#3 Henry Fernandez: A Journey of Bold Vision & Exponential Growth

In this compelling episode of Stratospheric Leaders, Georgie Dickins sits down with Henry Fernandez, Chairman and CEO of MSCI, to explore the essential qualities that define extraordinary leadership. From navigating uncertainty to embracing risk, Henry shares profound insights on vision, resilience, and long-term thinking. He reflects on lessons from his early life, the importance of calculated risk-taking, and how great leaders shape the future by working backward from a bold vision.

Henry unpacks the fine line between genius and irreverence. He also explains the necessity of embracing discomfort, and why failure is the foundation of success.

Key Takeaways from This Episode:

The Leader’s Vision: Great leaders see the future and work backward to create it. Vision isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about unwavering belief in the mission.

Embracing Discomfort & Risk: Success comes from stepping into uncertainty. Leaders who push boundaries and defy convention often face rejection but create real change.

The Power of Long-Term Thinking: Most people are wired for short-term survival. The true differentiator of great leaders is their ability to think 5, 10, or even 20 years ahead.

Learning from Failure: Every failure plants the seeds for future success. The best leaders don’t bury their failures—they analyze them relentlessly to grow stronger.

Courage in Leadership: Whether in business or politics, transformational leaders inspire through resilience, bold decision-making, and a deep commitment to their cause.

Competitive Advantage in Crisis: Many companies retreat in turbulent times—Henry explains why MSCI expands during downturns and how crises are the best time to gain market advantage.

Memorable Quotes:

"Great leaders don’t need to know the exact path. They just need the conviction that they will find the way."

"If you want to be truly exceptional, study human nature. Success comes from understanding how people think and then going against the predictable."

"A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. The best opportunities come when the world is in turmoil."

"Take more smart risks. Fear magnifies risk in the short term. But if you master it, risk becomes your greatest advantage."

If you want to learn more practical lessons and real-world leadership insights from remarkable founder CEOs, you can ⁠⁠order Georgie's book Stratospheric CEOs out now.

