Discover the evolution of leadership in the payments industry through the lens of someone who's lived it. Sheffali Welsh, Chief Operating Officer of The Clearing House, brings a unique perspective shaped by her unconventional journey from cognitive science studies to overseeing operations for America's only private payment network operator.
The payments landscape demands a special kind of leadership – one that balances innovation with stability, risk-taking with prudence, and technical expertise with people-centered approaches. Sheffali articulates how leadership in financial services has transformed from the hierarchical, top-down model of decades past to today's collaborative, empowering style that connects employees to purpose and embraces flexibility. Her experiences navigating the 2008 financial crisis as chief of staff to Citigroup's global CFO provided invaluable lessons about leadership during turbulence that continue to shape her approach today.
What sets great leaders apart? According to Sheffali, it's "grit" – that powerful combination of passion and perseverance particularly evident in women who've had to play the long game in their careers. She makes a compelling case for how this quality is perfectly suited to the payments industry, where innovations like real-time payments require both visionary thinking and patient execution.
Her insights on the distinction between mentorship and sponsorship illuminate why women still need more advocates who will speak up for them when they're not in the room. Looking ahead, she's watching the emerging digital assets and stablecoin landscape as payments' next frontier.
Listen now and discover why playing the long game through strategic lateral moves might be your best career strategy in the dynamic world of payments.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast,
where we talk to C-level leadersfrom across the payments
landscape.
We'll be discussing theproducts and services that
impact the payment space today,as well as trends and
predictions for the future ofpayments.
We will also hear stories fromour guests about their journeys
to the top.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
I'm your host, greg Myers, andthis episode is part of our
Women Leaders in Payments month,something we do every year in
the month of July, and it's oneof my favorite times of the year
.
This year's theme is redefiningleadership, influence, impact
and innovation.
So those are some of the thingsyou're going to be hearing
about during the month of July.
So first, a special thank youto our sponsors.
(00:41):
Our title sponsor is WorldPay,our participating sponsors are
VisiPay and Payrock, and ourepisode sponsors are the
Clearinghouse and Genico andPaySafe.
So special thanks to thosecompanies.
Today we have a very specialguest, shefali Welsh, the Chief
Operating Officer of theClearinghouse.
So, shefali, thank you so muchfor being here and welcome to
(01:01):
the show.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Greg, thank you so much.
I'm very excited to be heretoday.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Great, so let's start off with a little icebreaker.
So if you could have dinnerwith any woman in history, past
or present, who would that beand why and what restaurant
would you take them to?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Ooh, that's a good one.
So any female leader.
I would have dinner withEleanor Roosevelt, and I love
Eleanor Roosevelt.
She is a woman who was ahead ofher time.
She broke the mold.
She broke gender norms andstereotypes.
She was a fierce advocate forsocial justice and human rights
(01:42):
and civil rights, which arethings that are very near and
dear to me as well.
So that would be my choice.
I would take her out for Indianfood, and the reason is I am
half Indian, half British, soI'm Indian by descent and I love
Indian food, and I think, withEleanor Roosevelt, it would be
just very fun to see her, youknow, learn to eat with her
hands, teach her about a newfood, and I would like to think
(02:03):
that she would have beenopen-minded to something new and
different from a foodperspective.
So that would be my dinner.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Okay, that's awesome, the great way to get started.
So let's talk a little bitabout your background and your
career.
So, if you don't mind, give usa snapshot of your background,
kind of maybe where you grew up,what you studied, what led you
into payments.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
So I had kind of a roundabout journey to end up
getting into payments.
But I grew up way upstate NewYork, in Rochester.
My parents moved when I was inhigh school to Westport,
connecticut, so that was myfirst real introduction to New
York City.
I lived about an hour outsideof New York City.
I went to college in theMidwest, so moved around.
From spending a lot of my lifein the Northeast, moving to the
Midwest was moved around.
(02:42):
From spending a lot of my lifein the Northeast, moving to the
Midwest was in Chicago forcollege, and in college I
studied cognitive science, whichis the science of thought and
reasoning, and so it's howpeople think, how people solve
problems, how they approachquestions, how they categorize
things in their brain.
So it's all that thinking, howthey categorize things in their
(03:04):
brain.
