Standardizing a design-led framework for strategic planning, successfully bridging the gap between Investment and Insurance executive priorities to drive enterprise-level alignment.

 

Strategic Alignment: Unifying Executive Leadership for a 5-Year Financial Vision

Impact & Results

  • Establishment of a roadmap projected to drive a 55% increase in average account value by 2026.

  • Elevated design thinking by embedding human-centered practices into strategic planning at the senior level.

Role:

Service design lead, thought partner to business and design leaders, workshop facilitator

Strategic Partners:

VP of Investments, VP of Insurance, Business Operations Leadership, Lead UX Researcher, Content Designer, Design Program Manager

Activity Overview

  • Stakeholder Management

  • Generative Research

  • 1:1 Team Interviews

  • Framing the Challenge

  • Research Review & Synthesis

  • Co-Creation Sessions

  • Synthesis

 

Opportunity

This company sought to deepen its financial planning strategy. The challenge? Nine senior stakeholders, from investment to insurance, had misaligned priorities and competing visions for company growth.

Approach

I orchestrated high-stakes workshops and served as a strategic advisor to unify nine senior stakeholders around a single, cohesive roadmap.

Why Now?

Without a unified roadmap, the company risked fragmented execution and missed revenue targets. I was brought in to serve as a strategic mediator, navigating these high-level political frictions to transform departmental goals into a singular, high-impact client vision.

 

My Process

 

Initial Conversations

Design Directors, Investments Vice Presidents, and Insurance Vice Presidents were in discussion about a project to harness the company’s unique strategy, which is giving clients the ability to have insurance and investments in the same portfolio.

After I was approached to lead the project, I made a brief, which I presented it to the greater team for discussion.

My main goal during the initial conversations

  • Define project goals

  • Define how we might measure success

 
 
 

Define the Art

Discovery and Problem Framing.

 

1:1 Interviews & Generative Research

I spent the next two weeks taking 1:1 meetings with our core stakeholder group to understand the problem space.

Meanwhile, the VP of advisor field was leading a team in generative research to understand our most successful financial advisors.

 
 
 

Framing the Challenge

Throughout my interviews I noticed many differences in how our team saw the challenge. We needed to unify as a group and agree on 3 big pieces of the puzzle.

  • Which clients are we building this experience for?

  • Which advisors are we building this experience for?

  • How does the asset allocation tool fit into this puzzle?

I led 2 virtual workshops to discuss possible personas, scenarios, and the current state.

 
 
 

Deliverable #1: Current State, Blockers, Key Recommendations

I synthesized the information from our workshops and designed deliverables for this part of the challenge:

  • Mission statement

  • Current state service blueprint with user personas

  • Current state actions

  • Opportunities and blockers

  • Next steps

Arriving at this step was difficult because executives weren’t on the same page about the challenge. Each was vouching for their own product. For example, one investment executive thought the challenge meant we should spend time thinking about how investments might help. Meanwhile, insurance executives thought we shouldn’t bother because the company makes 90% of revenue from insurance products.

 
 

Define the Science

Establish and review the Academic and Scientific Perspective.

Reviewing the Science

Once we understood the current state, I dove into the findings from the Academic and Scientific Perspective, the work my colleagues completed to:

  1. Audit the current state of the behavioral and academic body of knowledge for users of the asset allocation tool

  2. Define statistical models and visual outputs necessary to facilitate end-user success and evoke positive, lasting behaviors that anchor to the digital platform.

  3. Create an output: documentation encapsulating the above results; diagrams and reports that summarize the themes and models necessary to include in potential concepts for future-state Financial Planning Strategy.

 
 

Design, Test, and Iterate

Create and deliver the Future-State Vision.

 

Co-Creation & Iteration

The portion of this project included:

  • Co-creation Workshop 1

  • Co-creation Workshop 2

  • Iteration & Core Team Check-in

 
 

Financial Planning Vision

Finally, I created vision presentation for leadership to use when talking about the future state, which included:

  • Future State Journey Map

  • Storyboard

  • Personas

 
 

After-Action Review

Navigating executive friction required a high level of strategic patience and emotional intelligence. By maintaining a calm, objective presence, I was able to move the group through critical blockers and align on a unified future-state vision.