Show Links

Website - https://www.georgiedickins.com

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgiedickins

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@GeorgieDickins-q7x

Transcript

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Hi, I'm Georgie Dickens, host of Stratospheric Leaders, the podcast where I get to have inspired conversations with extraordinary leaders from across capital markets. Join me to hear their game-changing strategies, the personal stories, and powerful soundlights behind their stratospheric success. Every episode packed with wisdom, inside, and real-world lessons, the stuff they simply don't teach you in business school. If you want to elevate your game and most importantly, elevate those around you, this podcast is for you. You're in for a treat with this one because I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Henry Fernandez for an episode of Stratospheric Leaders. Henry is one of the most charismatic, engaging, and undeniably inspiring visionaries of our time. He's also an incredibly powerful storyteller. Born in Mexico and raised in Nikiwa, he is an immigrant American success story, one that was built through vision, calculated risk taking, and an unshakable belief, a belief he would find a way to create his dream. Today, as chairman and CEO of MSEI, Henry has led one of the most remarkable growth stories in modern finance. Since his IPO in 2007, MSEI share price has soared 32 times. The AUM benchmark to MSEI indices now totals a staggering $16.5 trillion. When the company went public, its market cap stood at $1.8 billion. Today, it's around 45 billion, a 43.5 billion increase under his leadership. One of the most powerful insights Henry shared was the advice he would give his younger self. Take more smart risk. This is someone who one would arguably say he's taken a lot of risk. He would take more smart risks. And another quote: if it ain't broke, break it. Constantly push the boundaries of what's possible. This conversation is packed with extraordinary lessons, deep insights, and actionable wisdom. Have your pen and paper ready. There's going to be lots you want to jot down. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. So, Henry, I am truly excited for you to be a guest on Stratospheric Leaders because this is a podcast where I get to have conversations with extraordinary leaders from across capital markets. And I've had the great privilege of getting to know you over the last four years because you very kindly were one of the leaders who agreed to be profiled in my book, Stratospheric CEOs. And I've had the also great privilege of going behind the curtains, hearing your leadership insights, your lessons, your strategies, your tactics. And one thing that really, well, many things came up for me, but you are a true visionary and you are also an extraordinary storyteller. So I know today's session or today's episode is going to be a masterclass in leadership excellence. So I am truly excited to dive straight in. And I always like to start the episodes with getting a sense of who are you when you're not in the seat that you sit in. And I was just going to ask, look, there are many qualities that have contributed to your success. And across history, we have seen many leaders who've reshaped history in dramatic, you know, dramatically different ways. And I've chosen eight what I think are iconic leaders. And I was going to ask, who do you identify with most and why? Some of them are a little bit controversial, uh, but I have Einstein, Churchill, Steve Jobs, Kelleguilla, Genghis Khan, Logan Roy from uh he's from Succession, Maximus Decimus, the Gladiator, and Richard Branson. I would say uh Winston Churchill, and um for a number of reasons. Uh you know, the first one he was uh irreverent, eccentric. Uh some people sometimes accuse him of being crazy. Um we'll talk a little bit about about that borderline between between genius and craziness. Um it but what a lot of what he did was he had uh a mission, he had a strategy. The mission in his mind was to free the world of uh Nazi uh Germany and Hitler. He had a strategy, had to achieve that. He needed to sell that strategy to the British people and and the world, especially the American people. And he needed to inspire people in order to keep the faith over a long period of time. Uh and he needed to deter, he needed to demonstrate determination, uh, especially in that famous uh speech that he gave when he said, never give in, never give in, never, never, never. He basically said, We are not going to be defeated, we will prevail. Uh, and uh he was able to navigate an extremely difficult period of history, especially for uh for the UK. Uh during that time, especially from the summer of uh uh so from the summer 1940, when France was run over by Nazi Germany to um you know to the uh to November of 41 when Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese and the Americans came into the war. So uh so I think you have uh you know a character here that uh uh was highly unusual. Uh he was extremely eccentric uh and uh was able to uh create major achievements uh in life you know at the time, and he had that incredible confidence in himself, his ability to uh to see through problems, and eventually he didn't know how we're how we was gonna solve. He didn't, I'm sure, moments of weakness. He thought that you know that uh Germany was gonna invade the UK and the UK will cease to exist as an independent country. I'm sure he had those nightmares, but he projected an image of we will figure out the path, we will get there. I don't know what it is, I don't know how, but we will get there. So leaders in business and in other organizations that have achieved incredible things in lives in life have this has the ability to see the future, this ability to uh to inspire people to that future, and work backwards and say, we'll figure out the path. Leaders like this have an incredible optimism, an unshakable belief in the future uh of what their cause is, and an ability to be confident enough that even if they don't have the answers to navigate towards that future, towards that end, they will figure out the way. And uh, and you know, Churchill is one of those people that epitomizes that. There's so many things you shared there, but I love that that unwavering belief, the never giving in, the unshakable belief. And that piece, I think it's an on as an entrepreneur, you need to have that unshakable belief, as you said, that you'll figure out, that you'll find a way. You always you know have that those for an entrepreneur, typically, you know, there are a lot of traits that you need to have as an entrepreneur, but two fundamental ones are that unshakable belief in what you're trying to achieve that is gonna work, that is gonna create a company or create a new product, create a new revolution or whatever. And secondly, that you do not you don't know yet have the path, but that high level of confidence that you will figure out the path to get there. And I think that's the difference that makes the difference when I I look at entrepreneurs that succeed. You there isn't a crystal ball to see the path ahead, but it's there you have the mission and it's that belief just to keep moving forward because when you know more, what you more data points become available. Absolutely. I I never met anybody who achieved an incredible feat in life, you know, who who doesn't that who doesn't have that uh uh set optimism, sense of purpose, galvanizing people, inspiring people, and creating this uh this environment around him or her that uh we will figure out the path, we will figure out the way, we will craft a way to get to that future. And um, and that is uh, you know, there are not too many people in life that I know that have achieved great things that don't have that way. And I remember one of our conversations, you talked about, you know, when when uh there's that entrepreneurial vision, that a revolution, all revolutions start with a small band of revolutionaries, and it's that ability to see that unmet future which others can't yet see. Yeah, I think one of the uh the most difficult things uh uh for human beings, you know, we're incredible, incredible creatures with a lot of attributes, but one of the things that uh we don't have because of our heritage is uh long-term perspective, the ability to see five years out, ten years out. And it's not that we're not equipped to do that mentally, analytically, emotionally, it's not that it is more that we don't do we don't have the predisposition to spend time thinking about what the world will look like or what a particular situation will look like, you know, that far out. And uh and the people that do that, uh the people among us that do that are called geniuses because they are they have this ability to see how the world will look like 10 years out. Uh and it is not because they're true genius, it's not that they have you know an IQ much higher than ours. They just spend the time thinking about it. They they they they spend, they have the ability to sit down and have the patience to shape it, to try to see it, to try to develop it, and to try to then work backwards from there. Most of us, most human beings don't like doing that. You know, how many people in your life do you know that will tell you what they're doing 10 years from now or even five years from now? You know, uh, even people that