Kim Sharan is an Independent Director with Fortune 100 board experience and a proven track record participating in enterprise-level decisions impacting company mission, leadership, revenue/bottom line growth, customer experience, executive total rewards, acquisitions, and regulatory considerations.
Kim built her career at leading global financial services firms, including Citicorp, Merrill Lynch, American Express, and later Ameriprise. Kim has been recognized as One of the Most Influential CMOs in the World by Forbes, Top 100 Women in Corporate America by Women 3.0 Magazine, and Top 25 Women to Watch by Minneapolis Business Journal 20.
Ms. Sharan is currently on the Board of Trustees for TIAA, a leading provider of financial services with $1T in assets under management. She was appointed HR Committee Chair for TIAA within the first 18 months of her tenure and is also a member of the Risk & Compliance and Nomination & Governance Committees. Since joining the board in 2015, Kim has been involved in strategic planning, executive compensation, M&A, risk management, succession planning, and rebranding initiatives.
Kim also collaborated with board members to recommend the strategy to merge the retail and institutional businesses under one leader to harmonize the business and elevate the value proposition. She advised the brand and marketing teams on the TIAA rebranding strategy as they consolidated brand assets following the acquisition of Nuveen.
She partnered with outside compensation consultants to realign compensation in the retail business and benchmark CEO compensation and worked with HR to formalize the executive leadership succession planning process and identify future talent. Additionally, as a member of the Nomination & Governance Committee, Kim helped create the strategy to diversify the board and source talent with mission-critical digital, technology, and cyber security expertise.
Prior to Kim’s board role at TIAA, she spent 12 years at Ameriprise Financial Inc. in business development and marketing positions with increasing responsibility. She became President of Financial Planning & Wealth Strategies & CMO in 2006 and was a member of the executive leadership team that took the company public following their spin-off from American Express in 2005. She and her team built the Ameriprise brand from the ground up, created a “customer obsessed” culture, achieved the highest net promoter scores in the industry, and participated in the due diligence of key acquisitions, including H&R Block Financial Advisors and Threadneedle Asset Management Group.
Previously, during Kim’s two-year tenure as a Managing Director for Strategic Planning and Business Development for Merrill Lynch Investment Managers and Head of Asset Management Group for ML Japan Securities, Kim developed a third-party distribution strategy for the retail asset management business in Japan resulting in increased sales of $1B. She also targeted an affluent segment of a new securities company to propel AUM to $3.5B in year one.
Earlier, at Citicorp, Kim held investment strategy, marketing and Chief of Staff (to the CEO Citicorp Investment services) roles over her 17-year tenure. She was tapped to move to Tokyo to develop the strategy to enter the Japanese market following Big Bang deregulation, resulting in Citibank becoming the #1 ranked bank broker-dealer with a record-breaking $1B in sales.
Kim is also the Founder & CEO of Kim M. Sharan, LLC, a business transformation and marketing advisory firm. Kim is currently partnering with a leading insurance provider in Asia to design and deliver a best-in-class agency model through a robust digital transformation, enhanced recruiting and training models, and customer engagement strategies all designed to deliver a more client-centric approach and enhance agent productivity.
Additionally, Kim has been active on several advisory and nonprofit boards. Currently, she is a member of the global executive advisory board for Own the Room, a global learning and development firm specializing in communications programs for executives. Kim advises on their business strategy, audits training content, and assists in introducing and landing new business. She is also on the advisory board for Hearsay Systems, helping financial advisors and insurance agents deliver a consistent and optimized experience to all clients.
Kim earned her MBA from the University of Chicago and her BA in Economics from Drew University. She holds the NACD Board Leadership Fellow accreditation and is a member of The Economic Club of New York, Women’s Forum New York, and The Committee of 200 (C200).
