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“As a woman in the industry I’ve been able to make a difference, but it hasn’t always been easy.”
— Cheryl Nash
Cheryl Nash is the President of Fiserv Investment Services, the leader in financial services technology solutions serving the Managed Accounts and Global Institutional markets. Fiserv Wealth Management Solutions enables them to increase revenue, improve operational efficiency and meet the evolving needs of their clients. Her experience in managing teams and all business functions is extensive. With expertise in Account Management, Business Analysis, Implementations, and strategic Enterprise Planning and Forecasting, she also has oversight of the Product team responsible for solutions innovation, road map, and development. Her early career accomplishments include the successful launch of a $50M business unit focused on Broker Dealer / Sponsor clients. She enjoys meeting with clients, speaking at conferences, leading committees and being a contributor of thought leadership.
Cheryl’s ‘proud’ moments include receiving the Money Management Institute’s Pioneer Award, co-chairing MMI’s Technology & Operations Committee, and sitting on MMI’s Board of Trustees’ Gateway to Leadership program dedicated to workplace diversity. She is an Envestnet Institute on Campus board member and leads the Women in Wealth Management initiative which is focused on bringing more women into wealth management.
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This episode of Wealth Management Today is brought to you by Ezra Group Consulting. If your firm is evaluating new technology or looking to improve your current wealth platform, you need to contact Ezra Group. Don’t spend another day using technology that doesn’t offer an elegant user experience. Your advisors and clients deserve better and you can deliver it to them with the help of Ezra Group.
Topics Covered in this Episode
- Obstacles Cheryl has overcome in the wealthtech industry as a woman [06:06]
- How we can encourage women to take more risks [09:54]
- How women can change their own inner dialogue around self-promotion [13:39]
- How personas could revolutionize fintech [16:27]
- The digital perspective, from Fiserv’s point of view [21:25]
- Intelligent alerts and their potential impact [22:54]
- How Fiserv has embraced digital advice channels [25:18]
- The acquisition of First Data and how that will impact investment services [27:50]
- Which conferences Cheryl feels she gets the most out of [28:53]
Companies & People Mentioned:
- AssetMark [31:19]
- BISA Conference [30:15]
- Envestnet [29:49]
- Envestnet Institute On Campus [04:15]
- First Data [27:51]
- Fiserv [01:18]
- In|Vest Conference [29:49]
- Invest in Others Foundation [20:02]
- Lori Hardwick [07:42]
- Margaret Hartigan [26:10]
- Marstone [25:40]
- Money Management Institute [29:12]
- Pershing INSITE Conference [31:23]
- Robin Pollack [13:34]
- Schwab Impact Conference [31:21]
- Trellis Consulting [13:36]
- Wells Fargo [31:29]
If you are interested in more information about some of the topics Cheryl and I discussed, these blog posts would be useful:
- Winners of WealthTech: Cheryl Nash
- “Don’t Get Creepy”: Privacy in Wealth Management & Emerging Technology Trends
- 3 Reasons High Net Worth Clients Are Driving Banks to Expand Digital Advice
- Comparing The Best Digital Advice “Robo-Advisor” Platforms For RIAs
- Mission: Impossible – Choosing the Right Digital Advice Vendor
Complete Episode Transcript:
Craig: This episode of Wealth Management Today is brought to you by Ezra Group Consulting. If your firm is evaluating new technology or looking to improve your current wealth platform, you need to contact Ezra Group. Don’t spend another day using technology that doesn’t offer a seamless user experience. Your advisors and clients deserve better and you can deliver it to them. With the help of Ezra Group, go to ezragroup.co.
Craig: And we’re back again with more from the wonderful world of wealth tech. My name is Craig Iskowitz and I’m a strategy and technology consultant and also the host of the Wealth Management Today podcast. We share the latest ideas, trends, and innovations in our industry? This week I have as my guest, Cheryl Nash, who is not only the president of the Investment Services Division of financial technology, giant Fiserv, but she’s also my very good friend and I’m so stoked and excited to talk to her. I’ve interviewed Cheryl many times, both for my WM Today blog and for the Winners of Wealthtech series. Cheryl has really seen it all in wealth management technology and she always provides terrific insights. I know you’re going to enjoy hearing our conversation as much as I enjoyed having it. So let’s get started. (See Winners of WealthTech: Cheryl Nash)
Craig: And now on the Wealth Management Today podcast. I’m so happy to have Cheryl Nash, the president of Fiserv Investment Services. Welcome Cheryl Nash.
