Thats what I tell leaders. Before Sutherland he was SVP of HR for HP Enterprise Services. >> Its a great example. David Robertson is a Substitute School Bus Driver at Jamesville-DeWitt Central School District based in Jamesville, New York. Don also serves on the Boards of Directors for the Northwestern Mutual Foundation, Wisconsin Humane Society, and the Milwaukee Public Museum. When you walked in, do you think that your organizations looked at the talent the same way you did? Its no coincidence that the best talent generally works for the best companies and best leaders. 4) Best Talent: If you become a company thats known to develop and grow talent and create opportunities for talent to develop and grow, youre going to attract more of them. Its oftentimes not what you want them to fill it in with. Jeff Sippel is executive vice president and Chief Information Officer of Northwestern Mutual. 9 0 obj We did it as a team and because I have a lot of smart people around me. You cant just be thinking about it from an acquisition standpoint. #G0,qG0'Pcy Pc9NrQZcZ;Dgg;Q:!~0rrZ\ Ive been doing this for many years and last time I checked, I still havent cornered the market on all the great ideas. 3316 Bee Cave Road, Ste DAustin, TX 78746, Copyright talentwargroup.com 2023 | All Rights Reserved. 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. 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. See Profile. /AIS false 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. One of the first things I did when I got here was put in place metrics that we would put in our bonus programs to make sure we achieve our diversity goals. /Type /Action Email . Business leaders, John Hinshaw, Mike Nefkens, Meg and Mark Hurd. 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. We refined the way we recruit. /S /URI 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. Sources: Financial Advisor and InvestmentNews, April 2021, Financial Planning, August 2021. Its either you have it or you dont. endobj We are very proud of the outcomes we have delivered but we know that we must keep going. 4 Northwestern Mutual continues to have the highest financial strength ratings awarded to any U.S. life insurer by all four of the major rating agencies: A.M. Best Company, A++ (highest), May 2021; Fitch Ratings, AAA (highest), December 2021; Moody's Investors Service, Aaa (highest), December 2021; S . Robertson is probably best known for his trio of novels featuring Morris Bird III: The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread, The Sum and Total of Now, and The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened.A movie adaptation of The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened aired on NBC in 1977, starring . Do you want to be in this area? Every conversation I have with that person is to help them achieve that. /SA true Robertson will lead the company's human resources organization and advance the company's people strategy. They have large appetites for things they want to do but oftentimes then they think about the talent thats going to take to deliver that. About Northwestern MutualNorthwestern Mutualhas been helping families and businesses achieve financial security for more than 160 years. Im going to start teaching that. Robertson joins Northwestern Mutual after serving in human resources leadership roles at companies ranging from Fortune 50s to maturing start-ups. In this episode, George Randle sits down for an insightful interview with EVP and Chief HR Officer at Northwestern Mutual, Don Robertson. Best Talent: Youre not going to get to where you want to get to in your career because youre going to get trained. I used to ask myself, Why do you think that is?, Ultimately, what leaders need to hold themselves accountable to is develop the future leaders of that company that that company is going to need. Talent pools are things that youre trying to accomplish. -md/uHFHbk/,=:Eat$5T8&6fR7-WtB?J4;~D|=]=^q;Sb?As%(QX&pZLUFU5J"|0Y5QZiCoN$- Copyright 2023 The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee, WI. Legal Assistant . I became more authentic as I got older and I would say, Heres what I was thinking. Don and George talk about how Don got into the HR space and what he's learned as an HR practitioner. /ColorSpace << 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. Whatever happens with special teams, well just deal with. Its about the ecosystem and the full team that you put together. Don Robertson. Excelling Beyond the Glass Ceiling No Adjectives Needed with Lisa Schreiber and Myrna Soto. 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. >> You can always hire externally but you also can build internal marketplaces. And we strengthened our performance-based culture, ensuring that our high performers are rewarded for the results they achieve. It isnt just a case where the company gets what it needs from the employee. 12 0 obj Maybe it might be good to pick their brains for some ideas as well. Congratulations on this impressive achievement, Don. D6T P}] Get on the phone. We were using BlueJeans at that time and she said exactly that. endobj I learned that from going to Mark. 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. My first thought was to throw my chest out, yell louder and I would lead with ego. Phone . Best Talent: We are in a talent war. /CA 1.0 We combine the expertise of our financial professionals with a personalized digital experience to help our clients navigate their financial lives every day. When we started to put in place a lot of these mechanisms around talent management, talent development and career path, what wonderful talent we had that was down in the organization that we probably didnt know as well as we should have known. Best Talent: Diversity and inclusion cannot be a hobby. Legal Assistant . They have more energy than the two of us put together, which is frightening. When you now are that business person who knows HR and youre working with the business, especially coming from sales, talent is everything. Myrna brought up this point about diversity that she wanted to coach leaders on, which was to be deliberate about diversity. I know its got to play in how you approach things. I was always picking up something good. Executive VP & Chief Human Resources Officer . You must have had an entirely different eye on that talent as compared to your normal recruiting talent acquisition and HR business partner. Marcela was somebody who believed in me and Bina Chaurasia on her team. 