Kristi Martin Rodriguez, Senior Vice President – Thought Leadership

Kristi Martin Rodriguez is Senior Vice President, Nationwide Financial Marketing. In her role, Kristi leads a dynamic team responsible for all marketing and thought leadership activities across Nationwide Financial. Her team focuses on enhancing brand awareness, driving customer acquisition and fostering retention for a diverse range of products including retirement plans, life insurance (individual, business, and corporate-owned), annuities, mutual funds and pet insurance.

Kristi’s team is instrumental in aligning marketing initiatives with the strategic priorities of Nationwide Financial’s business lines. By integrating these priorities into core marketing activities – such as an integrated media planning, national advertising, targeted marketing, partnerships, digital, and sponsorships – her team accelerates growth and drives profitable engagement across all channels.

Kristi also oversees professionals who provide hands-on consultation to develop client strategies and address the major concerns America’s workers face when planning for retirement. Through timely insights, relevant programs, education and client-ready tools, NF Marketing enhances the collective value it offers financial professionals, plan sponsors and consumers.

Kristi has over 20 years of extensive experience in business-to-business and direct-to-consumer strategies and building high-performing teams. She joined Nationwide in 2015 as the Vice President of Marketing for Nationwide’s Retirement Plans business, and most recently served as Senior Vice President for the Nationwide Retirement Institute®. Before joining Nationwide, Kristi held marketing and business leader roles at Aetna and UnitedHealth Group. Her experience included functioning as the enterprise program lead of health care reform for UnitedHealthcare. Additionally, Kristi led a business development team working with the public sector, labor and trust and national accounts as liaison to their sales organization. She has a bachelor’s degree in Finance from Hampton University and completed the consumer marketing strategy executive training program at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, as well as Series 6 and 26 securities registrations.

She is also an active member of the community, working with several non-profit and social organizations that aid unserved communities. Kristi is the Founder and Board Chair of the Financial Alliance for Representation and Empowerment (FARE) – a 501(c)6 organization dedicated to increasing representation within the financial services industry, a founding member of the Ohio chapter of The National Association of Securities Professionals (NASP), a member of the Board of Trustees for The American College of Financial Services and a member of the Executive Leadership Council.

Nationwide Investment Services Corporation (NISC), member FINRA, Columbus, Ohio. Nationwide Retirement Institute is a division of NISC.