Cheryl: Thank you Craig. And I’m so happy to be here with you.
Craig: I’m so happy to have you here. And we just talked for about 10 minutes and I didn’t have the podcast recording started so we have to do this all over again. Hopefully this will be much more prepared because we’re going to do the exact same conversation we just had over again. And I wanted to thank you for being on the podcast and why I’m so excited to have you on the podcast. And this being episode five of the wealth management today podcast. We were talking last year about ways we could work together more. And you suggested that I should interview you for a podcast. I’ve interviewed you many times before for other things. And you said do a podcast. And I thought, I really need to have a podcast if I’m going to do this. So, I had been thinking about it, but I never really did it. And then you sort of pushed me over the edge to get me going. So I wanted to thank you for that inspiration.
Cheryl: Oh, you’re welcome. I think podcasts are a great way to get your message out and people drive so much today. It’s a great thing to listen to when you’re driving or traveling. So I’m excited about doing this with you.
Craig: It sounds way better than the first time we did this. And so this podcast is going to be the “Congratulations to Cheryl” episode. So I want to congratulate you for 36 years working at essentially the same company.
Cheryl: Yeah, thank you. So, it’s exciting. Being in this company for that many years and holding so many different roles at this company. So it’s really been, I’ve been able to really grow and expand working here. Started with a little company called Security APL, got bought by CheckFree and then got bought by Fiserv. So what a great career I think. And I feel very fortunate.
Craig: Yeah. And there’s, and there’s so much to be done and in this day and age where people are changing jobs every couple of months. See someone with 30 plus years, is incredible.
Cheryl: Thank you.
Craig: I also wanted to congratulate you on being named a Leader of the Women in Wealth Management component of the Envestnet Institute on Campus.
Cheryl: Thank you. For those of you who don’t know Envestnet Institute on Campus, it is really a program that’s focused on making college students workforce ready. And I’m focused on the women in wealth program there and really helping women understand that there are real career opportunities in wealth management, financial services. I think today, women don’t look at themselves as being in a financial services organization and there’s so many different things they can do. So I get to go out and talk to college students and really help them understand what an enriching career they can have in this space.
Craig: And that’s really a great way to get people into wealth management. It’s not something that gets a lot of press a, so a lot of people would, maybe they see the other type of technologies being more marketed and and seeing a better destination, but there’s so much for them to do and wealth and so much technology and welfare did it. We just need to get more presence in the colleges to get people interested in this.
Cheryl: That’s right. When I think about when we started Envestnet institute on campus in 2015, we had 20 women in the program and at the end of 2018 we had 638. So we’ve really made a big difference in helping women come into this so that they understand that they can and that they should.
Craig: I think that’s awesome. As the father of three daughters, I’m always looking for other opportunities for them. And this is a great, a great opportunity for, for, for women to get into wealth second, to learn what it’s about. So, more congratulations for Cheryl. you were name by Investment News as one of the women to watch in 2017 and you’ve got a great quote. I wanted it to it to talk about, so you said “as a woman in the industry, I’ve been able to make a difference, but it hasn’t always been easy.”
Cheryl: Yeah, that’s right.
Craig: So, so tell me what are some of the obstacles that you faced and overcame and maybe just pick one and how you overcame that.
Cheryl: I think, and even today this happens. I think there’s so many times when I’m the only woman in the room and it’s either with a client meeting or not so much as a conference anymore. There’s been a big push for having more women on conference panels. But I think that’s had, really made me become much more confident and much more focused on understanding what it is, that the expectations are because I feel that you, when you’re the only woman in a room, sometimes you represent the other women in the industry and you really need to make sure that you come across as self confident. You come across as really knowledgeable and you really take that time to, put yourself out there. So I would say that’s probably one of the biggest obstacles is really making sure that if you are the only woman that you represent the other women in the industry really well.
