In this episode of Career Club Live, we dive deep into the world of finance and the evolving landscape of innovation in financial services in America. Our special guest, David Dintenfass, EVP, Head of Emerging Products and Segments at Fidelity Investments, shares invaluable insights into their quest to educate and empower the next generation of savers, spenders, and investors.
Join us as we uncover the "why" behind Fidelity's initiative to empower the youth with financial knowledge and skills.
Find out why this initiative is so crucial and timely in today's ever-changing financial landscape. If you’re interested in how innovation works in financial services or how Fidelity approaches a customer first mindset, this episode offers valuable perspectives.
In this episode of Career Club Live, we dive deep into the world of finance and the evolving landscape of innovation in financial services in America. Our special guest, David Dintenfass, EVP, Head of Emerging Products and Segments at Fidelity Investments, shares invaluable insights into their quest to educate and empower the next generation of savers, spenders, and investors.
Join us as we uncover the "why" behind Fidelity's initiative to empower the youth with financial knowledge and skills.
Find out why this initiative is so crucial and timely in today's ever-changing financial landscape. If you’re interested in how innovation works in financial services or how Fidelity approaches a customer first mindset, this episode offers valuable perspectives.
Hi everybody, this is Bob.
Speaker 1:Goodwin and welcome to another episode of Career Club Live. Today's episode is brought to you by some new free resources we're making available on careerclub Things like the three things that might be holding you back in your job search, how to effectively enter, what's your greatest weakness, and some networking tips. We work a lot with clients that networking is a funny business and they're a little confused on what to do. So please download our free guide on how to make the most out of networking. You can get all that at careerclub and then just click on for job seekers. It's all free and we'd love to connect with you that way.
Speaker 1:So today I am very excited about our guest. He's got a quite impressive background and because of that I'm going to read most of it here. But our guest today is David Dittenfot, the head of emerging products and segments for Fidelity Investments. In his role, David leads a portfolio of products, including digital advisory services, Fidelity Bloom and Fidelity Youth Account and growth segments, such as Workplace Customers, Women Investors and Next Generation Young Customers. Formerly the CMO and head of experience design, he led marketing experience design teams across the enterprise. We're going to get a little bit deeper into his background, but before we do anything else, David welcome.
Speaker 2:Great to see you, Bob. No, it's great to see you. Thanks so much for joining.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great to be here. Cool, where are you dialing in from today? I'm in.
Speaker 1:Boston today. Awesome, so you're at the home office today At the home office, cool. Well, as this I want to do, let's sort of run through some quick ice breakers so people can get to know you a little bit. So we'll start with an easing. Where were you born and raised?
Speaker 2:Well, I am mostly from Wisconsin, but I'm not a total cheesehead. I was born actually, in Connecticut. My parents lived there for a year, but I mostly grew up in Wisconsin, other than a couple years where I got to live abroad. I actually got to live in the UK while I was growing up a couple of years.
Speaker 1:Did you pick up a football club while you were in the UK?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, in the wayback machine. Yeah, the Queens Park Rangers, and I don't really know a lot UPR, come on. I love it. I love it that you know that had the scarf and everything went to a couple of games. I guess my friends were into it. I have no idea really how the league works, to be honest, but I was a fan.
Speaker 1:Anybody who watches for half of a second knows that I love Liverpool stuff. And then a little bit about where you went to school.
Speaker 2:Well, I went to school in Appleton, wisconsin, and then I ended up on the East Coast, partially because I think my parents are both New Yorkers, so I had that pull to the East Coast. I went to Brown and after working and consulting for a few years, I went back to grad school at Harvard Business School Awesome.
Speaker 1:That's very impressive, and no wonder you're where you are. Just a little bit about your family. When we were getting to know each other before, you said that your dad was actually a teacher, right? A professor in Appleton, is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. My dad is a professor. He's just retired. Actually, my parents are both educators in Appleton Wisconsin.