So it's all that thinking,rational thinking, irrational
thinking, very much studiedbehavioral economics as well,
which was at that time very muchconsidered part of cognitive
science.
And I came out of college and Iactually first went into
advertising and thinking morearound like research, focus
groups, what makes people makedecisions, and I didn't find it
(03:25):
very exciting.
And so I transitioned tofinancial services where I went
to GE Capital and I worked inthere.
Well, I was given a space intheir management development
program and what I loved aboutthat is I had the opportunity to
do lots of different things.
So it was a rotational programwhere I actually started in
marketing and communications butmoved in different areas of the
business.
So it was a rotational programwhere I actually started in
marketing and communications butmoved in different areas of the
(03:47):
business, and that was mylaunch of financial services,
but on a very broad basis and sofast forward.
I went back to graduate schoolat one point because I realized
I very much looked at processesbut I wasn't as tuned into the
financials like the hardcorefinancial work, because I used
to work in M&A, at GE, and myterritory was everything outside
(04:10):
of North America.
So I traveled internationallythree weeks a month and was
looking at how companiesoperated, but I wasn't on the
financial side.
So I went back to school andthen ended up working for large
banks.
So I was at Citi for a longperiod of time.
Then from Citi I went toDeutsche Bank for a long period
of time, then I was at Bank ofNew York, mellon, and then I
(04:31):
moved to the clearinghouse whereI am today, and along that way,
I have worked in almost everyarea of financial services you
can imagine.
So I've worked in the consumerside, I've worked in corporate
M&A, I've worked in sales andtrading and I've, of course,
worked in transaction bankingand payments.
So when I was at Deutsche, I washired in initially running
(04:52):
client strategy and sales andtrading, and after being there
about four years, an opportunitycame up to be the chief
operating officer of the GlobalTransaction Bank of the Americas
division, and it was a newbusiness area to me.
And the transaction bankcomprised cash management and
payments, but also trade financeand supplier chain finance and
(05:14):
the corporate trust business andother broader areas in
transaction and wholesalebanking, and that was
eye-opening.
What I loved about it was howtangible it was.
So when you are working inpayments and transaction banking
, you are truly driving theeconomy.
It's you know, payments impactsall of us, greg, as you know so
well.
(05:34):
So everybody from a day-to-dayto large companies, and I love
that transition to something sotangible.
And it was actually where I metDavid Watson, the CEO of the
transaction bank excuse me, ofthe Clearinghouse as well and so
spent some time in payments.
I actually ended up going backinto private banking for a
little bit and then fast forward.
(05:55):
Let's say we'll skip a littlebit.
David called me up about comingover to the Clearinghouse and I
was just thrilled to be here.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Awesome.
So thanks for that background.
I appreciate it.
So another kind of fun questionlet's say you're at a
conference and you're asked tocome up and speak and you have a
hype song.
What would that hype song beand why?
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Oh my gosh, that hype song would be Happy by Pharrell
Williams.
I love it.
I am a happy person.
I love what I do today.
I'm thrilled with my job.
I live in Brooklyn, which is anamazing place.
I have two wonderful teenagersand a husband and a puppy, so I
think Happy would be my hypesong, and it's just such a fun
song to come out to.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great answer.
So far, I've done many of theseinterviews for the month and no
one has picked the same songyet, so I think that's kind of
cool.
Okay, shivali, if you don'tmind, tell us about your role at
the Clearinghouse and maybewhat excites you the most on
sort of a day-to-day businessand what you're working on.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
So my role as Chief Operating Officer is running the
internal workings of theClearinghouse.
So in the Chief OperatingOffice is human resources,
finance, corporate real estate,government relations, marketing
and communications, and businessanalytics and insight.
So it's a broad role.
And what's very exciting aboutwhat I do is it's not the same
(07:14):
role on any two days in a rowand I love the ability to work
on and do different things thatreally help drive the company.
And what I love about theClearinghouse is we are this
unique mix of a purpose-drivencompany in financial services.
So I've worked for global banks.
You know my entire careerpractically and in my personal
(07:35):
life I do a lot of advocacy andpurpose-driven work, and what I
love about where I work now is Iget to bring both of those
together.
