VP-Thought Leadership, Creative and Content

Northwestern Mutual; Milwaukee (WI); On-site; USD 196,000 - 294,000; Full time

Job summary

Northwestern Mutual seeks a visionary leader to drive enterprise thought leadership, creative and content across brand, marketing, and AI-enabled channels. You will shape the narrative, oversee editorial, and partner with senior leaders to align priorities and elevate the firm’s expertise.

The role demands 15+ years of leadership across thought leadership and content, with strong editorial, storytelling, and strategic communications capabilities.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive leadership experience spanning thought leadership, content strategy, editorial, brand, marketing, or corporate communications.
• Demonstrated success building differentiated thought leadership platforms and translating complex topics into clear narratives for executive, client, and external audiences.
• Proven ability to lead integrated creative and content portfolios across digital and offline channels while balancing brand stewardship, audience relevance, speed, and business outcomes.
• Experience in financial services, investments, or insurance preferred in a highly regulated environment.

Responsibilities

• Define and champion enterprise vision for thought leadership, creative, content, and AI visibility across audiences and channels.
• Set annual strategy, operating plan, investment priorities, resource model, and performance framework.
• Lead development of signature platforms, original research, executive perspectives, and high-impact content.
• Advance visibility and authority in AI-powered discovery environments with high-quality, reusable content.
• Provide executive creative direction across brand storytelling, campaigns, and digital experiences.

Skills

Executive leadership

Thought leadership

Content strategy

Editorial

Creative direction

AI visibility

Stakeholder management

Strategic communications

Education

Bachelor’s degree in marketing/communications

Advanced degree preferred

Job description

Summary: The Vice President of Thought Leadership, Creative and Content sets the enterprise vision for how the organization shapes ideas, tells its story, and engages priority audiences in an increasingly AI-influenced marketplace. This executive leads integrated thought leadership, editorial, content, creative, and AI visibility strategy in alignment with the company's brand, product, and career marketing priorities to strengthen brand authority, differentiate the firm, and ensure the organization’s expertise is discoverable, credible, and influential across traditional, digital, search, social, and AI-powered channels. In partnership with senior leaders, business lines, Brand, Marketing, Digital, Product, Research, Data, Technology, Legal, Compliance, and Communications, the VP establishes the narrative agenda, builds an AI-native content and creative engine, and delivers measurable impact on brand trust, relevance, reputation, engagement, client growth, and loyalty while improving the efficiency and effectiveness of how assets are created, distributed, and perform in market.

Primary Duties & Responsibilities

Define and champion the enterprise thought leadership, creative, content, and AI visibility vision, ensuring a distinct and consistent point of view across audiences, channels, AI-powered answer environments, and experiences. Establish the annual strategy, operating plan, investment priorities, resource model, and performance framework for thought leadership, editorial, content, creative, and AI-enabled content operations. Partner with executive leadership and subject-matter experts to set a forward- looking narrative agenda that elevates the firm’s expertise, anticipates audience needs, and advances business priorities. Lead the development of signature thought leadership platforms, original research, executive perspectives, and high-impact content that strengthen reputation, deepen engagement, and create demand. Advance the company’s visibility and authority in AI-powered discovery environments by shaping high-quality, credible, structured, and reusable content that reinforces the firm’s expertise, trust, and market leadership. Provide executive creative direction across brand storytelling, campaigns, digital experiences, presentations, video, and other priority communications, raising the standard for quality, relevance, and innovation. Build and scale an AI-native content and creative engine that responsibly uses emerging tools, workflows, and reusable assets to improve speed, personalization, quality, efficiency, and in-market performance. Build an integrated editorial and content ecosystem, including audience strategy, channel planning, personalization, distribution, amplification, and lifecycle management. Create enterprise governance, standards, and operating rhythms that improve prioritization, consistency, speed, reuse, optimization, and responsible application of AI-enabled content and creative technologies. Use audience insights, cultural and industry trends, competitive intelligence, search and AI visibility signals, and performance analytics to identify opportunities, optimize the portfolio, and demonstrate business impact. Influence senior stakeholders across Brand, Strategic Communications, Digital, Product, Research, Data, Technology, and business lines to align narratives and deliver cohesive audience experiences. Represent the organization’s thought leadership and creative vision to senior leaders and external partners, enhancing executive visibility and market credibility. Build, lead, and develop a diverse, high-performing team and partner ecosystem, setting clear expectations and fostering strategic thinking, creative excellence, collaboration, and accountability.

Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, journalism, business, design, or a related field; advanced degree preferred. 15+ years of progressive leadership experience spanning thought leadership, content strategy, editorial, creative, brand, marketing, or corporate communications, with significant experience leading at enterprise scale. Demonstrated success building differentiated thought leadership platforms and translating complex topics into clear, credible, and compelling narratives for executive, client, and external audiences. Proven ability to lead integrated creative and content portfolios across digital and offline channels while balancing brand stewardship, audience relevance, speed, and business outcomes. Strong editorial judgment and executive-level writing, storytelling, presentation, and creative direction capabilities. Track record of advising senior executives, influencing across organizational boundaries, and aligning diverse stakeholders around a shared narrative and strategic agenda. Experience establishing content governance, editorial operations, measurement frameworks, and scalable operating models in a complex, matrixed organization. Strong command of audience insights, research, analytics, and performance measurement, with the ability to connect content and creative investments to reputation, engagement, growth, and loyalty. Deep understanding of evolving media, digital, social, search, personalization, generative AI, and AI-powered discovery practices, including how to responsibly strengthen company visibility, authority, quality, and performance in AI-influenced environments. Experience attracting, developing, and retaining diverse senior talent across editorial, content, design, creative, and strategy disciplines. Exceptional executive presence, strategic agility, detail-orientation, business acumen, and decision-making skills, with the courage to challenge convention and set a clear point of view. Financial services, investments, or insurance experience preferred, with the ability to operate effectively in a highly regulated environment.

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,

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. At Northwestern Mutual, we believe relationships are built on trust. That our lives and our work matter. These beliefs launched our company over 160 years ago. Today, they’re just a few of the reasons why people choose to build careers at Northwestern Mutual. What started in Milwaukee, WI has grown into 7,000+ home office professionals split across 3 campuses: New York City, Franklin and downtown Milwaukee (HQ) - each one bringing with it its own unique talent and culture. In a company with such a long and storied history, this may be the most exciting and important time to be a part of Northwestern Mutual as we are growing our digital and tech capabilities and are always on the lookout for bright, tech-savvy candidates. 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.