July 21, 2022 • 31 mins
“You are not aggressive enough.” That’s the feedback banker Lavanya Chari was given early in her career. Over the years, she learned that being empathetic does not mean being weak. And if you lead with empathy, you can still crush it at work. HSBC’s Global Head of Investments and Wealth Solutions opens up about learning to bring her whole self to work. Unapologetically so.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, and welcome to Out of Office. I'm your host,
Malika Kapoor my guest today. Lavanya Chari is the Global
head of Investments and Wealth Solutions at HSBC. Yeah so
for me, Meliica change. Change has been a theme for
a couple of reasons. One is I really believe that
(00:21):
change enables you to grow. In this episode of Out
of Office, we talk about how powerful change can be,
both in one's professional and personal life. When Lavania was
a little girl in India, she used to look at
the sky and dream of becoming a pilot. She studied
aeronautical engineering in college, but then decided to pursue other
(00:44):
options and ended up with a prolific career in banking.
We talk about her career about E s G. Something
she's passionate about about what clients want, and how she
learned over the years to bring her whole self to work.
What I've come to realize is that my strength is
(01:04):
the fact that I'm someone with a very strong work ethic.
I am extremely passionate about what I do. I am
results focused, but I'm also highly empathetic and caring towards people,
towards my team, towards my colleagues. And I'm a mother,
and I have varied needs, and and I feel very
comfortable taking all of that to work and everyone that
(01:28):
I work with, my team, my colleagues see the entire package.
Now there's all that and much more in this episode
of Out of Office with Labanya Chari Levanni. Are welcome
to Out of Office. Thank you, Melica, very happy to
be here. Levannia. I've been reading up about you and
there are certain themes that keep coming up. One of
(01:51):
them is change. And you've talked a lot about how
change is important for growth, for leadership. And I read
the when you were a little girl, you used to
look up at the sky and dream of becoming a pilot.
And you went to I I T one of the
most prestigious universities, one of the most competitive universities in
the world, where you studied aeronautical engineering. Why are you
(02:14):
a banker today. That's a very interesting question, Melika, And
and and you know, when I grew up in India,
there were a couple of options that we all had,
and one was becoming an engineer. Another was becoming a doctor.
You know, broadly, my dad wanted me to become a doctor.
I did not want to be a doctor. I went
down the engineering path aeronautical engineering. Aerospace engineering was very cool.
(02:39):
I did enjoy it, but it dawned on me that
I wasn't as passionate as some of my classmates were,
and one of them is a NASCA and now many
of them are still in the field. But I did
realize early on that I enjoyed it and I have
a strong work ethic, so I worked hard, but it
wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of
(03:00):
my life. And then I decided that I wanted to
explore what I wanted to do for the rest of
my life, and that is when I decided to go
ahead and do an MBA from i AM Bangalore. And
then I got an internship with Lehman Brothers in Tokyo,
which was an interesting experience. Two months in Tokyo when
I didn't speak a word of Japanese, and that's when
(03:21):
I honestly realized that I wanted to do banking. It
was something clicked in me. I felt passionate about it,
and I decided that I did want to do banking
for the foreseeable future. I will come back to talking
about banking in your Korea and banking. But you know,
at that time, very few little girls in India dreamt
(03:43):
about becoming a pilot. It just wasn't something that was
part of our culture or our ecosystem. Right. I grew
up in India, and I was a little girl in India,
so I related to that. And I'm just curious when
you went to i i T, which is the Indian
Institute of Technology, how many girls were there, how many
young women were there in your year, and how many
of them were studying aeronautical engineering. There were a few
(04:06):
of us who were studying aeronautical engineering, but overall, I
think there were about fifteen girls out of T fifty
three hundred out of a class of two fifty or
three hundred. So I was very much in the minority.
And and you know, again when I joined banking and
people asked me about being in a male dominated environment.
Unfortunately it started with my engineering college where I was
(04:31):
very much in the minority and and there were very
very few women around. I think that's changed, and it
was women we were almost like strange beasts because there
were very few of us around. And and I have
an interesting anecdote a few years ago, my best friend
and I my college roommate was still my best friend,
went back. We went back to I because we wanted
(04:54):
to visit and just relive old memories. And there was
there was a student, a male student who was there
and who was riding a bicycle and some things that
never just don't change. We asked him to take a
picture of us. He literally stared at us, said no
and went away. It was a hilarious moment. But you know,
(05:17):
some things I guess have changed. Some things haven't. Let's
go back to your initiation into banking. You know you
worked at Lehman Brothers, and we all know what happened
with Lehman Brothers after that. At that time, I believe
that you went on to work at Deutsche Bank, Is
that right? So Lehman Brothers was just an internship And
(05:38):
when I finished my NBA, I started my career with
Deutsche and they gave me the option of location. And
I grew up reading English literature and I've never been
to the UK, so I decided to pick London as
the location and I started my career in London. I
spent the first ten years of my career in London
(05:59):
before moving to a shall you were a banker, not
a Lehman, but you were a banker when Lehman Brothers collapsed.
And you've said, on the fifteenth of September two thousand
and eight, when Lehman went down, the world that we
knew it back then ended and the entire banking industry
became cautious overnight. And that was another one of those
moments in your life and your career that you seek change.
(06:19):
Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, So for me, Melika, change,
change has been a theme for a couple of reasons.
One is I really believe that change enables you to
grow as an individual, and change in also a good way.
It enables you to make. It enables you to learn
(06:41):
a lot. And I've always been one who's curious. I've
wanted to understand different things, learn new things, and continue
on both my professional growth journey and also my personal
growth journey. And with that in mind, I've consciously made
multiple changes throughout my career. And one of those moments
(07:02):
was post a little after Lehman, and it was, you know,
post the sovereign wealth, sovereign crisis actually in Europe, when
I felt that being from India, had never worked in India.
I worked in Asia and I did want to explore
the Asian markets. And then I worked in Europe across
European roles, which was very interesting, very exciting, but I
(07:26):
felt that I wanted to change and for the next
step of my career. I want next phase of my career.