you know are planning vacations. How many people plan vacations one or two, three years from now? I mean, they don't, right? So uh, and and the worst of us, you know, plan vacations like three months ahead of time as opposed to uh you know a year or two ahead of time. So that tells you that's how we're made up, because you know, we're we're made up, we're human beings, human race made up of uh millennia, you know, thousands and thousands of years, you know, tens of thousands of years of evolution. And that evolution never taught us to be long-term because we needed to focus what to eat that day, you know, when we're hunters and gatherers, you know, we needed to focus, we weren't gonna focus what we're gonna do a week from now. And the most you could do was if you live in a cold weather, you know, you needed to focus on how to survive the winter, but that was it. You know, you couldn't go beyond that. So, you how can we as a human race retrain ourselves that easily when we have had tens of thousands of years of shaping us into being short-term? You know, it's very hard. So, uh, but that's what a lot of incredible people in life have the have that ability to to shunt the the short-termism and focus on the long term and have that long-term perspective and and they achieve great things in life. And with that long-term perspective, and I and I totally agree with you, that that nature, that hunter-gatherer, you know, survival mode, you know, the hundreds of thousands of years training that we've that we've um that's kind of within us. What are the questions you ask yourself when you're thinking about the the the long term? Is it, you know, how will world order look like? What will the economy look like? What are the key questions you seek to answer in that space? Uh first of all, uh, I think I've been blessed. Uh I've been blessed um all my life with having developed uh an ability uh to dream about the future. And uh not only dream at night, but daydream about the future. So when I was a teenager, you know, I tried to think of in my in whatever professions I was contemplating at the time, I was trying to think about okay, you know, uh I'm 18 years old, I'm 16 years old. If I were 30, what would I look like, you know, in that profession? Um whether it was uh banker, whether it was an investor, whether it was a politician, uh or uh or whatever, I I would try to analyze myself at the age of 30 and then daydream you know about it. Then uh when I had when I honed it in to the to the specific areas, you know, when I was growing up, I wanted to be a politician, um, you know, helping the development of my native uh country of Nicaragua in Central America. So when I was dreaming about it, I would I would actually envision myself creating certain policy and the effect of those policies and what they will that what they will mean for for the country, what they will mean for development, what they will mean for wealth creation, you know, for the country and all of that. Um and I I was very comfortable in that environment. Um I was uh you know, when I was growing up, I was a little more of a loner and an introvert. I eventually forced myself to change, right? But uh, but I was definitely a loner and an introvert. So I was very comfortable in my own skin. I was very comfortable on being alone, you know, and and uh not around a lot of people and thinking about these matters, uh, you know, and then working backwards, you know, to uh to see that. So um, so that taught me the uh the incredible power of uh first of all, dreaming, uh and secondly, but creating uh an image of yourself, you know, five, 10, 15 years from now, and but more importantly, working backwards from that image and say, what are the experiences? What are the education? What is the education? What are the the network of contacts that I need to have? Who do I need to learn from to become that person? And I it really strikes me, goals are a place to come from, not a place to get to. So it's it's your point, once you visualize what the goal is, what needs to drop to make that a reality? And I love what you said about the word daydreaming because I look at my children sometimes and that they can be daydreamers, but children look at the world through awe and curiosity, that they don't see any limitations, like everything is possible, and so that really that daydreaming really connects me to this that childlike state of wonder. Absolutely. Uh, you know, even today, you know, I'm in my mid-60s, and uh I and I envision myself at 75, at 85, if I'm blessed to uh to live to that age, at 95. So I said to myself, what are you gonna be doing at 95? What is the kind of life you want to have um if you're lucky enough to get there? Uh and then I said I envisioned myself with good health and without good health, and how would I respond to that? You know, and obviously the shorter term for me is 75, you know, mid-70s, uh, because about 10 years from now. Uh and um and I think about uh what what what do I want to be? You know, I think about what is my position in the company that I run, what will be the activities that we want to be doing? Um and uh what what would I want my family to be? What do I want my kids? What relationship do I want to have with my kids? Uh I even think about where what I would want to live. Would I want to live in a place that is very, very close to my kids, so I and my grandchildren, or do I want to be in a you know distant location? And what are the implications of that? You know, I haven't resolved that, but you know, what are the implications of that? So uh so that's you know, that that's on the personal side. Uh on the business side, uh, I tried to envision my company, MSAI, what it will look like 10 years from now. What size of a company will it be? How many employees? In what locations? What uh clients do we want to have? What products can we do we want to offer? Um, what size of valuation you know we're gonna have? What uh what return to my capital providers will I provide during that period of time? So um I call that my corporate my 10-year corporate strategy. Uh and then uh once I look at that with my colleagues at MSEI, then we work backwards. But you know, but obviously we're we don't live in a we don't live in an isolated world. So I you know, in order to understand a company like ours, which is very global, uh I need to I need to develop an image of what would the world look like you know 10 years from now? What would be the role of China? What would be the role of Europe? What's the role of America? What's the role of emergent markets? What's the role of capitalism? Where you know, we are obviously a provider of uh of solutions to the global investment and finance industry. So I need to envision what will the global asset management industry look like? What will the private equity firms look like? Better yet, the alternative asset managers look like. What size will they have? What will global wealth management look like in this context, in this you know, the development of management of savings for wealthy people in the world? So you need to you need to have a paradigm of your environment, you know, 10 years from now. You need to have sensitivities around it. How about if it is you know dramatically different one way or another? Uh what it will look like. I you know, there are times in which I think about we have lived in America largely in a period of you know, a period of peace and prosperity uh since World War II. We've had the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Afghan War, the Iraqi War, etc. Um, but those cannot compare to World War II, right? So so therefore, I I try to envision a bad scenario, which is what if what about if the world is at war for a period of time? You know, what what does that mean for survival, for me and my family, for my business? Uh what does it mean? Now you don't know how shape that will take, but uh, but you need to be you know ready for that. So, you know, I I when I was growing up, you know, I uh I learned also uh the this old saying that you know fortune favors the prepare. Uh so I have no problem going through scenario after scenario in my head, uh and and trying to see what my response to that scenario is. And frankly, you know, a lot of people, family members, friends, colleagues at work say, Henry, you're crazy. What are you thinking about that? Where are you wasting your time? Why are you wasting your time? And you know what? I like it. So it's not as if it's a torture for me. I like figuring out different scenarios, I like playing them out in my head, in my mind. It's the kind of exercise that makes you better, makes you more resilient. And actually, it's the kind of exercise that makes you more even more confident. Because once you figure out a scenario that is good and that you prosper in it, you feel very good about it, right? So uh, so that's among the things that uh some some people that are always prepared do, right? And those scenarios you talked about, that envisioning, that that kind of visualization, that daydreaming, do you do you create dedicated space for that? Or or is it when you're in the shower going for a walk? Like how do you do that daydreaming? No, I don't block out time for this. I do it, I do it uh whenever it presents itself, right? So so uh uh when you have a long weekend and you have a little more time, uh I sit there and you know, I sit there and maybe watching a movie