Craig: Another thing that I was reading, you wrote a blog post for International Women’s Day, which I thought was excellent.
Cheryl: Thank you.
Craig: It had a lot of great quotes from other female leaders, and I just wanted to read a couple of them to you and get your thoughts. Lori Hardwick, who I think is fantastic and, and wonderful, and I’ve interviewed her on my Winners of Wealthtech blog. She said, “Taking risks isn’t always natural for women, but to be an effective entrepreneur, you must. Should you fail, it’s important to learn from it, but don’t dwell on it.” How does this link back to what you just spoke about? (See Winners of WealthTech: Lori Hardwick)
Cheryl: Yeah, so it links really nicely. So, yeah, I love Lori. I’ll just go back to that article, that blog, and then I’ll answer your question. So I feel very fortunate because the women that I have, really surrounded myself with, especially on some of the boards that we’re on. The Envestnet institute on Campus board as well as the MMI women in wealth group that we’re co-sharing. I feel like I’ve found these women through growing up in the industry together and it’s been a really nice group that we can connect with each other, we help each other out. we support each other. There’s a place, a safe place to go if you have a challenge or you need some somebody to sit down with and say, Hey, help me think through this.
Cheryl: So those women in that article are what I call it, some really good friends of mine that I’ve been able to really, they’ve helped me grow in my career and I think that we’ve been able to help each other a lot. but yeah, his quote was excellent. And I think, women especially when they fail or they feel like they’re not good enough, they dwell on it and they spend a lot of time on it where, you know what, what we’ve seen is men don’t necessarily do that mental, just move on. So one of the things that I’m in an obstacle that we’re really helping, especially young college students understand is that failure is always a learning opportunity. And if you think of it that way, then don’t, you don’t dwell on it. You take it as a learning opportunity. You don’t repeat the mistakes that you made the first time, but you really think about it is as the lessons learned so you can continue to grow and learn from it. And that was what really Lori was trying to say, which I think is great advice.
Craig: How do we encourage women to take more risks?
Cheryl: I think having a great support system and a great network helps women feel more confident. there’s, I think there’s some data out there that, that says women won’t even apply for a job if they don’t think there are 100% ready for that job where men would apply. they know that they can get there. So taking risks is something that women have to feel more comfortable about and it’s really around self confidence and knowing that people have your back. I think it’s easier to take risks when you know that you’ve got people surrounding you that were, that want to see you succeed and will always help you is you maneuver through some challenges. But women have to get over that confidence gap and they have to figure out how they can take risks and they have to surround themselves themselves with really good people who are always going to help them.
Craig: Seeing other strong women taking risks and female role models might also help.
Cheryl: That’s very true. We need more women leaders all around for role models. I think in every organization there is a lot of big focus on bringing more diversity of thought and diversity of thinking and all that into businesses. But if you’re sitting in a business and you don’t see women leaders, you don’t see that role model, you don’t have that role model to really look up to, to allow you to take risks and try to get into different positions and learn more. So I think we’re, I say this a lot right now, but I truly believe it. I think it’s the best time ever for a woman to join financial services, wealth management, because it’s not just a check the box, we need more women anymore. It really is. Firms really focused on how do they get better thinking and more diverse thinking into their organization. So minorities, women, really making sure that their teams have better diversification. So you’re not hiring and bringing in people that are, have the same experiences you and look just like you. (See Winners of Wealthtech: Angela Pecoraro)
Craig: Every superhero has a different talent. If you look at your team as a bunch of superheroes that have different skills to make the team.
Cheryl: That’s right. I was in London two weeks ago and I met with a client and she was preparing for a speech on diversity and inclusion. And she was actually talking about trivia nights at pubs where you bring in a team and you don’t bring in people who have the exact same knowledge, but you bring in somebody who’s good at music and somebody who’s good at history and somebody who’s good at action figures and you really surround yourself at that trivia groove with people with different knowledge and different experiences and you have a really good chance to win. If you bring all your friends in who are just like you, you don’t have a good chance to win. So that’s a really interesting way to think about it. But it’s fairly accurate as well.
