2026 Plan Sponsor of the Year Winners

The PLANSPONSOR Plan Sponsor of the Year annual awards program recognizes retirement plan sponsors that show an exemplary commitment to their participants’ financial health and retirement success. The award is given in many categories to recognize all plan types, so any plan sponsor can be eligible.

Finalists will be recognized—and the winners announced—at the PLANSPONSOR Excellence in Retirement Awards celebration during the 2026 PLANSPONSOR National Conference held May 31 – June 3 in Nashville, Tennessee.

Methodology

The 2026 PLANSPONSOR Plan Sponsor of the Year nomination period opened in October 2025. Nominations were made by providers, advisers, consultants, actuaries, attorneys, third-party administrators, employees, colleagues or plan sponsors themselves. All nominees were asked to officially enter and complete an online application form, supplying details about their plan’s administration, governance, participant statistics and data.

Only nominated plan sponsors that completed the application were considered. Finalists were selected based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative measures. The 2026 awards are given in 14 categories to allow for the most accurate comparisons across plan types and sizes.

For 2026, 193 nominations were received, and 56 finalists were selected from the plan sponsors that completed applications.