The Senior Director, Supervision Talent & Development is a leadership role within Northwestern Mutual's Enterprise Compliance Department responsible for leading the strategy for supervision onboarding, training, development, and quality across the Home Office and Field. This role evolves existing capabilities into an integrated talent ecosystem that accelerates proficiency, strengthens judgment, improves quality, and prepares supervision professionals for the future of the work, while leading teams and partnering with supervisors, managing partners, senior leaders, and subject matter experts to align development priorities with business needs, regulatory developments, emerging risks, and the changing nature of supervision.
What You'll Do:
- Develop and execute an integrated strategy for supervision onboarding, training, development, and quality across the Home Office and Field.
- Design development journeys that strengthen business knowledge, judgment, service orientation, leadership capability, confidence, and long-term career growth.
- Lead Home Office and Field training, development, and onboarding programs, establishing clear priorities, measures of success, and shared learning foundations where appropriate.
- Improve the speed and effectiveness with which new employees complete licensing, build proficiency, and become prepared to perform quality work independently.
- Oversee the Home Office quality review program and establish feedback loops among quality review, training, business trends, regulatory developments, audit findings, and development priorities.
- Build stronger alignment between Home Office and Field programs while addressing the distinct needs, responsibilities, and development priorities of each population.
- Serve as a visible, credible, and relatable thought leader for the supervision community, building trusted relationships with supervisors, managing partners, senior leaders, and other key stakeholders.
- Influence stakeholders to take action, strengthen supervision practices, and invest appropriately in supervision talent and capability.
- Lead and develop a multidisciplinary team responsible for training, onboarding, development, quality review, and program enablement.
- Set clear roles, priorities, performance expectations, and accountability for outcomes while building a collaborative, service-oriented culture focused on quality, sound judgment, and continuous learning.
- Lead the evolution of foundational programs into an integrated, scalable supervision talent and development model, using data, technology, and artificial intelligence to improve learning, accelerate feedback, increase capacity, and strengthen quality insights.
- Travel may be required based on business and leadership needs.
What You'll Bring to the Role:
- Bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience.
- Significant leadership experience in financial services, supervision, compliance, risk management, field leadership, advisor support, talent development, or a related discipline.
- Demonstrated success leading teams and building, scaling, or materially improving organizational capabilities.
- Experience shaping training systems, onboarding programs, talent development strategies, learning journeys, or related professional development experiences.
- Strong understanding of the financial services industry, including financial planning concepts, products, advisor practices, and supervisory responsibilities.
- Proven ability to build credibility, influence without direct authority, and drive action across organizational boundaries.
- Demonstrated ability to coach and develop leaders, teams, and stakeholders.
- Outstanding communication, presentation, and relationship-building skills, including the ability to translate strategy into engaging and actionable direction.
- Strong strategic thinking, business acumen, judgment, and execution capabilities.
- Ability to lead through ambiguity and evolve established capabilities into a more integrated and scalable operating model.
- Experience in supervision, supervisory leadership, compliance, risk, or a related financial services capacity preferred.
- Experience supporting geographically dispersed populations preferred.
- Experience leading learning, talent development, organizational effectiveness, quality programs, onboarding journeys, professional development frameworks, or coaching practices preferred.
- Certified Financial Planner, Chartered Financial Consultant, Chartered Life Underwriter, or a comparable industry designation preferred.
- Current or prior FINRA Series 7, Series 24, and Series 9/10 registrations, comparable supervisory registrations, or willingness and ability to obtain applicable registrations based on the requirements of the role preferred.