I wanted to explore Asia UM as a region. And
I have to say that it's been a thoroughly enjoyable
experience in Asia. And you are now the Global Health
of Investments and Wealth Solutions at HS BASIC. What does
(07:47):
wealth mean to you? To me when I think about
my job and and you know, someone asked me this question,
someone very senior in the bank asked me this question
two days ago. Are you happy? And you know what
motivates you? And and for me, the answer to that
is enabling our clients to grow their wealth is what
(08:10):
genuinely motivates me. And I strongly believe that. You know,
when you look at our client segmentation, we have personal clients,
and we want personal clients to grow into premier clients
by growing their wealth. We want premier clients to become
private banking clients by growing their wealth and and I
do feel that helping them on that journey is very fulfilling,
(08:34):
and I really genuinely believe that the work we do
has a massive impact on families lives at every stage
of their life journey. And to me, that is what
wealth essentially means. How do you think the definition of
wealth or the idea of wealth is changing and what
does it mean for younger people now? Yeah, so it's
(08:57):
there are two key changes. One is definitely a greater
level of digitalization, and that is inevitable. And when you
look at the younger people, they do care. The millennials,
they care a lot about a more digital, the digital
nature of wealth management. But having said that, private banking
(09:19):
is an industry where individuals still do care about the
personal relationship. So I don't see that completely going away,
which is why I still believe in a hybrid model
where we digitize as much as possible for our clients
and also internally for our own relationship managers, but at
the same time, the human connection, the human element is important.
(09:41):
The second big change, Melica, which is a topic very
close to my heart, is e s G. So the
younger generation, the millennials genuinely care about investing their wealth
in a responsible manner, and we as an organization have
have done a significant amount and ensure ing that our
clients are able to go down that path where they
(10:04):
still make the financial returns and grow their wealth, but
at the same time invested in a responsible manner and
actually make a difference to society. And you know, I'm
a strong believer that we should leave behind a better
world for our children than then we inherit it. And
so that's something that I focus on both in my
(10:24):
professional and my professional journey where I focused on setting
up the E s G Sustainable Investments Program within UH
within Wealth and Personal Banking for HSBC, and I also
do my best and a personal level in my personal
life and I try to inculcate that in my children
(10:44):
as well. And I know your children are an inspiration
when it comes to sustainability, and it has a little
something to do with apple juice and plastic straws. Indeed,
it was a few years ago when pre COVID, when
birth day parties actually happened and big birthday parties happened,
and I took my daughter to a birthday party and
(11:06):
I handed her one of the cartoons Little cartoons of
apple juice, and she looked at it and said, Mama,
I can't drink this. And I said why, and she said,
I can't use this plastic straw. Have you brought a
bad metal straw from home? And I was taken aback
for a second because I hadn't taken a metal straw
from home. And that's when I realized that, you know,
(11:27):
the the E s G pledge, sustainability pledges should not
be exclusive to me, and they're very much should be
a part of it. So, yes, you has become a buzzword.
Sustainability is if you're not talking about it as a leader,
you know, I mean, you kind of just have to
write now everyone is talking about it. Um, you just
(11:48):
said that millennials, younger investors really believe in responsible investing.
What are you hearing from investors about E s G
about sustainability? That's perhaps surprised you that you didn't expect.
You know what surprised me. We did a survey a
few months ago, and a big percentage of investors in Asia,
(12:13):
in a market that is considered to be a lack
art said that in the next three to five years
they expect their entire portfolio to be sustainability focused. That
to me is a very big statement. That to me
was the biggest surprise. What is not a surprise, Malica,
as people come to us and say, you know, we
(12:33):
hear about E s GRE. We want to invest sustainably,
but we don't know how to do it, so please
teach us and in a huge, huge percentage of our
efforts going to educating our clients and what exactly s
G is, what it entails, and the fact that we
believe that E s G does not detract from performance.
(12:54):
If anything, we believe that E s G is a
creative to performance, and that education is something that we're
heavily focused on because our clients are asking to be educated.
How far away are we from a time when actually
your entire portfolio, or you know, an equivalent company one
(13:15):
of the competitors portfolios is actually entirely made up of
M E s G are sustainable products. And that is
such a good question because that is our end goal.
We're not there yet, but the dream vision is to
be able to tell a client everything that we offer
by default is E s G and you can opt
(13:36):
out rather than opt in. But I think we're a
few years from that. So the in E s G.
The E has become all important, right, we all have
to become much more environmentally conscious, but the S is
also becoming increasingly important, isn't it Socially conscious? It is
becoming increasingly important. And you know, when you think about
(13:58):
E s G products and we think about the products
we used to offer, they used to be heavily focused
on the E. But that has changed. And you know,
recently we've looked at typically when we offer products, we
also look at the U N SDJ S and which
STGs they typically match against the sustainable development goals, and
we are increasingly offer offering products that focus more on
(14:23):
the S component as well. You know, sustainable healthcare being
an example. So that is becoming more mainstream, not as
much as the APE, but it's becoming a little more
mainstream than it was, and that trend is likely to continue.
So socially responsible, you want to be a socially responsible company,
you know, for your employees, for your community. So can
(14:48):
you break it down for me? Can you give me
one example of something that you're doing within this S
space that's actually working with your team or your company. Well,
I think um one aspect that we again, and aspect
that I'm quite passionate about is diversity and inclusion and
d and I I care deeply about that. I care
(15:10):
a lot about that because you know, as being a
mother with two young children, and gender diversity in particular
is very close to my heart because I do see
a lot of you know, female individuals in particular leaving
their careers midway and and that's something that does bother
bother me, it bothers the organization deeply, and so we
(15:32):
are focused on that. And um, you know, personally, I've
I've work on mentoring women, work on ensuring that we
do have and have changed the composition of my team
to a certain extent to ensure we have a more
diverse team as well. And in addition to that, as
an organization from an h s DC standpoint, we're also
(15:55):
focused on having increasing the diversity, particularly in senior and
higher paid roles, and that's something that the organization is
is doing. And we've also you know, doing a lot
of mandatory training on hiring managers, for hiring managers and
addressing bias because I think bias plays a role. It's
not explicit. No one comes to you and says you're
(16:17):
not going to get this job because you're a woman
or you belong to a certain race. But it exists.
