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An Interview with Joe Martinetto, the COO of Charles Schwab

By Compassion, Financial Leadership, Future of Finance, Integrity, Purpose of Finance No Comments

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. 

 

Richard Davis is Joining Our Advisory Board!

By Values No Comments

 

We have some very exciting news to share as an organization. Richard Davis, the former Chairman, President, and CEO of U.S. Bank has joined our Advisory Board!

Richard is a luminary of ethical finance leadership. He has more than 30 years of experience in financial services, including spending 2006 to 2017 leading U.S. Bank, the fifth-largest commercial bank in the U.S. Under his leadership, the institution became recognized as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere Institute in 2014, an award it’s received every year since.

Richard also has an impressive track record of governance and nonprofit leadership. He is on the Board of Directors for many large for profit companies, including MasterCard, and several leading nonprofits, including The American Red Cross. After leading U.S. Bank he stepped in to become the CEO and President of Make-A-Wish America, where he serves today.

More important than his accolades, Richard exemplifies the character and values we stand for at Scholars of finance. Every time you interact with him his genuine humility, integrity, compassion, curiosity, and courage all shine through.

Looking back on his career, we can say with confidence that Richard has helped make finance a force for good, and we are very excited to have him join our Advisory Board to help all of us at SOF do the same.

To learn more about Richard and the experience and values he brings to our board, you can check out his profile on our website here

If you’d like to extend Richard a warm welcome into the Scholars of Finance community, you can do so by sending an email to hello@scholarsoffinance.org, and we’ll forward it along.

Thanks again for all of your support and, in the meantime, we hope you have a great rest of your week.

 

Cheers!

The Scholars of Finance Team

Six Questions with Jenny Han

By Curiosity, Impact, Values No Comments

Six Questions with Scholars of Finance is a series intended to highlight the thoughts and lives of our students at Scholars of Finance. In the series, the students are simply asked six questions which we think embody the SOF experience and their answers are shared right here on the Scholars of Finance blog. In this second edition, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Jenny Han, a rising Sophomore at UC – Berkeley. If you are a student and would like to be featured in a segment of Six Questions with Scholars of Finance, please reach out to Jake Kranz via email.

What school do you go to?

University of California at Berkeley Class of 2023

Do you have any employment plans in the near future?

I am interning at a company called Kaali that is part of UC-Berkeley’s SkyDeck accelerator program.

Could you tell me a little bit about your experience with Scholars of Finance so far?

I joined Scholars of Finance in the spring of 2020 and gravitated towards it because of how differentiated of a business club it was, and still is. I was drawn in by the focus on morals and values and my strong belief in the mission. I’m a part of the associate team for the LDP out here and I’ve really enjoyed building deep, meaningful relationships with members through this program.

What is your favorite memory from Scholars of Finance so far?

My favorite memory so far is definitely the LDP. It’s given me the opportunity to learn about myself and others much more than I have in any of my other clubs or classes at college.

What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned from Scholars of Finance?

The most important thing that I’ve learned to do in my time at SOF is the ability to implement my values and morals into everything that I do. Instead of thinking of success in the traditional way, I now think of success as sticking true to my values and living life in accordance with them.

If you could tell the next generation of SOF students anything – what would you tell them?

Take this time to truly reflect on who you want to be and what you really want out of life.

Taking Action Against Racial Injustice

By Values No Comments

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.

It has taken some time to think about what to say publicly about George Floyd. Hearts have been heavy, eyes full of tears, minds on fire with anger, but we have been learning and listening – having conversations with friends, colleagues, and our student members at Scholars of Finance.

Martin Luther King Jr. has been someone we’ve looked to for inspiration and guidance as we build Scholars of Finance, and his teachings have provided much-needed clarity. Dr. King famously said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

At Scholars of Finance, we stand against the fatal brutality that George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and so many more black and brown people, not only in the last week, but for more than 400 years, have been victims of in our country. We stand against the racism and inequity that have permeated our country for so long.

We stand in support of peaceful protests. We stand for a world where all people can be safe and have equal opportunity. Our stated mission is to develop the next generation of finance leaders who lead with character, integrity, and stewardship. We stand for leaders of all races and backgrounds who consider inclusion, respect, and compassion central to that mission.

Dr. King also told us, “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

His call was clear. We must lead with love.

His life was clear. We must lead with action.

Our first step was to examine how we lead with our values during this time and take action in accordance with them.