#LI-Hybrid
This position has been classified as a Registered Representative under NMIS guidelines and requires fingerprinting.Series 6 - FINRA, Series 7 - FINRA
Compensation Range:
Pay Range - Start:
$144,000.00
Pay Range - End:
$216,000.00
Geographic Specific Pay Structure:
Structure 110:
$158,400.00 USD - $237,600.00 USD
Structure 115:
$165,600.00 USD - $248,400.00 USD
We believe in fairness and transparency. It's why we share the salary range for most of our roles. However, final salaries are based on a number of factors, including the skills and experience of the candidate; the current market; location of the candidate; and other factors uncovered in the hiring process. The standard pay structure is listed but if you're living in California, New York City or other eligible location, geographic specific pay structures, compensation and benefits could be applicable, click here to learn more.
Grow your career with a best-in-class company that puts our clients' interests at the center of all we do. Get started now!
Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives.
Skills
Strategic Vision & Planning (NM), Key Risk Indicators & Metrics (NM), Cross Functional Partnering & Planning (NM), Policy & Procedure (NM), Project Management (NM), Risk Assessment & Identification (NM), Continuous Improvement (NM), Decision Making (NM), Accountability (NM), Talent Development & Planning (NM), Attention to Detail (NM), Strategic Thinking (NM), Business Influence (NM), Industry Knowledge (NM)
FIND YOUR FUTURE
We're excited about the potential people bring to Northwestern Mutual. You can grow your career here while enjoying first-class perks, benefits, and our commitment to a culture of belonging.
- Flexible work schedules
- Concierge service
- Comprehensive benefits
- Employee resource groups
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience
- Significant leadership experience in financial services, supervision, compliance, risk management, field leadership, advisor support, talent development, or a related discipline
- Demonstrated success leading teams and building, scaling, or materially improving organizational capabilities
- Experience shaping training systems, onboarding programs, talent development strategies, learning journeys, or related professional development experiences
- Strong understanding of financial services, including financial planning concepts, products, advisor practices, and supervisory responsibilities
- Ability to build credibility, influence without direct authority, and drive action across organizational boundaries
- Ability to coach and develop leaders, teams, and stakeholders
- Outstanding communication, presentation, and relationship-building skills
- Strong strategic thinking, business acumen, judgment, and execution capabilities
- Ability to lead through ambiguity and evolve established capabilities into an integrated and scalable operating model
- Experience in supervision, supervisory leadership, compliance, risk, or a related financial services capacity
- Experience supporting geographically dispersed populations
- Experience leading learning, talent development, organizational effectiveness, quality programs, onboarding journeys, professional development frameworks, or coaching practices
- Certified Financial Planner, Chartered Financial Consultant, Chartered Life Underwriter, or comparable industry designation
- Current or prior FINRA Series 7, Series 24, and Series 9/10 registrations, comparable supervisory registrations, or willingness and ability to obtain applicable registrations
What We Do
You’ll Like It Here At Northwestern Mutual, we believe that our lives and our work matter. And that doing what’s right is good for everyone. We follow through by designing tech that improves the community and cultivating creative ways to make finance accessible anywhere. These guiding principles have allowed our company to grow for more than 160 years. Here, you’ll be with a team who emphasizes integrity and prioritizes security to design experiences that better everyone. You’ll work in cross functional teams to create optimal solutions that are rooted in innovative strategy and thoughtful execution. And you’re provided development tools and opportunities to become a leader all with the support of a collaborative team. You’ll be surrounded in a culture that values innovation and works to always evolve to stay ahead of trends and client needs. We are intentional in seeking out team members who will challenge us. Our employees choose us for the career opportunities, commitment to philanthropy and desire to have a meaningful impact in the lives of our clients. You have career passions and goals. We have ambition and opportunity for you to grow your future in tech. Discover today: https://careers.northwesternmutual.com/
Why Work With Us
We invest in our people. We know careers are about choices, so we provide intentional opportunity. Here you can build creative ways to make finance accessible anywhere and revolutionize traditional processes. As a mutual company, our focus is our people — whether professional development or investments in the community.
Gallery
Northwestern Mutual Teams
Northwestern Mutual Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
We offer a flexible, hybrid approach for our employees . Teams are in the office a few days a week and work from home the others.










