Willis Johnson & Associates is not endorsed by nor affiliated with Shell.
As a professional at Shell, you probably have several lingering questions about your Shell Pension and other benefit plans. By coordinating company benefits with your outside assets, we help you understand each offering to maximize your benefits and achieve your personal financial goals.
Whether retirement is off in the distant future or right around the corner, you want to ensure you save in the most tax-efficient manner for you and your family. Our team of advisors helps you get the most from both pre-tax and after-tax savings strategies in your Provident Fund.
How we help Shell Professionals with their Provident Fund:
Learn More About Maxing Out Your Provident Fund or get your questions answered in a complimentary meeting with one of our Shell experts >>
Shell offers the Provident Fund Benefit Restoration Plan (BRP) for many of its high-income professionals. Excess benefit plans like this one can have significant tax ramifications when they payout, so it's crucial to appropriately time your retirement to maximize the benefit's after-tax value. Sometimes, retiring only 15 days later can save you a massive amount of taxes on these plans.
See the impact waiting one month to retire can have on your Provident Fund BRP here.
Are you a letter grade employee with minimum holding requirements? We get it. We can help you understand the vesting and taxation of awards, guide your savings prioritization plan, and strategize on how to take advantage of your awarded benefits best while minimizing your taxes. Our team of experts can help you set up a diversification strategy while ensuring you maintain the required holding of company stock and other requirements to get the most of your benefit.
How we help Shell Professionals with their Incentive Plans:
If something unexpected occurs, do you have the right contingency plan in place to provide for and protect your loved ones? As a fiduciary advisor working in your best interest, we don't sell insurance products. Instead, we provide education and guidance to help you understand the various insurance options available to you. When helping you decide on a plan that works best for you and your family, our goal is to ensure that you only pay for what you need instead of all the extras you don’t.
Shell offers group life insurance plans, term insurance plans, a Long-Term Disability Program (LTD), a Disability Protection Plan, and an Income Protection Insurance Program (IPI).
Selecting the Right Shell Health Plan for You
With each of the plans listed below comes various opportunities and trade-offs. Our advisors walk you through each plan step-by-step and plan your contributions for healthcare costs and future retiree medical costs in the most tax-efficient manner. We also help you maximize your take-home pay by optimizing your healthcare and dependent care FSA accounts.
Shell offers Hospital Surgical Medical (HSM) plans, Be Well Kelsey Plans, and Regional Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) plans for healthcare.
Getting More From Your Finances Doesn’t Have to be Difficult.
Meet with one of our Shell experts to get started >>
Life is full of surprises, but it can be incredibly stressful when they concern your finances and career. Suppose you're presented with a layoff or voluntary severance package from Shell. In that case, we can help you understand the critical decisions about company benefits elections and if retirement is a viable option.
If you're unsure how an untimely layoff could affect your future or your future employment at Shell, our team knows Shell’s packages and benefits. We can help you evaluate your goals, understand the big picture of your finances, and prepare for the next steps forward so you can start your next venture with confidence.
Facing a severance from Shell? Make sure you’re prepared using our Shell Severance Checklist >>
Earning a promotion can be exciting and filled with new responsibilities, a new job title, and potentially a higher salary and benefits package. What many Shell executives fail to realize is that this also means more considerations and opportunities for mistakes. As you climb the corporate ladder, your financial plan needs to evolve alongside you. When you begin reaching certain income thresholds, there are more nuances regarding your 401(k) and other savings options, your taxes, and financial planning strategies you can leverage. If you aren’t adjusting your contributions or paying attention to specific tax forms, you could be leaving money on the table. We can help you pivot and adapt your financial strategy to ensure that you have a plan in place anywhere your career takes you.
If your career at Shell takes you abroad on an expatriate assignment, there are many financial factors to consider before making a move. As specialists in both U.S. company benefit plans and financial planning, we can help U.S. citizens and residents looking to optimize their savings and finances on the road to retirement wherever they are in the world.
