Career Cheat Code
Welcome to Career Cheat Code, a podcast that explores the stories of everyday people making an impact in the world through their careers and loving every minute of it. Whether you're already on your path or searching for your purpose, this podcast is for you.
Join us every Monday as we uncover the secrets behind successful careers and inspire you to make your own mark. Formerly known as Thank God It's Monday | TGIM, don't forget to subscribe for updates and share with your friends!
Career Cheat Code
053 | Economic Mobility Through Corporate Philanthropy Feat. Sandy Fernandez
When Sandy pivoted from the path of medicine to lead the charge in philanthropy, he didn't just change careers—he reshaped her impact on the world. Our latest episode features this powerhouse of community development as he lays bare the intricacies of his journey, revealing the strategic twists and invaluable lessons learned along the way. From the personal resonance of working within the Latino community on health behavior changes to his ascension through the ranks at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, Sandy's narrative is a testament to the power of intentional career moves and the profound understanding of one's work.
Picture this: a transition from the healthcare trenches to the financial nerve center of banking, where community investment and advocacy become the new pulse points. Sandy illuminates her decade-long experience navigating shifts in the banking industry post-Great Recession and the role of the Community Reinvestment Act in fostering inclusive growth. He unpacks the complexities of corporate responsibility and community engagement, all the while juggling the personal pursuit of a master's degree to solidify his place in the tapestry of leadership as a person of color.
But it's not just about climbing the professional ladder. Sandy’s personal tribulations, such as the loss of his sister, intertwine with his career, reminding us of the importance of support and vulnerability in the workplace. As we wrap up the conversation, we delve into the art of negotiation, the pursuit of financial liberation, and the way our personal paths are inextricably linked to our professional journeys. Sandy's story serves as a beacon for anyone looking to blend their livelihood with their passion for making a difference, proving that with persistence, clarity, and a bit of heart, you can steer your career towards horizons that resonate deeply with who you are and aspire to be.
Books/Resources:
- Bringing Down a Dictator
- Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keys
- Sapiens: A Brief History of HumanKind by Yuval Noah Harari
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Host - Radhy Miranda
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And even when I was at the hospital too, when I went to the city, when Jay from Oregon here as well, I was really clear. I was like, okay, I'm going to do this work, but my plan is like I want a promotion, I want to make more money, I want to try this, I want to be part of this project. And being really specific and asking for that and listen, I was scared. I remember being like okay, this is what I'm going to do. When I met my boss, I was at the city said I'm going to do this job for a year, I'll be your assistant, but this is what I want to do afterwards and here's what I'm going to do to get to that step. And she's like, okay, you do all of this, I have your back, I'm going to support you until you know, going to the next step, etc. And I followed that. You know I delivered.
Speaker 2:Welcome to career cheat code. In this podcast, you'll hear how everyday people impact the world through their careers. Learn about their journey, career hacks and obstacles along the way. Whether you're already having the impact you want or are searching for it, this is the podcast for you.
Speaker 1:All right, Sandy welcome to the show. Thank you, we're really happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:Appreciate you taking the time to talk, so let's dive right in. Let's tell the world what it is you do for a living.
Speaker 1:Sure, I work in philanthropy. So I work at the Mass Card Center for Inclusive Growth, which is a philanthropic arm of the company, and I focus primarily a lot of work on small business. So before this I used to be at JP Morgan and city. Always in their foundation or community development arm focus on things related to housing, to asset building, financial security, sort of that's been my overall focus the last like probably 20 years.
Speaker 3:Awesome. So is this what you always wanted to do for a living time?
Speaker 1:No, no, I didn't even know I would be doing this. Honestly, like I never thought I would work for a big corporation. So when I first, when I went to school, I went to Boston University. I studied psych and I was about my. I thought I was going to be a doctor. I was working at a hospital. I had a felt, I had funding at a fellowship and all the stuff that was supported. I would did cardiovascular work. I work with Dominicans who have diabetes, have changed their diet right, so they have stuff for last from diabetes. So I did that for a couple years and then at one point I was like, oh, I'm like I'm really broke and I need to make money.
Speaker 1:So being a doctor is gonna be a long you know long sort of timeline for me. So I came to New York. I ended up working at city group, came to my accent.
Speaker 3:Came to New York from Boston.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm Boston. I grew up in Rhode Island, went to school in Boston, went to Boston University and then I came to New York. And when I came to New York I was sort of like I had a job, was working at agency for like a year and that wasn't working out. And then I landed at city group. I was temping for like a couple months and I'm like, oh, this is really interesting what they're doing here working and the work they were doing community development. I said I want a job here. So I did getting a job there started off like it was an executive assistant for like a year and I was like I want to move into the program side and so I ended up doing that, took a couple classes and that was there for about 10 years.
Speaker 1:It's really where I cut my teeth on work related to community and economic development and sort of the philanthropic space. Well, but yeah, it was by accident sort of that I landed on this, but it had a lot of affinity to it, because when I was working at city I saw that the work that they were doing actually was also something that benefited me when I was growing up. Right, I grew up in affordable housing. I grew up in the projects. Some of those were funded by investments that banks had made you know, because of the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires investment and low income communities and I saw the connection. I'm like, oh wow, I can actually do something in terms of giving back. And that's why I ended up staying at city, becoming more interested in the work and sort of building my knowledge in this space and doing more.
Speaker 3:So, for comparative purposes, when you switched over from working with you said with the Minnicans and trying to help them get better, was it access to healthcare and better overall health regiments, and was that a nonprofit? Is that what's going on?
