In last week’s episode of the Investing In Integrity podcast, our CEO Ross Overline sat down with Joe Martinetto, the COO of Charles Schwab. They unpacked the broader economic system with an emphasis on financial technology including DeFi, cryptocurrency, and Joe’s leadership of the acquisition of TD Ameritrade.

It’s an insightful episode with a humble, servant leader that has found himself in the C-Suite at one of the largest financial institutions in the world. 

To aid in the digestion of Joe Martinetto’s lessons…, we decided to lay out an overview of some of the key points discussed throughout the episode.

Where Young Professionals Should Focus Their Time to Maximize their Potential:

Early in the episode, around the six-minute-mark, Joe starts to discuss the areas that young professionals should focus on to maximize their potential. 

In short, he says if you want to go into finance you need to pair up your soft skills and passion for finance with some hard data skills – especially computer science. Understanding how data is created, stored, manipulated, and analyzed will put you a step ahead of your peers and prepare you for a successful career in finance.

How to be a Good Team Leader and Strong Team Player:

This advice from Joe comes near the 11 minute mark in the episode… This one’s pretty simple.

If you want to do well in these areas, do two things:

1. Treat people with respect
   1. This one likely doesn’t need too much explanation
2. Learn to listen in the right way and be open to being influenced
   1. The goal here is to achieve the best outcome – not to win the argument. In finance, we’re working with some of the sharpest individuals in the world and sure enough they have some really good ideas. Listening in a way that allows you to be influenced is incredibly important as it enables the “best outcome” to be found. 

Aside from this, another important thing to consider as a leader is how you grow your followership within your company. Joe’s personal leadership style is servant leadership – this is our preferred leadership style too btw :). That said, there are pros and cons to all leadership styles whether they be hierarchical or “flatter” through servant leadership. The key takeaway here is that this should be an intentional choice. 

How to Minimize Risk:

This learning comes near the 30 minute mark in the episode.

Obviously he can’t share his input on one individual asset’s risk profile, but in general here are his thoughts:

1. Don’t buy something that you don’t understand and you can’t place a value on
2. From an organizational level, ensure there isn’t a single person who could cause serious damage to the firm from a financial perspective
3. Become extremely educated on the instruments you’re purchasing and the risk exposures you’re taking

Crypto’s future in the financial sphere:

This section came near the 40 minute mark…

The short answer:

• Time will tell.

The long answer: 

• There’s likely room for it in the market and it’ll force financial firms to offer better service at lower prices to clients. Crypto may just be another lever that firms can pull down the road that will allow them to continue to increase their scale and further democratize investing.