In the first official meeting of the Kentucky Public Pension Authority internal search committee, which is tasked with naming a replacement for retiring Executive Director David Eager, the four-person special committee agreed on a broad timeline to conduct interviews and name a replacement.
William “Bill” O’Mara will lead the search committee, and he along with three board members set an aggressive timeline of April 1, to name Eager’s replacement.
O’Mara has directed staff to reach out to KPPA board members along with executives at KPPA on the three most important skills and traits they would like to see in the next executive director.
The committee is also considering the executive director’s job responsibilities, and what information should be included in a job description. They currently intend to include the KPPA bylaws, assets under management, salary range, the funding status of all of the pension funds, and an explanation of changes made to improve Kentucky Retirement Systems’ funding status in the past two years.
The governor’s office will not weigh in on the contract job compensation, but members are aware “everyone will be watching.”
They hope to agree on the job duties and have a posting ready to incorporate KPPA board member requests by their next meeting, which will take place later this month. The search committee plans to use the state online application portal to accept resumes and applications.
With a job posting coming by mid-November, the search committee hopes to arrange interviews with potential replacements in February and March of 2024.
In their last meeting, the full KPPA board agreed to forego a national search for an executive director replacement and instead plans to post the job themselves. The committee plans on utilizing many of the same institutions for the job ad placement that they previously used to recruit Chief Financial Officer Michael Lamb.
The search committee will return to read board input and see sample job postings/write-ups, and compensation data on Oct. 27 at 9 a.m.