Speaker 1:It was a hospital, so it was a nonprofit, but I worked at BU Medical Center and Brigham Women's Hospital. One job was focused on behavioral change for Dominicans and Caribbean Latinos, puerto Ricans and Dominicans who had diabetes non-insulin dependent diabetes which is really common in our community and that has to do with the types of foods we have to do with, the black nose and the rice and all that stuff. Like being high what is it called like having a low glycemic index or a high glycemic index? It increases forces you to produce more insulin, puts a lot of stress on your body and that's why you have more diabetes. I know my explanation is Brigham layman. It's been a while since I've been in this space, but there was focused on like understanding what people and how they were making decisions related to their diet and how they can improve, improving access to exercise, enabling them to exercise more, and what we found was that a lot of people, especially older adults, were like really depressed and so it was focused. So we started bringing in therapy and counseling to support them, in addition to having classes on how you should cook your food. So that was sort of the intervention there. It wasn't really like I was going. I did go out in community a little bit, but a lot of it was like bringing people into the hospital and bringing them to learn more and just doing more as well.
Speaker 1:And then, when I left there, I went to work at Brigham Women's Hospital and that was focused on cardiovascular issues. So I was working with this doctor who's really well renowned. Around what's called deep vein thrombosis. There's a blood clot you get in your legs that can come into your heart and give you a pulmonary embolism. You can die from that, but it also can be managed with blood thinners.
Speaker 1:And there was also a bunch of fellows there who were there was actually a Latin fellow, there was a black fellow and then everybody else was white. But it was interesting. You know, I talked to them a couple of times. I'm like how long have you guys been in this space? And they were like 30 something years old already and I was like, wow, I'm like this is a long time right, because it probably wouldn't point into a specialty. And I said I need to make more money. So I'm like I need to move. So, yes, I moved to New York and that's really what drove my decision was really one driven by a financial reason versus anything else, in terms of it also time as well.
Speaker 3:It's interesting, though, because you pivoted for financial reasons, but you're still doing really impactful work right. And yeah, I think one of the things that is important for me with this platform is highlighting that you don't have to sacrifice one for the other, and if there is a good next especially because I also work in philanthropy I recognize that philanthropy itself provides that next is a lot where you can make good money doing really good things in a way that aligns with all of your values and all the things that you care about and the change and impact that you want to have in the world. So, you know, we love to hear about kind of how, how do you position yourself to make that transition right? Because yeah.
Speaker 1:So when I was, when I was working on, when I was working in the hospitals there, I had the opportunity to be like the agent of change and be the one who was like in the leadership role was a really long path. You have to be the MD, right. You can't be the PA. You can't be a nurse practitioner. You have to be the doctor that's actually is the lead researcher or the person is doing this work. So the pathway is very long, right. And then you have to do your fellowships and residencies and all those other things as well. So that's why part of the reason why I left right was the time is, when we talk about time, when I talk about money, that's what I mean. So when I moved to New York, I wasn't quite sure, honestly, where I was going to land and it was really by accident that I ended up at city and it was because of a friend of mine that worked there. He's like you should consider a job here, consider, you know, I'm like sure you know, let me check it out, right. You know it paid the bills. It wasn't like I was making tons of money, but it was more than I was making. Before I was in New York. I had roommates for a while. I ended up one point, I think, five years. I wasn't there for 10 years, five years in my own apartment, which was great. Right, I felt like, all right, good, I'm independent, I don't have to rely on roommates or anything like that. But I think for me, right, and it was still hard, right, it's not like you were making I wasn't making Google gods of money, like making my rent was buying food. I was doing what I needed to do, just enough. Right, it wasn't like I was taking extravagant trips or buying anything fancy. I wasn't able to save, but it was about I knew now that my pathway is sort of late in the space. They saw the opportunities. Right, you could go work for a foundation. Other companies have their foundations as well. There's also other areas you can go into. So I saw sort of a broader field in terms of opportunity, without having to become like have a professional certification like an MD, although I ended up going getting going to grad school because I thought that was important.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that's how I sort of like, and the thing that drove me was also being persistent, like you have to be persistent and like keep trying, keep trying. It's really hard and also you got to hustle, like I think, especially then I had, like you know, one source of income which was my job is probably was side hustling where you could do it the time that it wasn't aware of. But I think now for someone who's in this space we're thinking about this and dealing with the real world financial challenges, food costs, more. You got to get to work, you have to get on transport. There's actually like a lot more opportunities for you to actually have a side hustle. So you could have a podcast, right, you could do things. You could go on YouTube you can talk about you know I'm making being silly, but ASMR, but you could do a bunch of different things and it's your content, whatever else you want to do out there that enables you to have like a different, like other forms of income streams, to enable you to create space to do what you want to do. It's still hard, right, it's still work. You still have to put the effort into it, but I think for me it has been one about like really being persistent and asking for what I wanted, right, because when I went to city, even when I was at the hospital, so when I went to city Jay from Oregon here as well I was really clear.
Speaker 1:I was like, okay, I'm going to do this work, but my plan is like I want to promotion, I want to make more money, I want to try this, I want to be part of this project and being really specific and asking for that and listen, I was scared. I remember being like okay, this is what I'm going to do. When I met my boss I was at city said I'm going to do this job for a year, I'll be your assistant, but this is what I want to do afterwards and here's what I'm going to do to get to that step. But she's like okay, you do all of this. I have your back, I'm going to support you until you know, going to the next step, etc. And I followed that. You know. I delivered and I met with her and I was really like. I was really what's the word? I focused on each next step.
Speaker 1:Right, I was like was thinker-ness in terms of the things that I was doing. And so I met with her and I think also that made an impression on her someone new coming into the role saying oh, he's really serious about this and it's so the year came in and, yeah, my role changed and I had an opportunity to do new things and manage partners and understand the budget and learn different things and access different resources related to nonprofit financials, like really basic things that are really foundational to your work and that was really helpful for me. So when I talk about persistence, it's also being proactive and it's also being a little bit demanding. But I have to say, you know, I'm sure like there were probably times where people thought I was like, oh, he's trying to do too much or he's doing he's being really extra.
Speaker 1:But you, you got to be like sometimes you just you got to be extra and not even think about yourself as being extra. But you're trying to make that bread, right. You're trying to be stable, you're trying to like, get your shit together, but also you want to excel, right, and those things sometimes are competing with each other as well. Right, because you got to do. Actually, you got to actually, you know, do what you need to do to make your money, but you also need to focus on your career in the long term and having all those two in the same space. You know also being young, right, I was in my 20s. Right, you want to go out, you want to have fun balancing all of that. You have to really have to be be able to manage all that, be persistent and have outlets for you to let off some of the straps too, because it can be really stressful.