There is this level of unconscious bias. And we've also,
you know, focused on increasing appointments of female external hires
into senior positions and and that number has gone up,
and it was at over thirty seven percent, close to
thirty eight percent in in one and also in internal promotions,
(16:44):
the female the percentage of female internal promotions was for
three more than forty three and one. Still not where
we need to be, but definitely moving in the right
direction and making progress. I want to talk to you
about being a working mom, and you know, I like
(17:05):
to talk about it. I'm a working mom, and to me,
it's always interesting when I talk to other working moms
to see what their experience has been. Some working moms
don't like to talk about it because they don't want
to draw attention to that part of their life. And
I completely understand and I respect that. I personally believe
it's still a very relevant issue because, like you said,
(17:26):
we are still not at fifty fifty not when it
comes to UM recruiting to senior leadership to pay. So
do you think this is still a relevant conversation. Look,
I like to talk about it, Melika. I'm very open
about the fact that I'm a mother, and I think
it's important to talk about it because everyone needs role models,
(17:47):
right and I strongly believe in that. And I also
have to say that it did take me a long
time to become comfortable enough to take all of myself
to work. And what I mean that is when I
started off. You know, I started off by being given
the feedback that I wasn't aggressive enough, and I felt
that there was a certain part of me, there was
(18:10):
a certain aspect of me that I had to leave
behind at home, and it took me some time to
become comfortable enough to take all of myself to to work.
And and I want to quote, and I want to
mention a quote by one of my favorite politicians of
our generation, just sind Ardent. And and this there's nothing
(18:32):
to do with my personal political leading leanings. She's just
an individual I admire. And she said one of the
criticisms I faced over the years is that I'm not
aggressive enough or assertive enough, or maybe somehow because I'm empathetic,
I'm weak. I totally rebel against that, and I refused
(18:54):
to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong.
Now that was her quote, and I cannot tell you
how much that quote resonated with me, because you know,
I felt I always felt compelled to show that I
was strong. But now what I've come to realize is
(19:15):
that my strength is the fact that I'm someone with
a very strong work ethic. I am extremely passionate about
what I do. I am results focused, but I'm also
highly empathetic and caring towards people, towards my team, towards
my colleagues. And I'm a mother, and I have varied
needs and and I feel very comfortable taking all of
(19:39):
that to work and everyone that I work with, my team,
my colleagues, see the entire package. Now, you know, I'm
sitting here with a smile on my face because for
this podcast I've interviewed, I've been very privileged to interview
some amazing women leaders CEOs. And Barbara Humpton's who's the
ce year of Siemens in the US. You know, she
(20:02):
was told that she was too nice to make it
as a CEO, you know, not aggressive enough. So something
that you've heard and Jana and Gardia, who is now
the founder of Snoop. She was told if she was
ever aggressive, she was told she was a difficult woman.
And we sometimes joke. I just met her recently and
we were joking that we should put together a book,
(20:23):
you know, which is just features conversations with difficult women exactly, exactly.
And and I also truly believe in each of us
being authentic. Right, we need to play to our strengths,
and each person isn't is a different human being, and
we need to ensure that we play to our strengths
and we are genuinely authentic and we represent who we are.
(20:44):
And again, I love the Oscar wild quote, which is
to be yourself because everyone else has already taken. And
so for me that is kind of a mantra, which
is be yourself. And you said a few moments ago, yes,
you know, you think this conversation is still relevant to
have and I do two And you said, the reason
is because everybody needs role models. Have you had a
(21:06):
role model or is there anyone in the business world,
somebody you know or perhaps don't know, who sort of
stood out to you as a role model. Look, I
don't think I've had one role model, to be honest, Malika,
there have been many and my biggest role model in
my life is my dad because when I grew up,
there were a couple of values that that I grew
(21:29):
up with, and one was a strong work ethic, strong
sense of work ethic. And for me, again growing up
in India in a middle class background, I grew up
in a very middle class background. The single biggest focus
was education. It was on education and that was the
one of the key values that my parents instilled in me,
(21:49):
the importance of education. And I learned at a an
early age that education is a gift that is not
open to all. It can't be taken for granted. And
for me, that led to a strong work ethic, which
is take your education and later on in life, whatever
it is that you're doing extremely seriously. The second, again
which I learned from my dad, was treat everyone with respect.
(22:12):
And and for me, you know, regardless of whether someone
is a CEO or somebody who's cleaning the pantry, every
single person deserves to be treated with respect. And it
doesn't mean at all that you don't disagree with individuals
are always have the same opinion. Actually on the contrary,
it just means that you're polite and you express your
(22:35):
opinions bearing in mind that the other person deserves to
be treated with respect. And for me, these are values
that I carry with me to this day and I
try to instill in my daughter's so and the reason
I'm talking about this is my upbringing has a very
strong influence on who I am. And you know my
parents and they instill that in me. And in my
(22:57):
professional career, I've come across many individuals that I admire
four different things, and I've tried to imbibe and learned
different things from those individuals. I'm still very very close
to to one of my very first bosses and I
still bounce of ideas, you know, bounce ideas of him, etcetera.
So I've met different people along the way. I've been
(23:18):
fortunate to meet amazing individuals and mentors along the way.
I've stayed in touch with them and they're friends now
and uh and I try to learn from everyone that
I meet, and I genuinely I also learned from individuals
who work for me. And last week I had I
had my team off site, you know, my direct reports,
(23:40):
my exco. We met for the first time in person
given COVID. It was a wonderful experience. And as I
sat around in that room looking at everybody, there was
a moment when I thought about how much I learned
from each of the individuals who report to me. You know,
when you say that your dad is your biggest role model,
(24:01):
and the values he taught you were the importance of
having a strong work ethic and treating other people with respect.