Speaker 1:That's a good one. So I come from an academic background, and then your family, with wife, kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my nuclear family is. My wife and I married 22 years Congratulations and we have a five-year-old son, so we waited a little while and then a little while longer, and we had a very blessed to have a very energetic five-year-old.
Speaker 1:Well, you young parents are so cute. I admire you.
Speaker 2:If you need any advice on your dad.
Speaker 1:So I love for people just to get a little bit of a sense of your background because we're going to tap into it. But just a little bit about your career arc coming out of school.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I mean, as I said, after undergrad I actually I wasn't too sure what I wanted to do, but I ended up becoming a consultant. I had the fortune to work at McKinsey and Company, which was an amazing experience. As I said, I hadn't had a business background at all and I give McKinsey a lot of credit for teaching me so much in such a short amount of time, so that was a very formative experience. And then, after grad school, I ended up at Proctor and Gamble, which was another really formative experience. You know, really on the classic brand management track, you know, wasn't sure what I would do with it, but just, you learn so much on that track. And that led me eventually to Fidelity. After Proctor and Gamble, I also spent time at Bank of America, so my entree into financial services was after almost a decade and a half of Proctor and Gamble, and now I'm about the same amount of time in financial services.
Speaker 1:No, that's awesome, and we're going to talk about that intersection here in a minute. Last iceberg of question when we don't find you doing cool, innovative things in the financial services industry, what do you like to do in your office?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, pre our son we were all over the globe.
Speaker 2:We did a lot of travel. We were told that that would be a good thing to do. You know, travel while you're young, and we know we did that. It's funny because we started to mark on a map all the dots of all the places that we've been. And now with Alex, we are doing the same with him, so he has fewer dots, but we're hoping to continue that tradition. You know, when you have a baby it's definitely a lot of work, and he's five, as I said. So now you know he's on, he can sort of hold his own when we're doing some some bigger travel. So I look forward to that.
Speaker 2:And then there's a lot of sports. As any parent will know, he's right at that age where he's figuring out what sports he likes to do. So I've been on the basketball court, soccer field, baseball, diamond. You know my Saturday mornings are pretty much going to be sports related. Yeah, sometimes I try to pitch in coach's best I can, that kind of thing. And my one sort of flow, you know, moment alone, if I get the time, would just be I love, I love to go on a road bike and just just. You know, clear, clear my mind, it's one of my passions.
Speaker 1:How long will a bike trip?
Speaker 2:go. Oh man, you know, again, like before kids, I could sort of, like you know, do it for several hours and come back and take a nap. You know, I think this negotiable as to how long a bike ride, you know, but enough to tire me out for sure.
Speaker 1:So what's what's kind of move into the, the working part of all of this stuff. I love talking with marketers, consumer insights, consumer brands. Why we do what we do is interesting. You had mentioned that you really did get classically trained at Proctor and, of course, all roads to genius lead through Cincinnati. So there you go. But you've had senior marketing roles in financial services. Where do you see some of the similarities? What did you carry forward and maybe what's different about financial services versus traditional CPG?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's amazing. People from Proctor and Gamble seem to go all over the place and I always kind of want to know why is that? And I think it's been true throughout my whole career that the technology, the context of businesses changed so much in the three decades that I've been doing this and every generation feels like change is just accelerating, and it is. I have found that the mind of the consumer, us as humans luckily we don't evolve actually as fast as the context that we all live in. So the technology around us changes really rapidly.
Speaker 2:How we consume that at a fundamental level, I'm not sure it actually changes that much. So how to really think about the basic motivators of all of us and how to do that analytically, those building blocks I've used over and over and over again, Financial services, like all industries, but particularly industries that have been digitized, the transformation is pretty unbelievable. By the time I got there and this is now almost 15 years ago ATMs, for instance. Atms were just starting to accept that you could put cash into an ATM and not just get it out. We were there for the very first time that you could deposit a check on your phone instead of having to go through it.