So I work with really smart,driven people who are subject
matter experts and we all haveso much pride in what we do and
we take our purpose veryseriously of driving safe,
reliable and efficient paymentsarchitecture for the US economy
(07:57):
and the clearinghouse.
As you know, we are over 170years old.
We are the only private paymentnetwork operator in the country
.
We clear and settle more than$2 trillion a day through WIRE,
which is our chips network, ACH,which is our EPN network, check
image and now real-timepayments as well through the RTP
(08:18):
network.
And, in fact, rtp was launchedin 2017, which was really the
first new payment rail in 40years, and I think that's such a
great highlight of our role atthe Clearinghouse, which is also
fostering innovation across thewhole industry.
We are the place where multiplebanks, industry experts come
together to determine how do wenot only run safe architecture,
(08:42):
but how do we actually thinkabout what is coming in the
payments landscape.
So I love being here.
I've been with theClearinghouse almost two years,
not quite and every day I learnsomething new.
Every day I get to work on howwe make the company a better
place, and every day I have somuch pride to come to work and
(09:04):
be a part of this.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Okay, great.
So let's talk a little bitabout leadership and maybe some
lessons learned.
So you know leadership ischanging quickly, and how would
you define modern leadership andhow do you sort of embody that
every day?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
on leadership that have never changed and I'll get
to those in a minute.
If you think about when Istarted my career, you know the
leadership, especially inbanking, was very centralized.
It was very authoritative, veryhierarchical and top-down.
And now fast forward to wherewe are now and leadership is
very collaboration-based.
It's being a collaborator andinviting collaboration.
It's very much around tenets ofempowerment.
(09:48):
How do you empower youremployees to make decisions that
are appropriate within wherethey are, to really take
leadership and ownership Verymuch?
How do you inspire and supportyour workforce?
How do you connect them to asense of purpose of the company
workforce?
How do you connect them to asense of purpose of the company,
as I just spoke about a momentago?
And so that evolution thatwe've gone through over the past
(10:10):
couple decades, I would say, isit's eye-opening and I think
it's where we should have beenall along and we're probably
good leaders have been all alongthat ability to inspire the
employees underneath them, beenall along that ability to
inspire the employees underneaththem.
I also think a really big shiftnow we've seen, as we know in
(10:31):
the past three to four years,has been a hybrid workforce and
this sense of employeeflexibility and, I think, really
pulling in that empowermentelement, which is you can
deliver the on what is notexactly a traditional schedule.
You can deliver without sittingright outside your boss's
(10:52):
office.
You can inspire your teamswithout their being right next
to you.
And it's also now brought up awhole view on what are the
unconscious biases that we havein industry and as leaders.
How do we push through thoseand pass those?
(11:13):
So I think the shift has becomemuch more people-oriented and
much more employee-orientedversus employer or
manager-oriented.
I think it is having leadersthat are not just more
empathetic I think that's a wordwe hear a lot and I truly think
that's true but just moreunderstanding of the ebbs and
flows of real life.
(11:34):
And I think you know, I thinkback to when before I had my
children, I guess, and when Iwas sort of pregnant with my
first.
It was this idea of, like, youhide it as long as possible, you
don't tell anybody, because itwould be viewed negatively, and
I would challenge almost anybodyto think that today, right now,
(11:57):
we celebrate it.
We celebrate it's a milestonein a person's life that's very
big to them and it doesn'tchange how they're going to show
up at work and perform.
It doesn't change their careeraspirations, it just means
there's a wonderful life eventthat they should be welcome to
sharing with everybody.
So I think this change inleadership will also make very
much a change in employees andstaff why they come to work, why
(12:20):
they stay with a company for along period of time Again,
what's the purpose they connectto.
And, in fact, one more thingI'll say on this at the
Clearinghouse, we actuallylaunched this year a leadership
training for our entire peoplemanagement workforce, so every
manager in the company has theopportunity to go through a
training that focuses on threecore modules of connect, coach
(12:45):
and create an inclusiveenvironment, and it's really
built on the principles ofmodern leadership.
