Human Capital Transformation

In this episode, we are joined by Thasunda Brown Duckett, President and Chief Executive Officer of TIAA. Thasunda will shed light on the importance of having access to valuable financial planning and services, and discuss how financial inclusion and opportunity should be available to businesses and individuals of all backgrounds.

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Host: Becky Quick

Guest: Thasunda Brown Duckett (Speaker)

Produced by: AMZG Media

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Transcript

The Forum with CNBC Host Becky Quick

A Podcast by the Economic Club of New York

Human Capital Transformation 

Becky Quick: I’m Becky Quick, of CNBC, and your host of The Forum. I will be guiding you through exclusive conversations among some of the world’s global leaders; conversations previously held behind Club doors. But today, I invite you in. 

 The Economic Club of New York serves as the premier forum for non-partisan discussion, dedicated to connecting the world’s brightest minds with preeminent public and private sector leaders. A non-profit 501c3, the club is a 115-year-old platform for the conversations that help shape the future of our world. 

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 In this episode, we hear from Thasunda Brown Duckett, President and CEO of TIAA, and her thoughts on leadership, culture, navigating change, and paving the way forward for a more equitable and stable future. Thasunda kicked off her recent address to the Economic Club with some insight into her leadership playbook. 

Thasunda Brown Duckett:

My playbook is consistent. When you think about being in financial services for over 20+ years, I’m very clear on what needs to happen. You have to listen. You have to connect with your team. You have to set a vision, win hearts and minds, and make sure that you’re surrounding yourself with the best talent as you think about your go-forward strategy. But what I will say is becoming a CEO with a new company at TIAA during the pandemic, the tactics to the playbook had to change.

Becky Quick: One of the core pillars of her leadership strategy is empathy, which may be more important now than ever. She shared the ways that empathy and agility go hand in hand. Only through truly winning hearts and minds through empathy and humility, can a leader effectively navigate through disruption. 

Thasunda Brown Duckett:

The one thing I would highlight is that when you think about all of the strengths that any leader has, and clearly when I think about my energy, my passion, focus, execution, etc., empathy is something that I would say that I really amplify. 

Thasunda Brown Duckett:

You have to have empathy and say, what is really on the mind of the people, the adage, I see you. And making sure that as I’m asking people to set a new day at TIAA, as I’m asking people to never lose sight of what we do and why we do it and why it’s important, we – as a leadership team and me, myself as a new CEO – had to make sure that I won the hearts and minds and I’m listening and making sure that I understand that we are all in uncharted territory and that as your leader, I can promise you that I will listen. I will promise you that the leadership team will operate with agility, will provide clarity, and will provide the permission to pivot when needed. And clearly, we all had to do that. We were navigating and still navigating this pandemic. 

Thasunda Brown Duckett:

Change is constant. And what we do every day has to stay in motion, what’s in motion has to stay in motion. And quite frankly, our participants deserve us to stay in motion. And so, yes, change is hard. Change challenges you. It makes you uncomfortable. But it’s necessary all the same because with change comes progress. Change allows you to own your own skill sets. It allows you to take that next mountain. And so I say to people, change is here and it’s not going anywhere. And, in fact, when you just look at the impact of the technology, that velocity of change, it’s going to continue to compound quite frankly. The need to adjust and be agile and intellectually curious, which means you have to be open to change, it’s going to be some of the strengths that our leaders are looking for. But I also think it’s okay, you know, even the greatest players need a timeout. And so as we’re thinking about how you navigate change, understanding the conversation around mental health, understanding that, you know, people are navigating just unprecedented waters mentally, emotionally, etc., that I cannot tell you that we will pause on the change because that won’t happen, but I can tell you that maybe you need a day. Or maybe you need three days. Or maybe you need to let go, let Jane, who is super talented, have the ball. You know, I think that is the conversation, to lower anxiety, increase confidence, and give leaders permission to say, have you optimized all of your talent? Because there’s someone sitting on the sideline saying, put me in, coach, because, you know, you need that help. And I think some of us as leaders also have to get comfortable. The fact is that as you navigate change, part of your superpower is giving your power away. And I think that will also help when we’re thinking about how to deal with an ever-changing environment. 

Becky Quick: What a thought-provoking statement, especially considering she shared it in an address to some of the world’s most powerful leaders: she says, “Part of your superpower is giving your power away”. One of the most powerful things you can do as a leader is to inspire a culture of trust and empower your talent. She asks, “Have you optimized all of your talent?”. She then talks a bit about culture, and predicts “the human capital transformation is next to be disrupted.”

Thasunda Brown Duckett:

Culture, you know, we both come from an organization where what we do every day really matters. And what’s clear for all of the people who work at TIAA is our mission. 

Thasunda Brown Duckett:

And so when you think about the importance of culture, I think what has helped us is that we understand why we are here. We understand the seriousness of what we do every day. And I’m so fortunate that I did not have to remind people. 

I mean this is, to me, such an exciting time to lead because not only are we leading through transformation when you think about technology, when you think about disruption everywhere, when you think about the problems that we have in front of us with the impact on energy, you have the rise in inflation. We know we’re going to see continued rate hikes. We know we have a geopolitical, I mean there are so many problems that we cannot control. But there’s a lot that we can do as leaders. And I think in addition to the transformation that I talked about with digital and technology and disruption everywhere, in addition to navigating all of the broader issues, the human capital transformation is next to be disrupted. And the pandemic has accelerated that. And so when you think about it’s an exciting time, you’re right. You know, question everything. Everything. Why do we do this? Why do we do that? But also there are some things that were true yesterday and they’ll be true tomorrow and they’re true today. So don’t lose all of that either because that’s also where your culture lies. 

