After 37 years with Northwestern Mutual, including 14 years as Chairman, President, and CEO, I am retiring. I love this organization, everything it stands for, and everything it has accomplished over the past decade and a half for the five million customers we proudly serve. I love you. At Northwestern Mutual, our mission is to help Americans build financial security, and we have lived up to that mission. We've grown our client base by 28% and our team of financial advisors by 26%, enabling organizations to generate “real growth” and truly thrive. The company's revenues have increased from approximately $21 billion to more than $36 billion, and the past several years have been the most productive in the company's 167-year history.
Fourteen year tenures are not common. In fact, that's twice as much as a typical Fortune 500 CEO. So, not surprisingly, I'm often asked by up-and-coming leaders, “How did you manage to remain at the head of such an important and influential company for so long?” Masu. When I think about this question, there are certainly things I did to maintain my success. To help the next generation of leaders build a lasting legacy and build their own dynasties, I humbly share these six important truths.
Create a bold vision. That vision must be based on a noble mission, business intelligence, and smart strategy. I encourage all CEOs and all aspiring leaders to become anthropologists, sociologists, and students of your company. Know why you're in business. Understand the core competencies and technical aspects of every part of your company. Understand how each department fits into and drives the company's value proposition. I'm an organizational analyst by trade, and I can't stress enough how important that skill set was in my early days. Instead of evaluating the growth potential of other organizations, I spent years comprehensively evaluating our company's strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. This intentional deep dive was essential for me to have bold conversations with my board and build a bold vision for the future.
Get excited about that vision every day. Some leaders believe that the entire organization will empathize and align with the new CEO's beliefs. The truth is, there will be skeptics and undecided people at every level of the organization. Leaders have to work hard every day to bring people along. Leadership is an action, not a noun. It's not just about demonstrating management skills; it's about making it clear that this is where I want to go and making people believe that.
Always upgrade your talent. It's easy for executive leaders to connect with the talented people they've worked with. Resist and always keep upgrading in every position, especially in professional positions. I was always looking for high performers, but I also prioritized people who wanted to change things for the better. If there were two leaders who could keep trains running on time and one who could transform various aspects of operations, I would always choose the latter.
The second and third acts will unfold. People who serve as CEOs for a long period of time are never good at one trick. After I was a CEO for a few years, I talked to several CEOs of large companies and they all said the same thing. “We need a second act.” As the leader of your organization, you must come up with something new to energize yourself, inspire your team, and outshine the external disruptors who seek to conquer every hill before you. . Continue to evaluate your organization, analyze your current situation, imagine your ideal future, contemplate the disruptors that could prevent you from achieving your dynasty, and take calculated risks that are in your company's long-term interests. please.
Establish a belief in “intergenerational compactness.” Sustained success requires a cultural belief in what Northwestern Mutual calls “intergenerational compactness.” The idea is that our organizations must value all customers equally, including future generations of potential customers. We have a 167-year tradition of attracting new customers by paying close attention to the existing customers we proudly serve, but we never lose sight of the future. Strong leadership extends beyond a specific quarter or year. To me, strategic planning and execution needs to be viewed through a multi-generational lens, beyond fads and market cycles. Leaders must remember that our organizations were built by those who came before us, and it is our duty to strengthen them for generations to come.
Continue pressing the gas pedal until it reaches the floor. I often see organizations making similar mistakes as they rise to leadership positions in their industries. Rather than seize opportunities to advance further, executives choose to hunker down, be conservative, and protect their leads. Organizations need to keep attacking, and that mentality needs to start at the top. During my time as CEO, Northwestern Mutual has transformed from a world-class life insurance company to a premier financial services provider. We lead the industry in individual life insurance sales, growing our market share and recently announcing that we will pay a historic $8.2 billion in dividends to our policyholders in 2025. Meanwhile, our wealth business also experienced significant growth, expanding approximately 600 percent from $53 billion in the prior year. Total customer assets in 2010 reached $309 billion as of June 2024.
Today, more Americans are promised true financial security thanks to the comprehensive approach to financial planning we offer on the market. As our future CEO, Tim Gerend, prepares to write the next chapter for Northwestern Mutual, I know he will work hard to continue accelerating our growth. Masu. He hopes his words will help his colleagues and future senior leaders within and outside the industry achieve long-term success.