or maybe reading a book. And uh sometimes it takes me a long time to read a book because you know, after 20 pages in the book, I start daydreaming about something that the book did. So I spent 20 minutes reading and then an hour daydreaming about you know something that came. out i out of the book and and then i go back to reading the book so it takes me a long time because yeah i i i i i use a book to uh to sort of uh jot my ideas to to to force me to think about things that are being said but it could be a movie uh of any kind it could be a a movie uh could be an action movie could be uh a drama could be whatever but you know you i'm always looking for that stimulus the stimulus that is gonna make me think about things not just be passively watching you know the uh or passively reading so i don't so that will be another uh i so i i i think that uh i the this issue of this this concept of blocking out time to think it's never never worked for me you know and when i've done it i don't want to think about it you know when i've when i've done it i'm too tired or or something else comes up yeah so it it's not very conducive to creativity to do that i grab it i grab the moments whenever they come you know i grab them i could be at work i could be driving i could be uh you know on a plane i could be watching a movie i could be talking to my kids uh and all of a sudden something prompts it's there is a stimulus there you know so uh a couple days ago I was talking to one of my sons uh and uh we were trying to uh to talk about what it means to have multi-generational success for example so uh he's 25 years old and he's working right now so imagine 25 year old having an having a discussion with me about multi-generational success so I said what about your kids how are you gonna teach your kids how are you gonna how their kids they're gonna keep teach their children you know so we start talking about the families that have had multi-generational success whether it has been in banking or in in investments or whether it's been in uh in the arts I mean you have a lot of families have had generations of artists so uh what does you know so we we get into a conversation as to what does it mean what is the secret sauce for a family to have multi-generational success so that's an example of we were just having a conversation about uh uh about something and his career and his you know what he wanted to do and all of a sudden this turned into that discussion so I let it go I actually you know we we stopped talking about his part of it and we we we got into a one and a half hour discussion about multi-generational success so again you gotta take the opportunity when the opportunity comes and capitalize on it because it is there it is in that moment you know and you gotta you know and if you let it go it may not come back you know that conversation may not come back for a long time and earlier in the conversation you said the word crazy and I think it's interesting because when you know there's many entrepreneurs in the world whether it's uh yes Steve Jobs or uh Elon Musk and people can say you know they're crazy. And when you when I look at those identified as crazy you know they push the boundaries of what's possible. So that that founder craziness is that something you see in yourself is it something you identify with definitely say it in myself uh I try very hard not to project it I try very hard not to uh give that impression uh uh others do the opposite you know others try to project that impression of craziness so that they are viewed as uh as uh disruptors or they're viewed as it makes their job easier you know in what they do if they project that that image I try not to uh not not to but uh but for sure uh you know there are moments like that and you know I had a eureka moment a little bit like that when I was um before I went to uh to graduate school of business uh I was in a PhD in economics at uh Princeton University and um and I was trying to to master the uh the subject of macroeconomics and monetary policy monetary theory and and I was going after it with such a vengeance with such a zealousness that um that there was a period of a few weeks in which I saw the abyss you know and I I tell myself and I remember vividly that period I said Henry if you push a little harder you're gonna go nuts you're really gonna go crazy and you may not come back you know from this because you you you you're forcing yourself so out there in the in this fear this theoretical concepts and all of that that uh what about if you don't come back right you know what about if you just damage your brain and you just don't come back so um so I had to stop right to you know make sure I retreated a bit so in the uh you know in the last you know in my career the biggest things that I've done in my career uh whether it's a large acquisition whether it's you know fighting uh a downturn in the company or whether it's fighting activist investors or or uh or trying to you know push people to the frontier what we do I feel I I feel that I feel that I am I am at the outer edge and pushing myself and pushing people to uh to uh a sphere that some people could consider crazy uh but I tried to do it you know with uh with a sense of responsibility with a you know logic as opposed to just trust me and the like and that's a little bit of uh that's a little bit of the Winston Churchill discussion we were having earlier you know there were times in which this fellow was probably crazy right in in in in in thinking that uh that this the that they were gonna win right in thinking that the Americans that was that it was going to convince the Americans to come into the war and and things like that right so um so I think there is an element of irreverence I normally call that I don't call it craziness I call it irreverence in uh in in in in incredible leaders and in and people who achieve great things in life uh they uh they they they like that rev they they lack that reverence uh I normally sometimes call this also uh lack of obedience to authority right you know they they they they challenge the status quo they challenge the uh the stuff the the normal thinking they challenge the social norms they challenge the uh the boundaries of of success or power or or whatever uh and uh and that's what motivates them that's what gets them you know over the that's what gets them over the line to uh you know to do great things in life uh and you know that's no different than the social revolutionaries in the world uh when I was at Georgetown as an undergrad I studied economics and political science and much more you know history and political science and economics and that I you know one of my fascinations was to study revolutions you know in the world uh a lot of it because my own country was going through its own political revolution so I needed to understand it so I studied the the Russian revolution the Mexican Revolution the American the French the Chinese revolution and all of that and uh you know these are social revolutionaries these were not you know people call them political but you know they were they had a different idea of the organization of society uh and therefore those people really stretched the envelope right dramatically think about the American Revolution it was a completely new form of government that they were trying to create so those people were irreverent those people were they had no fear they were out there in the frontier of thinking uh and uh that's what that's what I pride myself to always want to be you know of course I don't want to cross and fall into the abyss but uh there have been times in my life in which I've been very close to it but thankfully have pulled back but that strikes me as a level of self-awareness because you there's as you said there was a recognition you were entering close to the abyss and I think when any of our strengths when they're overextended there's a shadow side so it it's recognizing when we're moving into that shadow and and you talked about challenging the status quo you talked about pushing you know pushing frontiers and when you're innovating there could be fear in the system and there could be failures how how do you think about failures the best thing that can ever happen to somebody um of course you don't have a you don't want to have a fatal failure right um but uh but uh my own experience based on my own experience I won't be where I am today if it hadn't been for all my failures and um I think failures plants the seeds for success uh in the future and uh again it's not that we walk around every day wishing that we fail right you know but we will fail you know uh it's just the law of nature that we will fail at some point in something either socially in our families in our you know friendships or in business or in uh in your work environment and therefore uh the issue is not whether you're gonna fail or not the issue is what are you going to learn from that failure in order to apply it to future circumstances and uh there are a lot of people in the world that when they fail they don't want to talk about it anymore they want to bury it they want to forget it you know I'm not a masochist at all but I when I fail at something I go through it thousands of times why why did this happen you know what did I do wrong what decision in retrospect I should have made better what this what that and I don't do it because I just