Nancy Kuehn

Teresa “Terry” Rasmussen’s love of studying set her on a circuitous occupation trail that in the end led her to the highest process at Thrivent, a monetary products and services corporate with $162 billion property underneath control.

Rasmussen’s position makes her an extraordinary feminine CEO on this trade (despite the fact that as a result of Thrivent is a nonprofit, she is not eligible for our Maximum Robust Ladies in Banking record). Rasmussen grew up on a farm animals farm in western Minnesota. As an adolescent, Rasmussen stated her oldsters had been involved as a result of she did not seem to have a particular skill. “My older sister was once this implausible artist, and my more youthful brother had the mind of a mechanical engineer and liked farming. I used to be within the center and was once more or less clueless,” she recalled. 

One in every of her father’s buddies was once a dentist, so he instructed Rasmussen that she will have to imagine changing into a dental hygienist, as a result of she would all the time have a task and a tight source of revenue. Open to parental steering, Rasmussen enrolled in a two-year dental hygiene program at North Dakota College of Science, anticipating to develop into a dentist. She quickly found out that she wasn’t neatly suited to the process. “I spotted that you just needed to be relatively of a quasi electrician and plumber to be a dentist, and the ones weren’t items that I were given.”

Her brother’s female friend on the time was once finding out accounting, and after thumbing via her textbooks, Rasmussen made up our minds that this was once her new trail. 

She persevered running part-time as a dental hygienist whilst she attended Minnesota State College Moorhead. She graduated with some extent in accounting in 1981, and promptly entered regulation faculty at College of North Dakota College of Legislation. “My mom was once apprehensive I used to be going to be a certified pupil,” she chuckled. Even in regulation faculty, Rasmussen persevered to paintings part-time as a dental hygienist. 

Unbeknownst to Rasmussen, the regulation faculty was once excellent at coaching trial legal professionals. Two of her professors had been alumni of the Division of Justice, they usually inspired her to use to the Lawyer Common’s Honors Program, which permits fresh regulation faculty graduates to paintings as federal lawyers. 

Rasmussen was once admitted to this system, moved to Washington, D.C., and labored as an ordeal lawyer within the DOJ’s tax department. “I driven paper out of D.C. and attempted circumstances in Colorado and Wyoming,” she stated. 

Rasmussen had gotten married between her 2d and 3rd yr in regulation faculty, and her husband, who may be an lawyer, was once residing in Colorado Springs whilst she commuted between D.C. and Colorado. The shuttle was once taxing, so Rasmussen and her husband made up our minds they’d transfer both to Denver or Minnesota, relying upon them each getting process provides in the similar town. They moved to Minneapolis and Rasmussen joined Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly. There, she practiced within the company’s business division concentrating within the chapter, exercise, UCC and banking spaces from July 1986 till Might 1989. 

Her occupation took any other flip when a relative of hers requested her to develop into the overall suggest of an area financial institution he owned, Northeast State Financial institution. Whilst Rasmussen stated that she loved the chance to be told about banking, she wasn’t comfy being a “large fish in a small pond,” so after 9 months, she left the financial institution to paintings as managing suggest for American Specific. 

Nancy Kuehn

At Amex, Rasmussen stated she “did the entire circle of prison obligations” all over her 15-year stint. She began as a financial institution and agree with legal professional, labored subsequent as the overall suggest of its tax and trade products and services division after which led the prison strengthen for its institutional funding advisors. Subsequent she moved over to run the prison division for its insurance coverage department, after which led the prison workforce for mutual finances.

In overdue 2004, Rasmussen gained a choice from a former Amex colleague who sought after her to paintings at Thrivent as its normal suggest. “It was once a troublesome choice as a result of I completely liked my time at American Specific. However in point of fact, it went again once more to my love of studying. I felt like I wanted to be told how other corporations operated,” she stated. 

And whilst Rasmussen understood monetary products and services at a “lovely deep stage,” the construction of the corporate was once not like the rest she’d encountered all over her then decades-long occupation. 

Thrivent is a nonprofit group that was once created by means of a 2002 merger between two fraternal receive advantages societies, Lutheran Brotherhood and Help Affiliation for Lutherans. The fraternal trade style is exclusive to North The united states. It combines the “member owned” feature of a mutual insurance coverage corporate with the “social undertaking” feature of a faith-based or provider group. All fraternal receive advantages societies should agree to state and federal rules, in regards to their monetary products and services, and should be approved by means of the insurance coverage division of the state or states through which they perform. Fraternal receive advantages societies are identified as not-for-profit organizations by means of the Inside Earnings Provider. There are recently 53 fraternal receive advantages societies within the U.S. and Canada.

Help Affiliation for Lutherans was once based in 1902 in Appleton, Wisconsin, when a gaggle of 500 Lutherans contributed $5 every to shape a mutual assist affiliation. 3 years later, AAL expanded to serve girls — 15 years sooner than girls had been allowed to vote within the U.S. Within the overdue Fifties, AAL began providing annuities to its individuals. 