People are saying compensation, yes, flexibility, yes, but who is this company? What problems are they solving? How do they solve these problems? Do they care about some of the things that I care about? Do they care about economic inequality? What are they doing around the climate? How are they working on mobility? You know those are important questions that I think more and more people are asking in a real intentional way. I would also say that within financial services and all sectors, as we continue to make progress around diversity, equity, and inclusion, then people who know what it’s like to have navigated their career being the only ones in the room, or people who have navigated understanding nuances or bias, culture matters. 

Becky Quick: A significant aspect of both culture and the human capital transformation that Thasunda predicts is diversity and inclusion. Thasunda is one of just two black female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies today. She shares four solutions for progress toward creating more diversity at the top. 

Thasunda Brown Duckett:

 If we just take a moment and think about it, every year Fortune 500, Fortune 500, Fortune 500, and there’s only been three full-time Black women. I think currently there’s not one Latina. We still have work to do. And so what can we do? Here are four things that I would offer up. First, it starts with a mindset shift. And that’s even at the boardroom because clearly the board hires the CEO and so we have to make sure that in boardrooms, in the board of directors, that we’re intentional about what is the composition of the board in terms of gender, in terms of ethnic representation, and also in terms of allyship. What does that look like? Because I believe that when you have allyship on the board of directors, when you have women and underrepresented groups as part of the leadership, I think you’ll have different perspectives when you think about considerations on who is the best person to lead the company. So mindset, and that’s also for CEOs. The reason why mindset is also important is because you fundamentally have to believe that talent is created equally, and opportunity is not. If you do not believe that, then you will not see that there is a problem. Secondly, if you believe that we have the mindset, then you have to disaggregate the data. We cannot fall in love with the law of averages because that will say on average, X percent of our organization is 50% women, 50% men, we’ll lose the essence of that middle, that stuck, for many women and people of color. You’ll lose the perspective of different areas within your company, especially those that have P&L roles, those roles, the power roles. Disaggregate the data. When you disaggregate the data, then you look at the policies and practices. Because once you disaggregate the data, hopefully, you’ll come up with different plays. And it’s policies and practices that will sustain the progress of what we’re all trying to do so that we don’t make four steps forward and then six steps back or that we don’t need another murder or a pandemic, for us to sit in it before we have to acknowledge that we have a problem. It’s in the underlying chassis of how you organize and how you operate your business. And then lastly, clearly what gets measured gets done. And when we talk about measurement, I would say an insight, it’s not just at the annual end of the year, as we think about compensation, which is absolutely important. But it’s also measuring when you’re doing succession planning, what do the metrics look like in terms of the pipeline? We can forecast, are we going to make progress or not based on the succession of who is in line, two or three levels deep. When I disaggregate the data, do I see that in this role we do not have any women that are on that succession tape? So my point is when you think about what gets measured gets done, one of the things that we work hard at, clearly at TIAA, and I’m sure all of you, is look at every path along the way, is it one women or two women or three women on the slate? You know, are we measuring the progression of succession? Do we have a stuck middle? I think you have to look at metrics throughout your process and that then can become a consistent rhythm. And I believe that if you have the mindset, if you disaggregate the data, if you challenge your policies and practices, and what gets measured gets done, then we, as Mellody Hobson would say, we’ll stop admiring the problem and we’ll make real sustainable progress in areas like only having two Black women running Fortune 500 companies today.

Becky Quick: Progress begins with a mindset shift in the boardroom. It’s important to note, that Thasunda herself is shifting boardroom dynamics, serving on boards like Nike, Brex, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, Sesame Workshop, the National Medal of Honor Museum, the Dean’s Advisory Board for Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business, and the Economic Club of New York. But beyond the boardroom, we must disaggregate the data, challenge policies, and measure progress. She quickly turns to the point that there is progress to be made far beyond the workplaces of corporate America and representation in the C-Suite. Next, she points our attention to the access gap, savings gap, and guaranteed income gap – and their impact on retirement realities for many Americans.  

Thasunda Brown Duckett:

Eighty-three percent of African Americans in retirement do not have enough. And so when we think about the state that we’re in, there is more that we must do when you look at this 40% stat. And so what’s driving that? I think there are three things we have to look at. There’s an access gap because we know that one-third of the private industry do not have access to an employer-sponsored plan, and that matters. So we have to work on policy and engaging to try to get more employers to be able to offer those plans. Secondly, there’s a savings gap. You know, I think there’s a $4 trillion income gap for retirees, and 25% of all Americans have no retirement. And so we have to make sure, again, what can we do as leaders, as policymakers, as corporate citizens, and as individuals to help improve the savings gap, because clearly, Social Security is not enough, and whatever your employer is providing is not necessarily sufficient, so we have to get individuals contributing. And then lastly, I’d say we have a guaranteed income gap, and clearly we know a lot about that being a leader at TIAA. But we know that defined benefits all but going away, you only have Social Security as your guarantee. And so what we do when we think about guaranteed income when we think about in-plan annuities, we think that it’s really important because people are living longer, women are outliving men. We know that you have to have something that can keep up with inflation. And you have to be able to have that replacement income that regardless of the market volatility, you can be certain that you have enough to cover your basic needs. And so I think those are three areas that I know we are laser-focused on at TIAA, and I think it’s something that all of us need to shine a brighter light on when we think about people starting their next chapter of life, and not necessarily easily being able to go back into the workforce. How do we make sure that they can truly retire with dignity? 

Becky Quick: You’ve been listening to Thasunda Brown Duckett, President and CEO of TIAA, for the The Economic Club of New York, a non-profit 501c3 dedicated to connecting the world’s brightest minds for critical, non-partisan, conversations. Be sure to subscribe now to be alerted to future new episodes. To learn more, visit econclubny.org.  I’m your host, Becky Quick.  Thanks for listening.