Speaker 1:What's just very cool. I still am amazed by mobile check deposits. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's transformational, right. I mean, instead of having to go to a bank, you have the bank. That's basically in your pocket. The way we've served customers in this industry is just completely transformed. Most people would prefer never to have to call or come into a branch of a financial institution. That dramatically changes how you think about relationship building, dramatically changes how you think about communications, changes how you think about deepening a relationship you have with a customer. It used to be you'd come in and you'd make an appointment, sit down and have a long conversation. Well, that sometimes happens. More and more. This is happening digitally.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm thinking about a couple of things. One is you talked about how people think, and we're kind of the same critters that we've been for a long time. The technology around us changes. Money is a very emotional topic. Do you find that still the case? Are people's attitudes towards money changing Finances, wealth Security, all those things?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I guess money is the ultimate expression of lots of things about our priorities and our values. I don't think the fundamentals necessarily are changing, but I do think that the way people converse about money, I think, is changing. Money can be a very taboo and a very private subject and on some level I think it still is. But there has been a transformation. The younger generation is. They have these channels to find out about money in ways that just didn't exist before. I was just looking at this amazing statistic on TikTok. If you look at the hashtag money, I think it's $147 billion.
Speaker 1:With the views.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had to look at this last night. I had to look at it again with my glasses and my readers on. I don't think you would have predicted that platforms that you could say are mostly for entertainment. One of the top things that's happening across social media is people looking for information about money. That takes all kinds of different forms. It may not be sophisticated investing. It could just be the basics of budgeting and spending and saving and things like that. Young people are wanting that information really badly. They're wanting that information from other people they can get it from. It could be an influencer, but honestly, a lot of it just starts at home. As much as all this media has increased the number of ways you can get that information, young people still want their parents to help them out. We've tried to get after that at Fidelity very directly with some of our solutions. We have this youth app that we've just launched and it's about the connection of the parents and the teens, because the teens really need that guidance.
Speaker 1:Generationally. If this is wrong, you jump in and sort of team it up. Boomers, maybe Gen X money is very private. Millennials you look at apps like Venmo. You're sharing publicly. Hey, I just paid David 20 bucks because we haven't got a beer together. Then Gen Z is like well, how much do you make? There's no barrier. It's like, well, what's your problem? Why wouldn't we be talking about this? They're just very sharing a mentality. Is that what you guys see To?
Speaker 2:some extent, there's definitely some of that Venmo and the social aspect of that. Maybe, though, our research by and large says that that might be more of the exception Maybe not how much you sent for pizza, or something like that. But as far as how much money I make and how much I have invested and what are my money worries. Some of that is still pretty sensitive. I think even young people to some extent find that to be a little bit personal information.
Speaker 1:You mentioned young people and still looking to their parents, and rightfully so, I would suppose for guidance. Do you see generationally who's influencing people about financial advice, financial information? Does that change by generation, with advisors and banks and online resources, etc.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I think most of the big financial institutions are trying to educate their customers in one way or another. I think it's become just an expectation. As I said, a lot of it starts at home. At all the new ways you could find out about money and values, young people are still looking for home and their parents to give them information. Part of what we found is that that can open up a door for us so that sometimes the children are asking their parents for education, and that opens a door for us to better educate the parents.
Speaker 2:As I said, this solution we have is got a parent version and a teen version. Both of them benefit from having that conversation. If there's questions, they can come to fidelity. The fact is, they're also going to go to influencers. They're going to go to social media. They're going to go to Google. They're not Western looking for a brand to be the only source of information. I think brands do have a place to play. I think that if you're a trusted brand, that that can be a place, especially when you get into how do I actually solve a financial problem, which obviously is what our industry is about, then I might really want some information from someone like Fidelity.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking of at least two pillars, and I'm sure there's more. One is information transparency. Just make this information available to me, please. Part of its tech, which you talked about earlier. The rapid pace of change with technology you just brought up relationships maybe slash trust. What are some of the other avenues? Levers around innovation that your financial services is bringing to the market? Yeah, well.