Curiosity– The anger and sadness that black communities around the country are expressing is justified and understandable, and it is incumbent upon those of us with comparative privilege to first seek to understand. In the last week, we’ve heard many painful stories from our black students about the racism they’ve endured growing up, at school, at their finance internships. We must listen. We will seek diverse perspectives as we work to examine how racism has survived in the systems and institutions–the justice department, economic structures, and political machinery–that have yet to solve these problems.

Courage– We embrace change and help others do the same. We stand up for what we believe in. Those of us with privilege must confront the role we play in a system that perpetuates the socioeconomic marginalization of our neighbors. We must learn to use our privilege for good and learn to employ our social capital to shepherd change – intervening when we encounter injustice and racism, talking to friends and family, donating, calling our elected officials, confronting the issue head-on.

Integrity– We foster partnerships through respect and compassion. We will respect all people, regardless of their background, and compassionately honor our fundamental human equality. We speak the truth at all times and will foster honest dialogue among our communities to catalyze durable change and unity. We will not stand by and watch injustice occur. We will be principled stewards, proactive allies, and change agents.

Humility– We serve others above ourselves and we seek to know the truth about ourselves and those around us. Those of us with privilege acknowledge and dissolve our conscious biases – and treat feedback as a gift as we understand our unconscious ones. We must recognize that systemic change and dismantling institutional racism will take not only a city, or a nation, but the entire world.

Impact– We examine our decisions through a long term lens. Systemic racism has existed for all of recorded human history, but through thoughtful and concerted effort, perhaps we can end it in our lifetimes. While we develop durable solutions, we take action now. Multiple efforts are currently underway across our organization, including:

  • Fundraising for the cause to support black, brown, and indigenous communities
  • Calling representatives and signing petitions to demand justice and change
  • Compiling and sharing lists of resources that other students can use to support the cause

Our National Diversity & Inclusion Taskforce has been working to make Scholars of Finance increasingly welcoming and supportive of people of all backgrounds – and to help foster that same progress in the finance industry as a whole. We aimed for at least 50% ethnic and gender diversity among our student leaders this year. We reached 69% diversity and will continue to make this a priority. In the coming weeks, months, and years, we will continue to take more action.

It is integral to Scholars of Finance that these barriers presented by institutional, systemic racism are broken down as part of our commitment to ethics and integrity, not only in finance, but in the world at large. Together, we can make progress. In unity – leading with love and taking action – we can create the change we want to see, and in the words of Dr. King, “help men rise… to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.”

Six Questions with Noah Haverlock

By Curiosity, Impact No Comments

Six Questions with Scholars of Finance is a series intended to highlight the thoughts and lives of our students at Scholars of Finance. In the series the students are simply asked six questions which we think embody the SOF experience and their answers are shared right here on the Scholars of Finance blog. In the first edition of Scholars of Finance we had the pleasure of sitting down with Noah Haverlock, a graduating senior at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. If you are a student and would like to be featured in a segment of Six Questions with Scholars of Finance, please reach out to Jake Kranz via email.

What school do you go to?

University of St. Thomas Class of 2020

Do you have any employment plans in the near future?

I will be joining Chartwell full-time as an ESOP(Employee Stock Ownership Plan) Analyst.

Could you tell me a little bit about your experience with Scholars of Finance so far?

It’s been a long leadership journey for me so far. I’ve been involved with SOF for three years and started as a member of the symposium team in a minor role. From there I wanted to take on more of a leadership role and slowly worked my way up the ranks until I became the president of the chapter this last year. As a part of my role this year I had the opportunity to facilitate the LDP and it was very fulfilling seeing the participants grow. 

What is your favorite memory from Scholars of Finance so far?

My first symposium was a big memory especially since I was able to help out behind the scenes. That was the 2018 Symposium back when I was a sophomore. I didn’t know what it would feel like being a part of the leadership team pulling the event together, but it was really cool being a part of something that big.

What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned from Scholars of Finance?

It’s important to think about your values and bring them top of mind before you enter your career. Even if we don’t encounter ethical issues now, we will encounter them in the future. Knowing your values and having a line in the sand to guide you is huge.

If you could tell the next generation of SOF students anything – what would you tell them?

DIVE IN! You’ll get out of SoF what you put in and if there’s anything you’d like to learn about, or any skills you’d like to develop – you can – just ask around. Also, be sure to take advantage of the Speaker Series events and stay in contact with your mentor(s).

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