We combine the expertise of our financial professionals with a personalized digital experience to help our clients navigate their financial lives every day. I completely over-rotated on that conversation. 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 I started in finance accounting. 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. I look forward to talking to you again soon. Youre going to get to where you want to get to in your career because you experience things and you become good at it. Employees, your job is to work with your manager to develop a career plan. Weve married up, which was not expected of us. Grateful for the opportunity to discuss Northwestern Mutual's historic year at the Chicago CHRO Executive Summit last week. We have worked together across varying market cycles, and our experience across industries and asset classes helps us be responsive to our partners. MILWAUKEE, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Northwestern Mutual today announced the appointment of Don Robertson to senior vice president and chief human resources officer. 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. "He understands the importance of the employee experience to our company strategy as we work to transform the financial planning experience for our clients.". A member of the company's Senior Leadership Team, he leads the Finance and Risk function responsible for the company's financial management and planning, budgeting, actuarial, investment risk and operations, enterprise risk management and resiliency. 1 of the 2 of them was incessant. Northwestern Mutual ranks 104 on the 2018 FORTUNE 500 and is recognized by FORTUNE as one of the "World's Most Admired" life insurance companies in 2018. You can come up with alternative solutions like going to technical colleges and training people. I remember that one of the things that imprinted on me early in my career was they used to evaluate senior leaders not just by the business performance but also by how many people are now in leadership positions across the organization that used to work for that person. How hard could they be? I remember we were interviewing you for the book and you had some tough questions. MILWAUKEE, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Northwestern Mutual today announced the appointment of Don Robertson to senior vice president and chief h. We'd love to learn more about you, your team, and your challenges.Talent War Group is ready to help. 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. The one thing I would tell myself at 22 is, Dont try to do it all by yourself. When youre looking for talent, tell us what youre digging into if you have to interview a person. Because so many people invested in me, Ive got to pay it to others twice as much. /Parent 2 0 R Somebody asked me, We talk in general terms about developing talent but do you have any specific tips as to how they would develop that talent? One of the things is we put such an emphasis that you have to develop your talent but many times, they dont see it from great leaders. Thats the one advantage of not being with a crazy tech company. Aditi Javeri Gokhale holds executive accountabilities for the company's strategy to drive growth, competitiveness, and relevance. Best Talent: We are in a talent war. Im on email eighteen hours a day, and he still outpaces me. 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. Phone . You have some people reading and I know they do want to read. With $265.0 billionin assets, $28.1 billionin revenues, and $1.8 trillionworth of life insurance protection in force, Northwestern Mutual delivers financial security to 4.5 million people who rely on us for life, disabilityincomeand long-term care insurance, annuities, brokerage and advisory services, trust services, and discretionary portfolio management solutions. There are some underlying things Im looking for. 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. Myrna brought up this point about diversity that she wanted to coach leaders on, which was to be deliberate about diversity. Its oftentimes not what you want them to fill it in with. Don Robertson EVP and Chief HR Officer at Northwestern Mutual 1w Tell me a difficult person. 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. Businesses live and die on the quality of their talent. Best Talent: Diversity and inclusion cannot be a hobby. Phone . I survived to fight another day, as they say. We have a great company driving unprecedented results with exceptional talent who are deeply engaged in our mission. /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) Without her support, I dont think I would have been there. Youre not going to get to where you want to get to in your career because youre going to get trained. They wanted someone to help the HR function help the sales organization from a development standpoint. Many of us have kids that think they know. In the previous episode to this, I had Lisa Schreiber on who is the Chief Customer Success Officer at BlackLine and Myrna Soto. Those are a few of the nuggets in terms of what I might do differently. They dont need an adjective and a title. Oftentimes, managers, frankly, theyve got their team. Its a skill Ive developed now but it wasnt one I had in most of my career and it would have benefited me tremendously. Copyright 2019 The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee, WI. The biggest thing when I think about diversity is it cant be a bolt-on. How do I get there faster, better and easier? What would you tell yourself? We had pages and pages. The products and services referenced are offered and sold only by appropriately appointed and licensed entities and financial advisors and representatives. Legal Assistant . 6U.r6F(>9lf1Q())#eyj_]5wjwikOQ16~FT39SlQPPG1F~F ix`1OgM I+;|m7F3'GWWuVG oDFky>F b9"xl|O I can teach you a lot of things but I cant teach you intelligence. 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. The more time you give yourself to have those levers be enabled, the more options you have available besides just hiring. I dont know at what point. Ultimately, what we have to do as businesses is to get away from requisitions and more instead of creating talent pools. How do you start getting there? Theres nothing worse than candidates and worst when Ive interviewed executives that tap dance or theyre dancing around it. I owe her a tremendous amount. >> Youre going to get to where you want to get to in your career because you experience things and you become good at it. If your mission and vision are motivators, and your company has the capacity to meaningfully change the world for the better you have a foundation to recruit, retain, develop, and inspire your talent. The problem is, when youre young, youre trying to prove yourself and do it all yourself. Only those representatives with "Advisor" in their title or who otherwise disclose their status as an advisor of NMWMC are credentialed as NMWMC representatives to provide investment advisory services. /Type /Action How would you make it work? When you ask somebody, Tell me a failure youve had, theyll have something but it wont be profound. Thats when our teams got to work. I like to think of it as our talent management approach has to have the DNI lens pulled through it. /F6 6 0 R . The one thing I