Craig: No, the quote was from Robin Pollack who was the CEO and founder of Trellis Consulting and what she said was self promotion is an important component of branding. Women often struggle with it. Worrying will be viewed as bragging. That inner dialogue must change. So how do we change that inner dialogue?
Cheryl: I think by talking about it. Robin is somebody in the industry who is 100% focused and dedicated on diversity and inclusion. And that’s her job. And one of the things that she’s very focused on in that role as helping women understand that personal branding,how you, how you put yourself out there, how you put yourself out there, whether you’re in a meeting, whether you’re in the office, whether you’re on social media, it’s all about building your personal brand. And I think that’s so critical. And one of the things that she always says is if you go into a meeting and there’s a table and there’s chairs surrounding the table and you’re a woman, don’t go sit at the chairs that are at the table. Make sure you find a seat at the table. Because how you position yourself and how you put yourself out there at the very beginning makes a big difference. And Robin is very much focused on personal branding. And I truly believe in that because I think that your, what you have is your own reputation. That’s all you have. So when you’re out there, you need to make sure that you’re putting yourself out there in the best light. You’re dressed for success, you’re doing all those things that are really critical to put yourself your own personal brand out there in the best way.
Craig: Oh, agreed.
Cheryl: And you have to know it’s important because I don’t think people really, a lot of times women think if I, if I do that, if I sit at the table or if I raise my hand a lot, I’m bragging or I’m like a know it all. But that’s not true. You need to keep putting yourself out there and keep doing those types of things.
Craig: Yes, you may want a different job in the other parts of the organization. Don’t know about you. You won’t get that job and want to get a job somewhere else. Other companies have to know about you. So it requires a constant promotion
Cheryl: or you need to be in a client meeting with a very senior executive and you want them to look at you as a, as a, as a parent, have the same dialogue with you. So there’s so many different examples of why that’s important. Hm.
Craig: Yeah. I’m glad that you included Robin’s quote in your article. You recently wrote another article called, “How personas could revolutionize fintech”. So could you talk a little bit about why you wrote that article and how Fiserv is, getting into personas?
Cheryl: Sure. So, that’s a great question because when you think about today, and I was actually at a conference last week talking about this, but when you think about today, it’s all about the experiences and regardless of your age or your gender or whatever that might be, you think about how you want to, take care of your finances, understand your, investment vehicles. All of that has to do with, in my mind, experiences. So when you have personas and you’re going at the, you’re working with a financial advisor or you’re working with a, just a platform itself, you want to make sure that the way that you’re being interacted with matches your persona. so I really think this is, this is where the next revolution is going, is around making sure that everybody has the experience at that moment that fits them. It’s exactly at that time.
Cheryl: So if I’m a millennial and I just graduated from college, I’ve got large college debt and I’m about to get a new job and invest in a home, my with my financial adviser needs to match that, or my experience with my Robo platform needs to match that. So when you put yourself as you’re developing technology and you’re developing ways in which you’re going to work with investors, if you always put yourself in the shoes of the person that you’re talking to or working with you, we’ll have the best outcome. So it’s all around the experience. It’s all around the client experience and how you want to touch them. So I think personas are really important and it’s the world that we live in today. We’re living in an Amazon Prime world. We live in technology that’s, very easy to get to at your fingertips. You have to make everyday choices. And I think the right choice for advisors to work with these different personas is through client experience. (See Acorns: We’re Not Just Gathering Assets, We’re Building a Brand)
Craig: Fiserv owns a powerful data aggregation tool called AllData. How are you leveraging that for personas?