Speaker 2:I mean every aspect of our business like all businesses is pivots on innovation. A lot of the innovation I've seen in the last decades is also operational types of innovation. I mean the back office has been completely transformed in our industry. Think about the amount of paper statements and checks and other kinds of paper that really made the system go and how much that's been digitized. That has great environmental benefits, has economic benefits in terms of the cost you can get massively better scale in a digital model but also means there's a lot better information we have on what our customers are actually doing. We can actually follow them through the experience and guide them. So if someone comes into the experience and is reading about certain articles, we can use that to say would you like some articles like this? So we can personalize the experience based on these digital touch points in a way that analog just didn't work. But then there's also consumer facing innovation.
Speaker 2:I helped develop with a great team here, an app that we call Bloom and it was trying to solve this problem of a lot of young people are at that pivot point where they're trying to save enough money to become an investor, but they have debt and they're not sure how to balance that. So this innovation gives people a little sort of micro incentives to become a saver, so you can become an investor. So it gives you cash back when you swipe your debit card. It gives you a match when you save your first few hundred dollars in the app and it's kind of like the consumer goods insight, like a little bit of dopamine, a little bit of pleasure.
Speaker 1:Oh, I think the word dopamine is going to come out of my mouth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you know, it's not dissimilar, like I worked on Crest toothpaste, and obviously there's a good, you know pharmacological benefit to brushing your teeth with fluoride, right. But the industry learned that putting great flavors in there, great packaging in there, you know, making it also a little bit of fun, I mean it's exactly, I think, the same insight that people know they should have better financial habits. But if you can make it more fun and interactive, which is what we're trying to do with this particular solution, there's just a lot of innovation, I think, in that space as well, and a lot of the fintechs I give a lot of credit for trying to innovate in that space as well.
Speaker 1:Do people's interest in new financial offerings, new financial innovation? Does it accelerate more when things are going well in the economy and I don't want to miss out? Or is it like oh crap, I'm really worried about the recession and debt and whatever, and I need to. I need to figure my stuff out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. I mean the 101 is that when the markets are up, more people get interested in the markets. Now, one could argue that it should be exactly the opposite. You know that when the markets are volatile can create amazing opportunities to get in for the long term. So we've seen that when the markets, when the markets, are up, we do see more young people, you know, coming in.
Speaker 2:However, you know the essence of a long term financial outcome often is just having a really good plan and sticking to it right, and so one of the things that we at Fidelity try to do is, especially when things are rocky, is remind people that they should have a plan for the long term and they should really stick to that plan in the long term, because trying to react to a specific market environment usually is not a very good way to drive the long term outcome that you're trying to drive. Young people haven't seen a lot of those cycles right. As you get older, we've all sort of seen that markets can go up and down, and so it's a little bit easier to say look from history. Really you should stay with your plan for young people that maybe their first downturn and they don't understand as much how that can play out over the long run. So we spend a lot of time trying to make sure that people stick with their plans.
Speaker 1:Well, once you said it's a springboard, because I feel like we sort of been holding something behind the curtain here for a minute. So you guys are just launching crypto for Fidelity Youth, is that right?
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:We just launched that so we're just playing kind of just a little bit about what it is and why it is. What was the insight and why, Fidelity Youth right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we have this teens and money study and it's been very consistent that it's a 75% of teenagers are interested in investing and no investing is important, but only 25% of them have ever considered actually doing it, so that's a huge gap right, Teenagers right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, these are teenagers I mean, we obviously serve all ages, but you know, teenagers, yeah, they're developing financial habits, they're developing attitudes about money and these attitudes can stay with them for an entire lifetime. Also, we ask teenagers start making pretty big financial decisions. Many of them are having a debit card before they go to college, but many of them are getting their first credit card potentially the first week they're at college. Once you're 18, you can get a credit card and, by the way, you may be getting student debt. So these are big financial decisions that sneak up on you when you're 18.