Lutheran Brotherhood was once based in 1917 in Minneapolis. In 1931, it all started providing loans to farms and church buildings. In 1963, it all started providing its individuals medical insurance and in 1970, it turned into the primary fraternal receive advantages society to introduce mutual finances. 

By means of the overdue Nineties, AAL and Lutheran Brotherhood introduced a collection of monetary products and services together with insurance coverage, investments and annuities to its individuals, who had been then nonetheless simplest Lutherans. 

When Rasmussen joined Thrivent in March 2005, Bruce Nicholson, the CEO on the time, instructed her that the group had an everlasting seat at the American Fraternal Alliance board and suggested Rasmussen to take the seat. “It is the most efficient factor that I will have carried out to in point of fact perceive the ability of fraternalism. So I fell in love with the fraternal sides and may see the opportunity of all of the have an effect on that we will have in communities via our individuals.” 

One in every of its charitable efforts is “Thrivent Motion Groups.” Individuals shape a workforce of buddies, members of the family or neighbors to strengthen a particular motive via a fundraiser, tutorial match or a provider task. Thrivent provides every workforce $250 in seed cash and offers them kits full of thank-you notes, nametags, stickers and t-shirts that undergo the slogan “Reside Generously.”

“One in every of our individuals is a horticulturist with the College of Missouri, and she or he enlists all her horticultural buddies to develop seedlings after which give them to group gardens,” Rasmussen stated, mentioning one instance of the reasons its motion groups strengthen. From 2014 throughout the finish of 2022, Thrivent’s individuals have supported 1 million other reasons and feature raised greater than $1 billion for charity.

In 2013, Thrivent individuals voted to increase club to all Christians, no longer simply Lutherans. Of its present 2.3 million purchasers, Rasmussen stated that Thrivent “serves individuals who imagine cash is a device and no longer a function.”

As an example, she recounted a tale a couple of couple whose son were given admitted to MIT and sought after to pay for his tuition. “Their earlier monetary marketing consultant was once in point of fact all for ‘head math,’ and he instructed them ‘that is a in point of fact dumb thought, you might be striking your retirement in danger,’ and so on. And so they were not pleased with that recommendation in order that they began buying groceries round for any other monetary marketing consultant. And after they sat down with a Thrivent monetary marketing consultant, and he heard the tale, he stated, “Neatly, let’s determine this out.’ And so they made it occur. And that’s the reason middle math.” 

In 2015, Rasmussen was once sitting within the administrative center of then-CEO Brad Hewitt on a Friday afternoon running on a brand new organizational construction. When it got here time to choose who will have to run the existence insurance coverage trade, Hewitt stuck her off guard by means of suggesting that she do it. “I am positive I had a glance of sheer terror on my face and instructed him, ‘I do not know about this.'” He confident her that it was once a valid thought and gave her a while to suppose it over. She mirrored at the recommendation and made up our minds to take the location. “I figured I would both find it irresistible or I may not.” She liked it. “It was once in point of fact rewarding to get deeper into the trade and lead our box group.” 

3 years later, Hewitt introduced that he was once retiring, and the board of administrators decided on Rasmussen as his successor. She took over the CEO position on Nov. 1, 2018. 

Along with its monetary advisory provider and existence insurance coverage choices, Thrivent additionally has a $52 billion non-public fairness portfolio, and remaining October, introduced its personal ETF, the Thrivent Small-Mid Cap ESG ETF with a zero.65% expense ratio and returns beating the S&P Midcap 400 ESG index and the wider Russell 2500 index, consistent with the nonprofit’s 2022 annual document. “Now we have traders who’re specifically all for making an investment in finances that strengthen the surroundings. Our purchasers need to be sure we are just right stewards of the planet,” Rasmussen stated. 

Whilst nearly all of its choices are designed for retail purchasers, Rasmussen stated that Thrivent’s funding merchandise are to be had to institutional purchasers, which might be essentially retirement plan suppliers like 401(ok) directors, institutional experts and different insurance coverage corporations. It does not be offering mutual finances and variable portfolio merchandise to institutional purchasers. On the other hand, the nonprofit maintains institutional relationships via its business loan mortgage portfolio that incorporates flats, warehouses, lodges, commercial and retail homes along side nonprofit relationships like church buildings, colleges, seminaries, camps and different organizations. 

Taking a look forward, Thrivent is adopting a digital-first method to draw the more youthful technology. “Our individuals instructed us that their youngsters and grandkids were not essentially going to church, however they sought after to depart Thrivent’s legacy of giving again to them.” She added, “Thrivent has an extended historical past of remodeling to fulfill our purchasers’ wishes — we have now carried out it for greater than a century and it is central to our long run luck.”