Speaker 3:That's great. So a few follow-ups there. One, remind me, were you at city proper or city community development? And I asked because I think there's a difference that people should hear and understand that there is a difference between the two entities. And then two I heard you mentioned that you started out as a temp. Yeah, Is that accurate? We'd love to hear how you then turn that temp position into a primary position.
Speaker 1:Yeah, start off as a temp. I told you when I said I'm gonna do this job for X amount of time For a year, I did that while I was a temp. So I was a temp. I was only a temp for like six months, though, but I was a temp and I, three months in, I was like, okay, I kind of like what they're doing here. That's when I had this realization about the bank has to make investments in low-income communities. They deploy all this funding around affordable housing. You take advantage of tax credits to finance community facilities and health care centers and all this other stuff. And I was like, okay, wow. Then, three months after that, I was like three months in I probably said, all right, I want a full-time job and this is what I want to do and this is what it's gonna look like. My boss was like, okay, let's do it. I mean, she was happy with my work, so things she wanted me to say and be there. So that's what I did in terms of like making a transition into actually the role.
Speaker 3:I like that because I think there's a lot of times when folks don't take temp positions because they don't know that there is an opportunity to then go on or to leverage that, whether within that same organization or one of its partners. Right, and I've seen it happen in different spaces, whether I started out as a time back on the university and I then stayed there for about six years. So there is value in taking the opportunity, proving that you can deliver and then making that a longer term opportunity. So I love highlighting things like that because it could have easily been a three month, six month stand, but you turn it into ten years within that organization.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And there again is, I think it's something about persistence, right, because what I was getting paid as a temp was like not comparable to what I was getting paid when I went full time. I think I was making like $22 an hour or something it was like, and like whatever that was the week, I don't remember, but it was like just enough for me to like hang on. So when I took the job, you know, I got an additional money and it was, it was better, but yeah, that was a really big. The persistence that I think really paid off for me in terms of being really one deciding to I wanted to be there, to understanding the environment and three, asking for it and being very prescriptive around what I wanted myself to my job to look like and how I showed up there as well.
Speaker 3:So what was the second part? The second part was around the difference in between city and city community development. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So why was there a change a couple of times? So one point I was just within Citibank, like my job was in the Citibank. So cities made up of multiple companies there's Citibank, there's City Mortgage, there's City Cards, there's all the credit cards, there's City Investment Bank, there's City Commercial, but it's a bunch of different companies that have been required and merged over the years and years, and so at one point we were just Citibank, my job was just within Citibank, but then it ended up expanding and covering both Citibank, City Cards and a couple other areas. So we were at a higher level in terms of where we sat within the organization. The reason for that is because all banks and I said this earlier uses acronym, the Hack to a Bible, what's called the Community Reinvestment Act, so whatever, and this was a law that was passed in like 1977, I believe, or 76 somewhere around there.
Speaker 1:The intent of the law was to help solve for redlining, where banks would literally redline communities on a map and say we're not going to make any, we're not going to deliver any credit here. So you couldn't get a loan of any sort, you couldn't get access to any types of services, although you could. Actually, the service you could do is actually deposit your money into that bank. The bank was going to take your money but not do anything to actually reinvest in your community, unlike other places where they do, and that was effective and that was a racist policy. It impacted people of color, black and brown people, and also immigrants as well. So the bank, the regulators and so the country, they can act with this law the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977. And so the bank has to abide by that. I don't know where I'm going with this, but that was what was the original question. Sorry, the difference right between the two.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, because people see the difference, people see city and they think of a bank, right, oh sure, you can see massive card and think of a financial technology institution. They don't recognize that there's also inclusive growth, that there's also a community development on and that these organizations are tied for different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the reason I was talking about the community investment act is that every bank that takes the positives they all do have to abide by the Community Reinvestment Act. They make these investments so they all have some form of community development or community development finance or a mixture of those two, in different forms of flavors. Sometimes it sits within the bank, sometimes it sits within a larger sphere, within the bank, at a higher level, because it has a lot of impact on the bank, and so the work is around making grants right. You take advantage of philanthropic dollars. It's also community finance where you actually take investment dollars from the bank. The bank does make money on it very little, I would say, compared to the sort of a commercial loan and so they invest that to support development or portable housing or a community facility of some sort as well. So they also do a lot of bricks and mortar investment as well, related to that. So every bank has to do that type of work, unlike a place like Mastercard, a place like Google, a place like Microsoft, a place like CVS. They also have foundations, but they don't have regulatory requirements to do that. They do that for a number of different reasons, especially, I think, now, banks and companies have always had some sort of philanthropic component, and it may have been that they strictly wrote a check to a charity and used it for visibility.
Speaker 1:There's been conversations for years in terms like what's the role of a corporation in society? And it was called under the moniker of like corporate responsibility. They have responsibility because they're also they're employing people who work in society, they're providing jobs to people who work in society, people also buying their goods as well, so they definitely have an impact on sort of the way people live, the way people interact with their environment, all these other sort of components and outputs of being a corporation and creating products and services. So there was a sense that what are you doing to actually give back? And that was a bit of the word corporate responsibility came from. It's since expanded and gotten sort of bigger, and now you're seeing sort of this talk.
Speaker 1:You're seeing a lot around ESG, right, environment, society and governance, and so you see a lot of things related to the environment around climate change, et cetera. Where I sit is really sort of the society, the social pillar, around the work that we do here, and then you see governance, which has to do around the policies and practices that a company undertake. So you may see thanks, for example, anti-slavery statements that companies have made across the board, and those are to indicate that they have a policy where their supply chain is not using slave labor, which is still an issue to this day. You look at things all over the world, but that's the difference between the two, I would say between a bank and sort of a non-bank entity is that there's not the regulatory requirement. But you still have folks, people who make purchases. Consumers like you and me are really aware, much more aware, of the acts and sort of things that a company does. So folks have made decisions based on that as well.
