don robertson northwestern mutual

Best Talent: We are in a talent war. 6U.r6F(>9lf1Q())#eyj_]5wjwikOQ16~FT39SlQPPG1F~F ix`1OgM I+;|m7F3'GWWuVG oDFky>F b9"xl|O The next thing you know, theyre jumping at something when you probably could have had great opportunities for them had you been intentional about it. I remember I was a young officer. Samuel Pudenz. You know those are the types of things that Ive done in my career, putting in a system like Workday that allows you to even know who your talent is. Im going to put you on this project so you can build some of that. Mike Carter is the Chief of Staff to the CEO. What are the strategies? Schlifske joined Northwestern Mutual as an investment specialist and later led a variety of the company's investment operations as well as different parts of its business operations. I recruited them both. Don was a huge contributor to that. For me, I remember the quote in the book and I believe it was you that was, A-players want to work for A-players. Phone . /Border [0 0 0] Driving and sustaining high employee engagement is essential to recruiting and retaining top talent but achieving that outcome is easier said than done. See Profile. If you learn early in your career how to influence those kinds of people or at least how to understand them better so you can speak a common language, its a very powerful thing. Jeff Sippel is executive vice president and Chief Information Officer of Northwestern Mutual. What would you recommend to the small to medium business that wants to be a Northwestern Mutual and the A-player on the block and leading the industry? What are some of the things you wish you would have knocked out of your head much earlier on that you would share with people who look at you, look at me and look at a lot of the people on your team and my team and say, I want to rise to that level at some point. When we talk about leaders, one of the things that Ive shared with companies or is an example that you give and many others have given, which is investing in your time and growing current leaders. You mentioned diversity. /MediaBox [0 0 612 792] First of all, you need to institutionalize the way you do your talent so that diversity is at the forefront of anything you do. 1 of the 2 of them was incessant. Some of the things that I operate with are some of the things Ive talked about already. Best Talent: The more that weve had experiences in life that allow us to master certain types of skills, the faster youre going to be able to assimilate to whatever new environment youre in. It isnt just a case where the company gets what it needs from the employee. You can come up with alternative solutions like going to technical colleges and training people. How can you assure that you have the best talent for your company? See Profile. I dont know why Caroline is in my head to this day on that one particular term. Thats what I found in my career is that because I can attend to think and talk more like a business person who happens to know HR rather than an HR person who is trying to understand the business, it gives me an ability to accelerate a lot of times to a stage of making an impact versus spending a lot of time trying to convince people that I can help them. I like to say that Al Gore did not discover the internet but SRI did. He wrote 18 published novels. ,,0 XA`@Z>\8)Uj3OtsFz2'4B bK;X&,= iK"0jDaJPbpMZ6kQ; # Subsidiaries includeNorthwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC(NMIS) (securities), broker-dealer, registered investment adviser, member FINRA and SIPC; the Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company (NMWMC) (fiduciary and fee-based financial planning services), federal savings bank; and Northwestern Long Term Care Insurance Company (NLTC) (long-term care insurance). Ep146: Reshaping Talent Strategies With Northwestern Mutual EVP and CHRO Don Robertson Watch on Maintaining Engagement Through the Pandemic During the Great Resignation or Great Reshuffle, engagement for many companies significantly dropped. Don Robertson. I got my CPA with Deloitte way back. Lets turn it into that. I had a major pull me aside and he said, Be good, be brief, be gone. That was it. Northwestern Mutual Recognized by Forbes as one of America's Best Large Employers Youre assembling A-players, and no doubt I walked into a bunch of A-players with the reputation of Northwestern Mutual. We discuss Don's career transition from finance to HR, how his business acumen informs talent strategy, how Northwestern uses people analytics and much more. Its oftentimes not what you want them to fill it in with. When expanded it provides a list of search options that will switch the search inputs to match the current selection. Our company's record-setting Don Robertson on LinkedIn: Grateful for the opportunity to discuss Northwestern Mutual's historic Don Robertson is an Executive Vice President and the Chief Human Resources Officer of Northwestern Mutual a $30 billion in revenue, Fortune 90 financial services company; the largest U.S. provider of individual life insurance; and manager of more than $290.3 billion in policyholder assets. Best Talent: Youre not going to get to where you want to get to in your career because youre going to get trained. 