About Fiduciary Governance Advisors
Fiduciary Governance Advisors is an independent consulting practice focused exclusively on fiduciary governance of default investments in defined contribution retirement plans.
The firm was established to address a growing gap between traditional investment advice and modern fiduciary expectations — particularly as litigation and regulatory scrutiny increasingly focus on process, understanding, and documentation, rather than outcomes alone.
Fiduciary Governance Advisors helps plan advisors, trustees, and committees clarify how default investments are designed, how risks are accepted on behalf of participants, and how those decisions are governed and documented over time.
The firm’s work is governance-focused and educational in nature. It is designed to complement — not replace — existing advisory and legal relationships.
Founder & Principal
Brian J. Leite, DrBA, CFA, CFP, CPFA, CEBS is the Founder and Principal of Fiduciary Governance Advisors.
Brian Leite has spent his career at the intersection of retirement plan design, investment governance, and fiduciary oversight. His work focuses on helping fiduciaries move beyond simplified labels and backward-looking metrics to develop a clearer understanding of how default investments function and how risk is being taken on behalf of plan participants.
His approach emphasizes fiduciary intent, governance structure, and documentation — particularly in areas such as glide-path design, embedded active management, fee tradeoffs, and monitoring frameworks — where fiduciary expectations are often misunderstood or insufficiently recorded.
Brian’s background spans asset management, academic research, fiduciary consulting, and practitioner education, bringing a disciplined, analytical perspective to default investment governance that is designed to withstand hindsight review and committee turnover.