Lisa Gomez

President Joseph Biden nominated Lisa M. Gomez to serve as Assistant Secretary for Employee Benefits Security for the U.S. Department of Labor in July 2021 and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in September 2022. She was sworn in on October 11, 2022, and served in that position until January 20, 2025. She is now the founding member of LMG Collaborative Consulting Solutions, a consulting firm providing services in all areas related to employee benefit plans. Previously, Gomez was a partner with the law firm Cohen, Weiss and Simon LLP and the chair of the firm’s management committee. 

Lisa has deep technical and practical experience in the multifaceted field of employee benefits law and has spent almost three decades representing various Taft-Hartley and multiemployer pension and welfare plans, single employer plans, jointly administered training program trust funds, a federal employees health benefit (FEHB) plan, supplemental health plans and VEBAs covering employees in a wide array of industries. As the head of the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), Lisa was responsible for leading an agency with approximately 850 full-time employees nationwide and a budget of approximately $191 million, and was charged with the safeguarding of the job-based retirement, health and other welfare benefits for more than 153 million American workers and retirees and their families.  Through Lisa’s leadership, EBSA oversaw approximately 2.6 million job-based health plans, 801,000 retirement plans, and 548,000 other welfare plans, with combined assets of nearly $12 trillion, in addition to the oversight of the federal Thrift Savings Program, the largest defined contribution program with approximately seven million participants.  In this position, Lisa worked closely with the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council. Gender Policy Council, and top advisors to the President and Vice-President, as well as leadership with other federal and state agencies, members of Congress and external stakeholders. Lisa was recognized for her work with the agency during her tenure, including in areas such as retirement security, implementation of SECURE and SECURE 2.0, the No Surprises Act, the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, the Employee Ownership Initiative and other projects and priorities. Lisa was a frequent speaker during her time at EBSA, appeared in several webcasts, podcasts, and other media interviews, and was often sought by the press as a leader in retirement and health.

Prior to her time in public service, Lisa served as a co-chair of the board of senior editors of the Bloomberg BNA treatise Employee Benefits Law. She also served in various leadership positions with the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Labor and Employment Law, including as the union co-chair of its employee benefits committee. She is a graduate of the ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law’s leadership development program and served as the union co-chair for that program. She was a member of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and the AFL-CIO Union Lawyers Alliance. Lisa was inducted as a Fellow of The American College of Employee Benefits Counsel, Inc. in recognition of her decades of practice in employee benefits law and her contributions to the field. Lisa was also a member of the advisory board of The Peggy Browning Fund. She previously served as an arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association as well as a volunteer mediator for the New Jersey state courts. She was a guest lecturer for the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations and Hofstra University School of Law on employee benefits. Lisa was named as a Super Lawyer for Employee Benefits on the Super Lawyers New York Metro Annual Lists for 2021 and 2022. She earned her law degree from the Fordham University School of Law and her undergraduate degree from Hofstra University.