want to I but because I want to torture myself in the in in the fail in the failing situation or reliving the failing situation I just want to learn from it. I want to learn from it so so that in the future I can apply those lessons it's very hard it's harder to learn from successes than to learn from failure. And it's normal right you know when you're success when you have a lot of success you're high you feel great you know you you talk about your success but when you fail it hurts it hurts so badly that again some people don't even want to talk about it they want to bury it but if you master the art of of uh enduring that difficulty and that pain and learning you're gonna be you know successful so my own company msci when I took over when I took over this uh failing business uh at the time I had failed three times you know three times uh and some of you know at least one of them was pretty bad right so um so but but because of my ability to learn from those things I was I you know I didn't have all the learnings and all the lessons and all of that when I when I created the MSEI but for sure I had an enormous amount of experience in uh in failing so I had failed in business three times uh I had I had I had to leave a country because of uh you know communist revolution uh and uh and after you know for the for the years I think it was at least three four years after that it was one of the worst periods of my life because I didn't know I was a political refugee I didn't know where I was going to live I didn't know if the United States was going to let me live in the country I didn't know what career I was going to have I I was lost I was lost and I went through an enormous period of uh examinations retrenching rethinking you know I I I ended up honing in on a on a theme which is what is the meaning of life you know what's the purpose of life so anyhow so that so it's not just you know failure in business I had enormous failure socially which is I was part of a society in a country called Nicaragua you know I could no longer be part of that society I didn't have any more friends in that society I didn't have any belongings I didn't have any attachment uh and but but I didn't have anything else so that's a failure you know that you need to deal with that's a big deep hole that you need to dig yourself out of you know similarly to a business failure uh it could be a you know a personal failure also like a marriage right or uh or a big setback in your family you know with uh with a family member you know I I grew up there were five of us I was in the middle and my oldest brother who was 10 years older than me is suffered from very very severe cerebral palsy so uh so you you you have to grow up with that adversity how do you help him how do you make sure he doesn't die how do you make sure so anyhow life presents to you a number of challenges a number of you know which some of which are failures and you know if you disregard them you're not gonna be a hugely successful person if you don't learn from them if you don't uh use them as a catalyst to do better things in life you know you are disregarding an incredible ability to learn right it reminds me the Navy SEALs have um they call it an AAR an after action review which is that um forensic you know uh uh review of all their you know every mission to be like what went wrong what could we have done differently like forensic because you you said you know I I pick I can't I'm I'm paraphrasing you pick everything apart it's not just uh what could we do better but there's it feels like it's forensic there's a real detailed approach to it yes and uh and and they do it formally so there is no stigma to it right that's the key part a lot of uh people uh don't don't re-examine their failures you know uh uh frequently because there's a stigma to it uh there is uh you know uh you feel that you lost right you feel that you'll fail you don't want to feel you you want to feel a winner in life you don't want to feel like a loser in life so the the the the exercise of going through what happened when you were a loser is not a pleasant it's not a pleasant experience so but you just gotta learn how to do it and you gotta take the stigma out of it you gotta take the torture out of it um you you need to train the people around you whether it's your family or your friends or your colleagues to uh to walk around you know to to to be open-minded and have you know an open discussion as to what happened you know and the like uh so so let me give you an interesting uh sort of personal example about about that um over the course of my life I've had close friends that for some reason or another our relationship got really um really strained uh and I didn't know why you know I had no idea it's just that the relationship got really strained so um so I mustered the courage to go to those people a handful of times in my life and say to them look I uh I don't know what happened but I don't think you don't like me anymore I don't think you have a you you don't want to have a relationship with me anymore and that's perfectly fine but I want to know why I want to know why if if you want to move on because you have other friends it's okay but I want to make sure that if I did something wrong I want to I want to hear about it and I want to learn from it right that if I did something wrong. And it's not easy to master the courage and don't confront somebody as to why they don't want to hang around with you why they don't want to call you why they don't want to be with you you know most people just move on move on right so that has been the source of uh first of all I I felt very proud of myself to you know muster the courage to do that but then secondly you know out of those circumstances incredible deeper friendships you know uh came out because we were able to to uh confront the issues we were able to correct the circumstances correct the misunderstandings that could have taken place uh and develop a better relationship you know going forward and I've done that in business too a few times you know uh there was a company that they always thought we were the enemy and they were always trying to uh hurt us so I called the CEO of the company and I said can we have lunch and uh and so I went and explained I said what have we wrong you know I again it maybe it's just business maybe it's just the way you operate but tell me what have we done to you to deserve this treatment uh and I'm not here to complain I'm just I just want to know I just want to know so that we don't do that to other people so um you know uh unfortunately for me the person said Henry we think of everyone like that too I said okay so I did not have a lot of respect for that company of course but uh but because they thought of any everyone else as being the enemy which in my world I always think of everyone even competitors as being my friend I always uh go around the company saying I have never I had never met a competitor I didn't like right uh because either they helped me get the company better or it's a source of potential partnerships that we can do business with in order to serve a common set of customers right but uh but anyhow that's another another uh circumstance in life when something is failing something is not working and you have to have the courage to go confront it and and to go figure out what the causes are what the causes are of this problem and try to do something about it. And sometimes you are you're able to and sometimes you are not able to and that's okay that but you've learned from the experience. Yeah that word courage I wrote down it feels such an important one to underscore and as I must see too it's it's embracing the discomfort it's not easy but it's it's what you then learn the insights you get because you've had the bravery to to ask the questions and to your point you said it's forged deeper relationships actually it's it's been very favorable uh exercising that courage absolutely and I I think you called it right which is I describe it that way but it is it it is uh it is an ability you know is it's an ability to have discomfort it's an ability that you know to sit up to sit in a situation that is highly discomforting that uh it's gonna create emotions is going to create pain you know to relieve something that you didn't do right uh or or something uh and uh you know I attribute that I attribute my ability to do that uh because my upbringing you know my parents nurtured me in a way that you know to have confidence that which was great uh but I was also you know a little bit of a loner little bit of a nerd uh a little bit of an introvert and therefore I was comfortable in my own skin right you know I was comfortable in my own skin and that's what people normally say you're comfortable in your own skin but sometimes you may be comfortable in your own skin but you may not be comfortable in discomfort you know so uh so I think you've called it right uh and and you took you used the word pain a minute ago and what from the outside looking in I think entrepreneurs like yourself have to have a very high pain threshold how how do you think of what again do you agree and and what what comes under that pain threshold? What do you have to learn to be comfortable with I you know I I don't think is I don't think it's pain you know sometimes it could be a little bit of pain but I don't Think is generally pain. I think it's just