4) During this Great Reshuffling era marked by workforce shortages across industries, its never been more important for leaders to deliver on their companys employee value proposition. You have some people reading and I know they do want to read. >> Christian W. Mitchell is responsible for leading Northwestern Mutual's client experience. x][~s]^}lCHAC~)qH}CpIs9;;;||G]y,ySg7v'_h?,M7u&U)iPO4_jm~nA Prior to his role at Northwestern Mutual, Don developed workforces across the world at Hewlett-Packard Corporation, GE Capital, Stanford Research Institute, Apttus, and Sutherland Global Services, among others. Were you like me at that moment where theyre talking to you about HR and youre thinking, Did I do something wrong? Its either you have it or you dont. << She came from the business and then went into HR. . endobj Youre not going to get to where you want to get to in your career because youre going to get trained. >> /Type /ExtGState Fortunately, Ive had opportunities to resurrect. The key is then to figure out, How do you use the experiences that they will experience working for you and the things that they do every day to deliver for you but also deliver for them?, For example, if Im talking to somebody on my team and I know they want to eventually have my job and weve sat down and looked at the experiences that theyre going to need and the gaps that they have then every time we have a conversation, I can direct it to, This is something that you need to work on if youre going to do that someday. atOkQmxyd :Itmx?`>Eq}0-#\~ px|_?=-rhKhOPb4|,y/_wKugLRMb+uReO+K26d*q[+E/\Rqz+_quZ``N[I|)`~^ ~ij|'g/{/XQ5AIp6WV2k9i)RYIeh.X6$|~O ~0A^y;ssn 6C z16kLp1gL0:kb^o8 xHiPp>uot Its great to be here. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, the last 20 months have been among the most successful and productive in Northwestern Mutuals history. They have their top talent and they dont want to let them go because they cant think of, How am I going to succeed without that top talent? What you have to become is more of a thought about, Your job is not to just deliver on what youre doing now, but to develop people for the future and elevating in the organization.. Change led us to where we are today and a continued commitment to innovation and adaptability will ensure an even stronger future. The one thing I would tell myself at 22 is, Dont try to do it all by yourself. Weve all had failures. One of the biggest challenges that businesses that Ive been associated with always have been challenged with is businesses have very ambitious agendas and strategies. Previously, David was an . The failure could be as simple as, I did this decision. I tell people Im getting better every year. The Northwestern Mutual management team includes Eric Christophersen (Vice President CampusandEvent Experiences), Ann Yeung (CTO WealthandInvestments ManagementandVP Field Experience Engineering), and Lee Hurley (CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER) . Don Robertson is now chief human resources officer. She took me and made me the Head of HR for HR when I had no business. /Rect [34.5000000 120 553.500000 142.500000 ] It cannot be a separate thing. I did the offers on both. I appreciate it. When you now are that business person who knows HR and youre working with the business, especially coming from sales, talent is everything. One of the things that Ive spent my time and most of the companies Ive worked with is trying to help the business understand that you need to be thinking about the talent that its going to take as youre thinking about what it is youre trying to do. One of the most powerful things I look for is someone who can demonstrate what I call contextual intelligence. 9 0 obj I should have gathered more data, or whatever it was but I liked that. I moved into this and did some sales with HP. We changed the way we communicate with our employee population. << Don Robertson is the Chief HR Officer for Northwestern Mutual. Lets figure out how to do this better together.. Don and George talk about how Don got into the HR space and what he's learned as an HR practitioner. I had the good fortune to work with you and for you twice. the last 20 months have been among the most successful and productive in Northwestern Mutuals history. In addition, she leads teams that oversee more than $570 billion in company and client assets. . Were very data-driven. . Were pretty close to the same age, although I stopped counting at 50. Don and George talk about how Don got into the HR space and what hes learned as an HR practitioner. There are a lot of companies that dont do that, that talent is an afterthought. >> Through a distinctive, whole-picture planning approach, we empower our clients to make the most of every single day and plan for important moments in their future. When you get to work for great leaders, its a real gift in your career, and I certainly got to do that. We changed everything except for our core. It was when Nancy was the Head of Enterprise Services at that time and I was preparing a deck. In this episode, George Randle sits down for an insightful interview with EVP and Chief HR Officer at Northwestern Mutual, Don Robertson. "He understands the importance of the employee experience to our company strategy as we work to transform the financial planning experience for our clients.". 3 0 obj This is a people business, and I can't think of a | 15 comments on LinkedIn Don Robertson on LinkedIn: Northwestern Mutual Recognized by Forbes as one of America's Best Large | 15 comments Don Robertson EVP and Chief HR Officer at Northwestern Mutual 3w Extremely gratifying . Christian's accountabilities include shaping and guiding the company's planning philosophy and experience, the digital products that support our customers and field force, and the customer analytics that inform our strategies for improving their experience. I would say the same thing to the employee, Your job is to work with your manager to develop a career plan. Check out the latest Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More of Don Robertson. I was too aggressive on that decision when I didnt need to make it for about another two weeks. Neal Sample is now chief information officer. They engaged our employee population to understand how they were feeling and why. What I try to do is get to the 3rd, 4th or 5th day when the person lets their hair down, What are they about? I typically try to ask about experiences that will cause that to go down because Im ultimately trying to look for 3 or 4 things, as I told you guys when I met with you. >> Phone . Its not just acquiring the right talent. I try to get to know the person at an authentic level. endobj Don G Robinson Financial Representative . Im so proud to be part of such a phenomenal company. Todd M. Jones is Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Theres nothing on paper that would have said that I should have been the Head of HR for HR. Not all Northwestern Mutual representatives are advisors. Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance is a financial services company that provides its clients various insurance options and investment opportunities. Theyve been great. When I look at the percentage of people that are top talent and at certain levels, everything we do is directionally to try to make sure that our workforce is consistent with the diversity goals that we have. The faster you get to know them, the faster you can help them accelerate their career and give them exposure. In the previous episode to this, I had Lisa Schreiber on who is the Chief Customer Success Officer at BlackLine and Myrna Soto. I was like, I could do that. I got to slide two and I got pummeled. /Type /Catalog A key strategic advisor to the CEO, Mike is chair of the company's Senior Leadership Team and has oversight of the enterprise Quarterly Business Review (QBR) and Sustained Funding process. Nobody achieves things in life without the help of a number of folks. Northwestern Mutual Appoints Don Robertson to Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Meghan Greco, 1-800-323-7033, mediarelations@northwesternmutual.com. You have to be a student of the business. You need to institutionalize the way you do your talent so that diversity is at the forefront of anything you do. Congratulations on this impressive achievement, Don. Executive VP & Chief Human Resources Officer . Many of us have kids that think they know. It came back with changes, Make those changes. I dont know about pearls of wisdom. 12 0 obj How do you dig into finding that resilience and discussing failure with people you consider to work there? /Rect [171.750000 684 226.500000 694.500000 ] People dont typically leave an organization in the upper unless they get some big offer that blows them away. We combine the expertise of our financial professionals with a personalized digital experience to help our clients navigate their financial lives every day. One of the big things about the book is you dont realize how valuable that HR can be and how critical it is. If you have never carried a bag as a sales leader and had a quota and held those kinds of things, youre not going to talk to those salespeople the way that I could because I understood the language, challenges and what they were going through. >> >> Its interesting that you say that youre a business person doing HR because I dont remember whether it was Tracy Keogh or Meg Whitman. /Type /Annot Ill ask, Have you thought about this? She will be like, No. When you go present to these guys at this level, theyre going to ask that so you need to think about that.. The employee has to get what they need from the company and their own development as well. I have tried to model that from all of the leaders like you and the generals, Tracy, Caroline, Tom and a whole bunch of people that Ive worked with over the years. Thats when our teams got to work. I feel like this is debt that I have to pay to people. 14 0 obj I used to teach something. What would you say to companies that dont put talent first? Youre right. endobj Email . I started in finance accounting. I had no business being at the level I was at because I came over to a pretty high level but she knew I had the raw attributes. I owe her a tremendous amount. /Font << /Title ( N o r t h w e s t e r n M u t u a l A p p o i n t s D o n R o b e r t s o n t o S e n i o r V i c e P r e s i d e n t a n d C h i e f H u m a n R e s o u r c e s O f f i c e r - A u g 2 1 , 2 0 1 8) Outside of the talent acquisition space and creating talent pools, what do you say to the up-and-coming managers or the newly-minted managers or supervisors, people that are now in charge of developing others? Don J. Robertson is responsible for the company's employee experience and he leads the Human Resources organization, as well as teams that manage the company's campuses, events and employee digital experience. Youve read it here, guys, definitive proof. The best piece of advice I ever got was when you go to present to a CEO or a board, put the most important stuff on the first slide because you may not get off of that slide. Sources: Financial Advisor and InvestmentNews, April 2021, Financial Planning, August 2021. In this episode of Redefining HR, I spoke with Northwestern Mutual Executive Vice President and Chief HR Officer Don Robertson. /ca 1.0 I advised him to do the same. I completely over-rotated on that conversation. endobj Do you think I show five slides to Tracy, Meg or whomever? I was like, No, Caroline. >> Managing Director and Director of Asset Management Robert W. Baird & Co. Arbitrator, Mediator & Advisor Weber Advising, LLC, Global Co-Managing Partner and Chief Strategy Officer K2 Integrity. You know the route you take but if I took you and dropped you in the middle of the Amazon with a car on the other side of the road and told you to go to X, you still know how to drive a car and read a map but youre not going to be as good at it. /Pattern << Im going to give her that feedback. When she is making this presentation to me, I know its a good presentation for her level but if she wants to be at my level, she is going to get questions asked this way or that way. Before Apttus Don was the CHRO for Sutherland Global Services. << That still resonates with me. I knew that if we were very intentional about what we were trying to do then we would mechanize all the pieces in place underneath