Cheryl: We are. So we’re leveraging that in our financial planning goals based planning modules. So when you think about personas and getting all the data, we sit on an enormous amount of data as do most technology companies and actually banks and brokerages and the, and what you do with that data is so important. So you leverage all that data to build out what you need from a persona perspective. You know a lot about people before they ask you questions because of the data that you sit on. So you should be able to through all algorithms, help paint a picture for that investor, in a way in which that really connects with them through the data that you have. And all data is just one piece of that. It brings in, outside data from an aggregation perspective and Fiserv investment services. We alone sit on an enormous amount of data for our clients today. we’re the network that fees, distribution and asset managers and all that data that we sit on really helps us build out capabilities in a way in which personas and the end investor or the end advisor can really take advantage of. (See “Don’t Get Creepy”: Privacy in Wealth Management & Emerging Technology Trends)
Craig: Let’s take a quick break to talk about The Invest in Others Foundation is a nonprofit that recognizes financial advisors charitable work. The nominations window for the 13th annual awards gala is now. I was fortunate enough to attend the gala last year and one of my favorite parts was the video interview as they did with each advisor about their charity work. It was an incredibly moving experience to see the tremendous impact that these cherries provide back to their communities and how invest in others was helping. If you know a financial adviser who is actively giving back to a charity, please nominate them at investinothers.org/nominate by April 5th. Winners will have a chance to receive up to $50,000 yes, that’s $50,000 for the nonprofit they support. This is a great way to highlight the good that exists within the financial services industry. I want to encourage all of my listeners to submit the name of an advisor they know to Invest in Others, because I’m sure their charity could use some extra funds for their cause.
Craig: One quote that I really liked from your personas article was where you said, “Banks that aren’t in wealth today don’t necessarily understand what it takes to run a wealth management platform. So setting something up from a digital perspective will be a good introduction for them.”
Cheryl: Yes.
Craig: Can you talk about the digital perspective from Fiserv’s point of view?
Cheryl: Fiserv is probably, in the banking industry is the best platform for mobility and for digital, and they are way ahead of wealth management. So what we’ve done from a Fiserv perspective with electronic bill payment and check presentment, taking a picture of your check and having it automatically deposited in your account. And all those really nice mobile apps that Fiserv has built for banking needs to be moved over to wealth management so that our systems can be more efficient. So the banking and the wealth systems can talk to each other. And really when you think about from a digital perspective, all the ease and operational efficiencies that are needed around client onboarding, around opening accounts faster around data, sending data around, alerts. (See 3 Reasons High Net Worth Clients Are Driving Banks to Expand Digital Advice)
Cheryl: Fiserv has a really great alert system that we’re looking to put into the wealth side that alerts you if you’re an advisor, your client just got a big bonus. That big dollar amount is sitting in their account. There’s an alert that says, hey, you just got this, your investor just got this big dollar amount, you might want to help them with where they want to put it. So all those things that are done in making the banking industry so efficient needs to be moved over to wealth. And Fiserv has a great set tools to support that and drive that. (See 4 Mistakes Banks Should Avoid When Launching Digital Advice Platforms)
Craig: I’m really excited to see some of those new things coming out from the banking side into the wealth management side. And when we talk about alerts. I see alerts on, and I want to get your opinion on this. Alerts is really one of the ways that AI can impact advisors directly.
Cheryl: That’s correct.
Craig: Intelligent alerts that give you actionable guidelines rather than the old alerts we used to see where you get thousands of them and they don’t mean anything. As opposed to actionable messages that say you must do something now and here’s the order of things you must do today.
Cheryl: That’s exactly right Craig. So when you think about artificial intelligence, it’s built into technology in the backend. If you’re an advisor and you’re sitting at a dashboard, you’d come in the morning, there’s five things you want to know. 1) You want to know which accounts potentially are drifting out of their tolerances, 2) which accounts might be out of there might need to be rebalanced, 3) which accounts had big deposits or 4) withdrawals in the last day or two, and 5) which accounts were recently opened. So some an artificial intelligence perspective, you need to put in front of an adviser exactly what they need to see every morning because they’ve got a lot going on and you want to free up their time where they can go visit clients or talk to clients. So artificial intelligence is becoming critical within technology. And to your point, smart alerts are replacing the big group of alerts that you’re not sure what to do with. So that’s what we’re building and that’s some of the things that we already have to market is really smart alerts. (See A Consultant’s View on the Leading Vendors in AI for Wealth Management)
Craig: I really like getting those kinds of things in front of advisors.
