Carolyn Sakstrup

Executive Vice President, Chief Growth and Generosity Officer

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Carolyn Sakstrup is executive vice president, chief growth and generosity officer of Thrivent, a Fortune 500 diversified financial services organization.

In her role, Sakstrup is responsible for building the organization’s brand, delivering an exceptional, integrated client experience, and enhancing generosity offerings. She uses client insights to advance Thrivent’s transformation into a digital-first, holistic financial services organization and will define our generosity strategy to mobilize clients to do good in communities.

She has extensive experience from her role with Target as senior vice president of Insights, Strategy and Innovation. She led the development of Target’s long-term strategic agenda, consumer insights-driven annual strategic planning processes, and development of the innovation pipeline to support longer-term growth. Before that, she served as senior vice president of marketing where she led the team responsible for launching Target Circle to generate brand loyalty via personalized offerings. In its first year, the Target Circle program grew to more than 80 million members. Prior to her 12 years at Target, Sakstrup spent seven years at McKinsey & Company as a strategy consultant focused on marketing and organizational strategy for clients.

Sakstrup has a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from the University of Minnesota and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. She serves as vice chair for the board of the YMCA of the North in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

She lives in Hopkins, Minnesota, with her husband, Kai, and their sons.