Assistant Director, Insights Design & Storytelling

Northwestern Mutual•Milwaukee, WI

17d•Hybrid

About The Position

About the Job: Responsible for transforming complex workforce and HR data into clear, compelling, and visually exceptional executive-ready narratives. This role combines analytical fluency, design excellence, and business insight to shape how the organization understands its workforce, identifies opportunities, and makes decisions. Sitting within the Workforce Innovation & Insights portfolio, this role establishes a consistent visual and insights brand for the function. What You'll Do: Creation of high-impact insights decks, briefings, and visualizations that interpret HR and workforce data for executive audiences. Development of a scalable, reusable visual identity system for Workforce Innovation & Insights, including templates, storytelling frameworks, and data-to-insight pathways. Translation of quantitative and qualitative inputs into clear narratives that highlight trends, context, implications, and decisions. Collaboration with HRBPs, Strategic Enablement Teams, and functional leaders to understand business context, root causes, and drivers—ensuring insights reflect the realities of the business. Design and delivery of infographics, visual models, and explanatory artifacts that elevate understanding among leaders with varying levels of data literacy. Application of strong judgment to clarify what matters, remove noise, and frame recommendations that support effective decision-making. Stewardship of a high bar for quality, clarity, insight, and consistency across all workforce narrative products. Synthesize data from Workday, Adaptive, ServiceNow, Visier, Tableau, Power BI, AWS, and other sources into cohesive, intuitive insights. Build visualizations and infographics that extend beyond standard BI dashboards—focused on clarity, storytelling, and strategic relevance. Create narrative structures that lead leaders from insight to implication, and implication to action. Partner with analysts, data scientists, researchers, and HR leaders to contextualize findings and validate interpretation. Maintain a strong forward-looking orientation by identifying emerging themes, risks, and opportunities connected to the future of work. Develop templates, brand standards, and insight formats that can be reused, customized, and scaled across HR. Ensure accuracy, quality control, and consistency across all artifacts. Provide thought partnership on how insights should be sequenced, framed, and communicated for maximum impact. What Experience You'll Bring : Demonstrated ability to distill complex datasets into intuitive, high-quality visual narratives. Strong design sensibility across layout, hierarchy, typography, color, and data visualization. Expertise with visualization and analytics tools (Tableau, Power BI, Visier preferred). High proficiency with Excel; familiarity with Workday data structures and ServiceNow data is a plus. Adept at collaborating with analysts, researchers, HRBPs, and business leaders to extract meaning and context. Strong business acumen with the ability to connect data to operational, talent, and strategic decisions. Experience building insight frameworks, template systems, or reusable design patterns. Exceptional written communication skills with the ability to present arguments clearly and succinctly. Comfortable operating as a senior IC with high autonomy, high accountability, and a mandate for excellence.

Requirements

Demonstrated ability to distill complex datasets into intuitive, high-quality visual narratives.
Strong design sensibility across layout, hierarchy, typography, color, and data visualization.
Expertise with visualization and analytics tools (Tableau, Power BI, Visier preferred).
High proficiency with Excel
Adept at collaborating with analysts, researchers, HRBPs, and business leaders to extract meaning and context.
Strong business acumen with the ability to connect data to operational, talent, and strategic decisions.
Experience building insight frameworks, template systems, or reusable design patterns.
Exceptional written communication skills with the ability to present arguments clearly and succinctly.
Comfortable operating as a senior IC with high autonomy, high accountability, and a mandate for excellence.

Nice To Haves

familiarity with Workday data structures and ServiceNow data is a plus

Responsibilities

Creation of high-impact insights decks, briefings, and visualizations that interpret HR and workforce data for executive audiences.
Development of a scalable, reusable visual identity system for Workforce Innovation & Insights, including templates, storytelling frameworks, and data-to-insight pathways.
Translation of quantitative and qualitative inputs into clear narratives that highlight trends, context, implications, and decisions.
Collaboration with HRBPs, Strategic Enablement Teams, and functional leaders to understand business context, root causes, and drivers—ensuring insights reflect the realities of the business.
Design and delivery of infographics, visual models, and explanatory artifacts that elevate understanding among leaders with varying levels of data literacy.
Application of strong judgment to clarify what matters, remove noise, and frame recommendations that support effective decision-making.
Stewardship of a high bar for quality, clarity, insight, and consistency across all workforce narrative products.
Synthesize data from Workday, Adaptive, ServiceNow, Visier, Tableau, Power BI, AWS, and other sources into cohesive, intuitive insights.
Build visualizations and infographics that extend beyond standard BI dashboards—focused on clarity, storytelling, and strategic relevance.
Create narrative structures that lead leaders from insight to implication, and implication to action.
Partner with analysts, data scientists, researchers, and HR leaders to contextualize findings and validate interpretation.
Maintain a strong forward-looking orientation by identifying emerging themes, risks, and opportunities connected to the future of work.
Develop templates, brand standards, and insight formats that can be reused, customized, and scaled across HR.
Ensure accuracy, quality control, and consistency across all artifacts.
Provide thought partnership on how insights should be sequenced, framed, and communicated for maximum impact.