Retirement income veteran and Prudential Financial executive Wayne Chopus has been tapped to lead the Insured Retirement Institute starting Jan. 1, the organization announced Tuesday.
Chopus will succeed Cathy Weatherford, who has been at the helm of IRI for a decade.
At Prudential, Chopus is a senior vice president of strategic relationship management in the company's individual solutions group. He also leads the sales operations at Prudential, as well as the sales and business intelligence teams..
While at Prudential, Chopus has also been responsible for implementation efforts related to the U.S. Department of Labor's now-defunct fiduciary rule, as well as the company's annuities business strategy.
IRI has been one of the players in efforts to shape the fiduciary rule, the best interest standard, and other sales standard projects.
Chopus will lead IRI as the Labor Department is preparing to issue a revised final fiduciary rule package. The revised package would replace the one vacated this spring by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
Chopus has been a registered broker since 1995. He passed his latest exam, the new Securities Industry Essentials (SEI) Exam, as recently as Oct. 1, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's BrokerCheck.