Speaker 2:So the insight we had and in 2021, we launched an account that was specifically designed for teenagers aged 13 to 18. What was unique about it is it's not a custodial account. It's actually an account that's owned by that teenager, but it has to be sponsored by a parent Because, as I said, teenagers and parents that bringing together of conversation and education values is really where the magic is. But uniquely, this would let these teenagers have a debit card but also an investment account. Now, there's no options or margin, so there's not a lot of ways to get way over your skis on this, but we ran this experiment and we weren't sure how many people would want to do it. What are they going to invest in? Are they going to invest wisely? Are they going to talk to their parents? Are their parents going to be part of the conversation? It's been really successful. So over the last couple of years we've watched that grow and we realize that we really want to dedicate experience.
Speaker 2:So this youth app takes that basic idea, but now we've added some features, such as we've seen this trend in social where young people are trying to think about the different places where money goes. I have the short-term spending. I have the long-term I'm spending on something for today versus next week. There's this idea of putting in different envelopes so I can remember what that money is for and I'm not tempted to spend it all on one thing. So we took that day of envelopes and actually digitized that.
Speaker 2:So this youth app actually gives you these buckets where you can put money in, and this one could be for my skateboard and this one could be for saving for college whatever buckets that you want to set up. It retains the idea of investing and being able to spend, but it also has things like education, with small incentives to actually gain the education. Again, the parents are also involved, so the parents have their own version of the app where they can see the education as well and hopefully spark a conversation. So it's the first time we've had an app. That's a unique experience. The teens and the parents can come together and it's designed just for them.
Speaker 1:How are the teens finding it? How are they encountering the app?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, obviously if you go Fidelity Youth in the App Store you can find it, but also we will advertise it on our own properties and third-party social media and things like that as well, so people can find it that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, now that makes sense If you're talking to parents right now, Dave, because I'm going to guess I've got more parents than teenagers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's on this.
Speaker 1:If you're talking to parents, what are the maybe two or three main bits of advice that you would give them to really teach lessons? They're going to stick.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, as a parent of a five-year-old and an older one, I've sought out all kinds of parenting advice, so I'm not going to at all say that I'm the expert in giving out parenting advice, but I can say that what I'm trying to do. So, first of all, it's probably not too early to start talking about money. Alex is five years old. We decided that we would give him a dollar a week allowance and we wanted to observe what's he actually doing that and when he wants to spend it. We'll have a conversation about that.
Speaker 2:I think that those are very fundamental habits. The whole marshmallow eating, you know tests whether or not. You know that's a specific, very famous piece of research, but I do think there's something real there. I think, again very similar to like I've worked in healthcare and beauty care, right, and like how do you get people to put on sunscreen every day? How do you get people to floss every day? Like these long term habits that are good. You know, in 20 years they often start with a micro habit about today and getting someone to focus on that.
Speaker 2:So I think it's never too early to try to get with your children to talk about those habits and those values. You know I won't get any kind of specific financial advice, but certainly if you're starting to work, you know it opens up all kinds of doors for things you can do. You can start to save and you know there's great rates right now on savings. You can think about a Roth IRA. Incredibly, you know great way to invest for the long term and obviously there's products like 529. So you know there's there's solutions that I think are really really unique, that both parents and kids can think about, that can really help them in the long run.
Speaker 1:Does Alex have to do anything for his dollar?
Speaker 2:Yeah, he has to clean up his playroom every week.
Speaker 1:Money's not free. There's a lesson right by itself I have to earn my dollar.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's cool, I want to. Is there anything else? Just on fidelity, youth and just sort of again, if you're just sort of broadly talking to parents or kids about money, before we pivot into a little bit of career stuff, no, I mean, I think you know I'll make one other observation.
