WAKEFIELD, Mass., April 13, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Sentinel Group, which provides retirement plan consulting and financial wellness solutions, today announced the addition of two senior leaders to accelerate the company’s strategic growth initiatives: Sophie Benander as Head of Growth, Wealth Management, and Joe Hendrickson as Senior Vice President, Strategic Growth, Retirement.
These appointments reflect Sentinel’s continued investment in intentional, measurable growth across both its wealth management and retirement businesses.
About Sophie Benander:
In a newly created leadership role, Sophie Benander will lead Sentinel’s Wealth Management (WM) growth strategy, helping formalize and advance the company’s efforts to generate high-quality opportunities, drive revenue and increase new assets under management.
The Head of Growth, Wealth Management, position was established to ensure WM growth is a focused, accountable priority aligned with Sentinel’s long-term strategic plan.
“We’re excited to welcome Sophie to Sentinel at a pivotal moment in our growth journey,” said Ryan Campagna, CFP®, AIF®, Head of Sales, Partner, at Sentinel. “Her role is about helping to advance the continued development of our Wealth Management platform — creating a more disciplined, data-informed approach to growth that strengthens our market presence and deepens relationships across our existing client base.”
Benander will partner closely with sales, marketing and advisory teams to:
- Deepen relationships with Sentinel’s retirement and benefits clients by expanding wealth management engagement
- Create a more unified wealth management story in the marketplace
- Build an analytics-driven approach to lead generation, revenue growth, and new asset accumulation
- Align growth initiatives across business lines to deliver a seamless, client-first experience
Benander brings extensive experience across retirement planning, financial wellness and wealth management. Most recently, she served as SVP, Growth and Partnerships at SageView Advisory Group, where she led participant-focused growth initiatives that connected education, engagement, and advice across institutional and wealth businesses.
Her career has centered on building scalable systems that make financial guidance more accessible while supporting sustained business growth.
“What drew me to Sentinel is the authenticity of its people-first culture,” Benander said. “There’s a genuine commitment across the organization to supporting people through meaningful financial moments. My vision is to build on Sentinel’s strong foundation by connecting our capabilities across retirement, wealth, and health benefits into a more unified financial wellness experience — one that deepens trust and supports people through every stage of their financial lives.”
About Joe Hendrickson:
With deep industry experience, Joe Hendrickson will assume the role of Senior Vice President, Strategic Growth, Retirement.
As Sentinel’s relationships with advisors continue to grow in sophistication, the company recognized the need for dedicated leadership focused exclusively on elevating the advisor experience and driving advisor-led growth.
“We created this role to ensure we are intentional and coordinated in how we show up in the advisor community,” said Jerry Cicalese, CPC, AIFA®, CPFA, TGPC®, Partner, Head of Retirement. “Joe’s leadership will help us sharpen our value proposition, strengthen brand presence in the intermediary market, and translate advisor relationships into measurable growth.”
Hendrickson’s responsibilities will include:
- Accelerating advisor-led growth through disciplined distribution strategy
- Strengthening the feedback loop between distribution and product teams
- Enhancing Sentinel’s positioning as a consultative, outcomes-focused partner
- Scaling processes that support long-term, sustainable growth
“The retirement industry continues to evolve, and advisors need partners who can help them navigate growth, plan design and client outcomes in a more strategic way,” Hendrickson said. “I’m excited to join Sentinel and focus on strengthening our advisor experience, improving collaboration between teams and building the infrastructure that supports sustainable growth in the retirement channel.”
Prior to joining Sentinel, Joe served as Chief Innovation Officer at Gradient Financial Group, where he helped modernize and scale the organization’s growth infrastructure. In that capacity, he led enterprise-wide strategy and change management initiatives spanning product development and operational restructuring across multiple affiliated entities. He strengthened organizational culture and talent development by redesigning career pathways and expanding support for Certified Financial Planner® advancement.
Positioned for Intentional, Scalable Growth
Together, these appointments reinforce Sentinel’s broader strategy: aligning retirement, wealth and benefits capabilities into a cohesive platform while building disciplined, scalable growth engines across distribution and wealth management.
By investing in focused leadership, structured growth strategies and cross-functional alignment, Sentinel continues to strengthen its ability to serve advisors, plan sponsors, participants and individual wealth clients with a unified, coordinated experience.
“Sentinel has always grown by staying true to our values while evolving with intention,” said Sam Mitchell, President and CEO. “Bringing Sophie and Joe into these leadership roles reflects our commitment to disciplined, scalable growth across both wealth management and retirement distribution. They each bring the strategic mindset, operational rigor and cultural alignment that will help us strengthen our advisor partnerships, deepen client relationships, and deliver a more integrated financial experience.”
About Sentinel:
Sentinel Group is a financial services and employee benefits firm with offices in Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico and New York. Sentinel serves both individuals and institutions, providing a range of offerings including employee benefits and retirement plan administration, open architecture retirement plan recordkeeping, investment advisory services, defined benefit and cash balance plan services, actuarial consulting, employee stock ownership plans, and group benefits brokerage. For more information about Sentinel, please visit https://www.sentinelgroup.com
Media Contact:
Nicole Chynoweth
814.421.5315
[email protected]
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/aacb4399-9cc2-42d0-b1f0-675cc62d7d92
