Bradford Williams

VP, People Insights, Planning & Analytics Northwestern Mutual

Brad Williams is a curious, humble, diplomatic thought leader who doesn’t usually write in the third person but was convinced by LinkedIn experts that it’s the thing to do here. He grew up thinking he might be an engineer or an architect but veered into studying psychology when family circumstances made him profoundly curious about how personality is shaped and constructed.

Brad didn’t quite get his PhD (he has an ABD – All But Dissertation), so lunch appointments with friends aren’t technically “Doctor’s Appointments”, but he got his Master’s Degree studying whether emotional intelligence impacts our ability to deceive others (or detect their deception).

Brad launched his professional career tempting candidates to join a small healthcare company in Chicago and built his reputation delivering analytics and workforce strategy for Sears and HP (and their divestiture). After a brief stint at Apttus that foreshadowed his eventual HRIS fascination, Brad led business transformation at Fannie Mae and then settled in at Northwestern Mutual to transform HRIT and People Analytics.

Brad loves exploring the things that make us different and teaching teams how those differences make us stronger. Some things that make him different: he believes in luck as much as skill, he abhors many things about hierarchy, he treats feedback the way he’d like to be treated, and he writes his Ss from the bottom up.

When he's at his best, Brad delivers value by building cars, not faster horses (if that doesn’t mean anything to you, spend about an hour with him and he’ll serve up the Henry Ford quote that clarifies). When he’s almost at his best, he’s building you an insights model that surfaces the unexpected variables that can be tweaked to ensure your fastest horses stick around and only get faster. He loves uncovering how technology and automation can free teams from redundant and administrative tasks and empower them to focus on meaningful work. He believes in delivering exceptional experiences – to customers, employees, partners, leaders, and candidates. He hates how little we’re doing to combat burnout and would love to show you how organizational network analysis can change everything.

Reach out to Brad to talk HR or Talent Strategy, Workday (or lesser HRIS Systems), Data Science & People Analytics, Strategic Workforce Planning, quantifying value for the C-Suite, Industrial Organizational Psychology, Tennessee Vols Football, great peated whisky, rec soccer leagues or why Christmas Vacation is the best Christmas movie out there.