Is there any anecdote you can remember, any memory you
have from your childhood where he exemplified this, the importance
of having a strong work ethic. You know, for me,
it was regardless, regardless of any issues that came up,
(24:24):
and he would always wake up in the morning and
he would go to work, and and you know, it
was less about even when you're sick, whatever it is,
he would go. He would drop me at school. He
had this motorcycle, you know. And I remember this little
incident because I was I think four and a half,
and I gave I made a speech. I shouldn't call
(24:46):
it a speech. He wrote. He wrote a few things
which I went in front of school and I memorized
it and spoke. I was in kindergarten and as a
treat he was gonna buy me. He bought me a
chocolate you know. It was called the Dairy Milk Chocolate
it which which you got in the corner shop. And
he took me and he had this motorbike and I
sat behind him, and I was so excited. It was
(25:07):
a treat for me. It's very different for my children,
who were far more privileged, and getting the piece of
chocolate is not such a big deal. But for me,
it was a big deal. And I remember that moment
distinctly because I got to sit on the motorcycle behind
him and it had this exhaust pipe and I burnt
my foot on that. It was one of those literally
(25:28):
like a bittersweet day, and I remember that distinctly. But
I also remember that he and my mom, they both
always showed up for me, Like when I needed something
and I was upset at school, you know, someone said
something mean, they would always show up for me and
they were always there for me. And you know, we
(25:48):
we didn't have it was a middle class background. It
was my sister, my parents, and I. But I just
remember that we always had this very loving and caring
family and upbringing and and it was all about do
your best, you know, And and there were moments when
I would there. There was a moment I remember there
was a debating competition and I I didn't win, and
(26:11):
I was really really I was competitive. I was really upset.
I came home crying and I was crying, and and
I remember my parents telling me it doesn't matter. You participated,
you did your best. Now go on and participate in
the next one. And there were there were many such moments.
And it was not all all a bed of roses, right,
of course, there were setbacks. There were moments I failed,
(26:33):
and that was throughout my career. And they've also had
setbacks in my personal life. And you know, I'm reminded
of Winston Churchill who said success consists of going from
failure to failure without um, without loss of enthusiasm, and
and I think I think that is quite important. I
love the description of the motorcycle and the fumes of
(26:56):
the back because you know, having grown up in India,
I can I can just pick to o this. It's
like a movie playing out in front of my eyes.
And I know what you mean about just the solid
middle class values, right, how did that childhood rooted in
these strong middle class values. How has that shaped you
(27:17):
as a business leader today? It is all about that.
It is all about that. And and for me, I
think everyone that I work with is aware. I I'm
passionate about what I do, right. I am passionate. I
work extremely hard also because I enjoy it. And and
(27:37):
I also give back to society, right, which is why
I focus on these causes. I I focus for me.
My my life is my work. I get a lot
of purpose out of it because I strongly believe that
it is important to have purpose in both your professional
life and your personal life. And I also believe that
organizations should care and should help in terms of providing
(28:01):
purpose to their individuals because it is scientifically proven that
when individuals have a sense of purpose when it comes
to their job, they actually perform better. So even as
an organization, managers should help employees find purpose in their job.
And the second is you know, I read this book
and a few years ago I went through a very
(28:23):
challenging time in my personal life. So I went on
my I went on a personal journey of mindfulness and
positive psychology which would help me in my personal and
spiritual growth. And in one of the books, I read
called Happiness by Design by I Think Paul Dolan. He
defines happiness is purpose plus pleasure, and so, as I mentioned,
(28:46):
I find purpose in many aspects of my life. Work
in bringing up my kids and inculcating the right values
in them, teaching them right behaviors, but also supporting various
causes I mentioned E S, D N, D N EYE
and for me, I support causes causes which enable girls
in forgetting education because you and I we come from
(29:07):
a country where, unfortunately there are still many, many, many
girls who just don't have access to education. And when
I'm done with my corporate life one day, that's the
path that I want to choose, which is, you know,
work on something which truly involves giving back to society
full time, and particularly a cost that focuses on education,
because I strongly believe that that is the only thing
(29:30):
that brings people out of poverty and enables the growth.
I'm going to go check out this book Happens my Design,
so I can give you a list. I can give
you a list of positive psychology and happiness books. If
you'd like to read them, I will wait for it.
I would be happy too, but I'm glad the people
who are listening in and everyone take note. Happiness by
(29:51):
design is something we should look into. Alavania. This podcast
is called out of Office? What's your favorite thing to
do when you're out of the office? Spending time with
my children? I also like adventure sports. You know, I've
done bungee jumping, skydiving. Oh god, you're braver than I am.
And I'm a voracious reader. What's on your bedsite table?
(30:11):
Which book right now? Well, right now there is nothing
because I'm traveling. Um, But I the last book I
read was My Life in Full by Indra Loui, which
I genuinely enjoyed reading very quickly and overre at time.
But I read that book as well. What What did
you like about that book? Just how she was a
(30:33):
woman who did it entirely on her own, based on
the merit of her intellect and hard work. Truly inspirational
and in many ways a similar background. She was also
from India, grew up in the South. Did you see
some parallels there? Yes, it was it was, you know.
When I read about her upbringing, literally, I was like,
(30:53):
it was very very similar, and in a way it
sort of goes back to what we were talking about
earlier the importance of role models, and she's a role
model for women in any part of the world. But
it is nice because for someone like you and me,
you know, women who grew up in India and she
did too. It's it just sort of resonates a little
bit more, doesn't it. Absolutely totally and that what really
(31:14):
spoke to me me too, Lavanya, thanks so much for
joining us and out of Office today, Thank you, Malika,
amazing talking to you, what a pleasure. Thank you. That
was HSBC's Labanya Chari and out of Office and I
hope you enjoyed our chat. Out of Office will be
back in two weeks. Still, then you can check out
some of our other episodes. You'll find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
(31:36):
Bloomberg dot Com or the Bloomberg Terminal. This episode was
produced by Yang Yang. I'm Malika Kapoor. Thank you for listening.
