Thasunda Brown Duckett

Thasunda Brown Duckett has spent her career making the case that retirement security shouldn’t be a privilege. In December, the TIAA CEO orchestrated a landmark collaboration with Vanguard, the world’s second-largest asset manager, embedding TIAA’s secure income account into Vanguard’s target-date fund platform and opening guaranteed lifetime income to millions of corporate 401(k) participants. By early 2026, 1,000 employers offered TIAA and Nuveen’s lifetime income target-date solutions, with combined assets topping $75 billion—almost three times that of the nearest competitor. One of just two (soon to be three) Black women currently leading a Fortune 500 company, and five years in as CEO, Duckett has also become one of Washington’s strongest voices on the $4 trillion retirement savings gap, convening policymakers and pushing for legislative reforms that would extend retirement savings access to all Americans, including caregivers and low-income workers.