‘Learning leads to success’: Taking on work that others doubted she could do catapulted this financial services executive to the C-suite

Welcome to Human Capital, an open exploration of the ideas and people moving financial services forward. In each edition, we feature a leader or rising star who’s changing the game in his or her own way. “Finance is an apprentice business,” one often hears in this sector. Here are some of the teachers. Click Subscribe above to be notified of future editions.

When Aditi Javeri Gokhale boarded her first international flight, from her native India to the U.S., she had no idea what to expect for her life and career. Three decades later, she has built a career of C-suite roles and responsibilities across financial services and technology.

Last month, Javeri Gokhale wrapped up her role as chief strategy officer at Northwestern Mutual , the Fortune 500 financial services giant, where she previously also served as chief commercial officer and chief marketing officer. As president of retail investments and head of institutional investments, she also led teams managing $630 billion, including one of the fastest-growing independent broker-dealers in the U.S.

I caught up with Javeri Gokhale before her departure from Northwestern Mutual, and then again at the Milken Institute Global Conference. Read excerpts of our conversation below, and check out video clips of her LinkedIn News conversations from Milken at the end of this article.

A few months ago you led Northwestern Mutual’s flagship research on Americans’ financial planning and progress. What stood out to you?

There were five things that, to me, were interesting in the study. The first was the fact that Americans’ “magic number” for retirement is at an all-time high. It’s rising much faster than inflation, and it’s 53% higher than at the onset of the pandemic. People believe that they need about $1.46 million to retire comfortably, and that’s an increase of about 15% from last year.

The second was related to what’s happening with Gen Zs, which of course everybody in business wants to know. They want to retire at the age of 60 — so, earlier than boomers. Meanwhile they believe they will live longer, up to 100. So, we’re talking about a 40-year retirement!

The third was around boomers and Gen Xers: Almost half of them believe that they’re not financially prepared to retire when the time comes.

The fourth was what we referred to as the silver tsunami. Almost 4 million Americans will be turning 65 in 2024, and that pace is going to continue until 2027. So, we’re talking about 11,000 Americans retiring every day.

The last one was around taxes, which is particularly acute during an election year like this. Only three out of 10 Americans have a plan for figuring out how to optimize taxes on their retirement savings.

What’s your take on the massive generational wealth transfer underway? What implications will it have for the industry?

The numbers are pretty staggering. In the next two decades, we’re going to see the biggest wealth transfer ever — $90 trillion in inherited wealth. Of that, what we’ve seen is about 70% of affluent families lose their accumulated wealth by the second generation. And 70% of family-run businesses are sold by the second generation. So, the wealth transfer is an opportunity, yes, but it has major challenges that we’ve got to figure out.

The solution that we saw at Northwestern Mutual — and the company has done this for many decades, but it’s become more critical ahead of this wealth-transfer wave — is comprehensive financial planning. What that means is not just talking about one side of the equation, like wealth or investments or taxes, but really having a knowledgeable, detailed conversation with a trusted adviser and developing a customized financial plan that encompasses both what you want to protect, which is the insurance side of the business, and what you want to prosper, which is the wealth side of the business. Families should be starting these conversations early, and doing so together, especially when it comes to intergenerational wealth transfer.

Across the industry, a shift is taking place from this work being transactional to being more relationship-focused.

It’s no longer just about retirement. It starts with a customized and comprehensive financial plan with a set of goals, and then you go about your life with an adviser and their team delivering on those goals.

By the way, this should be a human-led experience. There has been a lot of investment in technology and tools that make life easier for advisers and their clients — including, most recently, generative AI — and that’s important. But because everyone’s needs are custom, the best advice is delivered by a human.

What were your early influences in life?

I was born in India and grew up in a close-knit, middle-class family. My parents are probably the most instrumental in defining who I am today. They always pushed my sister and me to identify and follow our passions. That included education, the arts, whatever we wanted to do. But money was tight, so from the beginning the value of money was ingrained in us — what it took to earn, what it took to be able to spend.

