Head of Workforce Strategy

About Northern Trust:

Northern Trust, a Fortune 500 company, is a globally recognized, award-winning financial institution that has been in continuous operation since 1889.

Northern Trust is proud to provide innovative financial services and guidance to the world’s most successful individuals, families, and institutions by remaining true to our enduring principles of service, expertise, and integrity. With more than 130 years of financial experience and over 22,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Northern Trust is advancing a multi‑year modernization and productivity agenda as part of its One Northern Trust strategy. As the company continues to drive organic growth, strengthen resiliency, and enhance operational excellence, we are elevating how we plan, develop, and deploy talent globally.

We are seeking a Head of Workforce Strategy to architect and operationalize a forward‑looking workforce strategy that positions Northern Trust for the future. This leader will shape the enterprise view of how talent, productivity, financial discipline, technology, and organizational design come together to support growth and transformation.

This role requires a blend of strategic thinking and hands‑on execution. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable advising senior executives on future workforce needs as they are building models, redesigning processes, and converting complex data into clear, compelling insights. Success in this role will depend on the ability to influence and lead across the enterprise—particularly Finance, HR, Workforce Analytics, and Productivity teams—without relying on formal reporting lines.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and execute an enterprise workforce strategy aligned to Northern Trust’s strategic pillars: growth, productivity, and resiliency.
• Lead the monthly, quarterly and annual workforce planning cycles, ensuring alignment between business demand, hiring plans, financial discipline, and productivity goals. Partner closely with Finance, HR, and Workforce Analytics to reconcile future talent needs with expense targets and capacity constraints.
• Develop a comprehensive workforce planning framework integrating FTE and contingent labor, automation and AI impacts, skills and capability needs, location strategy, and organizational scaling.
• Use scenario analysis and modeling to support executive decision-making, framing tradeoffs and workforce implications across multiple planning horizons.
• Reimagine and modernize disparate workforce processes, using contemporary tools and automation to create a more unified, data-driven enterprise approach.
• Build executive-level dashboards and reporting in partnership with Workforce Analytics, highlighting workforce trends, productivity, organizational health, and progress against strategic goals.
• Serve as a strategic advisor to senior leadership on workforce implications of business strategies, modernization initiatives, and evolving regulatory and operational demands.
• Influence and lead without authority, driving alignment across functions and business units, and ensuring a consistent and disciplined approach to workforce decision-making.
• Communicate with clarity and impact, producing high-quality materials—including C-suite and Board presentations—that distill complex analytics into actionable insights.
• Drive organizational change, helping leaders shift behaviors, adopt new planning tools, and embrace a more forward-looking workforce planning discipline.

Qualifications & Experience

• 10+ years of experience in workforce strategy, HR strategy, organizational design, transformation, consulting, or related roles in complex, global organizations; financial services experience preferred.
• Proven success building or scaling enterprise workforce strategies aligned to corporate strategy, productivity objectives, and modernization efforts.
• Strong analytical skills, including workforce analytics, forecasting, scenario modeling, and external labor market insight.
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior leaders and drive enterprise alignment without formal authority.
• Exceptional communication and storytelling skills, including expert-level PowerPoint ability and experience crafting executive presentations.
• Experience redesigning legacy or dispersed processes using modern tools, automation, and data visualization.
• Deep business and financial acumen, with an understanding of cost drivers, workforce economics, productivity levers, and operating model design.
• Strong project and change leadership capability.

Salary Range:

Salary range is a good faith estimate of base pay. Northern Trust provides a comprehensive benefits package including retirement benefits (401k and pension), health and welfare benefits (medical, dental, vision, spending accounts and disability), paid time off, parental and caregiver leave, life & accident insurance, and other voluntary and well-being benefits. Northern Trust also provides a discretionary bonus program that may include an equity component.

Working with Us:

As a Northern Trust partner, greater achievements await. You will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture in an organization where financial strength and stability is an asset that emboldens us to explore new ideas.

Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to assisting the communities we serve! Join a workplace with a greater purpose.

We’d love to learn more about how your interests and experience could be a fit with one of the world’s most admired and sustainable companies! Build your career with us and apply today. #MadeForGreater

Reasonable accommodation

Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center at

[email protected]

We hope you’re excited about the role and the opportunity to work with us. We value an inclusive workplace and understand flexibility means different things to different people.

Apply today and talk to us about your flexible working requirements and together we can achieve greater.