Happy Advisors Are Part of Something Bigger: Tim Gerend

Update: A day after press time, Northwestern Mutual announced that Gerend has been tapped to succeed John Schlifske, the company’s CEO, as the next CEO, Jan. 1, 2025.

Tim Gerend, the chief distribution officer at Northwestern Mutual, sees building a stronger sales force as critical to helping his company do more good for more people.

“We can only grow when our field force is growing,” Gerend said earlier this month in a telephone interview.

Gerend was chief distribution officer for only about 18 months before the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything.

Gerend helped get the advisor team for the Milwaukee-based, policyholder-owned mutual life insurer through one of the toughest periods the world had faced since 1857, when the company was founded.

Northwestern Mutual and its competitors raced to shift most operations to the home. Life insurers kept claim administration going and have quietly, smoothly paid an industrywide total of more than $25 billion in COVID-related death benefits on about 400,000 policies.

Now, life is getting back to normal.

Gerend oversees a team of about 8,000 full-time advisors and a total of 20,000 staff members. They can offer clients products from other companies, but Northwestern Mutual sells its products only through them.

Gerend has a bachelor’s degree from Butler University and a law degree from Notre Dame. He began working for Northwestern Mutual in 2002.

Here are five things he said about how his company is coping with change and fighting the advisor shortage.

1. The company provided its own advisor stimulus package.

Thanks in part to the extra financial support the company gave its advisors, growth was strong in 2020 and even stronger in 2021.

“Our gains dramatically outpaced the industry,” Gerend said.

2. Great field managers can make a difference.

Northwestern Mutual is improving rewards for advisors who are greater field leaders, to improve support for new advisors, Gerend reported.

3. Attracting great advisors is still hard.

The job market might have cooled a little in the past few years.

But, from Gerend’s perspective, recruiting people who are suited to careers as advisors is still challenging.

“People have other options,” Gerend said.

4. The pandemic may have nudged conditions in life insurers’ favor.

“People are looking for a career with a purpose,” Gerend said.

For a Northwestern Mutual advisor, the purpose is to persuade clients to take action to make themselves financially secure, he added.

The pandemic may have also changed clients’ thinking in ways that can make an advisor’s role more interesting.

Immediately after the pandemic started, “people were aware of their own mortality,” Gerend said.

Later, he said, clients began to think more carefully about their priorities.

“People thought about where they were living and where they were working,” he said. “People were much more aware of the importance of long-term planning.”

5. Knowing what the company does can improve outcomes.

New agents sometimes complain on web forums that managers at the life insurers that still have career agent systems simply raid their lists of friends and relatives for good prospects.

A company can reduce the odds that new agents will feel used by providing great training, providing a generally supportive environment and supporting diversity in recruiting with genuine inclusiveness, Gerend said.

“We want people to come here and stay and thrive,” he said.

Gerend also emphasized the need for transparency.

“It’s really important to be honest and set expectations up front,” he said.

He said another critical part of building resilience is making sure new agents understand how their work and Northwestern Mutual’s work can help the clients.

For advisors, working for Northwestern Mutual “is an incredible opportunity,” Gerend said. “They’re part of something bigger.”