No one from my family had gone to school outside of India, but I applied to 美国麻省理工学院 and got in on a full tuition grant. My parents crowdfunded to buy me a plane ticket, and I took my first international flight to Boston’s Logan Airport.

The underlying theme, which my parents had drilled into my sister and me, was: The sky’s the limit, take risks, go on adventures. MIT was no cakewalk, and a lot was new to me — I’d never seen snow in my life, the accents were different, the style of teaching was unique. But I carried with me the confidence from home and heard my parents’ mantras in my head:

“Go on this adventure, take the risks, work hard, be disciplined, learn to advocate for yourself, fight with grace.”

I graduated with a bachelor’s from MIT and then a master’s from 美国麻省理工学院 - 斯隆管理学院 , and then I started my journey at Booz Allen Hamilton. From there I worked in different companies, including American Express, which is where I started to get really interested in the financial services space. My interest in financial services merged with interests in customer experience, technology, and data, because many of my experiences after that were with Travelocity and Nutrisystem, which were highly digital companies — there weren’t any bricks and mortars at that point for those companies.

Then I took on a role at LearnVest, which was an acquisition by Northwestern Mutual, and within the first year I was asked to be the first chief marketing officer of Northwestern Mutual. I then became the head of corporate strategy, then president of the retail investments business, which is the wealth business. After that, I started to oversee the institutional investments, which is the general account. Most recently, I led teams that managed about $630 billion in company and client assets. The wealth business is one of the fastest-growing independent broker-dealers in the country, and the general account has beaten benchmark consistently. So, it’s been a lot of fun. And a lot of learning.

As you’ve led larger teams and run more expansive business lines, what leadership principles guide you?

Over my almost three-decade journey in corporate America, my leadership style has evolved tremendously. And it continues to do so, depending on the situation, the team, the challenge at hand.

But there are certain common themes that I’ve used as my job has expanded or changed. The first is leading with humanity. For one, that’s just the person I am, but it also became obvious to me that in order to connect with my teams as they became larger, it was very important to bring my authentic self to work. That, for me, means being hyper-transparent. There are many leaders I’ve seen who compartmentalize their home life and their work life. I think the pandemic specifically taught me as a leader that it was important to continue to lean in and lead with humanity.

The second is the importance of setting a bold vision and expecting strong results. But when you’re setting a vision, you’re not doing it yourself — you’ve got to do it with your team, you’ve got to run it by your team, you’ve got to debate and discuss it with your team. Because they need to feel accountable. They need to realize it’s their vision too. So, set a bold vision, expect those results, but bring them in and bring them along.

And the third is about celebrating both successes and failures. I think it’s very important to recognize that when someone is taking a calculated risk, it doesn’t always work out — and that’s OK.

As a leader, it’s important to communicate that it’s OK to fail if you learn from it and move on.

That creates an environment of openness and trust.

What lessons and advice do you offer to younger professionals, especially women, who are starting their careers?

One of my aspirations is to have more women in finance, especially in leadership positions. That’s growing, but it’s still not there.

One area of advice that I give relates to how we as women often talk ourselves out of situations. At least I remember doing this quite a bit. “I don’t want to apply for this job, because I don’t meet 100% of the criteria in the job description.” Or: “I don’t want to present, because I haven’t practiced my presentation enough.” Whatever the challenge is, we as women need to talk ourselves into situations more. You can do that by yourself, but you can also do that with a support system around you.

The second piece of advice I give is about avoiding the urge to conform. I think early on in my career, I was trying to conform quite a bit, taking on roles that were expected of me.

When I started to take on projects that nobody thought I could do, that’s when my career started to take off. That’s how you make a mark.

Often people don’t go for certain roles because they think it won’t work out or that they will fail. My mom always says, “What’s the worst that could happen?” It might be that you fail, but then you get to learn as a result. Learning leads to success. And when you succeed, you stand out.

Join the conversation with your own take on these topics in the comments below.