Hi, and welcome to Out of Office. I'm your host,
Malika Kapoor my guest today. Lavanya Chari is the Global
head of Investments and Wealth Solutions at HSBC. Yeah so
for me, Meliica change. Change has been a theme for
a couple of reasons. One is I really believe that
(00:21):
change enables you to grow. In this episode of Out
of Office, we talk about how powerful change can be,
both in one's professional and personal life. When Lavania was
a little girl in India, she used to look at
the sky and dream of becoming a pilot. She studied
aeronautical engineering in college, but then decided to pursue other
(00:44):
options and ended up with a prolific career in banking.
We talk about her career about E s G. Something
she's passionate about about what clients want, and how she
learned over the years to bring her whole self to work.
What I've come to realize is that my strength is
(01:04):
the fact that I'm someone with a very strong work ethic.
I am extremely passionate about what I do. I am
results focused, but I'm also highly empathetic and caring towards people,
towards my team, towards my colleagues. And I'm a mother,
and I have varied needs, and and I feel very
comfortable taking all of that to work and everyone that
(01:28):
I work with, my team, my colleagues see the entire package.
Now there's all that and much more in this episode
of Out of Office with Labanya Chari Levanni. Are welcome
to Out of Office. Thank you, Melica, very happy to
be here. Levannia. I've been reading up about you and
there are certain themes that keep coming up. One of
(01:51):
them is change. And you've talked a lot about how
change is important for growth, for leadership. And I read
the when you were a little girl, you used to
look up at the sky and dream of becoming a pilot.
And you went to I I T one of the
most prestigious universities, one of the most competitive universities in
the world, where you studied aeronautical engineering. Why are you
(02:14):
a banker today. That's a very interesting question, Melika, And
and and you know, when I grew up in India,
there were a couple of options that we all had,
and one was becoming an engineer. Another was becoming a doctor.
You know, broadly, my dad wanted me to become a doctor.
I did not want to be a doctor. I went
down the engineering path aeronautical engineering. Aerospace engineering was very cool.
(02:39):
I did enjoy it, but it dawned on me that
I wasn't as passionate as some of my classmates were,
and one of them is a NASCA and now many
of them are still in the field. But I did
realize early on that I enjoyed it and I have
a strong work ethic, so I worked hard, but it
wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of
(03:00):
my life. And then I decided that I wanted to
explore what I wanted to do for the rest of
my life, and that is when I decided to go
ahead and do an MBA from i AM Bangalore. And
then I got an internship with Lehman Brothers in Tokyo,
which was an interesting experience. Two months in Tokyo when
I didn't speak a word of Japanese, and that's when
(03:21):
I honestly realized that I wanted to do banking. It
was something clicked in me. I felt passionate about it,
and I decided that I did want to do banking
for the foreseeable future. I will come back to talking
about banking in your Korea and banking. But you know,
at that time, very few little girls in India dreamt
(03:43):
about becoming a pilot. It just wasn't something that was
part of our culture or our ecosystem. Right. I grew
up in India, and I was a little girl in India,
so I related to that. And I'm just curious when
you went to i i T, which is the Indian
Institute of Technology, how many girls were there, how many
young women were there in your year, and how many
of them were studying aeronautical engineering. There were a few
(04:06):
of us who were studying aeronautical engineering, but overall, I
think there were about fifteen girls out of T fifty
three hundred out of a class of two fifty or
three hundred. So I was very much in the minority.
And and you know, again when I joined banking and
people asked me about being in a male dominated environment.
Unfortunately it started with my engineering college where I was
(04:31):
very much in the minority and and there were very
very few women around. I think that's changed, and it
was women we were almost like strange beasts because there
were very few of us around. And and I have
an interesting anecdote a few years ago, my best friend
and I my college roommate was still my best friend,
went back. We went back to I because we wanted
(04:54):
to visit and just relive old memories. And there was
there was a student, a male student who was there
and who was riding a bicycle and some things that
never just don't change. We asked him to take a
picture of us. He literally stared at us, said no
and went away. It was a hilarious moment. But you know,
(05:17):
some things I guess have changed. Some things haven't. Let's
go back to your initiation into banking. You know you
worked at Lehman Brothers, and we all know what happened
with Lehman Brothers after that. At that time, I believe
that you went on to work at Deutsche Bank, Is
that right? So Lehman Brothers was just an internship And
(05:38):
when I finished my NBA, I started my career with
Deutsche and they gave me the option of location. And
I grew up reading English literature and I've never been
to the UK, so I decided to pick London as
the location and I started my career in London. I
spent the first ten years of my career in London
(05:59):
before moving to a shall you were a banker, not
a Lehman, but you were a banker when Lehman Brothers collapsed.
And you've said, on the fifteenth of September two thousand
and eight, when Lehman went down, the world that we
knew it back then ended and the entire banking industry
became cautious overnight. And that was another one of those
moments in your life and your career that you seek change.
(06:19):
Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, So for me, Melika, change,
change has been a theme for a couple of reasons.
One is I really believe that change enables you to
grow as an individual, and change in also a good way.
It enables you to make. It enables you to learn
(06:41):
a lot. And I've always been one who's curious. I've
wanted to understand different things, learn new things, and continue
on both my professional growth journey and also my personal
growth journey. And with that in mind, I've consciously made
multiple changes throughout my career. And one of those moments
(07:02):
was post a little after Lehman, and it was, you know,
post the sovereign wealth, sovereign crisis actually in Europe, when
I felt that being from India, had never worked in India.
I worked in Asia and I did want to explore
the Asian markets. And then I worked in Europe across
European roles, which was very interesting, very exciting, but I
(07:26):
felt that I wanted to change and for the next
step of my career. I want next phase of my career.