it to make it happen. /Creator ( w k h t m l t o p d f 0 . /A << I misread the situation. Im not talking about, I missed the deadline by a couple of days. Im talking about, especially in our function, you completely blew a tough conversation or you got yourself in trouble with somebody and ended up suing the company and you didnt handle it well. When typing in this field, a list of search results will appear and be automatically updated as you type. Best Talent: Diversity and inclusion cannot be a hobby. Get Contact Info for All Departments Northwestern Mutual Org Chart by Seniority Marketing (509) Lee Hurley endobj /Border [0 0 0] We combine the expertise of our financial professionals with a personalized digital experience to help our clients navigate their financial lives every day. The first half of my career was not in HR. If you could become good at understanding different perspectives, peoples points of view and approaches, its going to make you more effective later on in life. Ive had the great fortune of having some amazing guests. Cameron Robertson has been working as a A and Executive Director. During Women's History Month at Northwestern Mutual, we're celebrating women and the power of bold: of moving from realization to action. The more window you have that you allow yourself to have to what youre going to need from talent, the faster you can start to deliver on your business strategies. One of the things when I came here, I was good at what I did but when I got here, I realized that there are still probably some smart people here. Im looking for somebody that has got good energy that they can overcome the obstacles that are going to come at them. What weve accomplished here is remarkable. Northwestern Mutual is part of the Insurance industry, and located in Wisconsin, United States. How would you make it work? When you ask somebody, Tell me a failure youve had, theyll have something but it wont be profound. I know your schedule is busy. -md/uHFHbk/,=:Eat$5T8&6fR7-WtB?J4;~D|=]=^q;Sb?As%(QX&pZLUFU5J"|0Y5QZiCoN$- There are a lot of different levers you can pull. Reggieyiane Robertson. 5 0 obj Did you have to start to change mindsets about how they looked at great people? When you use that as an example of what youve done and thats where you failed on something and its real, profound and authentic, I found that it tends to draw people out. Ive been asked it in so many different ways. /PCSp 4 0 R Every single person that works for me, every time I interact with them, Im always thinking in the back of my head, She wants that job. I have two last questions. Don Robertson. I interviewed you. Its incredible to me how often companies dont think about that and how often they dont spend time with their people managers, helping their people managers understand what theyre expected to do, what they need to do and spend time talking to them. For whatever reason, all of my seniors that were supposed to present to the generals were absent that day when I had to brief a three-star general. It can aid individuals and businesses to. We set benchmarks and goals for engagement, organizational health, transformation, diversity, and inclusion, and more and we adjusted our bonus structures to reflect these new targets. 1 0 obj [ 8 0 R 9 0 R 10 0 R ] They are some high-paced and solid leaders. Youve done all the things to get ready to make a first impression. You got to go back and tell Don, 22 years old, after so many years of great wins and failures that you learned from, all of those things. Ive been doing this for many years and last time I checked, I still havent cornered the market on all the great ideas. /CSp /DeviceRGB I remember you were telling me about the people that I was going to interview. The biggest lesson I would tell you is to get to know the people that think differently than you and that disagree with you often. /F7 7 0 R Its going to be much more applicable to whats going to be difficult at work. Bina was at PepsiCo and was Head of HR at Ericsson and is now doing a large private company. They wanted somebody with that kind of experience. Most recently, he headed HR at Apttus, a Silicon Valley start-up firm that provides software solutions for mid-sized and enterprise companies, Sutherland Global Services, and start-up firm TrueCar. MILWAUKEE, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --Northwestern Mutual today announced the appointment of Don Robertson to senior vice president and chief human resources officer. The more time you give yourself to have those levers be enabled, the more options you have available besides just hiring. When I first went in, it was more of theyre loaning me into the function for a period of time to help grow and develop the sales organization. I make it okay to talk about a real failure because we all get these questions, Tell me something that didnt work. There were pockets of high engagement here and there, but many employees did not feel they had the same opportunities for growth and career success as others. Through a distinctive, whole-picture planning approach, we empower our clients to make the most of every single day and plan for important moments in their future. Without her support, I dont think I would have been there. >> Awards Conference & Dinner in NYC - one of the year's premier 1 2 . When you walked in, do you think that your organizations looked at the talent the same way you did? To be able to support as an HR leader for a function that you come from gives you an innate ability to understand the function in a way that, frankly, if you had never been in it, you wouldnt understand. They think thats an ego-based statement but Im like, If you saw where I came from, you would know how true of a statement that is. I dont know if I got married out of love or sympathy but it worked out in my favor.

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