Speaker 2:A lot of people are really intimidated by the idea of investing, and I think that putting your toe in the water is not a bad idea. You know there's no fees and there's no minimums, for instance, that fidelity, and there's a lot of others that are either close to that, or you know very low fees and minimums, and so it's never been a better time to be an investor. You know it used to be. You had to pay the commissions and have minimum balances and all this kind of stuff. So a lot of that friction has gone away in the industry, which it's just a great time for someone young or old, who's never you know said, I'm going to be an investor to go try it and kind of go see how that actually works.
Speaker 2:You know the other thing I work as, as we talked a little on how to get more women interested in investing, and you know, one of the observations we've had on the youth account before this app launch because the app launch is very recent is there's still this gap. There's still this gap that boys are more interested in investing, they're investing at a higher rate, and it even is true of our this, this teen experience. We're seeing more boys than girls, and you know I don't have easy answers as to why that is, but I think that it's really important that both parents, you know, have these same conversations and encourage their girls as much as their boys to be interested in how money works and investing and, you know, thinking about the long term.
Speaker 1:I'm pure hypothesis. I'm just curious if any of that is competitiveness, you know, in gamification and things that you would look, you know, just maybe slightly more masculine and feminine sometimes if, like, I want to win, I want to, I want to beat the game here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, perhaps. I mean, I think, again, everyone's different. So you know, you can't just say it's all because of gender, but I think there's something about women may be really really good at saving, but some, on average, might be less willing to say I'm going to invest because it has, you know, has a risk associated with it. Obviously you've got to be a ride out the ups and downs and again, that's why both you know all of us can benefit from a long term plan. Right, because if you're again looking at the ups and downs of the market, that's not really what this is about in the long run. It's investing for the long run where the returns are, you know, are smoothed out.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate the fact that you're just focused on it, because anytime you know, on a gender basis there's disequilibrium, you know it's like, well, there's got to be some underlying cause and how can we help bring it back to what should be more balanced than it is, and so the fact that you're focused on that, I think, is super encouraging. So thank you actually for doing that. You remember a proctor when they did like a girl? Did you remember that video?
Speaker 2:the viral video, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, right, and it's almost like invest like a girl.
Speaker 2:It's like yeah.
Speaker 1:You know this isn't just for the boys, this isn't just a dad thing. This is like boys, girls, men and women you know equally can participate in this and benefit from this, and we don't learn to give up. You know, understanding how money works, that I don't see control to somebody else for that.
Speaker 2:So it's funny to say that. You know, for our team that manages our women's efforts, some of their research has suggested that that actually is factual. So on average, women might tend to just leave their portfolio in a balanced way and kind of leave it there, which can be a really good strategy, often in the long term. So to your point, you know that is real.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so all right, I'm excited. I think what you're doing is great. I love the fact that you guys you keep breaking this into your more addressable markets and you're finding the needs that you know different segments have, rather than this kind of monolithic broad brush. So I think that all of your good classic training continues to come to bear and just get better and better. What I wanted to ask you about, just kind of as we start to wrap up, a couple of questions. Obviously, our clients are career club. Our people are very. They could be job seekers. They could be people that are in roles that they're not loving for some reason.
Speaker 1:You've built a lot of teams over the years. You hire people and promote people and stuff. What are some of the talent qualities, David, that really get your attention?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know, at P&G we're screening very much for leadership, which can be sound like a very soft skill, but I think one of the things I learned doing a lot of recruiting back when I was younger, was it's a very hard skill, meaning you know it can be learned, it can be practiced. All of us are getting better at it every day and aren't perfect at it every single day, and you know that leadership is the DNA of candidates number one for me, I think that adaptability is absolutely essential. You know, I don't think most of us could imagine that we're doing what we're doing those of us who went to school, you know, 30 years ago. I mean just the nature of work itself is gonna continue to just transform. And so you know, your ability to have expertise in an area but then to stretch that and to sort of adapt to whatever environment that you're in, I think you know that can't be underestimated.