Speaker 3:Can you tell me the difference in titles from when you started to when you left 10 years later, and then that transition?
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a good one. Go on to your next one.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a really good one. So titles are different across the board, so they all look really differently. So the banks tend to be very similar, although not always around titles. So when I started there I think I was like so I was an executive assistant and then I became a manager and then the next title was VP. So there's a lot of VPs right At the company, at City and also JP Morgan those can be. There could be two levels of VP, but you're always going to see VP it's going to be more of an internal thing and also depending if you're at the private bank versus the retail bank, which is like the city bank versus the private bank. They also made there's going to be compensation differences there.
Speaker 1:So whereas at Mastercard there's like you start, they used to have a couple levels you should be director or senior director, the vice president they collapse. The director and the senior director, not just director. Then it goes to vice president. Vice president is pretty senior. Next one is senior vice president, then EVP. Evp is more or less the top right, whereas city it was, I think it was manager, VP. There was like two levels of VP director, no VP, svp, then director, the managing director. So very different and you can't really compare the two. So JP Morgan was they had VP, svp, slash executive director. Then I think they I'm not sure if it was managing director next or director, I don't remember how it was, but no, it was managing director, svp and ED and executive director. So it was VP, sdp, slash executive director, the managing director, and that you can't. It was hard to compare.
Speaker 1:So when I came from JPMorgan to Mastercard, I was an executive director. I left the city, a senior vice president. I went to JPMorgan and I went in as an executive director. I left there and I went to Mastercard and I was a director, I was a senior director. Then they find it was a director, the Nama, vp. The compensation and the numbers are all totally different. So it's like progression, yes, and salary and sort of compensation yes, absolutely. But it's hard to compare the two. Right, you can't be like it's not. Like I was an ED at JPMorgan, so that means I'm gonna be a VP here. It's like the responsibilities might be similar but the compensation is gonna be different 100%.
Speaker 3:Now I mean okay, so, wow. So you started out as a temp executive assistant and you left as a senior vice president. Then you went over to JPMorgan as an executive director. Can you tell me about your role at JPMorgan? What were you tasked with doing as an executive director of National Partnerships?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there I was executive director. I was responsible for all of our national relationships with civil rights organizations, affordable housing organizations. So when I talk about civil rights, it's organizations like National Urban League, neville's, us and sort of others in that space, as NAACP as well. They're affordable housing organizations with folks like Enterprise, like LISC, like the big names that you know about as well. Also, think TINC organizations like the Urban Institute, like PolicyLink as well, responsible for those relationships and then also focused on advocacy engagement A lot of things that the banks do because of CRA.
Speaker 1:Cra also allows the community investment back, also allows space for community organizations to provide critiques to banks and how they're performing. So and those can be. You know you can be performing well and they're gonna say you're performing well, but they write in and regulators really take the response from the community organizations very seriously. So they're called community advocacy organizations. Sometimes they use that title themselves, but then that's also the title that we would use when we talk about them and engage with them, because they were advocates, right, advocating on the behalf of individuals in low income communities.
Speaker 1:So part of my job was also dealing with that and managing that, and so when I joined JP Morgan, you have to understand it was right after the Great Recession. So the Great Recession happened, all the banks were being pill read for all the activities that they did and what they did to actually enable an environment where you had lending, mortgage lending, and actually had a significant disparate impact on across the board and everybody, but particularly low income communities as well. And so the banks were taken to task for good reason. They were fine billions of dollars for what they had done in their role in participating in this as well. But I would say Citi was actually did a really good job of managing different advocacy groups and managing relationships, but also really demonstrating how they showed up in community and doing it in a very tangible way and the way that the advocates could say the city, I know, dxymz in this community versus, like the JP Morgan that I know or the Wells Fargo that I know, didn't do XYMZ. So the experience of the CEOs when, if you look back at tapes, if you look at the CEOs when you had it was like Vikram Panda, jamie Diamond I forget who the CEOs of the other China Prime money and was still BFACO you see that there was like more focus on JP Morgan, like a lot. Jamie Diamond got the brunt of it.
Speaker 1:I would say A lot of that, I think, had to do with their, the way they showed up in community and the way they showed up with the advocacy organizations, how they were being or not being strategic with their giving and what the work they were doing in philanthropy. So after that, you saw JP Morgan was, we did its entire corporate responsibility arm and started focusing more on engaging advocacy, being really strategic and thoughtful of how they deployed the hundreds of millions of dollars that deployed a community. And so when I came in, part of the job was to help build those relationships. So I came in with this background of having worked with advocacy organizations at Citi and my part of my remit was to help build those relationships, create space so that the advocates can really understand how the business operated, get the business comfortable with sharing how they operate, how they, why they make certain decisions and literally holding meetings and opportunity and creating space at JP Morgan for them to meet. So you have folks like NCRC, for example, represented from NCRC, national Community Reinvestment Coalition, which represents like hundreds of community advocacy organizations across the country. There's a couple other, consumer center for responsible lending, crl. There was a bunch of others as well, having them come in, meet with folks who headed up the retail bank, cut up the mortgage division, et cetera. So they can understand. This is how the products are designed. This is how.
Speaker 1:Why we made those decisions but also for the advocates is that you actually shouldn't be doing that. You should think about it in a different way. What you're doing here, this business practice, is having a deleterious effect in our community and on the people that we serve. So you need to change that. So creating that space so that folks can talk, disagree, figure out new ways forward, and that was part of my remit around my job as well. The other thing I focused a lot on was on aging in place so older adults and also creating access for people with disabilities, for people particularly people who are site and also hearing impaired. So the business also changed some of its practices around that to enable better access and accessibility across the board for people with disabilities as well. It was really interesting. I was there for about two years.
Speaker 3:And you also. You started grad school during that time. I did, yes, Tell me why you went to grad school. What did you end up going back to grad school for?
