Northwestern Mutual CEO explains decision to close LearnVest

Northwestern Mutual CEO John Schlifske gave new insight into his company's decision to close LearnVest and how Northwestern continues using the technology it acquired for $250 million. Speaking Tuesday at The Economist magazine's Finance Disrupted conference in New York City, Mr. Schlifske said while Northwestern closed LearnVest's digital advice platform, it is still using its financial planning technology. Since the acquisition, Northwestern incorporated LearnVest's tech into its own online platform. The brands were essentially "mirror images of each other," and "it didn't make sense" to continue supporting both at once, Mr. Schlifske said. "We just merged them into one, and it's available to our clients now," he said. (More: Northwestern Mutual shutting down LearnVest) Following the May closure, the LearnVest home page was replaced with a link to the support team's email, and a statement telling users that the company is "a work in progress" and that it will "be back soon to help you keep making progress on your money." Client accounts on the LearnVest platform were closed, and users were refunded three months' worth of subscription fees. LearnVest rebranded and relaunched as a millennial-targeted blog covering money, careers, life and debt. According to an "about us" page, LearnVest is "here to educate and empower you so you can start off right and achieve your goals — whether you want to take a dream vacation, put a downpayment on your first home or start planning for retirement." (More: Writing on the wall for direct-to-consumer robo startups) When Northwestern made the acquisition in 2015, the firm recognized LearnVest as a startup sharing a vision for combining human financial advisers with automated technology, Mr. Schlifske said. Though Northwestern isn't known for acquisitions, the LearnVest technology was simply much more developed than what Northwestern had in-house. "We were trying to disrupt ourselves from the inside and LearnVest accelerated that," Mr Schlifske said. "It's like going from a paper map to get to where you want to go to a virtual planning experience like Google Maps." The LearnVest office in New York continues to operate as part of Northwestern. Mr. Schlifske said the team has actually grown since acquisition, though he did not detail what the team works on. A LearnVest spokesperson clarified that the New York employees work in multiple areas, including the financial planning user experience.