These are the things to lead aworkforce today to have
employees who want to come towork, to have employees who want
to stay with a company and stayin groups, or even have
internal mobility opportunitiesfor a long time to come.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Okay, is there a decision or maybe a moment in
your career where you look backon it and you see that it was a
really defining moment?
I like to call them like ahamoments, but did you have any of
those in your career?
Speaker 3 (13:20):
I think I did and I think I had two, but one leads
to the other.
So when I worked at Citi, Iworked there through the
financial crisis and I was thechief of staff to the global CFO
, so I saw everything happeningin real time and I truly learned
leadership through a crisisenvironment, which was very
(13:41):
different from leadership in anormal environment, and I had a
phenomenal boss who I reallylearned that from sort of a
front row seat in the financialcrisis and through that role I
knew everybody in the company.
Right, Financial crisis, Citiwas the largest bank on the
street.
For anybody who lived that theycan empathize with what we
(14:02):
probably went through.
So, working directly for theCFO, if there was a question and
I needed an answer anywhere inthe company, I could get it.
So I was very entrenched andfor me, what was very the big
point there was going through atrue crisis situation and how
you put so many things inperspective and, again, how you
(14:23):
make decisions and how thatchanges in a crisis.
So then during that time I usedto also do a lot of reading and
research into what were some ofthe differences between women's
careers and men's careers.
It was still very much a timewhere men seemed to move a lot
faster in their careers and oneof the core pieces of research
was women tended not to takerisks in their career that men
(14:48):
would take, risks that wouldtruly change the trajectory of
their career, and women tendedto play it a lot safer.
So what came along then was anoffer from Deutsche Bank, and
the offer from Deutsche was toreally start a whole new group
in the company working in salesand trading, and it was around
client strategy and an approachto client strategy, and I had
(15:10):
done similar kind of work atCiti and yet I had such a strong
network at Citi.
I had actually moved on toanother role, running strategy
for the private bank there and Ithought, well, if I'm not going
to listen to the research thatI'm reading, I'll say about
(15:30):
taking risks in your career,then why am I bothering to do
this research?
So moving to Deutsche was a bigrisk.
I knew everybody at Citi.
I had been there quite a longtime, I had a very strong
network I worked for and withsome of the most senior people
in the company To moving to dosomething, setting it up
completely differently.
I could set it up how I thoughtit should be run.
(15:51):
It would be a true culturechange on that end of the
company.
And so I left.
I took the risk, I went overand I love it, because I was in
that role for four years runningclient strategy for debt sales
and trading and we reallychanged how we looked at clients
and it was a true culturechange.
(16:11):
And what I joke about is when Iwent, salespeople would say
you're not going to tell meanything about my client that I
don't know.
And you know what you're doing.
I don't believe in.
It's just another you knowflash in the pan, incentive or
program that senior managementwants to like.
A couple of years later, asalesperson coming over to my
(16:33):
desk and saying, chef, I've gota meeting in Chicago in two days
.
What do I need to know aboutthe client?
What's my competitivepositioning, what's the
opportunity I need to be goingafter?
And I love that because itgives me that perspective of
some patience and time.
If you believe in what you'redoing, you have the right
(16:58):
marketing pitch, you measure itappropriately, you can bring
people along that journey withyou and you can achieve that
cultural change.
So the aha moment for me therewas not only pay attention to
the research and take the riskin your career.
This is a risk, but could trulychange the trajectory, which it
did, but also just being ableto achieve that cultural change
(17:19):
after a period of about two tothree years and it took that
much time, but we performed somuch better and we really had a
much more strategic approach toour clients after that so much
better, and we really had a muchmore strategic approach to our
clients after that.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Okay, well, what do you think is something that
female leaders can bring to thetable?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
that our industry needs more of.
Female leaders bring a lot ofgrit.
Now, what do we mean by grit?
There's been, there are bookson it.
A woman named Angela Duckworthwrote a whole book on grit and
it is really the ability tostick with something despite
challenges, just persevere andbring sort of courage and
determination to a situation.
(17:58):
Angela Duckworth described itas this combination of passion
and perseverance.
I think women bring a lot ofgrit to leadership because,
especially sort of my generation, we had to play the long game.
We had to play the long game ofgetting that seat at the table
and having a voice, and I thinkin payments, payments is a long
(18:20):
game.