Speaker 1:I was right before I left city and when I joined JK Morgan, I was still in grad school. Well, one I was in the space, I had my BA, like a lot of people around me had their master's degree, and I felt, in order for me to like compete, but also, I think, also feel like part of it was also a belonging thing. You know, I think, as a person of color, as a child of immigrants, right, you always show up and you're in these rooms and you're in these spaces where they're not necessarily designed for you, or you have the microaggressions where it's like you're not welcome or you feel that you're being, you're being, it's being created, so you don't feel as though you're welcome. So part of it was like, okay, I'm gonna go back and get my master's degree so that no one can sort of hold that against me or tell me I don't have enough information or knowledge, but also so I know like I have this credential and yes, this also I don't necessarily need it, but it's also important to have. So, yeah, that's part of the reason why I went back to grad school.
Speaker 1:But also on top of that, you know, on top of sort of all of that, it was also important for me to also know more right and learn more. I learned a lot about design thinking. I learned a lot about data and data analysis and data science. I learned a lot about law as well. I went to, took a couple of law classes while I was there and then also I got deeper into the financials as well, which is always like a bit of like you lose it if you don't use it enough. So that was also really helpful to learn more about and also stepped me up. So I did a lot.
Speaker 1:That was part of the reason around it. I would say the benefit for it Not only sort of psychosocial right and sort of the way I show up and knowing I have a degree yes, totally helped that but the benefit of it was also I was also much more capable being on boards. So when I was on a board I mean the boards I've been on the boards I am on now, like having had that experience and being grad school, there were some tools that I found that were very useful for me, like really like looking at like financial ratios so I could really understand the balance sheet, understand the 90 90, give like really critical feedback around it as well. That was really helpful. But also understanding data, understanding some of the law in South of Israel is also really useful, so that enabled me to be a better partner to the organizations that I work with as well.
Speaker 3:So you did your master's while working, yes, and where did you go to school and what was your actual master's in?
Speaker 1:Oh sorry, it was my master's in public administration. I got to come to NYU.
Speaker 3:Yeah, completely. I know the struggles of trying to get an MPA while working. I too did the thing. Yeah, yeah, you know it's certainly a lot and I agree with everything you said around, both the validation that it gets you socially, apparently, and the knowledge and know-how and the things that you can apply. And I did appreciate working while I was on the school, right, because I can literally show back up to work on Monday and apply some things, and that was a game changer. Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, 100%. One thing I would have done earlier was gone to school earlier. I wouldn't have waited long, and the reason for that, you know it was a very personal decision. I said I need to go, that's why I need to go.
Speaker 1:But I remember asking people around me, like leaders around me and stuff as well. They were like, yeah, you don't have to, you can if you want to. But I was like but you got it right. So later on I was like I was like yeah, but you have your master's degree, you have this. But I'm like I didn't feel like, if it was like these were all white people, right. So I've been asking the white people who don't have a similar background to me, et cetera. They all say, oh, you don't need it. I'm like, later on I was like you know what? I should have just went and done it, and had I done it, I probably would have left work and gone full time.
Speaker 1:Because even though I was able to, like you said, right, I was going to my, you know, go to my class. Like there was a Friday, saturday, whenever the classes were, come in and be like, oh, I have some ideas, I can apply this right away, which is really great. At the same time, I wish I had. I wish I would have had more time to also actually get deeper into the material, right? So there was a part of me was also like, well, I wish I could spend more time actually digging into this book or into this sort of area. I wish I had more time to do that, being working and doing that. You just you don't have time because, like you're working full time, even if you go to school part time. That's two classes, that's like what is that? Like 10, 15 hours of work, maybe more of 20. And then you have your group projects and all that stuff takes time. So great, really good experience.
Speaker 3:But if there was one thing I would change go to school sooner and have gone full time, so Okay do you feel like, despite not going to grad school sooner and going full time, do you feel you have seen it pay its dividends 100%?
Speaker 1:for going to grad school yeah, 100%, yeah, 100%, yeah. I still you know you can't change things. It's great. I'm glad I did it. No regrets, it was 100% worth the experience. I still keep in touch with people from NYU. So, yeah, no, 100% worth it for the experience. For the networking yeah, no, we didn't change that at all.
Speaker 3:So Aside from grad school, have you joined any other fellowships or other professional development that you feel like has helped you?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did actually. Yeah, I applied for it and I am. It's called an Eisenhower Fellow. So there was this institution called Eisenhower. There is an institution called Eisenhower Fellowships that would set up an honor present Eisenhower and the whole idea is to create this network of social impact leaders across different spaces. They have like a fellowship that focuses on agriculture, and so they do an exchange with folks who are working agriculture here in the US with different countries all over the world. They have it's also an international program, so it's also they have cohorts of folks who come in from Latin America. They come in as a group and they travel all across the US around and they meet with different people in different areas that they're interested in. Folks who come from Europe they have an Africa cohort. It's really an amazing organization.
Speaker 1:There's hundreds of people who are part of the network and when I applied, the US program is different because you start as a cohort, like so it's me and nine other people. It's usually eight to 10 people they select every year and so you meet as a group and then you go your separate ways. You go to different countries because everyone picks different countries, so you're actually alone when you're going through on these countries and you're meeting with different people. You work, you meet with government, you meet with business, you meet with NGOs, and so you meet all these different people in the area of interest that you're focused on, but you do it alone. You do get the opportunity to meet other Eisenhower fellows. If they're in country, they're in the program and you meet up again with your cohort one other time, and so that was really great, like having that opportunity. I can see the benefit of going with the cohort over time in one place because you develop stronger relationships. But I still enjoyed my experience. On the last, I would say the only caveat for me was that I got accepted into the program for 2020. We all know what happened in 2020. It was COVID-19. So everything shut down. So they said, okay, you can't travel, so the program has put on hold. So I wasn't able to travel anywhere.
Speaker 1:I was originally gonna go to Japan and to Germany and I was really interested. I was looking at. Originally, my focus was gonna be on immigration, work and gender and how the future of work and automation, the advent of it, will change society. And I picked Japan because that's a place where there's very limited immigration. It's very much a patriarchal society. Women are expected to sort of stay at home, et cetera. Not a lot of opportunities for women in terms of career growth.
