About LearnVest

LearnVest is redefining the American approach to personal finance. Our planners leverage financial technology to create simple, affordable, realistic plans for anyone who wants to feel confident about their money and optimistic about the future. 

Since launching in 2010, LearnVest has been one of the premier financial technology companies in the country, helping thousands of people make progress on their financial goals. LearnVest was acquired by Northwestern Mutual in 2015 and is now scaling its technology and personal finance approach to help millions of people across both the LearnVest and Northwestern Mutual brands.  

Summary:

Seeking talented to build and lead a highly specialized research & development function to drive new insights & actions through data exploration, visualization, and data story-telling. 

Primary Responsibilities:

• Oversee creation of visual data representations both static and interactive across all digital and print platforms, to maximize clarity and ensure consistency. This includes internal (business intelligence, data science, decision support) and external (web, mobile, print).
• Leverage management consulting, business advisory, and strong business acumen to identify use case opportunities for data visualization, lead efforts from concept to final deliverable.
• Create data intuitive data visualizations to enhance cognitive understanding of the underlying data. Determine the best means of expression.
• Use design principles to explain complex statements and concepts.
• Identify & suggest actions/responses to information presented.
• Design interfaces for exploring information to increase customer engagement.
• Perform data analysis and as appropriate, compose data driven stories, with narrative and annotation. Lead presentations as required.
• As appropriate, leverage advanced chart types: graphs/networks, maps, treemaps, etc.
• Work collaboratively with project teams, end users/stakeholders to understand business objectives & requirements.
• Build, manage, and lead a high performing team of specialized resources to drive value across the value chain (Corp Strategy and Functions, Consumer/Client/Field Distribution Research, Marketing, Sales, New Business, Financial Planning, Risk Selection and Suitability, Onboarding, Administration, Service, and Operations). 

Additional Requirements:

• Ability to tell a story with data – What does the analysis tell you? What do you think the business should do next? Why do you think what is happening, is happening? Ability to influence others with the story of what you’re seeing in the data to make business recommendations
• Ability and desire to lead projects independently from start to finish, working with internal and external teams to make decisions and maintain momentum
• Excellent time and project management skills, with the ability to manage detail work and communicate project status effectively to all levels
• Proven track record in meeting aggressive deadlines
• Demonstrated experience in key data visualization & supporting analytics tools:
  
  • Internal & External Interactive platforms (QlikView, Tableau, Sisense, etc.)
  • Internal/External Static coding & design platforms (R/Python, Adobe Illustrator/In-Design)
  • Interface Mockup (Balsamiq)
  • Data Analytics (R, Python, SQL, Tableau, mapping such as ArcGIS)
  • Partner with Art Director to extend corporate style guide to include data best practices. Socialize across enterprise. 

Basic Qualifications

• 10+ years relevant experience with a proven track record of leveraging analytics to drive significant business impact or to develop data/algorithm based products
• Bachelor's degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Operations Research, Computer Science, Econometrics or related field
• Statistical knowledge and intuition - ideally utilized in A/B testing
• Experience with distributed databases and query languages like Hive, Spark, Scala, or Pig
• Programming experience with a scripting language such as Python, Perl, Java, or Ruby
• Proficiency with a statistical analysis tool such as R or SAS
• Relational, no-SQL, and/or columnar data experience required
• Experience with SQL

Example Areas of Support:

• External: Customer understanding of investments; value of additional products to customer; customer and prospect engagement
• Internal: Strategic customer growth opportunities; customer value, loyalty, retention; sales, operational performance