Vanguard, Malvern, Pennsylvania: Susan McLaughlin, Senior Associate Creative Director

A video of up to 5 minutes

Susan Mclaughlin

Vanguard
Lifetime achievement

1. Susan began her career journey developing marketing and educational campaigns for Aetna U.S Healthcare to promote preventative healthcare. Helping people understand what they could do to prevent illness and be proactive in their healthcare journey was a whole new concept at the time. In the past, healthcare was reactive, treating people only after they discovered an illness. Susan’s campaigns between 1994 and 1998 leaned into education on benefits, quality of life, and best practices to help people embrace the idea of preventive healthcare. This was when Susan got her first taste of how rewarding it is to do purpose-driven work—knowing her strategies and communications were enhancing the quality of people’s lives and helping them take control of their healthcare journeys.
2. When the internet burst onto the scene, Susan was a pioneer in the brand-new fields of web design and coding. She was hired by QVC in West Chester, PA to stand up their website and create an in-house team to maintain it. She successfully integrated the existing video platform into the online experience, using storytelling to bring customers curated collections and connect with them in meaningful ways. She had a team up and running within a year, allowing QVC to fully maintain the site in-house.
3. New websites were helping companies reach people like never before, and Susan was excited to play a role in bringing these new opportunities to life. She worked as a freelancer in her spare time, notably building the iGrandparents website, which offered tips, activity suggestions, and advice to help grandparents form strong connections with their grandchildren. After the site launched, Susan created and maintained a monthly activity book for users and their grandchildren to work through together. It was rewarding to see the company grow quickly—and to make a meaningful impact by helping people build and nurture important family relationships.
4. As the internet grew rapidly, Susan’s proven UX skills were in high demand. Anchoring on her healthcare background, she built and created content for West Chester University’s website to attract a diverse student body and provide them with the highest quality of undergraduate and graduate nursing education. These communications showcased the school’s contemporary nursing science curriculum and cultural and economic values. Most importantly, they captured the University’s belief in lifelong learning—a belief that Susan has fully taken to heart in her career journey.
5. In 2000, Susan was approached by one of the founders of QVC to help stand up a new business venture called Craftopia.com. As the Art Director, Susan oversaw all aspects of content strategy and production, including marketing, advertising, creating a website and a craft community magazine. This was a large start-up effort where Susan was able to learn the logistical ins and outs of starting a new business. The company created its own crafts, created content that helped viewers learn how to duplicate the crafts on their own, and sold the materials to help crafters express their unique vision. This empowering position allowed Susan to upskill on the business side of standing up a new company and understanding stakeholder investments.
6. In 2001, Susan moved into the financial field as a UX designer for Vanguard’s Retail division. Designing UX solutions and marketing content helped her form an immediate connection with Vanguard’s clients—an audience of everyday investors. Vanguard’s core purpose resonated with Susan right away: to take a stand for all investors, to treat them fairly, and to give them the best chance for investment success. That connection is what drove Susan to launch research to create inclusive and attainable investment strategies, and to push to communicate this inclusive vision in the company’s educational, marketing, and advertising content. Susan’s efforts made an enormous impact within the company, opening the door to a more modern, authentic way of speaking to clients in order to make them feel seen, heard, and understood. Her drive to be an advocate for investors continues to shine through in her leadership style.
7. Before the time of CRGs, Vanguard started its first “Diversity” team. Susan was one of the first members of the African American Diversity team, helping to promote an educational experience for crew members as well as a platform for African Americans to navigate career opportunities within Vanguard. Susan oversaw various communications that celebrated Vanguard’s colorful cultural population. She was one of the first crew members to be recognized for these early efforts in supporting diversity and inclusion.
8. In 2020, Susan played a vital role in standing up RHC, Vanguard’s first in-house creative agency, opening doors to creating award-winning multi-media content that prioritizes emotive storytelling as a path to building strong connections with clients, elevating our brand, and delivering on our business objectives and strategies. She helped build out our agency capabilities, adding scriptwriting, data-viz, HTML5 animation, and digital and social offerings to the video team, allowing for a decrease in external agency costs by 90%.
9. Susan’s work helped eliminate Vanguard’s reliance on external agencies for creative output. She hired and upskilled talent that set our in-house agency up to successfully produce efficient, effective creative content. RHC has been honored with 69 creative industry awards in two years, 67 of which recognized videos, animations, and digital designs that came from Susan’s teams.
10. Outside of work Susan is an active volunteer for the Girl Scouts, where she creates programming and activities. She was honored with the Girl Scouts’ Innovation Award in recognition of her efforts in creating programs such as Girls in Aviation, Meet a Leader Be a Leader, public speaking, survival camping, career planning, and much more. Susan treasures this leadership role, drawing great strength and meaning from watching these young women learn, grow, and discover the personal skills and strengths that will shape who they become—and serve them throughout their lives.
11. Susan is a member of Cabrini College’s Course Design Advisory Board, consulting on the 4-year college’s design courses to help ensure relevance in today’s fast-moving career landscape to set future graduates up for success. Susan gives constructive feedback during yearly portfolio reviews on students’ work and presentation skills, coaching them to help them prepare for interviews and the job market.
12. Susan serves on the Board of Directors for All Cancer Counts, an organization that raises money for rare cancers and helps organize fund-raisers and promote awareness. She became involved after one of her employees was diagnosed with a rare form of throat cancer. Susan worked hard to support her employee’s treatment and recovery and make sure their re-engagement in the workforce was handled thoughtfully and compassionately. After their recovery, Susan partnered with them to create this organization to help call attention to the rare cancers and encourage research to focus on cancers that sometimes get overlooked for funding and awareness.