Accumulating assets in multiple countries can make it difficult to know where to seek guidance from, so our table below may offer some guidance:
Your Situation Entails: |
Work With a U.S. Advisor Like WJA |
Work With A Foreign Advisor |
U.S. Citizenship or Resident Status |
Working with an advisor in the U.S. such as Willis Johnson & Associates can help you navigate the financial, tax, and legal guidelines you’re obligated to by your citizenship. |
If you’re not a U.S. citizen or resident, it may be more beneficial to work with an advisor in your home country or the one in which you're stationed. |
Assets Outside the U.S. Only |
Due to certain legal restrictions, U.S. advisors, such as Willis Johnson & Associates, are prohibited from managing certain foreign assets. If you’re planning to return to or retire in the U.S., Willis Johnson & Associates can help you convert your assets and leverage them accordingly. |
If most of your assets are outside the U.S., it may be best to work with an advisor in the country holding the assets to have the most flexibility in your options. |
Assets Across the Globe |
If you have assets in the U.S. and other countries, you'll likely need financial experts in each country. Willis Johnson & Associates can offer guidance on your domestic assets and help with converting or considering various foreign assets. |
|
Work for a U.S. Employer, but Working in a Foreign Country |
By working with an advisor in the U.S., such as Willis Johnson & Associates, you can avoid the pitfalls surrounding the financial, tax, and legal guidelines you're obliged to by your citizenship and your time abroad. If you're planning to return to the U.S., you'll want a domestic advisor to convert everything appropriately for your U.S. tax return upon your arrival back home. Additionally, as experts in the nuances surrounding domestic company benefit plans, Willis Johnson & Associates is well-suited to help you make benefit elections no matter where you’re at in the world. |
Suppose you're not a U.S. citizen or resident and are working in a non-U.S. country. In that case, it may be more beneficial to work with an advisor in the country you're stationed in to get the proper guidance and education you need for your finances and taxes. |
For Shell professionals who prefer to keep their assets in a foreign country, we recommend working with an advisor in that country who's well-versed in its tax, financial, and legal guidelines. Similarly, for Shell employees on the company's international benefit plans, we recommend reaching out to your HR department or an advisor with expertise in your benefit plans and guidelines to understand best how to utilize them.
Learn How to Avoid Common Financial Mistakes Expats Make Here >>
Many of our clients choose to continue working as consultants after leaving long careers at Shell. If you plan to do this, we can help you understand how to structure your finances and retirement to fit your new role. Our team of tax and financial professionals can help you navigate:
Learn more about setting up a consulting practice here >>
Being recruited is exciting, but how can you know if accepting a new position is the right move? It is often difficult to directly compare the value of two compensation packages and all the benefits on the table. With our expertise in corporate benefit plans, we can map out the difference in value between your current job and the one you're considering to help you decide between them or leverage for a better offer. Pensions, deferred compensation plans, and stock benefits are just a few of the benefit options you may be weighing. Whether you decide to take the job or not, we’ll help you optimize your elections — at Shell or your new company.
Getting More From Your Finances Doesn’t Have to be Difficult.
Meet with one of our Shell experts to get started >>
Retirement is as much a new personal and emotional chapter, as it is a financial one. We've helped hundreds of Shell professionals navigate retirement without leaving money on the table. We will walk you through the complex options and timelines to correctly handle all elections and give you the peace of mind knowing your benefits and taxes are optimized even after retirement.
We’ll also help you answer common questions like:
Shell’s Provident Fund
As you think about retirement, you might be asking the question: From where should I take the money I need for expenses first? Our team can assist with rebalancing investments within your Provident Fund to transition into retirement while considering your full financial picture. To ensure you have the proper allocation for your goals, we can also annually convert after-tax money to a Roth IRA for tax-free growth. The transition from accumulating assets to living off of them can be tricky, so working with an advisor can help you understand which assets you should be pulling from and in what order to minimize taxes for a smooth retirement.
