term goals

• Improving clarity across the total retirement picture

• Offering participants an additional dimension of choice

“Pontera opens up a third dimension of choice that sometimes participants don’t have on a day-to-day basis.”
— Brian Vendig

Clients are no longer limited to self-direction or standard recordkeeper-managed options. They can choose to integrate their retirement accounts into a fiduciary advisory relationship.

Business & fiduciary impact

For the firm Pontera delivers:

• Greater ability to validate plan alignment with participant goals

• Enhanced evaluation of fees and plan design

• Stronger fiduciary oversight

• A more innovation-forward RFP conversation with plan sponsors

“It gives us the opportunity to validate for our clients whether or not the allocations that they have in their employed sponsored retirement plan is actually aligned appropriately to them and how they think about things from a risk tolerance, risk capacity perspective, but of course most importantly that longer term retirement planning goal.”  

— Brian Vendig

Pontera also supports discussions during the RFP process, helping plan trustees and sponsors assess:

• Whether their plan prioritizes innovation

• Whether participant choice is sufficiently supported

• Where technology may close advice gaps

Advisor experience

Operationally, the process of adopting Pontera firm-wide has been smooth and secure. Pontera fits naturally into MJP’s advice-driven model, reinforcing their fiduciary commitment rather than disrupting workflow.

It allows the firm to bridge education and advice, moving beyond high-level investment education toward personalized guidance within retirement plans.

“Our experience integrating Pontera into our practice or our firm was actually very seamless. [...] They create a seamless process that's built on data integrity, data security, and at the end of the day aligns advisors with the client objective.”
— Brian Vendig

Looking ahead: innovation as a fiduciary imperative

MJP Wealth Advisors views innovation and continuous improvement as essential components of fiduciary responsibility.

By integrating Pontera, they’ve expanded their ability to:

• Align retirement plan participants with long-term goals

• Improve plan efficiency

• Offer more customized advice

• Strengthen participant outcomes
  
  

As retirement planning grows more complex and technology becomes increasingly central to financial services, platforms that securely integrate data and enhance advice will play a critical role.