Terry Rasmussen didn’t got down to run a Fortune 500 firm. She started her profession as a dental hygienist, paid for legislation faculty by cleansing tooth throughout breaks, and joined Thrivent Monetary in 2005 as Basic Counsel. At present, she leads the $162 billion faith-based monetary providers agency and believes its values-first mannequin makes it the “best-kept secret” within the trade.
“I grew up on a farm in west-central Minnesota, and I used to be the center youngster—sort of clueless about what I needed to do,” Rasmussen tells Fortune. “However what I found early on was that I like to be taught. And that present has carried me each step of the way in which.”
Her path to the nook workplace is something however conventional. After legislation faculty and a stint in monetary providers, Rasmussen joined Thrivent’s authorized workforce. Over time, she quietly accrued broader tasks, together with communications, advertising, authorities affairs, and enterprise threat administration.
That hands-on curiosity led to a pivotal second in 2015 when then-CEO Bradford Hewitt requested her to run the corporate’s core enterprise. “He mentioned, ‘If you happen to don’t prefer it, you’ll be able to all the time return to being Basic Counsel,’” she recollects. “However I knew I needed to totally commit.”
By 2018, she was named CEO. It was an ascent constructed not on title-hopping or calculated energy performs, she says, however on mental curiosity and a status for problem-solving.
“My authorized workforce used to joke that we have been reworking from the division of ‘no’ to the division of ‘know,’” she says. “I all the time needed to assist the enterprise remedy its issues, not simply police them.”
Thrivent’s origins as a Christian fraternal profit society nonetheless information its mission greater than a century later. However main a values-driven enterprise in a fancy, typically secular monetary panorama requires delicate balancing. Rasmussen’s technique is to lean into the corporate’s distinct ethos—religion, service, and monetary stewardship—as a aggressive benefit relatively than a legal responsibility.
“Our shoppers consider cash is a instrument, not a purpose,” she says. “They wish to help their communities, care for his or her households, and reside lives of function. That alignment provides us a sort of belief—and endurance—that’s arduous to copy.”
Thrivent now manages over $160 billion in property and ranks on the Fortune 500 listing at No. 388. Nonetheless, Rasmussen says the agency stays “underneath the radar,” and she or he needs that to vary.
“Once we share our story with folks, the response is usually: ‘Wait, this firm actually exists?’ And we are saying, ‘Sure, we’re the actual deal.’”
Her management type is rooted in human connection. Thrivent is deepening consumer relationships, constructing out digital banking, and investing in a brand new era of monetary advisors—a lot of them career-changers.
“We’re investing in second-career professionals—former lecturers, neighborhood leaders—folks with robust values and the will to serve,” Rasmussen says. “We practice them. We workforce them. They usually’re thriving.”
One of many largest hurdles she’s confronted is convincing a wholesome firm to evolve. Thrivent is financially robust, she says, which makes urgency a tougher promote. “However we’re reworking right into a diversified monetary providers firm—and that requires imaginative and prescient, persistence, and persistence.”
That transformation contains launching a financial institution constitution and digital platform, extending its attain to youthful generations, and recruiting top-tier expertise. “In 2008 and 2009, we picked up superb funding expertise as a result of we have been one of many few secure locations left,” Rasmussen notes.
As she appears forward, Rasmussen is targeted on cementing Thrivent’s identification as each a purpose-driven and high-performing monetary agency.
“Once I turned CEO, I spotted folks didn’t even know we have been a monetary providers firm. Some thought we have been a charity,” she says. “However now, we’re altering that. We’re proving which you could be wonderful at what you do—and do it with generosity, religion, and repair at your core.”
She credit mentors like former Greatest Purchase CEO Hubert Joly for serving to her construct early confidence within the position. “He informed me, ‘Simply get on the bike and begin pedaling. It’s simpler to steer when you’re transferring,’” she recollects.
Seven years into the job, Rasmussen says she’s nonetheless studying and nonetheless pushed by the identical motivation that introduced her to legislation faculty from a dental chair. “I informed our workforce, ‘I’ll be a greater CEO a 12 months from now than I’m at this time as a result of I’ll continue to grow,” she says.
And in an trade typically dominated by ego and short-term efficiency, that mindset is likely to be Thrivent’s Most worthy asset of all.
Ruth Umoh
ruth.umoh@fortune.com
At present’s publication was curated by Lily Mae Lazarus.
Smarter in seconds
Psychological gymnastics. The sports activities serving to executives keep on the high of their recreation
Whimsy wins. How the maker of the viral Labubu craze went from a small Beijing toy retailer to a $46.1 billion world success
Pharma fallout. Walgreens’ misplaced decade: How M&A mania and retail neglect shrunk a $100 billion big to a $10 billion non-public fairness gamble
Management lesson
Michelle MacKay, CEO of Cushman & Wakefield, on hiring the correct expertise: “You might be as high-IQ as the neatest particular person on the planet, however for those who can’t work with different folks, or for those who introduce toxicity into our surroundings, I don’t think about you gifted.”
Information to know
The U.S. and EU are closing in on a commerce pact that tackles nontariff points like deforestation and digital regulation, nevertheless it sidesteps the escalating tariff tensions that also loom giant. WSJ
Iran’s supreme chief, fearing assassination, has retreated to a bunker and appointed each navy deputies and clerical heirs. NYT
In Silicon Valley’s new AI-fueled period, the final word flex isn’t headcount or funding—it’s constructing a billion-dollar firm with the tiniest workforce potential. Bloomberg
The U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear websites is predicted to jolt power markets and ship oil costs surging, although analysts say the spike could also be short-lived as OPEC+ strikes to stabilize provide. Fortune
Fred Smith, the visionary founding father of FedEx who reworked world commerce by pioneering in a single day supply, has died at 80. Fortune
The transport trade was on excessive alert Sunday amid fears that Tehran might goal industrial vessels in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear websites. Fortune