uh it's just being comfortable with failing, is being comfortable with your ideas being rejected, uh your vision of the world being called crazy, uh is uh is comfortable with uh you know uh people looking at you and say, wow, I mean you're you're you're going too far. You know, you're you're pushing people too too much, uh and being fine with that, you know. And there is a sociological element of uh, I think you know, people like that, which uh they're comfortable being rejected by society is is a point, right? They're comfortable being rejected by society. Most uh human beings want to be accepted by society. They they they want to belong, they want to be accepted. So uh so you know, an example of of uh you know, a personal example of that is is you know, maybe my English is a little better right now. It's not perfect, but it's a little better, but it wasn't as good, you know, when I started in Wall Street. So uh I would go to meetings and I would notice that when I spoke in meetings, you know, people had to pay a lot of attention because they needed to understand exactly what I was talking about. And uh, you know, and there was a partner in in the firm at the time that came over to me and said, Henry, this is a problem. You need to you need to uh go to speech school so that uh you you perfect your your language so that you can speak like an American, like a Native American, you know, like a original. And uh, you know, and I went home and I thought about it and came back and I said, you know what? I'm I'm perfectly comfortable being different. I don't have a problem being different. I don't so I will walk into a room and I had no problem being the only Latino in the room, the only guy who didn't speak the language well, the only little colored people, you know, I had no problem with that. I was comfortable in my own skin, I was comfortable in that social environment. Uh and if anything, I told people, I said, you know, if my name were Joe Smith and I were in that meeting and I said something, you know, nobody will remember. But since my name is Henry Fernandez and I speak with an accent, whatever I said, somebody will remember. So it's a comparative advantage, to be honest with you. It's a competitive advantage. And, you know, and at the time that I was, you know, in my early career, you know, Henry Kissinger was a big figure in the political world. And I used to point to Henry Kissinger. I said, he, this fellow speaks very slowly and with a very heavy German accent, and he has no problems influencing people, you know, in the world. So um, so that's you know, so therefore, there is another trait here of people that achieve great things in life. And those are they're comfortable being not accepted, they're comfortable being rejected, they're comfortable, you know, and and they don't they don't try to conform, they don't try to belong. You know, of course we all do, but it's a matter of degrees, right? So uh so that's that that is something else that it so therefore it I don't I'm going back to your question, I don't think it's a question of pain. So if you are if you want to conform, if you want to be accepted, if you want to be part of the traditional thinking, the normal thinking in in the world in any in any endeavor in life, uh, and you're not you it's gonna be very, very painful for you. But for a lot of people that create new things, it's not it's not pain, you know, it's it's part of life, and and they're comfortable with it. Actually, some people even seek it. Uh, there are people in the in the world that are created bigger, big things in life in which they went out of their way to uh to to to to to show themselves as being uh you know deviant from society accepting them, right? There were there have been writers, there've been poets, and there have been a lot of you know business people like that. So uh you know Steve Jobs being one example of that, right? He was very comfortable. Yeah. It does remind me, you said something earlier, and I might be paraphrasing. You said um you had a disobedience to authority. So I don't know whether that's that the you know, I'm not gonna conform. You know, and then and I love what you've shared because that's that inner confidence, knowing who you are, backing your thoughts, backing your ideas, that unit goes back to that unwavering belief that we spoke about right at the beginning. Absolutely. I think the um when I was growing up, you know, my family, uh a lot of who you are is a product of growing up or or your experiences in your 20s. You know, that doesn't mean that your later experiences in life don't shape you, but the biggest shaping of your life is uh, you know, is in your early years, you know, as uh, you know, in you know, when you're seven, eight, nine, ten, teenager, and in your twenties, you know, do you get shaped? So I always go back to uh whenever and whenever I try to explain something that I am, uh the first thing that I do is is go back and see if I can explain it through my upbringing. And if I cannot explain it through my upbringing, it must have been later on in life, and therefore I begin to examine you know the uh you know experiences later on in life, which are many, and they shape you too. But um, so so when I was growing up, uh you know, I you know, I grew up in a military family, and uh the the society of my country was kind of divided into three camps. There was uh the uh the business elite, you know, uh that uh that ruled the economy of the country, the military elite who uh who uh basically established law and order, but was the real power in the country, and there was obviously the rest of the uh population, right? So um so I was part of the uh of that military complex. Uh and the military complex did not mix and match, did not mix up with the business, you know, you know, part. And that was a way for the uh autocrat of the country to divide, so that divide and conquer, right? You don't let people create coalitions that can overthrow you. So um, so uh it was interesting because you know, you know, uh part of my family, you know, my mother's side, we're all part of the of that kind of business elite, a business complex. And my my father obviously was part of the other one, but I couldn't really spend a lot of time in that. So I was I was not accepted, right? I was I was rejected, you know, by that. Uh and I had to stick to my upbringing in the military, you know, with the military families, the political family. It was the it was political and military. Think about it, political and military versus the business. So I so I hung around all the politicians, I hung around, I hung around all the all the uh military people, and therefore when I was growing up, I never knew I never I didn't know anything about business. I you know, business to me was like the the most foreign, foreign thing that ever happened, that would ever happen. So um, but I was comfortable that even though you know I wanted to have friends on the other side, I wanted to do this, you know, it was it was not part of it, I it was not part of my realm, you know, and I was, you know, and when I tried it a number of times, I was rejected or pulled back, right? You know, and I was comfortable with that. So anyhow, so when I look at later on in life, my ability to uh you know to navigate in circles, in certain circles, whether it's political, economic, or investments or social circles and the like, you know, honestly, I go in it and I do, I am who I am. I try to be who I am, uh, and I don't care. I honestly don't care if they like it or they don't like it. You know, fortunately for me, you know, uh the most people have liked it. So I belong to a lot of circles, political circles, foreign policy circles, uh military circles, you know, obviously investment banking circles, investment circles, and and uh other businesses. And I can navigate easily from one to the other one without any baggage, without any constraints, because either people like it or they don't. And if they don't like it, tough luck, right? And just I want to quickly touch on your your family here because um and the conversations we had for the book, it certainly came up for me what a you know an influence your parents have been. And I'm I'm curious, what are the what are some of the key lessons that have shaped you that you they imparted with you? So my father was an orphan, his late father's uh second wife, uh who was a very well-to-do lady, and extremely well-to-do lady in the country and provided for him, but he wanted to make his own life, uh, and therefore he joined the uh military academy and he became a member of the military. And uh and that, you know, so a lot of his teachings, a lot of his experiences uh were about uh charting your own course, determining your own future, uh not being told by family members what to what to do, who to become. Um you're the master of your own destiny, and you gotta follow what you like, you gotta follow your passion, you gotta follow that. So I learned a great deal from him in that. Secondly, he was a bit of an intellectual, even though as a military person, he was more of a military intellectual. So um, and he studied, you know, uh he studied for about six, seven years in graduate schools in the US. So uh what they studied in graduate schools and the military in the US is about strategy, it's about leadership, it's about management, you know, of an management of a military