Todd Thorsen, who overhauled the 401(k) plan while at Medtronic, says ‘cognitive empathy’ is key to collaboration.
Todd Thorsen’s 27-year career in corporate finance and investing has not been carefully choreographed. “I’d love to say there was a master plan, but there really isn’t for me,” he says in the in the latest Strategic Finance Lab podcast available on Apple and Spotify. “It’s kind of happenstance and chasing the interesting things—that’s kind of driven my career.”
- The road he took includes stints at General Mills, Blue Cross Blue Shield, working as investment advisor for high net-worth clients, and more than a dozen years at Medtronic, where he rose to be head of global investments. Today, the former NeuGroup member is CEO of a family-owned holding company called Hunter, Keith Industries, where he oversees private equity investments.
- It’s no surprise, then, that Mr. Thorsen is an advocate of taking chances. Early in his career, that included passing up a well-paid summer internship with a multinational corporation in a “nice Midwestern city” to work in a bank in Slovenia where he didn’t speak the language and “probably broke even.”
- “Sometimes those off-the-beaten-path opportunities, embracing those, gives you some experiences and some confidence you wouldn’t necessarily get just kind of staying on the narrow path,” he tells NeuGroup’s Antony Michels. Other advice: “Don’t be afraid to say, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ Don’t be afraid to make a change.”
Spreadsheets, empathy and conviction. A highlight of Mr. Thorsen’s time at Medtronic took years to come to fruition: overhauling the company’s 401(k) defined contribution plan. It required patience fueled by his conviction that major change was necessary to best serve plan participants. It also meant tapping into what he calls “cognitive empathy” in collaborating and negotiating with the global benefits team. Empathy, he argues, is a valuable skill for treasury practitioners who must learn to see the world from the perspective of other functions—including the tax team.
- “It’s not you against tax,” he says. “The empathetic approach would be, well, they have what they’re supposed to be doing and they have their constraints and challenges, as we do in treasury. So if I can understand where they’re coming from…I think that goes a long way in building those relationships and…building trust as opposed to just headbutting and running into brick walls all the time.”
- In the end, it’s about helping other teams solve their problems while you solve yours—a rewarding pursuit for Mr. Thorsen. “I love solving problems,” he says. “I love diving into a situation, a challenge, a question, something going on, inevitably building a big spreadsheet, because that’s what we do, and trying to make sense out of a nebulous bunch of information, right? That’s what I’ve always enjoyed.”
Listen to the full podcast episode on Apple and Spotify.