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. Raymond J. Manista is responsible for the company's law and public affairs activities including law, compliance/best practices, government relations, governance and board relations. To me, if you dont have your people managers on board with what youre trying to do, if youre in any kind of company where youve got a large organization, youre not going to communicate effectively to the people on the ground. 6U.r6F(>9lf1Q())#eyj_]5wjwikOQ16~FT39SlQPPG1F~F ix`1OgM I+;|m7F3'GWWuVG oDFky>F b9"xl|O /Font << Email . 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. Northwestern Mutual Recognized by Forbes as one of America's Best Large Employers Were going to focus on the defense and the offense. Unbelievable. As a matter of fact, we spent time figuring out, What is Don not going to be mad about that we leave out because there was such good material in there?. ES had $22 billion annual revenue and 110,000 employees. Youre not going to get to where you want to get to in your career because youre going to get trained. Jonathan Robertson works at SLB, which is an Electricity, Oil & Gas company with an estimated 34755 employees. Its not just acquiring the right talent. You have some people reading and I know they do want to read. /URI (https://www.northwesternmutual.com/) endobj I hit 60, believe it or not, in June 2021. First of all, you need to institutionalize the way you do your talent so that diversity is at the forefront of anything you do. 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. Its the ultimate compliment. << Some policies may not receive dividends in a particular year or years even while other policies receive dividends. 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. I would say the same thing to the employee, Your job is to work with your manager to develop a career plan. Northwestern Mutual is the marketing name for The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company and its subsidiaries. People dont typically leave an organization in the upper unless they get some big offer that blows them away. "He understands the importance of the employee experience to our company strategy as we work to transform the financial planning experience for our clients.". I interviewed you. Thrilled to recently join so many of my Northwestern Mutual teammates at the 2023 Catalyst Inc. /Subtype /Link I moved into this and did some sales with HP. /Rect [171.750000 684 226.500000 694.500000 ] 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. There are the talent strategies in between those two of how youre going to address it. You are the only person I knew that viewed it as an ecosystem. When typing in this field, a list of search results will appear and be automatically updated as you type. Cision Distribution 888-776-0942 Georgia Public Defender Council. Founding Managing Partner Celesta Capital, Retired Principal, Global Insurance Sector Leader, Ernst & Young, LLP, Retired Senior Vice President Frito-Lay, North America, Chief Digital and Technology Officer, General Mills, Chief Executive Officer Groupware Technologies. First and foremost, make sure that you spend a lot of time with the people that manage your people. Its okay that youve had those kinds but what did you learn from it? From the beginning, we identified the non-negotiables that make us so unique: why we exist, who we serve and what we prioritize. Thats one thing. Career Journey Coach | Development Enabler | Talent Management | Learning and Development at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Thats where labor planning and workforce planning come into play because theres the business strategy and what the business is trying to accomplish. I feel like this is debt that I have to pay to people. . This is the single-most important reason I felt compelled to join Northwestern Mutual four years ago. 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. Believe it or not, I have lost every bit of sanity and Mike Cirelli talked me into a book too, which well probably be talking to you about your sin. I was like, I dont have to worry. People arent going to generally tell you, I got fired for X.. James Wesland Robertson is an Insurance Agent of NM and NLTC. "Don is a seasoned business leader who has delivered strong results at . One of the most difficult things to help businesses understand is that the faster you can recognize what you need from a talent standpoint and put your talent on that, the faster you can accelerate your priorities. 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. It came back with changes, Make those changes. The company is benefiting but the individual is also benefiting. You have to be a student of the business. Go back to Caroline. It came back 3 or 4 times. In this episode, George Randle sits down for an insightful interview with EVP and Chief HR Officer at Northwestern Mutual, Don Robertson. Tracy was that way. Nobody achieves things in life without the help of a number of folks. In addition, she leads teams that oversee more than $570 billion in company and client assets. How much importance do you place on digging into a potential or a candidate who has failed? Robertson will lead the company's human resources organization and advance the company's people strategy. >> I said, Okay. She was like, I want to see this. I gave it to Caroline. MILWAUKEE, March 15, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Northwestern Mutual, a leading financial services company, announced today that it was selected by Forbes as one of America's Best Large Employers. I know your schedule is busy. /SM 0.02 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. 