Speaker 1:And then Germany, because they have a really great program when it comes to apprenticeships that have different modes of enabling people to access work, so it's not like you have to go to college to get a well-paying job. Also, at the time they also had a really strong immigration and integration program, so that was also really interesting for me to take a look at. But because of COVID, I pivoted. I ended up going to Israel and to Spain, because there's also a very limited number of countries that I could go to. Still focused on the immigration component, but also included a focus around small business as well and looking at that too.
Speaker 3:So how long do you have to go to those countries for as part of your own? As part of your own?
Speaker 1:When I started with the program, it was up to five weeks. The great thing about this program is that they pay for all your flights. They give you a stipend so you can pay for your meals, they pay for your hotel, they pay for your travel within the country, so literally, it's like you're not spending any money. So it's five weeks, and so what I did was I split it up three weeks in Spain and two weeks in Israel and I went all over both of those countries. It was really amazing, but you probably couldn't do that again. It was like really awesome.
Speaker 3:And theoretically, your job is supportive of you taking time to do this, because you are bringing some of that knowledge where you can become an expert more in that field and bringing that back into the country 100% 100% yeah, 100%, yeah.
Speaker 1:So when I got the, actually my job here at MasterCard they very much encourage us to take advantage of opportunities like that. So, like our president, she did a presidential fellowship with Clinton Bush and there was another president I'm not going to remember who it is, anyway, she was president of the organization. She herself took time and took time off and attended these different seminars. So they very much encouraged us to do that. So when I did it, I told my job I need three weeks off here, two weeks off here. Totally, let me do it. Didn't contact me, it was amazing.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, and they got paid, it was great. Yeah, professional development is important and that's how you maintain a leader in your field and can bring some of that value back to the organization so that I make sure I have more of those types of investments. So tell me about your role now at MasterCard, tell me. Let's double click a little bit. Let's tell when you walk in on Monday, what does your job look like, what do you actually functionally try to accomplish for the week, and how do you find some of the partnerships and organizations that you ultimately support? Right, because I think at the root of your role is being a grant maker, right? So how do you go through all that when you walk in on Monday?
Speaker 1:So right now I'm MasterCard, so I lead our function related to small business. So I lead a program called Stroud USA and, to your point, the work and what I learned from what I was doing on my fellowship around small business, I use that to apply to what I help design here, and here we're focused on enabling businesses to have access to affordable capital to know how and information, how to grow their business and digital tools to grow their business, and also using all the federal dollars that are coming down and helping to activate that by supporting institutions to help deploy those funds. So that's what I've been focused on this last like two years, and so when I go on Monday, part of this work is also visibility right and so enabling convening so you could use wherever you are, you can use the imprimatur of your company to help convene people. So MasterCard is a really good brand. So we launched this year we call our Stroud USA summits, and so we just had one in New York. We brought in different institutions that we work with to talk about the use of technology, activation of federal dollars, talk about rural versus urban. So we had a whole session, a whole day, a couple hours around this with different folks, both from government, nonprofit and private sector, to talk about also those public private partnerships and why they're so important to help activate federal dollars and to also do more than just being just one entity by bringing others into the fold as well.
Speaker 1:My next, we're going to do a series of these, so this Monday, part of me when I go in tomorrow is to prepare for the one in DC. So literally it's about right. Who are we inviting? What's going to be themes around the day around this? Who needs to be there? What's the setup going to be? Are we going to do round table? Are we going to do panels? So it's sort of all of that thinking related to it. So it's a lot of brass tacks, but also sort of design and being creative around, like what that's going to look like, and also this week, like reviewing who's in the pipeline for grants that we are, that we're about to make. So we have like three or four grants agreements that I need to review, make sure they address all the different issues that need to be addressed, that the design makes sense, that the you know the deployment of the funds make sense. The metrics look good in terms of reporting and impact that we want to do. So it's all of that type of work and that's both sort of the brass tacks around grant making, right, in terms of like, when are the funds going out? What are the metrics here on this? What's the story you want to tell? Just sort of like the design and creative part is like is this solution innovative? Is it different? Or, even if it's not different, is it scalable and are we building enough tools to actually enable it to grow? So it's that type of thing.
Speaker 1:Those are the two things that I'm focusing on this week, and then also I'm in the middle of hiring someone. So I'm also like vetting resumes and looking at different people and trying to understand, like, what's the skill set where they bring to the table and is it going to fit the needs that we have as well? There's also managerial things, which is that's one of them. One of my direct reports is out. I'm sick. She's out with some of the family issues she's dealing with, and so it's also like, how do I fill in for her and the gap that she was bringing in? So there's actually someone who's volunteering within the company to support the work. So also bringing them into the fold so they really understand how we do the work and able to be supportive to us as well.
Speaker 3:So that's a bit of the week for me this week, wow, yeah, and I will say, you know, I was fortunate enough to join your summit here in New York City and I think you all are very intentional, not only around definitely bringing the right people in the room, but making the connections right so that some of the grantee partners that you have can connect with other funders and can actually be highlighted in a way that makes sense to them, right?
Speaker 3:So, like for myself as a grantmaker, you know, I think you and I really started hitting it off because we talked at one point and we're like you know we should probably try to fund some things together. And then we came into the office and we you and our team over at Rocka Fella at the time we locked into a room for a couple of hours and we were like we're not going to leave until we figure out how we can work together and how we can fund things together, and if it's really like a matrix, like where do you do the work, what is it that you're looking for, what are some of your goals, our goals, and how do we marry. And now we're able to do that, going forward, right, but I think that comes because of your leadership and intentionality and recognizing how to make the dots connect and advance and work forward. So you know, I've seen you in action and I think you all are very intentional around the work that you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I try to be like, I try to be very intentional around the work. So thank you for saying that, because, at the end of the day, like, what you're doing in this space is also like literally having the impact on the lives of, like little Roddies, little Sandy's, who are growing up in these communities as well, right, and so how do you make sure that they actually have the best experience that they can and that the resources are deployed in the right way so their families can actually make money, do what they need to do? And it's like invisible, right. So like no one. They don't know that we exist, like I didn't know if there was someone, like you know, working in this space.
