Vasco Bridges

Hailing from a family of entrepreneurs, Vasco has always had a passion for positively impacting his community through business, technology, and entrepreneurship. His work at Northwestern Mutual sits at the intersection of our corporate technology strategy and our field force. Vasco is currently the Vice President, Field Experience. His team is responsible for understanding and improving the current state and informing the digitally-enabled future state of the experience for all our advisors, field leaders as well as their team members. Before that, Vasco was a Principal (Consultant) to four network offices in Iowa, Illinois, and Ohio, working with Managing Partners on growth via the recruitment & development of new advisors while implementing new digital tools & diversity initiatives. He has also served as Chief of Staff to Tim Gerend, NM’s recently appointed President and future CEO. Additionally, Vasco has roles on the Investment Committee of the Cream City Venture fund and the NM Human Resources Corporate Committee. His team empowers the entire home office to deliver the best for the Field today, and to elevate and deliver our FX vision for the future. Before coming to NM, Vasco was the Executive Director of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program, leading the Chicago efforts for the national initiative in partnership with the City Colleges of Chicago. In this role, Vasco’s team delivered practical business education and support services to growing small business owners throughout Chicagoland. Vasco’s business leadership spans multiple sectors including financial services, software, media/entertainment, manufacturing, non-profit, government. He was a Manager in the Strategy & Operations practice at Deloitte Consulting, and before that, he started his career as a business development executive for Razor & Tie, a marketing, music, and media company. Vasco is also the Chairman of JANO Technologies, a family-owned, 30-year-old technology company that leads its customers through major technological shifts, including the implementation of its proprietary court case management technology. Vasco has provided his expertise to dozens of small/growing businesses and entrepreneurs as a consultant, and once served as an official business mentor for the StartUp Chile global incubator program. He currently sits on several boards: West Side Forward (Chicagoland Economic Development Non-Profit), FitBiomics (Probiotics Startup For-Profit), and City Point Community Church (Chicago faith-based non-profit). Vasco also is an active founding leader of the Virgia B. Palmer Scholarship fund, named after his late grandmother. Originally hailing from Jackson, Mississippi, Vasco has lived in Houston, Brooklyn, Ann Arbor, and Santiago de Chile; he currently lives in Chicago with his wife Brandi and two children Serena and Vasco IV. He is a 2010 MBA graduate of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. He also holds a master’s degree in Music Business from New York University and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Rice University.

Helping Business owners, playing Poker, and making sure everyone is fulfilling their mission in life.