Ms. Norlander joined Naughtin Group as Senior Partner in 2018. Early in her career, she spent eight years in retained executive search: five with a local boutique firm and three with a national firm. She recruited executive level talent in many functions and industries including consumer, financial services and manufacturing. Clients included Fortune 100 companies as well as start-up and medium-to-large privately held companies. She then moved into corporate Human Resources roles in several industries including technology, insurance, manufacturing and health care. She led corporate talent acquisition at St. Paul Companies (now Travelers), Ecolab, and Donaldson Company, and most recently led diversity and inclusion efforts with UnitedHealth Group and development of early career programs with UnitedHealthcare. She has also had responsibility for communication strategy development and implementation, process improvement initiatives, project management, diversity and inclusion strategy and programs, and vendor selection and management.
Returning to retained executive search after many years in a corporate HR role, Mary notes that today potential candidates are now identified and contacted through more streamlined and technology-driven methods, making a search far more targeted, efficient, productive, effective, and timely. What has been constant over the years is that executive search is still a people and relationship business, and always will be. Mary excels in establishing rapport with candidates in search execution and evaluating their fit for each unique search.
Ms. Norlander obtained a bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts from the College of St. Benedict.