Speaker 1:You don't see them, but what you see is the output of that work. What you see is like what's left behind, like what's being directionally designed around this. So it's like it's an invisible hand, but so you have to be really careful about how you end up doing it. So being intentional is really important. You have to see yourself in the work. You have to see, like, the impact on community and the work as well. So I think that's really critical, sandy. What's the?
Speaker 2:favorite part of your role.
Speaker 1:Favorite part of my role is working with the institutions, so it's like really working with those organizations or actually going out in the field. That's the favorite part. I don't get to do this often, but going out into the field and meeting the organizations and meeting the people who are like opening businesses and the way they talk about their business and the access to capital that, to me, is like makes a huge difference. And even when I wasn't in this role and focused on small business, like looking when I was a JPMorganist city, like going to and working with people who are trying to buy a home right, and like these are people very similar to a lot of people that I know, people that I know now, people that I grew up with, who are trying to put together I don't know, let's make this stop buying each $20,000 home, putting together $20,000. That's a lot of money of $40,000 for people. It's like they are hustling right, and so it's really important to treat them with respect and understand where they come from, but also give them space to tell you their story. Things have changed since when I was a kid, right, things are different now. I don't know, I'm not sort of in the same hood anymore. So like being there and listening to people and hearing people to me is like that's my favorite part of the job, because I can see, like how this institution is using the funds to actually support and enable the livelihoods of community and people and businesses as well. That's my favorite part of the job.
Speaker 1:I would say my second favorite part of the job is working with the institutions and designing the programs. I love it. I love working with organizations. I love working with leaders in the field. That, to me, is always really exciting because it's like they are the change makers and we have an opportunity to partner with them, to collaborate with them as well and also learn from them. We also learn from each other, too. At the same time. That, to me, is probably my second favorite part.
Speaker 3:And you talk about. You know, I think it's easy to look at someone like Sandy and say, oh, this is someone that has their life together, has always had their life together, and I think there's value in recognizing that things are not always linear right. And even when you shared earlier around, starting as a temp executive assistant and now you're a vice president of social impact and the head of the strive program and you have grown so much in your career, I would love to hear about a time when things were not as plain and simple and as peachy as they may seem personally or professionally. Yeah, how you've overcame some of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's probably like so many. Yeah, you know, you don't know what's going on in people's lives, right? That's also like there was an important lesson or something to be aware of. Probably the most difficult time for me is when, my right, I'm going to get emotional, but my sister passed away a couple of years ago and that was really, really hard. She died of cancer. She was my youngest sister Okay, she was my youngest sister, have seven sisters and yeah, so she passed away. She was sick, like she was sick, she was really sick. She almost passed away. She was an ICU and then she got better and she got out of the hospital and seemed like she was recovered. There was no trace of cancer in her body and she was good. She moved out of my sister's place because she moved in with my other another sister in DC for a little while and then, and then I came back and then she, she ultimately passed away. But that was probably like the hardest time in my life ever and it was just really hard. You're a video recording this almost a lot. Okay, that was the hardest part of that, but that was the hardest time of my life.
Speaker 1:Dealing with that, dealing with the aftermath of that was really, really difficult and it impacted work. You know what People deal with it in different ways. Right, when my sister was passing away, when she was sick, me and my other sister in DC, we were really proactive about managing her care, really being advocate for her. So we were just there, and so work gave me space to actually fly down. I would go down all the time, like I was always going down, taking the train, going down there all the time, at least once a month at least, you know, be there for a couple of days, if not more. And so I was doing that for like a year and so work let me do that and I was also working at the same time, and so for me being able to work and being of service to her and stuff was great. It also enabled me to actually really hide, like not hide.
Speaker 1:It was really painful. I was working out a lot and trying to deal with it and also deal with work, and so work gave me space to deal with it. But then also, when she passed away, I didn't have that job anymore. So it was also like that was really difficult and so I was like I'm just going to work that job, meaning taking care of my sister, but now she was gone. Having to deal with that, I had to deal with my nephew, who was also. He moved in with his dad. He stayed with my sister for like a year and a half.
Speaker 1:That was really difficult like managing through that. Managing through that pain, work it took four weeks off from work Probably could have taken more time off and so after that, I mean, that was, yeah, that was the hardest part and it was just managing through that and like having colleagues who really understood what I was going through and also being open about it. Right, being like I'm having a hard time right now, like this is really difficult for me, I don't have space to do this right now, and being vulnerable in that sense, you know, and that I wasn't breaking down or we're crying, but I was like I need space, like you know, et cetera, and being really clear about that I think was also important. But also, can you know I continue to work, continue to do what I didn't need to do, but yeah, that was the hardest time ever in my whole career of my life.
Speaker 3:I appreciate you sharing that and you know I completely hear you. I mean, as someone that has also lost a sibling, I recognize that. You know there is not only their expectation of how you step up as a sibling and as a family member, right, but then at work you still have to deliver yourself to show up, right, yeah, yeah, I too, like you, had a very supportive environment at work when that happened. Yeah, where folks were like take the time that you need, do the things that you need to do. I was. I probably should have taken more time, but I took like a week off and then I went right back to work and and then I went to dance next start master's program during the whole week and I think for me part of it was at least I was open enough With my work that they recognize that intermittent I will need space, I will need time.
Speaker 3:I mean I want to be at that Monday morning meeting because of that scum Like a mid meeting, I may have to walk out. You know what I mean. Yeah, it's real. So I appreciate you sharing some of that and I think part of it is, as you said, right Like you never know the water that people are carrying, yeah, and people show up at work and do the thing, but you don't know the burdens that these people are are going. So a lot for some of that grace throughout our career path is just really important.