Shell’s Provident Fund Benefit Restoration Plan (BRP)
Shell offers the Provident Fund Benefit Restoration Plan (BRP) for many of its high-income professionals. Excess benefit plans like this one can have significant tax ramifications when they payout, so it's crucial to appropriately time your retirement to maximize the benefit's after-tax value. Sometimes, retiring only a few days later can save you a massive amount of taxes on these plans.
See the impact waiting one month to retire can have on your Provident Fund BRP here >>
We know how to leverage your Shell benefits and payouts to spread out your tax burden over time. Our advisors help you select the appropriate distribution options to ensure you promptly get your money while reducing your tax liability by spreading out distributions.
One of the most significant decisions you make when retiring from Shell is when to receive your pension benefits.
Shell’s 80 Point Pension Plan
We use cash flow and modeling software to help you make the appropriate timing decisions about your Shell 80 Point Pension, including whether to begin payments immediately, delay to age 60, and take the 100% or 50% survivorship option.
Shell’s Alternative Pension Formula (APF) Plan
Similarly, we can help you make the appropriate decisions about your APF Pension Plan. Understanding the trade-offs between a lump sum or annuity is not the only consideration. When to begin distribution, how interest rates affect the annuity payment amounts, and understanding this income stream in coordination with your other assets are all important as well.
Upon retiring after a long career at Shell, many of our clients choose to continue working as consultants. If you plan to do this, we can help you understand the guidelines and implications of how to structure your new practice’s finances and retirement to fit your new role.
Learn more about setting up a consulting practice here >>
The date you decide to retire from your career at Shell can significantly impact your retirement income. Sometimes, waiting a few weeks or retiring just a month earlier can be a difference of tens of thousands of dollars. By understanding the timing of your benefits' payouts and tax implications, along with the segment rates, we can determine the most tax-efficient retirement date for you that optimizes your income into your retirement.
See how recent interest rates are impacting lump sum BRP payouts here >>
Picking Your Optimal Retirement Date to Get the Most From Your Benefits Doesn’t Have to be Difficult.
Meet with one of our Shell experts to get started >>
How Waiting 15 Days to Retire May Save You $50,000 in Taxes on Your BRP Payouts What You Need to Know When Contributing to Your Company’s 401(k) Plan
Nick Johnson CFA®, CFP® believes that financial planning is more than numbers on a balance sheet and a standardized process. People are unique and should be treated as such. As President and wealth manager at Willis Johnson & Associates, Nick’s goal is to develop a solid understanding of his clients while providing a proactive approach to comprehensive wealth management.
Nick is responsible for monitoring the financial health of his clients and providing timely updates regarding changes to their financial plans. To effectively monitor a client’s financial well-being, an advisor must have a firm grasp of the life passions and/or goals specific to that individual. It is Nick’s job to initiate productive conversations where he can combine his own financial planning wisdom with the unique emotional elements of a corporate professional’s life.
Overall, Nick measures financial planning success by his ability to help corporate professionals maximize their hard-earned money. However, Nick considers himself successful as an advisor when clients naturally turn to him for financial advice as they would like a trusted family member or close friend. In addition to serving as an advisor, Nick serves an integral role as a member of Willis Johnson & Associates Investment Committee.
The Investment Committee makes all of the decisions in regards to asset allocation, style/theme distribution, and security selection for their client portfolios. Nick’s strong analytical skills, dedication to the fundamentals of investing, and Chartered Financial Analyst designation bring unique insight to their investment decisions.
In school, Nick always had a passion for analytic research and analysis but found within himself the need to balance that with personal connections. These desires led him to pursue a dual major in finance and drama, along with a minor in economics from Trinity University. He thrived in the finance and economics classes, often finding himself leading study groups and teaching concepts that came easily to him.
While concurrently studying finance, Nick spent most of his free time in the theater department working on over 40 stage productions both in the department and the community at large. This in-depth study of the humanities let him deepen his understanding of the motivations and inter-workings of people, a skill he uses very much to this day.