As we talked about earlier,right ACH was developed in the
early 70s.
We didn't introduce a new railuntil 2017.
We need to make sure that we'realways providing for safety and
reliability and soundness inthe financial system.
So it's a long game and I thinkwomen bring a lot of grit to
the table.
(18:40):
They bring a lot of grit andleadership and I think, when we
think about payments inparticular, that long game is
really important that ability tohave passion and to persevere
despite challenges and obstaclesyou might face along the way.
So that's what I think womenbring to the table.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
That's great.
That's great.
If I was in my office, I couldreach back and pull that book up
, because I've actually readthat book.
So that's a great example.
Well, let's shift gears andtalk a little bit about
innovation and influence.
So, as you know, the paymentsindustry is changing very fast.
It has in the last 10, 15 years.
So how do you stay innovativeas a leader?
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yeah, so part of it is listening to the team around
me.
Right, innovation, I think, isa team sport.
We all might have greatepiphanies in the shower in the
morning, but nobody comes upwith something new and brilliant
innovative all by themselves.
So, as I mentioned at the top,I have a really broad job, so I
really listen to the peoplearound me, to my team and then
(19:40):
to others in the company and inthe industry.
I love to listen to podcastssuch as yours, listen to our own
Payments Nerds podcast, where Igo to conferences hearing
speakers talk about what they'rethinking about and working on.
So I love listening to folksaround me.
I think that's one of thebiggest ways as a leader, you
(20:01):
stay innovative.
And then the different lens thatI bring to the table is not
being a 30-year subject matterexpert in payments, but working
in all different areas ofbanking and understanding how
payments actually impactsdifferent people.
So when I worked in privatebanking, how does payments
influence how people want tomove their money around within
(20:23):
their accounts?
When I used to work intransaction banking at Deutsche,
we used to talk about that flowof payments to a developer in
another region of the worldthat's getting paid, you know,
99 cents every time you downloada new app to your smartphone,
and thinking about things from adifferent lens and different
perspective is what I can bringto the table.
(20:44):
And listening to the peoplearound me who are experts within
their own fields or withinpayments is how I continue to
learn about what's changing andevolving in this industry.
And then, of course, readingtrades, or reading, you know,
american Banker is a greatsource of new news and
information and then talkingwith young people.
So I have, you know, I have aniece and nephew who are in
(21:06):
their 20s and actually live inanother country, and my nephew
is coming to visit.
He lives in France and he wascoming to visit and I was
picking him up from the airportand his flight got in a little
bit earlier and when I came toget him he had like a coffee and
a bagel and I said, oh, did youhave money?
And he said, no, I likedownloaded an app that could do
(21:26):
some FX translation from myaccount in France and could
bring the money over, and then Icould just use that app to pay.
You know, the Dunkin' Donuts inthe airport and this is, by the
way, a number of years ago, sohe was maybe early twenties at
the time.
Now he's sort of mid to latetwenties and it was when a lot
of this you know what I justsaid.
Now your listeners might say,well, of course that's how
(21:47):
anyone would do it, but thatwasn't how anyone was doing it
back then.
So it was very exciting, youknow, to listen to him too.
So I think younger people, thegeneration below me, is always a
great way for me to getinformation and to think
differently, which is what willspark innovation.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, I love that thought because I have a
daughter who's 21 in college andshe's very much the same way.
I kind of pay attention to whatshe does from a payments
capability and it's kind of thatthing where we talk a lot about
in this industry is the wholefriction thing right.
If there's any friction inanything she does, she just
closes that down and goes tosomething else immediately, goes
(22:29):
to something else immediately.
So you know the same thing.
You can learn so much from justkind of watching a different
generation and how they dothings.
So kind of a good segue intothe next question.
So what's one kind of trend orchange in the industry that
you're really keeping up withright now?
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Oh my gosh, one is hard to talk about, but I will
follow the assignment.
Follow the assignment.
I've talked about real-timepayments.
I think the potential for howwe leverage a real-time payments
rail is you know, we haven'teven scratched the surface.
So, through real-time payments,people can move money between
(23:03):
their own accounts instantly.
So think about wanting to funda brokerage account to take
advantage of markets.