I wanted to explore Asia UM as a region. And
I have to say that it's been a thoroughly enjoyable
experience in Asia. And you are now the Global Health
of Investments and Wealth Solutions at HS BASIC. What does
(07:47):
wealth mean to you? To me when I think about
my job and and you know, someone asked me this question,
someone very senior in the bank asked me this question
two days ago. Are you happy? And you know what
motivates you? And and for me, the answer to that
is enabling our clients to grow their wealth is what
(08:10):
genuinely motivates me. And I strongly believe that. You know,
when you look at our client segmentation, we have personal clients,
and we want personal clients to grow into premier clients
by growing their wealth. We want premier clients to become
private banking clients by growing their wealth and and I
do feel that helping them on that journey is very fulfilling,
(08:34):
and I really genuinely believe that the work we do
has a massive impact on families lives at every stage
of their life journey. And to me, that is what
wealth essentially means. How do you think the definition of
wealth or the idea of wealth is changing and what
does it mean for younger people now? Yeah, so it's
(08:57):
there are two key changes. One is definitely a greater
level of digitalization, and that is inevitable. And when you
look at the younger people, they do care. The millennials,
they care a lot about a more digital, the digital
nature of wealth management. But having said that, private banking
(09:19):
is an industry where individuals still do care about the
personal relationship. So I don't see that completely going away,
which is why I still believe in a hybrid model
where we digitize as much as possible for our clients
and also internally for our own relationship managers, but at
the same time, the human connection, the human element is important.
(09:41):
The second big change, Melica, which is a topic very
close to my heart, is e s G. So the
younger generation, the millennials genuinely care about investing their wealth
in a responsible manner, and we as an organization have
have done a significant amount and ensure ing that our
clients are able to go down that path where they
(10:04):
still make the financial returns and grow their wealth, but
at the same time invested in a responsible manner and
actually make a difference to society. And you know, I'm
a strong believer that we should leave behind a better
world for our children than then we inherit it. And
so that's something that I focus on both in my
(10:24):
professional and my professional journey where I focused on setting
up the E s G Sustainable Investments Program within UH
within Wealth and Personal Banking for HSBC, and I also
do my best and a personal level in my personal
life and I try to inculcate that in my children
(10:44):
as well. And I know your children are an inspiration
when it comes to sustainability, and it has a little
something to do with apple juice and plastic straws. Indeed,
it was a few years ago when pre COVID, when
birth day parties actually happened and big birthday parties happened,
and I took my daughter to a birthday party and
(11:06):
I handed her one of the cartoons Little cartoons of
apple juice, and she looked at it and said, Mama,
I can't drink this. And I said why, and she said,
I can't use this plastic straw. Have you brought a
bad metal straw from home? And I was taken aback
for a second because I hadn't taken a metal straw
from home. And that's when I realized that, you know,
(11:27):
the the E s G pledge, sustainability pledges should not
be exclusive to me, and they're very much should be
a part of it. So, yes, you has become a buzzword.
Sustainability is if you're not talking about it as a leader,
you know, I mean, you kind of just have to
write now everyone is talking about it. Um, you just
(11:48):
said that millennials, younger investors really believe in responsible investing.
What are you hearing from investors about E s G
about sustainability? That's perhaps surprised you that you didn't expect.
You know what surprised me. We did a survey a
few months ago, and a big percentage of investors in Asia,
(12:13):
in a market that is considered to be a lack
art said that in the next three to five years
they expect their entire portfolio to be sustainability focused. That
to me is a very big statement. That to me
was the biggest surprise. What is not a surprise, Malica,
as people come to us and say, you know, we
(12:33):
hear about E s GRE. We want to invest sustainably,
but we don't know how to do it, so please
teach us and in a huge, huge percentage of our
efforts going to educating our clients and what exactly s
G is, what it entails, and the fact that we
believe that E s G does not detract from performance.
(12:54):
If anything, we believe that E s G is a
creative to performance, and that education is something that we're
heavily focused on because our clients are asking to be educated.
How far away are we from a time when actually
your entire portfolio, or you know, an equivalent company one
(13:15):
of the competitors portfolios is actually entirely made up of
M E s G are sustainable products. And that is
such a good question because that is our end goal.
We're not there yet, but the dream vision is to
be able to tell a client everything that we offer
by default is E s G and you can opt
(13:36):
out rather than opt in. But I think we're a
few years from that. So the in E s G.
The E has become all important, right, we all have
to become much more environmentally conscious, but the S is
also becoming increasingly important, isn't it Socially conscious? It is
becoming increasingly important. And you know, when you think about
(13:58):
E s G products and we think about the products
we used to offer, they used to be heavily focused
on the E. But that has changed. And you know,
recently we've looked at typically when we offer products, we
also look at the U N SDJ S and which
STGs they typically match against the sustainable development goals, and
we are increasingly offer offering products that focus more on
(14:23):
the S component as well. You know, sustainable healthcare being
an example. So that is becoming more mainstream, not as
much as the APE, but it's becoming a little more
mainstream than it was, and that trend is likely to continue.
So socially responsible, you want to be a socially responsible company,
you know, for your employees, for your community. So can
(14:48):
you break it down for me? Can you give me
one example of something that you're doing within this S
space that's actually working with your team or your company. Well,
I think um one aspect that we again, and aspect
that I'm quite passionate about is diversity and inclusion and
d and I I care deeply about that. I care
(15:10):
a lot about that because you know, as being a
mother with two young children, and gender diversity in particular
is very close to my heart because I do see
a lot of you know, female individuals in particular leaving
their careers midway and and that's something that does bother
bother me, it bothers the organization deeply, and so we
(15:32):
are focused on that. And um, you know, personally, I've
I've work on mentoring women, work on ensuring that we
do have and have changed the composition of my team
to a certain extent to ensure we have a more
diverse team as well. And in addition to that, as
an organization from an h s DC standpoint, we're also
(15:55):
focused on having increasing the diversity, particularly in senior and
higher paid roles, and that's something that the organization is
is doing. And we've also you know, doing a lot
of mandatory training on hiring managers, for hiring managers and
addressing bias because I think bias plays a role. It's
not explicit. No one comes to you and says you're
(16:17):
not going to get this job because you're a woman
or you belong to a certain race. But it exists.