After graduating from Trinity University, Nick began working as an investment analyst at Willis Johnson & Associates He started his studies for the CFA® exam during this time as well. After gaining experience on the investments side, researching funds, tracking investments, and trading large blocks of client accounts, he moved over to the financial planning arm of the company and later transitioned into a financial advisory role.
In addition to being a CFA®, Nick earned his designation as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ after completing the board’s preliminary financial planning experience requirements and certification exam in April 2018.
Nick is a Houston native and uses his passion for learning to inspire the personal and professional development of the city’s working professionals and executives. He believes in the power of education to impact both the individual and their community by enabling more informed decision making in terms of their careers, their money, and most importantly, their life goals.
Nick is a strong proponent of continued education, which is reflected via his heavy investment in his personal career, the careers of the WJA team, and the lifetime careers of the clients he serves.
During his free time, Nick lectures as an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Bauer College of Business, is involved in the CFA® Professional Mentorship Program, and is an active participant in the University of Houston Bauer College of Business’s SURE Program, which fosters a partnership between students and Houston’s business thought leaders and aspiring entrepreneurs from under-resourced communities.
When he’s not teaching or being taught, Nick enjoys spending time outdoors and embarking on weekend rock climbing excursions across the states.
Alexis Long is currently the Director of wealth Management at Willis Johnson & Associates, which allows her to meet people from diverse backgrounds with different goals and to assist them in reaching those goals as efficiently as possible.
For Alexis, financial planning combines her interest in producing detail-oriented financial plans with a desire to help people reach their goals, whether it be retiring early, paying for their grandchildren’s educations, buying a second home, or leaving a legacy for their children. Understanding what is truly important to a client is key to good financial planning, along with providing solid technical advice.
Previously, Alexis worked at another wealth management firm which was her first job in the financial planning and advising industry. She was able to learn the basics of financial planning from the ground up and quickly expanded her knowledge as a paraplanner.
After graduating with a BBA from Texas Tech University, Alexis held positions ranging from real estate to bankruptcy law while searching for her true career passion. It was not until her attendance in the MBA program at the University of Saint Thomas that she started learning more about the financial planning and advising industry. Alexis recognized financial planning and advising was the career that best suited her.
Lynsey Bergeron-Honey is an Associate Wealth Manager at Willis Johnson & Associates, bringing over a decade of experience to her current role.
With every client, Lynsey's goal is to understand their goals and motivations to create a detailed and highly customized plan for financial success. When developing these plans with the Wealth Managers, Lynsey uses clients' goals to form a connection between their current situations and what success could look like for them in the future.
Lynsey's passion for financial planning stems from the immense satisfaction she gets from feeling like she has made a difference in the lives of her clients. As a fiduciary, Lynsey prides herself on sitting on the same side of the table as her clients. Without the pressure of quotas or sales commissions, she enjoys being able to help clients find solutions that make the most sense for them. She believes every client and their journey is unique, so the need for a tailored plan customized to their particular goals and situation is paramount. Lynsey knows she's done her job well when clients are happy and confident in the outcome of their financial plans.
Lynsey graduated from Texas State University-San Marcos with a Bachelor's of Business Administration and a double major in Accounting and Finance. She earned her designation as a Certified Financial Planner™ in 2013 and her Certified Exit Planning Advisor designation in 2022. Lynsey has over ten years of industry experience in financial planning for clients spanning all walks of life, from those starting their first savings account to managing $200M+ in net worth.
When away from the office, Lynsey spends time relaxing with her husband, Mitch, and friends. They enjoy watching sunsets from their back patio, enjoying their firepit with friends in the winter, and trying adventurous foreign cuisines together.
Since 1996 we’ve been helping Shell executives and professionals with their comprehensive financial planning needs. Our thorough understanding of the transitions in your corporate life allows us to appreciate where you have been and assist with where you are headed.