Speaker 2:And then, I guess, the ability to contribute as an individual but then to matrix with a team I mean any size company, but particularly in the big companies that I've worked with I mean to do the magical things that only a big company can do. You know, but be nimble. You know it comes down to just the team chemistry. You know the culture, how people work together, the quality of the people as a group, you know as well as as individuals, and so I'm always looking for whether people can actually contribute to the group as well as be talented themselves.
Speaker 1:One of the leadership side of it. That's an interesting one. I mean, it's safe that you were doing, you know, recruiting out of universities. Are you just looking for the president of the sorority, or are there other ways that I can demonstrate leadership to you?
Speaker 2:Oh, such a great point, yeah, I mean, I think, whether it's fidelity or anywhere that I've been, I mean it's just the ability to have impact in the environment that you're in. It's not about your title, right. It's not about it's great if you were elected to be president of your sorority or of your school or whatever, but it really what was the impact that you were able to make? How are you able to bring other people along and motivate them? And you know none of us can do any of this alone, right? So it's really less about leadership, about just what I'm bringing to the party, and more about what you can do, bring other people into your vision. So it doesn't matter what you're passionate about doing, you know, I think you can exhibit leadership by just the impact that you have.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad to hear you say that and of course it ties very closely to your third point, which is the ability to mesh and to work well with other people. And that's what we try and teach people in interview scenarios and when we're prepping people for interviews is finding that balance of you know, because people get very worried about you know, like I'm awesome, and they feel like they're bragging.
Speaker 1:And they get very reluctant to. Most people get very reluctant to do that, so they end up actually underselling their contribution and the key, of course, is understanding what your role was on the team, but to your point, how you were able to help other people do their best work and help contribute to the final goal. I really like how you use the word impact, because oftentimes I don't think people will always appreciate or reflect on what their impact was on a particular project. It was just like, well, I went to work and I did my job and I went home and I'll come back for it the next day.
Speaker 1:And then all of a sudden that becomes very problematic when you're trying to build your CV, you're trying to interview and David asked you tell me about a time when you really made impact. And you're like, oh, I haven't really dimensionalized my job that way before, and it's not that the people didn't do the work. They haven't actually given themselves credit and kind of documented their impact.
Speaker 2:I think it's a great point, bob. I mean actually it's one of the things I coach if I'm mentoring younger talent. I mean it's not easy but like what happens at the arc of your career partially, is that you just get different context on all the same things, right. Right, as your group gets bigger and then you're working at an entire enterprise level, your context changes. So just thinking about how you're making impact and tying it to that broader context, just constantly doing that, is half the battle, because it may be that even your manager hasn't thought that through all the way as you get more senior. They probably haven't, because your job gets more ambiguous as you get more senior. So it's like what's the mission of the enterprise, what are they trying to do and how can I contribute to that, both in my job description and outside?
Speaker 1:of my job description, so we'll wrap up on this. Normally I would ask the question what advice would you give 28 year old David? But I'll flip it what advice would you give 18 year old Alex?