There is this level of unconscious bias. And we've also,
you know, focused on increasing appointments of female external hires
into senior positions and and that number has gone up,
and it was at over thirty seven percent, close to
thirty eight percent in in one and also in internal promotions,
(16:44):
the female the percentage of female internal promotions was for
three more than forty three and one. Still not where
we need to be, but definitely moving in the right
direction and making progress. I want to talk to you
about being a working mom, and you know, I like
(17:05):
to talk about it. I'm a working mom, and to me,
it's always interesting when I talk to other working moms
to see what their experience has been. Some working moms
don't like to talk about it because they don't want
to draw attention to that part of their life. And
I completely understand and I respect that. I personally believe
it's still a very relevant issue because, like you said,
(17:26):
we are still not at fifty fifty not when it
comes to UM recruiting to senior leadership to pay. So
do you think this is still a relevant conversation. Look,
I like to talk about it, Melika. I'm very open
about the fact that I'm a mother, and I think
it's important to talk about it because everyone needs role models,
(17:47):
right and I strongly believe in that. And I also
have to say that it did take me a long
time to become comfortable enough to take all of myself
to work. And what I mean that is when I
started off. You know, I started off by being given
the feedback that I wasn't aggressive enough, and I felt
that there was a certain part of me, there was
(18:10):
a certain aspect of me that I had to leave
behind at home, and it took me some time to
become comfortable enough to take all of myself to to work.
And and I want to quote, and I want to
mention a quote by one of my favorite politicians of
our generation, just sind Ardent. And and this there's nothing
(18:32):
to do with my personal political leading leanings. She's just
an individual I admire. And she said one of the
criticisms I faced over the years is that I'm not
aggressive enough or assertive enough, or maybe somehow because I'm empathetic,
I'm weak. I totally rebel against that, and I refused
(18:54):
to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong.
Now that was her quote, and I cannot tell you
how much that quote resonated with me, because you know,
I felt I always felt compelled to show that I
was strong. But now what I've come to realize is
(19:15):
that my strength is the fact that I'm someone with
a very strong work ethic. I am extremely passionate about
what I do. I am results focused, but I'm also
highly empathetic and caring towards people, towards my team, towards
my colleagues. And I'm a mother, and I have varied
needs and and I feel very comfortable taking all of
(19:39):
that to work and everyone that I work with, my team,
my colleagues, see the entire package. Now, you know, I'm
sitting here with a smile on my face because for
this podcast I've interviewed, I've been very privileged to interview
some amazing women leaders CEOs. And Barbara Humpton's who's the
ce year of Siemens in the US. You know, she
(20:02):
was told that she was too nice to make it
as a CEO, you know, not aggressive enough. So something
that you've heard and Jana and Gardia, who is now
the founder of Snoop. She was told if she was
ever aggressive, she was told she was a difficult woman.
And we sometimes joke. I just met her recently and
we were joking that we should put together a book,
(20:23):
you know, which is just features conversations with difficult women exactly, exactly.
And and I also truly believe in each of us
being authentic. Right, we need to play to our strengths,
and each person isn't is a different human being, and
we need to ensure that we play to our strengths
and we are genuinely authentic and we represent who we are.
(20:44):
And again, I love the Oscar wild quote, which is
to be yourself because everyone else has already taken. And
so for me that is kind of a mantra, which
is be yourself. And you said a few moments ago, yes,
you know, you think this conversation is still relevant to
have and I do two And you said, the reason
is because everybody needs role models. Have you had a
(21:06):
role model or is there anyone in the business world,
somebody you know or perhaps don't know, who sort of
stood out to you as a role model. Look, I
don't think I've had one role model, to be honest, Malika,
there have been many and my biggest role model in
my life is my dad because when I grew up,
there were a couple of values that that I grew
(21:29):
up with, and one was a strong work ethic, strong
sense of work ethic. And for me, again growing up
in India in a middle class background, I grew up
in a very middle class background. The single biggest focus
was education. It was on education and that was the
one of the key values that my parents instilled in me,
(21:49):
the importance of education. And I learned at a an
early age that education is a gift that is not
open to all. It can't be taken for granted. And
for me, that led to a strong work ethic, which
is take your education and later on in life, whatever
it is that you're doing extremely seriously. The second, again
which I learned from my dad, was treat everyone with respect.
(22:12):
And and for me, you know, regardless of whether someone
is a CEO or somebody who's cleaning the pantry, every
single person deserves to be treated with respect. And it
doesn't mean at all that you don't disagree with individuals
are always have the same opinion. Actually on the contrary,
it just means that you're polite and you express your
(22:35):
opinions bearing in mind that the other person deserves to
be treated with respect. And for me, these are values
that I carry with me to this day and I
try to instill in my daughter's so and the reason
I'm talking about this is my upbringing has a very
strong influence on who I am. And you know my
parents and they instill that in me. And in my
(22:57):
professional career, I've come across many individuals that I admire
four different things, and I've tried to imbibe and learned
different things from those individuals. I'm still very very close
to to one of my very first bosses and I
still bounce of ideas, you know, bounce ideas of him, etcetera.
So I've met different people along the way. I've been
(23:18):
fortunate to meet amazing individuals and mentors along the way.
I've stayed in touch with them and they're friends now
and uh and I try to learn from everyone that
I meet, and I genuinely I also learned from individuals
who work for me. And last week I had I
had my team off site, you know, my direct reports,
(23:40):
my exco. We met for the first time in person
given COVID. It was a wonderful experience. And as I
sat around in that room looking at everybody, there was
a moment when I thought about how much I learned
from each of the individuals who report to me. You know,
when you say that your dad is your biggest role model,
(24:01):
and the values he taught you were the importance of
having a strong work ethic and treating other people with respect.