Cheryl: Yes.
Craig: So speaking more of a digital platforms, one that’s gathered a lot of data and can build personas is very powerful. Just doing some research for this, for this call was that Fiserv seems to really embrace digital and not just building your own, but in, in partnering with other firms.
Craig: So one of the other areas I want to talk about Cheryl with leading the inform your, your comments on digital was that digital platforms gathering a lot of data that can then use that to build personas and segments are clients. And I want to talk about how Fiserv has embraced digital advice channels and not only for your own development but also through partners. And one of the partners I saw you have was Marstone. So can you talk to them about how your partner with more stow and and how that’s changing the experience for advisors and clients? (See Comparing The Best Digital Advice “Robo-Advisor” Platforms For RIAs)
Cheryl: A digital platform. They started out in the Robo world as a Robo and now they’ve moved into a complete digital advice. And Marstoneis a great partner for us because they have offered more of a tool for the advisor. And the end client that really shows that the client where they want to go in a very, and Margaret Hartigan,who is the CEO and president of Marstone, we’ll say it’s a beautiful experience. And they’ve made it very simple. So when you think about a bank coming into wealth management, it’s a good stepping stone. They can use a platform that allows them to put their goals in and they have it in a baseball card type format so they can have a beach house in a college education and things like that, it can be personalized with the investor’s pictures.
Cheryl: So there’s always something that is personalized for their persona. So we are partnered with Marstone and to go after the banking channel, we think there’s a big opportunity within the banking industry that the, where they don’t potentially have wealth today, where they’re looking to partner with somebody who is, has a custodial platform, who has an RIA and who has a really nice user experience. And that’s Marstone. So that’s really where we’re looking in that area. Also, banks who are Fiserv clients can use who have a trust platform already can use rthe Investment Services goals based planning platform. We’ve got some good options for the banks out there today. (see Mission: Impossible – Choosing the Right Digital Advice Vendor)
Craig: It certainly seems that way, especially when compared to other firms that only have point solutions. You have an end-to-end product that a bank could implement and integrate all their platforms together.
Cheryl: That’s right.
Craig: What are your thoughts on the acquisition of First Data and how will that impact Investment Services.
Cheryl: So that deal has not closed yet. It’s expected to close sometime the second half of this year. First Data is very complimentary to Fiserv. So we will be looking at what they have once we close the deal and identifying those complimentary solutions that we can leverage in other parts of the business.
Craig: Do you see this as just another step in industry consolidation or is this a major shift?
Cheryl: This turns Fiserv into around a $15 billion company. So, it will be a big change that shakes things up.
Craig: One thing I like to ask people in the podcast is about conferences . One of the questions I get a lot from people is which are the best conferences, and I know I have my opinion, but what’s your opinion? Which conferences do you go to besides the Fiserv Forum conference, which is next month, I believe.
Craig: Which conferences do you go to that you feel you get the most out of?
Cheryl: That’s a great question because that’s something we look at every year because there’s so many conferences out there and more and more keep popping up. We need to make sure that we don’t just attend conferences for the sake of attending conferences. We really either add value at the conference or we get value from it. I would say that MMIis one of our best conferences. Our clients are all there, so it’s the greatest time to network and we can have meetings and things like that. So the content from MMI is very good. I’m also on the Board of Governors of MMI.
Cheryl: For those of you who don’t know, MMI is the Money Management Institute. So that’s our number one conference. We always make sure we have that on our calendars every year. We’re starting to look at the newer type conferences like In|Vest, which is mostly focused on fintech companies coming up and helping, these firms understand what’s out there and opportunities to, learn about what’s next. So there’s an east coast In|Vest in an In|Vest West. So I’m speaking at the investor conference coming up and I just, I just think that that’s one of the, another really good conference. I was just at the BISA Conference last week, which is the Banking Insurance Securities Association. It was the first time Fiserv was there. I was on a panel about the digital client experience and I would say that it was a fantastic experience. (See Invest West Conference 7 Minute Summary)
Cheryl: There were 780 attendees at BISA across many different firms including credit unions, brokerages, wholesalers, fintech companies, and a lot of insurance companies. I think it was probably one of the best conferences I’ve been to in awhile. It was new, but there was a lot of interest in what we were doing and what other firms like us we’re doing, especially in the digital space. And we had some really valuable conversations with firms on how we potentially could help them or how they could help us. So I would say that was probably one of the best conferences I’ve been to in quite some time. (See 10 Disruptive Demos from InVest 2018)
Cheryl: And then we also go to many of our clients’ conferences. We were an Assetmark two weeks ago. We went to Schwab Impact, we will be at Pershing Insight this summer. So we do spend time to looking at what our clients are doing. We go to the Wells Fargo advisor conferences and I’m making sure that we’re supporting our clients whenever we can.
