Eric J. Draut
Board Member
Eric Draut has been a member of the Thrivent Board of Directors since 2015. He chairs the Audit committee and serves on the Executive committee.
With his financial services industry experience and leadership skills, Draut helps ensure that Thrivent remains strong and stable, so it can transform into a holistic financial services organization that helps people achieve financial clarity, enabling meaningful and generous lives.
Draut began his career as an audit manager at Coopers & Lybrand (now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers). He spent 20 years with Unitrin (now Kemper Corp.), a financial services holding company—a tenure that included 13 years as executive vice president and chief financial officer. Over that period, he also managed a $6 billion investment portfolio and led numerous acquisitions, divestitures and financing transactions.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in accountancy with high honors from the University of Illinois and a Master of Business Administration from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is a CPA and a National Association of Corporate Directors Fellow.
Draut currently serves as lead independent director on the board of BlackRock TCP Capital, as well as board chair of BlackRock Direct Lending Corp and BlackRock Private Credit. He also serves on the board of Holy Family Ministries. Draut’s past board service includes terms at Intermec, Unitrin, Journeys from PADS to HOPE—a coalition of homeless shelters—and Lutheran Social Services of Illinois, where he was named chairman emeritus and previously served as executive chair. In recognition of those and other efforts, he was awarded the Call to Service Award by the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation.
About Thrivent
Thrivent is a Fortune 500 financial services company that helps build, grow and protect financial well-being through purpose-driven advice, investments, insurance, banking and generosity programs. Thrivent serves more than 2.4 million clients through thousands of financial advisors across the country and has more than $212 billion in assets under management/advisement (as of 12/31/25). Thrivent carries strong financial ratings from independent rating agencies - including AM Best, Moody's and S&P Global Ratings - which demonstrate the company’s financial strength, stability and ability to pay claims. Ratings don't apply to investment product performance and more information can be found on each rating agency's website. For more information about Thrivent, visit