operation, it's about leadership and all that. So, so therefore, he was able to uh to uh teach me you know a lot about leadership, a lot about strategy, a lot about uh management, even though it wasn't a business management, it was the management of an armed force, it was about leadership in the armed forces and all that. So, and since he noticed that I liked it, he would take me, he would read books, he would tell me about you know his heroes. Remember, he was a product of World War II. That's what when he came to uh to uh you know to to life, not to life, but when he was you know uh uh in his 20s and 30s. So therefore, you know, he would uh he would teach me about Churchill, obviously, and Franklin Durano Roosevelt. He would teach me about George Patton and the character, about Montgomery as a character, about uh Eisenhower as a character, about George Marshall as a character. But the interesting thing was he wouldn't tell me who's better, who's worse. He would just say, here are different characters, uh, and they have different elements of success. They uh they have different personalities uh and all of that. So um, so that was his life. His life was examining you know World War II and then the Korean War. Uh so I lived in a in a in a in an environment where that's what I learned about leadership, that's what I learned about about a lot of things. So um, you know, and then of course, you know, he he would love movies. So he would take me to movies of World War II and you know, movies about about uh Eisenhower and the decisions that he made and the invasion of Normandy and Patton and his, you know, when he was trying to run through through Europe in order to get to Berlin and the compromise as to who to cover Berlin, they let the Soviets to cover Berlin and why, and the political implications of that, and all of that. So it was like a theater, it was like uh like a novella, right? It was like uh a sub opera, so to speak, for me, uh and with all these characters. Uh, but but then later on in life, I realized that you could take that and apply it to business, you could take that to apply it to the geopolitical war, the geopolitical world, world. And uh so he was he unintentionally was giving me all the tools to analyze problems, to analyze managerial issues, to analyze logistical issues, you know, uh to analyze lapse of leadership, to analyze bad political decisions and all of that. So, so a lot of what I learned about business, I actually didn't learn in business. I learned it in that life, which why which I then applied to business, you know, as I went to business school and I and I joined investment banking and then I created MSEI. I had that incredible schooling of all of that. So uh so that that was you know him. And briefly, my mother was uh an extremely resilient, determined uh woman. There was nothing that will face her. She had an incredible sense of optimism. Uh she had uh she was very religious. And religious people come in two forms. You either have very strong morality or you have very strong faith, or both, of course, or both. But a lot of people are very religious, but they're very moral people, they don't have a strong faith. My mother had an incredibly unshakable faith, you know, religious faith. So uh so that faith allowed her to uh to never never be the cow by any problem, you know, you know, incredible optimism, incredible uh sense of purpose, incredible sense of optimism, uh of positivism in the world. And uh and she was extremely demanding. You know, I would I I would uh I was a what in America we call a straight A student, meaning I was in the top of my class. And occasionally I would get a grade that was two shades below, one shade below the top grade of the class. And I would you know go home and present my grades to her, and she would say, Oh, this is fantastic, this is fantastic, you're doing so well, and all of that. And and she said, What happened in this course? And I would say, you know, oh, there was an exam, it didn't do as well or whatever. And she will say, This is great. Next time try better, you know, next time try. So the so it was never enough unless it was perfect, right? You know, for her. So uh that you know, over the years, that is still in all of us, you know, my siblings, you know, uh an incredible sense of uh accomplishment. You know, you needed to achieve things, you could not go home and and be you know mediocre. You know, you could not you will not eat at home, you know, if you were mediocre. You know, you needed to do the best. And she would always also would tell me that competition was not a competition with other students. She would say, your competition is your ability to perform yourself. It's don't compare yourself to others, compare yourself to your abilities. And if you're not maximizing your abilities, you know, you're losing. You're losing. But if you feel that you have pushed your abilities to the maximum and you're and you're your average or below average or whatever, it's okay. That's what God gave you. God gave you an endowment, and you have maximized your endowment. Uh, and uh, and if that's you know, all you've done, that's all you can do is maximize your endowment that God gave you, uh, and everything else is uh fate, basically, right? I I mean, listening to your mom's that optimism, that unwavering belief, it clearly it's it's it's something you very much embody. And with your father, that schooling, that military schooling, you know, some of these key attributes and qualities and behaviors that you've learned that you've applied in leadership. I'm wondering when you hire for talent in your own leadership team or equally you know within MSCI, what are the key things that you're looking for? There are certain things that I look for that are necessary but not sufficient for success, but they're necessary. Um and then I focus on the things that are sufficient, you know, for success. Um, so you know, you do you go through an interview, you go through all the necessary things. Is this person uh does is this person smart? Is does this person have experience, relevant experience in what you're trying to do? Does does this person uh motivated to take the job? Does this person you know want to work hard and a lot of things, right? So you go through uh a set of um of necessary conditions. Then once I check the box in all of that, then I go for the real uh the the the things that are gonna make the difference. You know, uh and the the the things that are gonna make the difference, and and there are a number of questions that I ask that I'm trying to determine. The first one is how much intellectual curiosity the person has. Yeah. If the person has no drive of curiosity, it's not gonna do well in our business. You know, I said how much drive, how much self-driven motor does the person have to learn new things, to explore new ideas, to think about new concepts? The second one is how ambitious is this person, how irreverent, if you want to go back to that, how irreverent is this person? Obviously, you can't find people that are you know totally irreverent, like entrepreneurs, but I'm trying to get as much of that in somebody that joins the company as I can. Um you know, so because that that intellectual curiosity, that drive and all that. The other thing that I'm trying to determine is passion. What how passionate is this person about this field of what we're trying to do? Uh, and you could have a very strong intellectual curiosity, but it's about music, you know. For example, you could be very driven, you know, very ambitious about music, but we don't do music, you know, we do investment, right? So, so therefore, you need to find is this person passionate about the investment industry, the finance industry, uh, or or is this person is passionate about opera? And if it's passionate about opera, he's he or she's gonna work nine to five and get go to the opera every night. And that's not what I want, right? So, so that's that's another, you know, so I ask questions like I try to ask questions uh like that. The the other one is you know, long-termism. So uh, so I have a I normally have a couple of questions that people look at me a little bit weird. Uh, and you know, the uh the you know, the the question is, why do you what do you want your tombstone to say about you? And they said, wait a minute, I mean, I thought this was a job, not a you know, you know, psychology test. I said, No, no, I want to know what your tombstone will say about you, and uh, so that tells you a lot about the person. If the person says, Oh, you know, great in business and all of that, you don't want to hire that person because that person has no life, no kids, no family, no, you know, or at least doesn't put you know a lot a lot of value. So it's a little bit of a balance, how the question gets answered. The other question is, what do you want to be doing 10 years from now? And that throws off a lot of people because it goes back to this long termism. I said, 10 years from now? Wow, I don't know. You know, I want to be working at MSEI. And I said, no, no, I don't want that answer. You tell what do you want to be doing 10 years from now? That that's a question that I tried to ask to get a sense of. long-termism but also a sense of ambition you know and uh you know and you know and the person doesn't want to be it doesn't want to tell you I want to take your job because that would be too a little bit