Meet the Team

About

Chad is a highly accomplished executive with 28 years of experience in the retirement plan industry where he has excelled at driving high-performance financial service organizations, identifying multibillion-dollar growth opportunities, and attaining leverage within rigorous markets. 

As Vice President of Strategic Partnerships for PenChecks^®, Chad supports institutional sales and works with the sales team to close sales and communicate better with larger opportunities. He is an influential strategist whose primary objectives include enhanced profitability, productivity, and accountability, and an engaging communicator who develops mutually beneficial alliances among decision-makers, multidisciplinary associates, and clients. 

Prior to joining PenChecks, Chad served as Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President, Sales Strategy for LeafHouse, a technology company that creates investment solutions for the retirement plan industry and is partnering with PenChecks on NextLevel IRA. While there he led all day-to-day operations of the firm, provided leadership over investments, implementation and transitions, and service.

Chad earned his Bachelor of Arts, Political Science degree at the University of Nevada, and was elected to serve in the Executive Chambers of the Governor during his senior year. He has served on the ACLI Retirement Committee, is a member of NAPA, and has spoken at national industry conferences, and sales and service meetings. Chad has held industry designation as an Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF) and the Institute of Certified Bankers designation as a Certified Retirement Services Professional (CRPS).

Executive Profile

Chad Brown has a long and successful career in the retirement industry, but he didn’t start out that way. Early in his career he worked for an advisory firm that focused primarily on wealth management. Still early in his career he was given the opportunity to focus on institutional money management, which involved 401(k)s at the time, and help people build good savings habits. To this day, he remains passionate about the retirement plan industry. 

“I believe retirement planning is the most important financial services sector because it’s the only place that some people save money nowadays,” says Chad. “One thing I liked right away about PenChecks was the opportunity to provide continuity for clients that may get ignored by today’s financial services industry.”

From Big Institutions to a Close-Knit Culture

After more than two decades working in large, institutional financial service companies, Chad looked forward to the culture in a fast-growing specialty firm like PenChecks. Over the years PenChecks has made a point of letting employees know how much they appreciate them. Chad found out what that means sooner than he expected.  

“It seems small but I received a gift box from PenChecks on my 4th day of work that expressed the firms appreciation for my joining the team.” says Chad. “I also learned during dinners and interviews with members of the PenChecks leadership team, that they want to do business with people they appreciate and like, and want to have employees they appreciate and like.” 

“I made good friends and felt appreciated in the other companies I worked for,” adds Chad, “but I could tell people enjoy working at PenChecks. They work hard not because they have to but because they want to. That environment is rare, and a huge breath of fresh air from my perspective.”

Benefits of an Operational Background

Chad credits his operational background with understanding the importance of operations to sales. His experience tells him that if operations isn’t successful, sales won’t get it right. 

“Having an operational background makes it interesting to be on the sales side in a different organization, yet I learned it also helps management,” says Chad. “I want to help both sides of the business, and the opportunity to use everything I’ve learned to help PenChecks grow and help the people in that company be better is very attractive.”

Enjoy the Great Outdoors

A long-time resident of Austin, Texas, Chad, his wife, Karen and daughters Chloe and Allyson are all big fans of sports and outdoor activities – especially soccer. Chloe recently graduated from Texas Tech, and Ally currently plays soccer at Kansas State. The family loves vacationing together, making many beach and mountain trips. As dedicated “foodies,” Chad and Karen frequently sample new restaurants on their own. 

Chad’s two big passions are fishing on the coast of Louisiana for speckled trout and redfish, and hunting in West Texas. With PenChecks located in La Mesa, a suburb of San Diego, Chad looks forward to spending time there.

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