VP, FP&A Advice & Wealth Management (AWM) & Insurance

VP, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) for Advice & Wealth Management (AWM) and Insurance

The VP, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) for Advice & Wealth Management (AWM) and Insurance serves as strategic business partner and trusted advisor to the leaders of the AWM, Insurance Product, Operations, and Distribution functions, including the EVP, Chief Distribution Officer (CDO) and is a key member of the Distribution division's senior leadership team. This role will lead the FP&A business partner team aligned to Thrivent's AWM and Insurance businesses. This industry expert will collaborate with Distribution leaders to grow an economically sustainable Advice & Wealth Management business as well as work with Insurance leaders to ensure best-in-class product offerings and pricing, grow sales, and ensure financing to fund growth. The VP, FP&A AWM and Insurance also leads and oversees the FP&A Strategic Performance Analytics COE and shared service teams accountable for delivering insightful and actionable analytics and KPIs to inform key business decisions and measure results. This leader will play a key role in advancing FP&A capabilities and ensuring alignment of the Analytics agenda to the Enterprise's strategic priorities through optimization of technology and implementation of best practices in the Analytics space. In close partnership with the Vice President, Corporate FP&A, the VP, AWM and Insurance will provide leadership to the overall FP&A function —jointly shaping priorities, driving talent development, and strengthening team capabilities across the enterprise FP&A community. The incumbent will effectively navigate the matrix organization and foster high-trust relationships across the enterprise. Skilled in leading change, this leader will role model systems thinking, see the big picture, challenge the status quo, anticipate unintended consequences, and drive the integration of the Investment Products with the Life, Health, and Annuity Products into the Advice framework.

Duties & Responsibilities

Lead FP&A Advice & Wealth Management and Insurance Strategic Business Partner team in order to drive client-centered growth, support the development and execution of Thrivent's strategy and enable effective decision making. The VP, FP&A AWM and Insurance and their team will partner with the executives and leaders of the Distribution, Products, and Operations functions of the Advice & Wealth Management and Insurance businesses in the areas of planning and forecasting, business performance management, and strategic decision support and analysis.

Integrated Planning and Forecasting

• Drive and coordinate the enterprise integrated planning and forecasting processes.
• Provide strategic financial guidance to senior leadership, ensuring alignment of financial goals with business strategy. Identify key performance drivers, trends, and risks, and deliver actionable insights to support growth, profitability, and operational efficiency.
• Translate business goals and actions into financial and operational plans and forecasts.

Business Performance Management

• Lead review of financial and operational results to build an end-to-end understanding of financial performance.
• Deliver reporting and insights that describe performance to plan and forecast and identify performance opportunities and risks.
• Provide expense performance management, reporting and analysis that enables business decisions and flexible allocation (and reallocation) of resources.

Strategic Decision Support & Analysis

• Collaborate with business leaders to assess business initiatives, product profitability, investment cases, and resource allocation.
• Lead scenario modeling and sensitivity analyses to evaluate risks, opportunities, and trade-offs on business investments and initiatives.
• Actively partner on strategic analytics that supports achieving desired results.
• Consult and advise on how to measure success and implement ongoing measurement tools.

Lead Strategic Performance Analytics COE and Shared Service

Provide oversight to the FP&A Strategic Performance Analytics team, including the Analytics shared service and COE. In collaboration with stakeholders across the enterprise, support defining a data & analytics agenda.

• Deliver insightful and actionable analytics to the enterprise to inform key business decisions and support sales, client and capacity planning.
• Identify metrics and KPIs that measure, drive, and provide insights into business performance results and strategic initiatives.
• Drive continuous improvement and best practices through creation and deployment of frameworks, processes, and tools that are standardized and optimized.
• Lead and prioritize technology changes and data strategies for tools and data used in analytics, management reporting, and forecasting.

Leadership

• Proactively anticipates and resolves challenges/problems. Removes obstacles as needed to achieve success.
• Ensures regular, clear, and values-based communication and accountability.
• Recruit, develop, and sustain a high-performing team while promoting a culture of shared accountability, operational excellence, and partnership across the organization.
• Models Thrivent's leadership competencies – Model the Way, Rally the Team, and Deliver Outcomes.
• Supports and/or develops an environment in which Thrivent employees and colleagues are focused on driving impact, growing sales, and delivering value to our clients and Thrivent. Shapes and/or supports a culture that represents the Thrivent purpose and values, ensuring that Thrivent's trust and reputation remain strong with its clients.

Qualifications & Skills

Required:

• Bachelor's degree in accounting, business, finance or actuarial required; 15+ years' experience in senior finance or actuarial leadership roles partnering with executives.
• 10+ years' experience in finance leadership in the financial services industry including significant experience in wealth management.
• Demonstrated analytical skills and knowledge and understanding of financial services business models.
• A passion for leading people and a track record of building and managing high-performing teams.
• Effective and mature communicator, able to convey intricate ideas in a clear, concise manner both verbally and in writing, comfortable in business and technical discussions.
• Strong relationship building skills with the ability to cultivate and mature cross-organization relationships with key stakeholders.
• Ability to manage multiple competing priorities across the organization.
• Clear track record of success as a consultative financial leader with a reputation as a trusted advisor rather than process owner.
• Ability to anticipate accounting, financial reporting and operational issues, assess the implications, determine their impact and develop and implement an appropriate action plan.
• Demonstrated creative problem-solving to navigate ambiguous situations.
• Demonstrated ability to interact with all levels of management and employees, demonstrating strong interpersonal skill.

Preferred:

• Advanced degree in finance, actuarial, accounting, business administration or another related field.
• Professional certification of CPA, CFA or FSA preferred.
• Experience interacting with boards and board committees.
• Advanced strategic orientation and application skills.
• Prior Controller, Actuarial, and/or FP&A leadership experience at a large financial services corporation.

Additional Information

• This position allows a flexible hybrid work arrangement from the Minneapolis, MN or Appleton, WI area.