Speaker 1:That's a great word. Yeah, no grace, absolutely giving people grace, because you never know, like, what they're dealing with, what they're, what's going on in their lives, et cetera. But I think it's like it's important to be said and you just said this is like, you know, letting people know. If it's like something so life changing as you're losing a sibling, your loved one, et cetera, you really have to let people know because otherwise they're going to think they're going to make up things, they're going to make up a hundred million things, right, he's just fucking around. He's just fucking around. He doesn't know what he's doing, et cetera. It's like it's really important to let people know. I think you need to let them know your business. You can just let them know you know my sibling's sick, she's, she's cancer. That's all they need to know. They already know. That's like that's a lot, that's the whole thing. So it's like yeah, so I think it's important to let people know.
Speaker 1:But also like, if you're like dealing with people and stuff as well, like um, it also was like that I love that word is like giving people grace, like cause also you know just everyday stuff, right, like sometimes you have to go, you know there's other things going on in your life. Like I had a flood in my apartment, right, and so that threw everything out of whack. I have one bathroom here, so I was going to the gym. My husband and I go to the gym to actually, you know, take showers and like do things and stuff. So it was a little crazy. So like going to work and like getting stuff done was a bit of a mess until the insurance kicked in and we sort of got everything together.
Speaker 1:So just like the gamut of things is just giving people grace and not assuming that it's a negative thing. But there's other things in people's lives. It's just you know people have kids, the kids got sick. You got to give them room. You know the mothers and the fathers to actually know the way they show up is going to be a little differently than someone who's single and doesn't have kids and stuff as well. There's people, people have lives. So I think that point around grace is like such a great point, because that is that is the word. You have to have grace and create and be a person with grace and allow that to happen.
Speaker 3:So thanks for indulging me in that, in that, in that conversation on a brighter sense of the conversation. Yeah, let's let's shift gears. Let's talk about you know, we spoke we spoke earlier about having that, that nexus between being able to do well for your family and doing good things in the world and not having to sacrifice one for the other. We'd love to hear generally how much money people can make in this type of field, given your years of experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say sometimes you do have to sacrifice one for the other. I don't know if there's like you know, sometimes you can, you can have both. I know for me, like early on in my career I think I was making like like $80,000 at city, like probably a couple of years before I left. That was not enough. Like I had my own apartment, I was just like I had just enough money to do, but not enough money to really live, and then what ended up happening was I ended up getting I was looking for a job and did get him with only because I needed to make more money. I really liked city, but city wasn't just going to give you a raise because you're telling them you need more money. They're going to give you a little raise and give you 3% and we give you 5%, but they're not going to give you the 30, 40, whatever it is you're looking for.
Speaker 1:I ended up getting another job at another bank and so I was like, okay, I'm going to resign. And they came back and they said we want to match the offer. I was like, oh, I didn't know this was an option. That's something to know. I think.
Speaker 1:Always it's like if you're in a place where they're not giving you enough money but they also value as an employee. Sometimes you have to get another offer. But that's a double-edged sword because if you accept the job from another place and you tell them I'm not going to take it, you know my job, you know match my offer, you can. You can burn a bridge potential. You have to be really careful in terms of how you say no.
Speaker 1:So I think at that point I was making like $140,000 at City and I went to JP Morgan and I made more than that. But I would say like the range can be depending on level and depending on sector, it can range right. It could start off from like being like an assistant, making like 50 to 75,000, depending on where you're going, all the way up to making like $500,000, if not more, depending on where you are and the level of the institution, the comp and how it's set up. So the range is pretty significant and also could be clearly beneficial as well. So, depending if you're in a state that doesn't actually as much as New York, even better.
Speaker 3:So that's fair, that's fair. Okay, are there any forms of media that could be books, that could be podcasts, that could be movies, shows, music that have impacted you personally or professionally that people should check out?
Speaker 1:I love a TED Talk, so there's like a number of different TED Talks that I think are really useful, but I found insightful and really powerful. Yeah, let me get back to them then.
Speaker 3:We'll put some links to some of those TED Talks in the show and also now. If you're listening to this, you have some homework to do. Folks just scroll down and the links will be right there. So what's the thing that we have not covered today that the world should know about? Sandy?
Speaker 1:I would say like I'm really driven by this idea of liberation and so like, for me and my whole ethos and part of the reason why it is, it's not only because I want to do good in the world and I want the world to be a better place, but I want people to be liberated.
Speaker 1:There's, like so much different types of oppression and how people are told to act, to think, to behave, to do.
Speaker 1:Some of those, a lot of those, do have our racist in terms of like you know, being biased against people of color and outrightly so.
Speaker 1:Others are very gender normative in terms of like women should do this, men should do that, which also really restricts our ability to be ourselves and be our greater selves in the world and really be of service to each other and serve a higher purpose.
Speaker 1:And so I'm really driven by this idea of liberation and liberation from all types of oppression, because once they think you have that and you're able to achieve that and I don't know if that's truly possible in sort of in the world, any world, nor any place that we live today that humanity is going to see its potential really be significant in terms of its ability to do for itself but also do for others and like the world would be a much better place. There's a very rosy way of thinking about it, but that takes work right. You can't be liberated until you actually break the structures. And breaking those structures and reforming them is hard and it's painful, but it has to happen in order for us to have progression and to have growth in the world, and so that's a lot the way of how I think about things.
Speaker 3:I love it. Mandy, thank you for joining us today. Thanks for sharing all of this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Didn't know I was going to be crying here, so you know we take you through a roller coaster, you know, not just the problem, I think it's, and the reason why we go through this race, because the professional aspect cannot happen without that personal journey. Yeah Right, so going through some of that is what makes you show up, the way that you show up, and brings the perspective that you bring into work. So all of that helps mold us and build us into the humans that we are today. So I appreciate it. Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did and believe on the mission we're on, please like, rate and subscribe to this podcast on whatever platform you're using, and share this podcast with your friends and your networks. Make sure you follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn at career cheat code and tell us people or careers you would like to see highlighted. See you next week with some more cheat codes. Peace.
