MILWAUKEE, WI / ACCESS Newswire / October 17, 2025 / Originally published by Northwestern Mutual on October 2, 2025
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month so we're taking this opportunity to dive into how we earn your trust by safeguarding some of your most valuable information. When you join Northwestern Mutual, and entrust us with your data, we respect that data and use it to provide you with the best planning and advice possible to help you achieve your goals and dreams-now and in the future.
The complex, day-to-day work we do to earn our clients' trust through corporate governance and accountability is managed by the dedicated members who make up our Data Governance, Cybersecurity, Law and Privacy teams.
We spoke to Joanne Breese-Jaeck, vice president and chief privacy officer at Northwestern Mutual, who shares her journey at the company as well some insights into how the cl works to deepen client trust.
How did you come to lead Northwestern Mutual's privacy department?
Before joining the company, I had been a lawyer in private practice for many years. I focused on litigation and appellate work, and I loved every minute of it. When I decided that it was time for me to move somewhere in-house, as a lifelong Wisconsin resident living near Milwaukee, I was familiar with Northwestern Mutual. I saw there was an open job in the law department that I interviewed for-and here I am.
I didn't have a deep background in privacy or cybersecurity, but one of my first assignments was to evaluate the implementation of a technology tool from a legal standpoint, and I fell in love with it. Not only is this area impactful and interesting, but it's meaningful to me, the organization and people in general. So, in 2020, when the privacy department became a separate department (it had previously been part of our risk and cybersecurity group), I was fortunate enough to take on the role.
Why is the privacy department such a key part of the company?
Our business is built on people and their information. Financial service products and particularly, life, disability and long-term care insurance products, require personal information, including sensitive health information, so every aspect of our business touches privacy in some way, shape or form.
How does Northwestern Mutual protect clients' privacy?
At the highest level, the company committed to having a Chief Privacy Officer, a Chief Information Security Officer and a Data Governance Office, who work hand-in-hand and in partnership cross functionally to make sure we are doing everything that we need to do to protect people's information.
We start with a shared understanding that trust is essential to our success as a company and our ability to deliver on our promise to provide financial security to as many people as possible. And in order to be a trusted partner in delivering those products and services, we need people to know and understand that when they give us their information, we're going to treat it with respect.
And privacy and respect go hand-in-hand. So as an organization, we make sure that when we ask people to give us sensitive and wide-ranging information about themselves that we protect it effectively. We build trust with people by delivering on both the promise of financial security as well as the broader concept of trust and respect for their information.
On the privacy team, we have aligned ourselves to the idea that our mission is to make sure that we not only meet regulatory requirements, but we also ensure consumer trust by treating their data with respect.
What is the company's approach to data management?
As an organization, we think about data management holistically. We have our Data Governance function, our Information Risk and Cybersecurity function, our Privacy function-and then we also have an AI (artificial intelligence) governance function. Several years ago, we brought the four groups together to make sure that we're partnering and working cross functionally so we can avoid conflicting or overlapping in ways that make it more difficult for us to move forward as an organization. And all of us work with the law team, who serve as critical partners in our data management efforts.
How does the privacy team work with other departments?
I talk daily with someone from our Data Governance team, in our Data Engineering and Enablement department as well as data engineers themselves, our Information Rrisk and Cybersecurity and Law partners across the organization.
If someone has a project that is going to do something new with data, they must fill out a Privacy Impact Assessment Questionnaire. It's pretty lengthy and covers a lot of ground. A sampling of the questions includes:
Are you collecting something new?
How are you going to use the data?
Do you intend to share the data with anyone else-and if so, why?
Where is the data going to be kept?
We ask those kinds of questions so we can understand what the objectives are for the proposed use of data, which enables us to have a more effective conversation about it. We often embed members of the privacy team in projects that are multi-year initiatives to ensure the impacts to privacy are considered and requirements are built in.
Deploying a new product always has a privacy component, so we also help with that process by participating in new product steering or on working teams and engaging throughout the product development process. We're always here for questions and answers whenever we're needed-and we also have enough expertise on data governance and information security to be able to identify issues and bring in partners from other teams as well.
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How does the company stay up to date on the latest technology?
There are people across the organization, including on the privacy team, who are constantly monitoring the environment to identify and understand new technology and its potential impact to the company. For example, when AI emerged, we immediately recognized it as a technology that was going to be really impactful and meaningful. We knew we needed to build the muscle of understanding what it was, how it works, what the risks were-and were not. That was a really big lift.
But today, our governance of AI fits more into the broader spectrum of how we govern other technology tools, including knowing and understanding what we're using, how we're using it, where any data used or created is being stored and for how long. AI is just another flavor of that technology governance process but it is a capability that our team needed to develop. We are committed to staying up to date with technology and how it's evolving so we can help the company manage risk and maintain our clients' trust.
It all comes back to you
Your financial security is our top priority, and it's built on a foundation of trust. We're committed to helping you achieve stability today and for years to come and that starts with protecting your privacy. We care about making a positive impact-not just for you, but for the people in our communities and the environment, too. We're dedicated to operating with integrity, being transparent, and doing what's right, so you can feel confident in your financial decisions.
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SOURCE: Northwestern Mutual
View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:
https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/banking-and-financial-services/how-northwestern-mutual-works-to-earn-clients-trust-by-prioritizing-1088486
