The Vice President of Enterprise Strategy is responsible for leading strategic advancement and alignment across the organization to accelerate our ambitious vision of transforming how clients experience financial security. This role involves working with executive leadership to develop next-generation strategies that position the company to grow, drive value for policyowners, and connect strategy to execution.
Primary Duties & Responsibilities:
Multi-Year Strategy Development:
- Lead the evolution of the company's multi-year strategy, ensuring alignment with our long-term vision and ambitions.
- Collaborate with executive leadership to identify and prioritize strategic initiatives that will drive organizational growth and transformation.
Executive Leadership Partnership:
- Partner with the Executive Leadership Group (ELG) and Senior Leadership Team (SLT) to drive strategic alignment and decision-making.
- Facilitate strategic dialogue and collaboration among senior leaders to ensure cohesive execution of the company's strategy.
OKR Laddering Process:
- Manage the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) laddering process to ensure that initiatives are connected to top-level priorities in alignment with the company's operating model transformation.
- Establish clear metrics and performance indicators to measure progress and success across all levels of the organization to drive execution of the strategy.
Incentive plan alignment:
- Oversee the definition and prioritization of strategic priorities in the company's incentive plans, ensuring they align with strategic objectives, deliver tangible business outcomes, and align progress to incentives.
- Provide guidance and oversight to ensure that resources are allocated effectively to achieve these priorities.
Cross-Functional Implementation:
- Work cross-functionally with various departments and teams to implement and execute strategic initiatives.
- Ensure that all parts of the organization have aligned and working towards common strategic goals, fostering a culture of collaboration and accountability.
Team Leadership:
- Lead a high-performing team responsible for executing the company's strategic initiatives.
- Provide mentorship, guidance, and support to team members, fostering a culture of excellence, innovation, and continuous improvement.
Qualifications:
- Minimum 10 years of demonstrated professional leadership experience, including strategy, development and execution for business units or large initiatives.
- Financial services experience preferred.
- Proven experience in developing and executing multi-year strategic plans.
- Strong strategic agility, with the ability to connect initiatives to top-level priorities through effective OKR management.
- High degree of credibility and trust, with strong interpersonal skills to build rapport and influence decisions at all management levels, especially senior management.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to influence across boundaries and build strong partnerships across the enterprise.
- Ability to manage ambiguity and make decisions with limited information.Digital transformation experience preferred.
Compensation Range:
Pay Range - Start:
$196,000.00
Pay Range - End:
$294,000.00
This role is eligible for additional short-term and long-term incentive compensation.
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.
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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
Analytical Thinking (NM), Vision Setting, Customer, Market & Ecosystem Knowledge (NM), Industry Knowledge (NM), Leadership (NM), Collaborative Partnership & Planning (NM), Accountability (NM), Program Management (NM), Business Influence (NM), Talent Development & Planning (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
- Minimum 10 years of demonstrated professional leadership experience, including strategy development and execution for business units or large initiatives
- Experience developing and executing multi-year strategic plans
- Strong strategic agility and ability to connect initiatives to top-level priorities through OKR management
- High credibility and trust, with strong interpersonal skills to build rapport and influence decisions at all management levels
- Excellent communication skills and ability to influence across organizational boundaries
- Ability to manage ambiguity and make decisions with limited information
- Financial services experience
- Digital transformation experience
Northwestern Mutual Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Retirement Support — Retirement benefits are highlighted by both a 401(k) and a cash-balance pension plan, a notable combination compared with employers that offer only a 401(k). Feedback suggests this is a standout element of the corporate package.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage includes medical, dental, vision, mental-health support via Lyra, and fitness resources, with mentions of multiple plan options and reasonable costs for some. Feedback suggests these offerings are broadly viewed as solid even as individual experiences vary.
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Parental & Family Support — Family benefits span paid parental leave (noted as about 12 weeks), caregiver leave, and fertility, adoption, and surrogacy assistance. Feedback suggests these programs contribute meaningfully to the breadth of the benefits package.
Northwestern Mutual Insights
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.
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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.










