All Teams

Northwestern Mutual Cybersecurity Team

At Northwestern Mutual, Oritse J. Uku guides a team dedicated to “security culture” — a term that he believes holds significant meaning. “Security culture really gets to the heart of what we’re trying to do,” he explained. “We’re not trying to do ‘check-the-box’ training.” According to Uku, Northwestern Mutual strives to ingrain security into every aspect of its operations, from its decision-making process to its relationships with vendors. When seen in this light, risk begins to feel like “the language of business,” woven out of a universal etymology that bridges together all of the different areas of the organization.

Employee Reviews

Oritse J. Uku

“If you ask me a question, I’ll be transparent: I’ll tell you what I know, I’ll tell you that I don’t know, or I’ll tell you I do know, but I can’t tell you. What I won’t do is lie to you or give you some answer that is disingenuous.”

Oritse J. Uku, Business Information Security Officer for Wealth and Investment Management and Vice President of Governance, Risk and Compliance


Oritse J. Uku believes that anyone who becomes a leader should view it as a “calling." That’s why he brings so much passion to his role at Northwestern Mutual, where he serves as business information security officer for wealth and investment management and vice president of governance, risk, and compliance enterprise-wide. He sees his role as a leader to be one in which he steps back and lets others take the wheel. “My job is to get smart, talented and ambitious people in the right seats, provide them with strategic goals and priorities and a way to measure success as they pursue those goals, provide them the support they need to achieve them, clear obstacles out of their way, and then get out of their way,” Uku said.

Our Products

Cybersecurity Micro-Learnings
Cybersecurity Micro-Learnings Image
"Nobody likes an annual 30-minute course for security training," Uku said. "I’m a security leader, and I don’t like doing them." That's why his team developed micro-learnings, which are courses that take between five to 10 minutes to complete and cover a specific cybersecurity focus area. "People fly through them because they are relatively short, but you can layer those on at whatever sort of frequency without burning out your viewer base, and that has been super effective," Uku said. "People engage with it a lot."

"I have personally had people tell me that they caught scams or phishing attempts in their personal email because of the micro-learning training they had at work, so the team is very intentional about the way they’re building that program. I haven’t seen anyone in the industry doing anything similar."

What People Are Saying About Northwestern Mutual

  • Mission & Purpose: Security work is consistently tied to protecting client trust in financial services, with privacy, cybersecurity, data governance, and law operating as integrated partners and culture framed beyond check‑the‑box compliance. Leaders explicitly position security as a business enabler and a core part of how decisions are made.
  • Learning & Development: Learning is reinforced through short, targeted micro‑learning modules, phishing simulations, and mandatory onboarding and role‑based training. Careers materials emphasize conferences, hackathons, lunch‑and‑learns, and support for certifications as part of the cyber team’s growth model.
  • Team Support: Colleagues are often seen as collaborative and supportive, with leaders describing a culture that works through issues together rather than assigning blame. Cross‑functional partnering (including AI governance and PIAs) is emphasized to embed security early and enable the business.
Fintech • Insurance • Financial Services
Manage research intake and workflows in Jira, enforce sharing and archival standards in SharePoint/Research Hub, leverage AI for tagging and discoverability, prevent redundant research, produce quarterly insight digests, standardize naming and folder structures, and support quantitative and qualitative analysis while managing budgets and vendors.
Fintech • Insurance • Financial Services
Lead deployment and support of z/OS Db2 infrastructure, perform performance tuning, upgrades, DR and recoverability, automate systems engineering tasks, manage Db2 logs and parameters, troubleshoot incidents, and enforce database standards across teams.
Fintech • Insurance • Financial Services
Lead records and information management, transparency/consent, and privacy incident response programs. Advise the CPO and stakeholders on privacy strategy, embed privacy controls into products and processes, manage a team, develop policies and roadmaps, partner with legal and IT, and monitor compliance with privacy laws while enabling responsible data use to drive business outcomes.