Is there any anecdote you can remember, any memory you
have from your childhood where he exemplified this, the importance
of having a strong work ethic. You know, for me,
it was regardless, regardless of any issues that came up,
(24:24):
and he would always wake up in the morning and
he would go to work, and and you know, it
was less about even when you're sick, whatever it is,
he would go. He would drop me at school. He
had this motorcycle, you know. And I remember this little
incident because I was I think four and a half,
and I gave I made a speech. I shouldn't call
(24:46):
it a speech. He wrote. He wrote a few things
which I went in front of school and I memorized
it and spoke. I was in kindergarten and as a
treat he was gonna buy me. He bought me a
chocolate you know. It was called the Dairy Milk Chocolate
it which which you got in the corner shop. And
he took me and he had this motorbike and I
sat behind him, and I was so excited. It was
(25:07):
a treat for me. It's very different for my children,
who were far more privileged, and getting the piece of
chocolate is not such a big deal. But for me,
it was a big deal. And I remember that moment
distinctly because I got to sit on the motorcycle behind
him and it had this exhaust pipe and I burnt
my foot on that. It was one of those literally
(25:28):
like a bittersweet day, and I remember that distinctly. But
I also remember that he and my mom, they both
always showed up for me, Like when I needed something
and I was upset at school, you know, someone said
something mean, they would always show up for me and
they were always there for me. And you know, we
(25:48):
we didn't have it was a middle class background. It
was my sister, my parents, and I. But I just
remember that we always had this very loving and caring
family and upbringing and and it was all about do
your best, you know, And and there were moments when
I would there. There was a moment I remember there
was a debating competition and I I didn't win, and
(26:11):
I was really really I was competitive. I was really upset.
I came home crying and I was crying, and and
I remember my parents telling me it doesn't matter. You participated,
you did your best. Now go on and participate in
the next one. And there were there were many such moments.
And it was not all all a bed of roses, right,
of course, there were setbacks. There were moments I failed,
(26:33):
and that was throughout my career. And they've also had
setbacks in my personal life. And you know, I'm reminded
of Winston Churchill who said success consists of going from
failure to failure without um, without loss of enthusiasm, and
and I think I think that is quite important. I
love the description of the motorcycle and the fumes of
(26:56):
the back because you know, having grown up in India,
I can I can just pick to o this. It's
like a movie playing out in front of my eyes.
And I know what you mean about just the solid
middle class values, right, how did that childhood rooted in
these strong middle class values. How has that shaped you
(27:17):
as a business leader today? It is all about that.
It is all about that. And and for me, I
think everyone that I work with is aware. I I'm
passionate about what I do, right. I am passionate. I
work extremely hard also because I enjoy it. And and
(27:37):
I also give back to society, right, which is why
I focus on these causes. I I focus for me.
My my life is my work. I get a lot
of purpose out of it because I strongly believe that
it is important to have purpose in both your professional
life and your personal life. And I also believe that
organizations should care and should help in terms of providing
(28:01):
purpose to their individuals because it is scientifically proven that
when individuals have a sense of purpose when it comes
to their job, they actually perform better. So even as
an organization, managers should help employees find purpose in their job.
And the second is you know, I read this book
and a few years ago I went through a very
(28:23):
challenging time in my personal life. So I went on
my I went on a personal journey of mindfulness and
positive psychology which would help me in my personal and
spiritual growth. And in one of the books, I read
called Happiness by Design by I Think Paul Dolan. He
defines happiness is purpose plus pleasure, and so, as I mentioned,
(28:46):
I find purpose in many aspects of my life. Work
in bringing up my kids and inculcating the right values
in them, teaching them right behaviors, but also supporting various
causes I mentioned E S, D N, D N EYE
and for me, I support causes causes which enable girls
in forgetting education because you and I we come from
(29:07):
a country where, unfortunately there are still many, many, many
girls who just don't have access to education. And when
I'm done with my corporate life one day, that's the
path that I want to choose, which is, you know,
work on something which truly involves giving back to society
full time, and particularly a cost that focuses on education,
because I strongly believe that that is the only thing
(29:30):
that brings people out of poverty and enables the growth.
I'm going to go check out this book Happens my Design,
so I can give you a list. I can give
you a list of positive psychology and happiness books. If
you'd like to read them, I will wait for it.
I would be happy too, but I'm glad the people
who are listening in and everyone take note. Happiness by
(29:51):
design is something we should look into. Alavania. This podcast
is called out of Office? What's your favorite thing to
do when you're out of the office? Spending time with
my children? I also like adventure sports. You know, I've
done bungee jumping, skydiving. Oh god, you're braver than I am.
And I'm a voracious reader. What's on your bedsite table?
(30:11):
Which book right now? Well, right now there is nothing
because I'm traveling. Um, But I the last book I
read was My Life in Full by Indra Loui, which
I genuinely enjoyed reading very quickly and overre at time.
But I read that book as well. What What did
you like about that book? Just how she was a
(30:33):
woman who did it entirely on her own, based on
the merit of her intellect and hard work. Truly inspirational
and in many ways a similar background. She was also
from India, grew up in the South. Did you see
some parallels there? Yes, it was it was, you know.
When I read about her upbringing, literally, I was like,
(30:53):
it was very very similar, and in a way it
sort of goes back to what we were talking about
earlier the importance of role models, and she's a role
model for women in any part of the world. But
it is nice because for someone like you and me,
you know, women who grew up in India and she
did too. It's it just sort of resonates a little
bit more, doesn't it. Absolutely totally and that what really
(31:14):
spoke to me me too, Lavanya, thanks so much for
joining us and out of Office today, Thank you, Malika,
amazing talking to you, what a pleasure. Thank you. That
was HSBC's Labanya Chari and out of Office and I
hope you enjoyed our chat. Out of Office will be
back in two weeks. Still, then you can check out
some of our other episodes. You'll find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
(31:36):
Bloomberg dot Com or the Bloomberg Terminal. This episode was
produced by Yang Yang. I'm Malika Kapoor. Thank you for listening.
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