Manager Advanced Markets Customer Service

Responsibilities:

Team Leadership and Management

The role involves overseeing a team of customer service professionals dedicated to servicing clients in the Advanced Market space. This includes supporting top field advisors, business clients, and those involved with corporate trusts and cash value lending programs. The manager is responsible for day-to-day operations, including managing workloads, employee development, and overall performance. Responsibilities also extend to hiring and onboarding new staff, ensuring efficient and high-quality service delivery, and fostering team engagement. This is achieved by clearly communicating the team's purpose, success metrics, timelines, expectations, and clarifying individual roles.

Operational Excellence and Creative Problem Solving:

The manager must demonstrate strong creative thinking skills, offering innovative solutions to address the unique needs of a sophisticated client base. Duties include reviewing, prioritizing, and managing escalated issues, collaborating across functions as needed to identify and recommend the most appropriate solutions. The role requires overseeing staff schedules, performance, budgets, unit costs, and quality assurance programs to consistently meet service and quality standards in a cost-effective manner.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Collaboration is key, both internally and externally. The manager works with internal customers, external third-party administrators, vendors, and across departments to resolve issues. Special attention is given to handling the servicing needs associated with Specialty Markets, including BOLI (Bank-Owned Life Insurance) and COLI (Corporate-Owned Life Insurance), and supporting conservation efforts. The manager must ensure all internal controls, regulatory, and supervisory requirements are met.

Project and Change Management

The position includes acting as a project owner, subject matter expert, contributor, or lead on various divisional projects and enhancements from conception through completion. This involves managing scope, timelines, and budgets while ensuring all documentation and compliance procedures are followed. The manager is also responsible for leading change management initiatives throughout the organization.

Stakeholder Communication and Decision-Making .

Regular interaction with third-party administrators, strategic vendors, and business system teams is required to meet Advanced Market client needs. The manager must communicate effectively across all levels of the organization, address and resolve conflicts, manage ambiguity, and make independent, high-quality decisions.

Continuous Improvement and Succession Planning

A focus on identifying and implementing process or technology improvements is essential to lower unit costs and enhance the customer experience. The manager assists senior leadership with succession planning by identifying emerging leaders and fostering the development of all team members to their highest potential. Keeping up with industry developments and proactively communicating necessary information to internal teams and network offices is also expected. Additional responsibilities may be assigned as needed.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree with an emphasis in business, operations management, or related field, or equivalent work experience.
• Strong working knowledge of NM field and Advanced Market clients, how they operate, and their unique servicing needs. Ability to build rapport and think creatively to solve the needs of these sophisticated clients.
• Minimum of two years in an operational management leadership position with proven management, human relations, and interpersonal skills necessary to manage a group of people.
• Minimum of seven years of related experience to include in-depth knowledge and design/implementation of operational procedures and policies.
• Technical knowledge of the operational aspects related to financial services, life products, and institutional clients.
• Demonstrated ability to apply knowledge across complex business areas and manage projects and teams.
• Strong business acumen and demonstrated ability to learn new business concepts and procedures.
• Proven ability to be responsive to changing business needs, manage and prioritize concurrent assignments, and handle ambiguity.
• Ability to focus and deliver proactively in a dynamic, multi-tasking, fast-paced environment.
• Demonstrated ability to anticipate future business consequences and trends.
• Experience working with internal and external customers towards meeting or exceeding customer expectations.

Compensation Range:

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Geographic Specific Pay Structure:

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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, click here to learn more.

Grow your career with a best-in-class company that puts our clients' interests at the center of all we do. Get started now!

Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer who welcomes and encourages diversity in the workforce. 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.

Financial Services Industry Acumen (NM) - Expert, Business Acumen (NM) - Expert, Customer Support (NM) - Expert, Talent Development & Planning (NM) - Advanced, Accountability (NM) - Advanced, Field Consulting (NM) - Expert, Change Adaptability (NM) - Expert, Customer Service Mindset (NM) - Expert, Strategic Vision & Planning (NM) - Intermediate, Attention to Detail (NM) - Expert, Process Improvement (NM) - Advanced, Adaptive Communication (NM) - Expert, Root Cause Analysis & Decision Quality (NM) - Expert, Consulting (NM) - Expert, Cross Functional Partnering & Planning (NM) - Expert, Policy & Procedure (NM) - Advanced, Investment Products (NM) - Expert, Customer Centricity (NM) - Expert, Prioritization (NM) - Expert, Tax Awareness (NM) - Expert, Technical Problem Solving (NM) - Expert, Analytical Thinking (NM) - Expert, Compliance (NM) - Expert, Investment Management Systems (NM) - Expert, Stakeholder Relationship (NM) - Advanced, Policy Inquiries & Complaints Management (NM) - Advanced, Organization (NM) - Expert, Industry Knowledge (NM) - Expert, Audits (NM) - Expert

We're excited about the potential people bring to Northwestern Mutual. You can grow your career here while enjoying first-class perks, benefits, and our commitment to a culture of belonging.

• Flexible work schedules
• Concierge service
• Comprehensive benefits
• Employee resource groups