too aggressive but but you know but that will tell you how how driven and ambitious the person is right in some respects so anyhow so it's not like one one attribute is a is a a is a quiver of arrows of arrows and there are some arrows that are necessary for defense so to speak you know and other arrows that are gonna be the offensive arrows if you don't have the defensive arrows you know you're not gonna last but if you're gonna really really be outstandingly successful you need to have the offensive you know arrows in the quiver i i love the way you've described that and and i the I have two very quick well uh probably not quick questions but the first one it it's just around um I suppose just your three top um uh insights lessons in terms of the world is it's moving quicker than ever before it's turbulent it you know change is compare uh complex is acute it's pervasive how do you advise people or how do you lead your your organization in turbulent times you know we have gone through a lot of turbulent times in the company and um but not as turbulent as my life you know that's for sure right so my my life uh especially early on the first say 25 30 years was extremely extremely turbulent right um and therefore i learned i i learned that uh a number of things uh the first thing is you know the turbulence doesn't last forever right a lot of people when they're in the moment of the turbulence they think it's gonna last forever and therefore they bail out or they get desperate or whatever and i said to them we just gotta bunker down we just gotta you know bunker down and it will go away at some point maybe it'll take a year maybe two maybe it's three you know well maybe it's forever but if it's forever we're gonna we're not gonna be around so don't worry about it right so uh so that's it that's instills a sense of dimension a sense of time dimension you know on the turbulence the the second thing is you just don't take the turbulence on the chin you try to do something about it and it is in turbulent periods it is in periods of crisis that the that where the best opportunities come you know I have a saying at MSEI a crisis is a terrible thing to waste so uh so you just don't you know become passive and take the beating no you create strategies as to how you're gonna react to the turbulence and how that you know they're gonna make you better so when you come out of the turbulence you come out ahead of everyone else because the majority of people uh in business actually uh retrench in times of turbulence we actually strike in the in times of turbulence that's when we among the the bigger companies that we have bought that we have bought have been in time in difficult times I am a contrarian I expand when things are bad you know I remember when I first came to Wall Street you know uh there was a there was a saying you know that the the that that you buy when there's blood in the streets right that's when you buy when there's blood in the streets you know that's gonna make you the the the now what they didn't tell you at the time that that you know there may be blood in the street when you buy but there may be more blood you know later on you know and therefore your asset goes down even further right you know but you're never gonna reach the bottom you're gonna get to the to the bottom but you know you strike you expand you you hire people you do this in bad times because the big what because what happens in companies is you're trying to create competitive advantage over the long term competitive advantage very very hard to create competitive advantages in boom in boom boom times because in boom times people are throwing money like crazy the goal years and all of that so it is very hard to create a huge distance with your competitors but if if you in bad times you know first of all get get an alignment with the team a sense of purpose a sense of dimension a sense that this is not going to last forever secondly you come up with great strategies to uh to strike and to uh and to expand and all of that when you come out of the turbulent times you're gonna be way ahead of everyone else because every other competitor is going to retrench it's human nature they retrenched they don't go into the problem their board don't let them go into their problems their management team their own personalities so I train my board of directors that we will expand in difficult times I train my management team that we will go in the in the rainstorm when things are bad in order to create you know better products better service and and better hire better people and all of that so so that's that's how you do it. And then obviously you need to inspire people you need to keep them uh faithful you need to keep them uh believing uh during the difficult time just like you know we were talking about Churchill before uh you know it is easy to despair uh so you know 20 30 years ago I I spent a lot of time you know examining the shackleton shackleton exhibit uh um expedition to uh Antarctica and and why they uh their team survived and you know came out alive and the other team of the other ship didn't survive and that is because you need to create a sense of purpose a sense of optimism a sense that yes we will come out of this issue we will come out we will prevail if we stick together so that's how you manage in those difficult issues those difficult uh circumstances I remember you using the analogy with me about the boat you said when the tide is rising it's you know you can't really differentiate yourself but when it's in those storms you know that's when you can you can really you know make your mark yes yes but it is against human nature see you know the there are there are a number of things that if you want to be uh an exceedingly good um uh person you know either family member friend or business person or accomplished you need to study human nature you need to understand human nature really well if you do it's gonna give you an enormous competitive advantages so uh so you need to know what human nature is and where is it gonna go and us in a particular situation uh so when things are bad human nature is despair oh my god it's bad it's gonna get worse we're gonna die all of us are gonna die you know we're not gonna survive and all of that that's human nature so you need to go against human nature you need to understand that it's normal you know most people say this is crazy no it is normal this is how we are made up so you now need to then say what is your what is your recipe to address that to to to make sure you turn it around right you know in in and that that's so you know I try to be a a student of human nature in order to then say how do we how do we do the opposite when circumstances are are difficult right I love that because human humans are predictable uh and as we close the the the the question that I'd like to close with is if you were to go back to your younger self like what's the wisdom you'd love the younger Henry to know take more risk take more smart risks you know as much as I've taken you know significant uh smart risks in my life and they have panned out uh when I when I go back and I examine uh a lot of circumstances in my life I would have done better if I had taken smarter risks and uh and I'm talking about in business right so and that means that or in life in general it means that uh maybe you had a group of people you were a young person you were in a in a setting in which there was a debate going on as to whether you should do that deal or you should get that client or whatever and you didn't speak up you should have spoken up you know whether it was there was an opportunity to take a to take a responsibility and you didn't go forward and say I'll take that responsibility I'll I'll do that I'll fix that problem I'll work over the weekend you know all weekend to fix that problem you know uh a lot of people shy away from that right so uh whether it was uh with your career in general in which uh there was a an a job opening somewhere in another country in another region or in another industry or in another part of the company and you waited for people to give it to you you didn't go forward to grab it and say I'll go I'll volunteer to do that I'll I want to apply for that uh or whatever or whether it's an acquisition you know and the like what happens is that risks get magnified in the short term extremely magnified when you're looking at risk in the context of a week or two or three or or or even a year it gets hugely magnified. So therefore you get scared you don't master it you don't you you want to stay away from it you know so uh and and and all human beings are risk averse so you that's what you do it's it's human nature so what you did what you need to do is to go against your human nature and say no I can master this risk I can dominate it I can make it work for me I can make it my friend and I and it's gonna come out you know and of course you know from time to time the risk does materialize and it bites you but that's gonna be a small number of times compared to uh to that so that's what I would tell a younger person of me starting 30 40 years ago. Take more smart risks well Henry as always it's been such a delight and a pleasure thank you for being so generous in spirit sharing your lessons your insights they are going to have a profound impact on all those that listen to them. So many many thanks thanks for having me