Operations & Tools Specialist

About The Job

At Northwestern Mutual, we aim to be central to our clients' financial lives. The Sophisticated Planning Strategies (SPS) Team collaborates with leading firms to provide premium wealth planning services to high-net-worth clients. This role bridges operations and systems, supporting current service delivery while enhancing tools, processes, and reporting to facilitate growth.

What You’ll Do

• Support tools, reporting, and systems by partnering with senior team members to build and improve tools, dashboards, and reporting for SPS operations.
• Apply hands-on development experience in Power BI and Power Query to design, build, and optimize data models, dashboards, and automated reporting solutions that inform business decisions.
• Lead system configuration efforts, ensuring tools align with evolving business needs and operational priorities.
• Perform data validation, reporting updates, and system support activities.
• Contribute to automation and system enhancements that boost efficiency and user experience.
• Support third-party integrations and SharePoint-based solutions as part of a broader tools and systems ecosystem.
• Own and improve operations by executing and owning complex processes that enable SPS services, including new offerings like tax preparation and family office services.
• Develop and refine processes as services evolve, ensuring consistency, quality, and scalability.
• Identify issues or inefficiencies and take initiative to recommend and implement improvements.
• Lead and contribute to projects that improve how work gets done across SPS, coordinating with stakeholders to gather input, track progress, and ensure timely execution.
• Support changes impacting the field, including communication and implementation activities.
• Collaborate and build capability by working closely with cross-functional partners across operations, technology, and the field, sharing knowledge, documenting processes, and helping build team understanding and backup coverage.
• Grow into increased ownership of processes, tools, or workstreams over time.

Experience

• 2–5 years of experience in operations, information systems, or a related field.
• Experience developing in Power BI or Power Query, including building scalable dashboards and automated reporting solutions.
• Experience executing and owning repeatable operational processes with strong attention to accuracy and detail.
• Exposure to tools, workflows, reporting, or data-supported operations.
• Experience managing multiple priorities in a deadline-driven environment.
• Exposure to system integrations or data flows.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent relevant professional experience.

Skills

• Analytical Thinking: Organizes and compares various aspects of a situation to comprehend and identify key or underlying complex issues through the use of quantitative data and analysis; leverages strong business acumen, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills to think critically about situations from multiple perspectives and consistently seeks ways to improve processes.
• Continuous Improvement: Utilizes available methods to identify opportunities, executes solutions and measures impact to improve existing practices and processes. Implements feedback and lessons learned. Leverages the ability to identify and experiment assumptions and hypotheses for products to be able to refine and improve them at any stage of the life cycle.
• Interpersonal Savvy: Relates well to all kinds of people inside and outside of the organization. Builds appropriate rapport, constructive and effective relationships. Uses diplomacy and tact and diffuses high-tension situations comfortably.
• Learning Agility & Critical Thinking: Pursues learning and obtains knowledge continuously in relevant fields, methods, or technologies in current and future practices; continuously utilizes critical thinking to identify opportunities, execute solutions, and measure impact to constantly improve existing practices and processes based on feedback, lessons learned, and market trends.
• Project Management: Delivers projects in alignment to business requirements, specific success criteria, and stakeholder expectations. Plans, manages, and completes projects keeping cost and time considerations in mind.

Compensation Range

Pay Range - Start: $70,320.00
Pay Range - End: $105,480.00
Structure: 110 Geographic Specific Pay Structure