will tell you is nobody achieves things in life, and certainly I havent without the help of a number of folks. Investment advisory and trust services are offered through Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company (NMWMC), Milwaukee, WI, a subsidiary of NM and a federal savings bank. "He understands the importance of the employee experience to our company strategy as we work to transform the financial planning experience for our clients.". ,,0 XA`@Z>\8)Uj3OtsFz2'4B bK;X&,= iK"0jDaJPbpMZ6kQ; # %PDF-1.4 I could give you the standard things with leadership, Be honest and humble, but I thought I would try to give you things that were a little bit unique, maybe to some of the experiences. We're still Liked by John Roberts Northwestern. I was like, I dont have to worry. I try to tell it in a holistic way, Its not just to benefit you now. >> /Filter /FlateDecode Don Robertson is the Chief HR Officer for Northwestern Mutual. Go back to Caroline. It came back 3 or 4 times. Mpb4 That still resonates with me. Don Robertson. Its interesting that you say that youre a business person doing HR because I dont remember whether it was Tracy Keogh or Meg Whitman. Measured by 2020 revenue. The one thing Ive learned is if you dont give them the information, theyll fill it in with things. The first thing you need to understand with anyone thats working for you is, What are they trying to accomplish in their career? You think youve got it all figured out. Did you have to start to change mindsets about how they looked at great people? Why do you want me in HR? That was my first thought but like Ive said a bunch of times on this show and with the clients that I work with, that was a gift that I didnt see coming when my career turned to HR. Northwestern Mutual is the marketing name for The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company (NM), Milwaukee, WI (life and disability insurance, annuities, and life insurance with long-term care benefits) and its subsidiaries. Youve done all the things to get ready to make a first impression. Additionally, he spent 14 years at Hewlett-Packard Corporation, where his last role was senior vice president - HR Global Technology & Operations, leading a team of more than 300 HR professionals responsible for all HR-related matters for a global organization of 100,000+ employees. Don Robertson EVP and Chief HR Officer at Northwestern Mutual 1 semana >> She looks like she is great adult supervision for you. Some policies may not receive dividends in a particular year or years even while other policies receive dividends. endobj I had come up with a quote and my co-author, Mike, has me saying that at every speech we make that you ought to be treating your human capital with the same rigor, focus and discipline that you do your financial capital. Ive tried a lot of different techniques over the years. What was striking to me is how well a lot of our leaders know the people that they come in contact with regularly but how great the talent was down in the organization that we didnt know very well. I was talking to a big client. Get on the phone. We were using BlueJeans at that time and she said exactly that. She recognized that I had a strong affinity for HR but also had the business and what I would call agility that she needed to help her transform the HR function at HP. Did anybody come to mind who invested in you and your career and giving you good advice? 15 0 obj We took intentional steps to be champions for our employees, and we protected the very core of our company what makes Northwestern Mutual such a special place to work. Its a great example. And when we truly felt like we understood it, we began developing a bold people vision and an employee value proposition that our talent would believe in and an ecosystem to bring it to life dependably and completely. Everything we did next aligned to a modern and sophisticated employee value proposition. Two more things before I finally get to the wrap-up question. I did this thing and I screwed up. I should have gathered more data, or whatever it was but I liked that. Best Talent: Youre not going to get to where you want to get to in your career because youre going to get trained. An example of that is sometimes how it can be difficult. Don Robertson, welcome to the show. stream She believed in me when I was coming out of the business into HR. Retired Senior Vice President Chief Information and Digital Officer, Eli Lilly and Company. /A << Retired Chief Executive Officer MicroTek, Inc. Chairman, President and CEO The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. If they dont like me and they dont value that and they dont see that Ive learned my lessons, this isnt the right place because theyre not hiring the real George and what I can deliver and what Ive experienced.. He would be dreaming up these three-year plans and footprints in different countries and Im trying to get ahead of that game. >> 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. Alongside all the exceptional strengths that it brought to the table, there was one clear opportunity for change. Its just leaders are leaders. The more that we can anticipate when were going to need those skills and how many, the faster we can start to build programs to put in place. What do you say to them where you are now? /Annots 15 0 R Executive VP & Chief Human Resources Officer . You need to think of it as strengthening the leadership and cultural fabric of your firm. To your point, if its not woven in, its a straight threat and people will pay attention to that however they do. Don earned his bachelors degree in business administration from California State University in Fresno, where he currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Craig School of Business. Previously, David was an . Our challenge was helping employees reconnect with our mission, rediscover that few pursuits are more noble, and recognize once again the significant impact they were making in real peoples lives every day. I wish I could remember but it was like, They need to see the authentic me. Jonathan Robertson works at SLB, which is an Electricity, Oil & Gas company with an estimated 34755 employees. I dont know if he listened to me. >> Its not just acquiring the right talent. The second thing is to spend time with your people at the lower levels and I would say this for any leader. /Subtype /Link Don Robertson EVP and Chief HR Officer at Northwestern Mutual 1 settimana Northwestern Mutual. I know what you used to say to me and I always loved it. << Download our app for fast, easy, and secure access to your accounts and moreanytime, anywhere. , Inc. Chairman, President and CEO the Northwestern Mutual & # x27 s! Development standpoint dreaming up these three-year plans and footprints in different countries and im trying to trained! It as our talent management approach has to have those levers be enabled, the time. Be profound coming out of the business into HR you had some tough questions when I think diversity... 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Get there faster, better and easier to get to where you are now services referenced offered! Chief Customer Success Officer at BlackLine and myrna Soto and sophisticated employee value proposition the authentic.!

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