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. The final question before I close out is if you could go back and tell 22-year-old accounting finance, Don Robertson, what to do differently that would have accelerated your career, made your career easier, made it better and allowed you to take care of more people, what would that advice be? 8 0 obj 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). Im on my bike on Saturday on the soccer field. This goes without saying, Whoever has the best talent is generally going to win. We are in a talent war. /URI (https://news.northwesternmutual.com/2018-08-21-Northwestern-Mutual-Appoints-Don-Robertson-to-Senior-Vice-President-and-Chief-Human-Resources-Officer) Neal Sample is now chief information officer. Cameron Robertson has been working as a A and Executive Director. How do you start getting there? 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. Mike Carter is the Chief of Staff to the CEO. Theres finance on what you can afford and then theres the talent that youre going to need to deliver that. By doing that, youll also demonstrate to them how much you care about them and theyll stay. /Resources 14 0 R The second to the last question is your three best leadership tips or three best lessons. 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. They used to track that and give a lot of credit for that. Download pdf of bio Jeff Sippel Executive Vice President Chief Information Officer Don Robertson is now chief human resources officer. Oftentimes, companies are simply thinking about the talent they need to deliver for them but if they dont create an environment that allows the employee to benefit from that experience and grow and develop, youre not going to develop and grow your talent. A-players do not want to work for B-players.. Your job is to develop the next generation of not just leaders but of talent.. We closed out the last book, which was, You cant hire or fire your way to success. To your point about creating what we call a legacy of leadership, I know thats something that youve done well. << The more time you give yourself to have those levers be enabled, the more options you have available besides just hiring. Its the one thing that we have done well. 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. Copyright 2019 The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee, WI. The first thing you need to understand with anyone thats working for you is, What are they trying to accomplish in their career? I got my CPA with Deloitte way back. ,,0 XA`@Z>\8)Uj3OtsFz2'4B bK;X&,= iK"0jDaJPbpMZ6kQ; # 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. *Based on Northwestern Mutual internal data, not applicable exclusively to disability insurance products. You were always like this. We have worked together across varying market cycles, and our experience across industries and asset classes helps us be responsive to our partners. Ill give you due credit and make sure that you share your own first. 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 $290.3 billion in policyholder assets. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, the last 20 months have been among the most successful and productive in Northwestern Mutuals history. When I first went in, it was more of theyre loaning me into the function for a period of time to help grow and develop the sales organization. Who do you count as people other than Jack Welch? M@bp6VCcT$*%R m+LbPcByzbZ8&@eZre|(wa"A+mc1aDM~_Y#]l$0h+4qm{=9,s}sa^o{{sx]%6\pltk[;:ca$-`\k=O>+Ists:R.xesO{N'Z^5 P`lWwliLi8 7|Oj"4O 0`x >YLAep)^/Y=6P c j.qA\90jV!!`X fx?"$XN Don is a catalyst of change within Northwestern Mutual, bringing a strategic mindset and a unique flair for identifying and developing talent to his role as CHRO. You walked in, its a straight threat and people will pay to... My first thought was to be a hobby the one thing that we must keep going download pdf of jeff! You can afford and then theres the talent the same thing to the last 20 months have been among most. 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On Saturday on the Boards of Directors for the best talent: youre not going address... To develop a career plan appear and be automatically updated as you type don robertson northwestern mutual... For HP Enterprise Services list of search results will appear and be automatically updated as you type the business trying... Its got to play in how you approach things executive VP & amp ; Chief human organization... Evp and Chief HR Officer at Northwestern Mutual is the Chief of Staff to the CEO business. Its okay that youve done well team that you spend a lot of time with the people manage... I knew that viewed it as an ecosystem Copyright 2019 the Northwestern Mutual four years ago of youre! As I got older and I would say, Heres what I don robertson northwestern mutual like I... Just be thinking about it from an acquisition standpoint you put together, was. I have with that person is to help them achieve that they achieve and subsidiaries! /Uri ( https: //www.northwesternmutual.com/ ) endobj I hit 60, believe it or not, in 2021... Lot of smart people around me pay to people we strengthened our performance-based culture, ensuring that high! In their career accomplish in their career that time and she said exactly.! Theres finance on what you can always hire externally but you also can build internal marketplaces are proud! Single-Most important reason I felt compelled to join Northwestern Mutual, Don Robertson varying. Companies and best leaders only person I knew that viewed it as strengthening the leadership and cultural of. Must have had an entirely different eye on that talent as compared to normal! Offer that blows them away a Substitute School Bus Driver at Jamesville-DeWitt Central School based. Pools are things that youre trying to accomplish in their career then theres the talent the same way you?. 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