Craig: There are so many conferences that you could do nothing else all year but attend them!
Cheryl: That’s right! That’s why we have to be very selective. Every year, we sit down and we look at the list. It’s getting bigger all the time! As you know Craig, because I see you at a lot of conferences as well. We don’t always need booths. So sometimes we’ll send some salespeople or some product people there to learn. I’ll tell you what’s valuable to us are your conference write ups on your blog. Because you provide a good synopsis of what happened at these conferences. And I think that’s very helpful for firms like us. (See 5 Keynote Takeaways from the 2018 Digital Banking Conference)
Craig: Thank you. That’s the reason why I started my blog. I would take a lot of notes at conferences and just put file away. I thought this is crazy and why am I taking all these notes and never looking at them? What am I getting out of the conference? What are your takeaways? And I want it to write up something just for myself so I would remember more. And then it became something that I shared with the industry.
Cheryl: One of the things we ask when our product people go to conferences is to share with what they learned with the rest of the team.
Cheryl: Well, what would I change about my job? What would I change about what I’m working on? We changed our plans, well maybe we change nothing. We decided to change nothing because, but it was a conscious decision as opposed to just going having some dinner meeting some people and leaving.
Cheryl: What technology companies like us when we go to those conferences, it’s such an opportunity to network and your clients are always there or your prospects. So that’s one of the key reasons why those are important for us.
Craig With more and more technology, which we got talking about a lot, making it easier to work remotely and then do video conferencing and conference calls. There are fewer opportunities for face to face meeitngs.
Cheryl: That’s exactly right.
Craig: And you just made a trip to Europe to get in front of clients and staff. So how, how was that?
Cheryl: I did! I have a team in London that is working on our billing platform and our post-trade processing platform. It was a terrific trip! My London team is always thinking outside the box and looking at partnerships and at how they can work with other Fiserv business units to be part of the sales. Seeing my team was part of the reason for my trip, but it was also to visit clients. And when you visit clients that you don’t get to see as often as you’d like, it’s always good to get in front of them and hear from them how things are going, what we could be doing better. And and that’s probably the most important lesson that you get from those meetings, but also what we’re doing well and where we need to keep focusing on. I arrived in London on Monday and didn’t stop until I left Thursday night. But it was all worth it.
Craig: Is it more difficult to manage people who are in another country?
Cheryl: I don’t think so. It depends on who you have as your leader. I have a phenomenal leader in our London office and probably it’s harder for him because he works more hours than he probably should, but it’s not harder to manage them.
Cheryl: We’re a global organization, so when you think about what’s happening outside the US there are more and more investors looking for solutions. It’s a great opportunity to go there and try to help firms understand ways in which they can do things differently.
Craig: We all need to think about ways we can do things differently.
Cheryl: That’s right.
Craig: Cheryl I want to thank you for joining me here and sharing your time and sharing your experiences and answering my endless questions. But, we always have a great time talking about the industry and about how things go.
Cheryl: That was wonderful, Craig. Thank you.
Craig: You’re welcome. I’ll talk to you soon.
Craig: It’s Craig again. Just a few quick items before we go. If you liked this episode, please give it a five star review on iTunes. I would very much appreciate it and remember to check out the show notes for links to everything we talked about on this episode. For more information on wealth management technology, you can read my wealth management today, blog@wealthtechtoday.com. Thanks for tuning in and I’m looking forward to talking to you all again next week.