Speaker 2:Well, there's probably a lot in that. I mean, there's a lot of personal growth that goes into leadership. So for my son, we'd probably be talking a lot about sort of the personal side. If your listeners are sort of seeking, like professionally, what are some of the lessons that maybe I would impart? It depends a little bit on your context, but some of the more universal ones.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite themes in my whole career is that customer obsession is always an intent, I think everywhere but there's a gap between intent and operationalizing it. Yes, you know, actually running the play with the rigor to make sure that that voice of customer is what you're actually executing against. I feel like I'll end my career on the quest to really do that as best as it can be done, because I think that every company is trying to do that and yet the S&P 500 turns over so quickly. Still, I think 15 years average lifespan. I think that is at the crux of it. I think it is an under discussed it's like an overly used piece of language with an under discussed set of operational discipline that actually takes to do that. I think if I was talking to Alex and this is this is, I think, a lot of people I admire as leaders. They kind of have the growth mindset which is not my language, right, but it's easier said than done. But I mean the fact is is that there's going to be so many bumps in the road. I mean, this is just true of anyone you ever talk to that successful, right, it's not a straight line. It's got its share of heartbreak and disappointment and you just have to be incredibly patient at times. But if you've approached that as saying I'm going to grow from the tough times, it gives you a completely different perspective than well, the tough times are going to wear me down and I won't have the same energy to approach the problem, because a lot of time success is just that last try after 99 failures towards something.
Speaker 2:And it goes to the first point. I think customer obsession is much more about a process incredibly rigorous, arduous, sometimes process to really do it properly than it is. I intend it, it happens and I'm sort of good. I guess also that third piece of advice would just be be choiceful about the people that you're working with, that you're with. I mean, your life is basically the people you surround yourself with and we all spend so much time professionally doing what we do and, at the end of the day, the people that you're doing with it is your work. A place like Fidelity has just amazing people. It's one of the reasons I was so attracted to be here and I really feel that every day, in terms of showing up and doing my role and the people I get to work with, it's an honor. So if you can find that and you really admire the people around you, that's a huge gift.
Speaker 1:Well, community is huge, I mean, and who you surround yourself with really does play a really big part in who you become and who you are. I think that's awesome. And you talked about adaptability earlier and the pace of change. It's never going to be slower than it is today, it's just going to keep going, and so we're going to have to continue to learn, to grow, to adjust.
Speaker 1:I did a post recently on embracing the journey. We get so fixated on the destination that sometimes we can even curse the journey, but, like you said, there's the ups and downs, there's the failures. This isn't going the way that it was supposed to go and rather than, as I say, curse the journey, it's like well, how can I embrace this and learn from it? Get stronger, learn more perseverance, learn more patience, get more creative. Maybe I'm not bringing enough people to the solution to help me think this thing through, whatever it is, but it's all a big learning opportunity.
Speaker 1:And if you can, benefit find in the midst of the struggle. It makes it not just tolerable, but it's like OK, this isn't what I would have chosen, but I can see some good coming out of this and we're coming up with a new idea Maybe we wouldn't have come up with had this obstacle not put itself here. We ran into it. So Alex is a lucky boy. He's going to do well.
Speaker 2:Well, I hope so. I think to your point. It's amazing how many people you talk to in their careers and that unexpected twist, or even the assignment that they got they didn't really want or seem like it was going to be really hard or whatever like that became the formative thing that really transcended their career.
Speaker 1:And if we think about movies, it's always the unexpected twist, it's the insurmountable obstacle that people are faced with. But that's who the hero is. It's the hero, is the one that somehow perseveres, even among, admit, self doubt or whatever it is that might be their particular demon in the storyline. They still find a way to persevere. So, david, awesome, is there any last little bit of something that we haven't covered that you would want to make sure you would guess?
Speaker 2:No, I think we covered a lot of ground, Bob.
Speaker 1:We covered a lot in 35 minutes, emily. That was good. David, I really appreciate you taking time. I know that you're extremely busy. You're working on a number of cool initiatives but the fact that you would take a little bit of time out of your schedule, share with us what you're doing professionally, kind of some of your career thoughts, and how you're even helping shape your five year old son, alex it's inspirational, so I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Bob.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thank you everyone for listening. If you're watching this on YouTube, please feel free to comment, like, subscribe, and if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast platform, please rate and review. It really helps. So again, david, thanks so much for spending a couple minutes with us. It's been great to see you. Thank you, thanks.
Speaker 2:Bob.
Speaker 1:I know you're going to find it. You've got all you need, so just keep on doing it.