I also am a big believer inreal-time payments helping on a
broad scale from financialinclusion.
Now we haven't reached that yet, but in the old days of things
like payday lending was becausepeople couldn't get their money
when they needed it and so theyneeded a bridge.
(23:24):
Well, real-time payments isgoing to help us provide that
bridge for people to be able toaccess their money instantly.
We're already seeing what it'sdoing in instant wage access and
the gig economy.
You know an Uber driver beingable to get his or her payments
from the day on that day,enabling people to really fund
their day-to-day invest in theirdreams because they have their
(23:47):
money instantly.
I think that there's a world offlexibility that real-time
payments is going to provide.
You think about we're justtalking about the generation
below.
They are used to things whenthey want it.
You know how they want it.
So my daughter, who's 13, stilldoesn't fully understand the
concept that when I turn on theradio, I can't just switch the
(24:10):
song, and so she's alwaysplugging her phone into the car
because she wants to listen towhat song she wants to listen to
, whereas I'm perfectly happywith my generation of putting on
the radio and whatever songcomes on, the song comes on.
You know, I'll listen to agenre, but I'm not programming
the exact song that comes upnext.
Well, real-time payments is sortof going to give us a similar
(24:32):
thing.
Right, it's when do you need apayment, you know?
Do I need it now?
Do I need to schedule it acouple days from now?
How do I get paid?
I think that that's going toopen up just a whole new world
of possibility on how people getpaid, how people think about
payments.
So I am constantly thinkingabout what are the new use cases
(24:54):
that we have for real-timepayments, and that's where the
clearinghouse really is justahead.
As much as we launched the railin 2017, it is really starting
to gain steam, as we're seeingnow, and we're not only thinking
about what I've mentionedalready, but real estate
transactions.
So the real-time paymentsnetwork increased the size of
(25:15):
the transaction limit up to $10million in February, so that
actually opens up a whole newworld of types of transactions
you can actually do in real time.
If you can move that much moremoney, you can think about real
estate transactions, you canthink about private banking and
where you have ultra wealthypeople wanting to move money
between their accounts.
So it's constantly evolvingwhat we can do on a real time
(25:39):
basis, not just the use cases,but now the types of payments
people might be wanting to make.
So that's the big trend I thinkabout.
Of course, the other one I'llmention because I think your
listeners would find it strangeif I don't is the whole move on
digital assets and stablecoin,and that's a really stay tuned
right.
That's going to be the nextreal frontier, I think, in
(26:01):
payments.
We are seeing thisadministration put some kind of
legislation and we've seenexecutive orders come out, so
that's really accelerating, andI've listened to many podcasts
and people that you haveinterviewed who are really
playing in this space.
So that's another reallyinnovative, interesting area
that's evolving still.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, and it's funny you bring that up because I was
just thinking earlier.
It's like the conversations hadalways had AI in them.
The last month or two, three,maybe stable coins has come up
more and more and more, so itjust feels like that's the next
big thing, but everybody's stilltrying to kind of figure out
what does it mean and how do Iuse it in the payments and
banking world.
(26:41):
So, like you said, stay tuned.
A lot more to come on that.
So how do you think womenleaders can influence the future
direction of payments?
Speaker 3 (26:50):
So I think some of it is, as I mentioned earlier,
with bringing that long-termview and that perseverance.
I think it's something throughmy career I've seen women do a
very good job at.
I also think we are stilltraditionally in an area where
women are underbanked relativeto men quite often, and so if we
think about payments as aconnector, it connects people.
(27:13):
Really.
Listening to women as to whatthey need is, I think, going to
continue to open up new areas ofthe market and the network.
And again, I just think thatleadership aspect of looking at
things from a differentperspective and having that
passion and perseverance for thelong term is going to help
influence where we go as anindustry having that long-term
(27:34):
view, having a view to what arethe different use cases that we
can bring to the table.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Okay, well, let's talk a little bit about
mentorship and impact.
So, have you had mentors inyour career?
Who were they?
How did you get those mentorsand what kind of impact did they
have on you?
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Yeah, I think I've had, I think, of two key mentors
in my career.
One, as I alluded to earlier,was the global CFO of Citi when
I worked for him during thefinancial crisis, and he was
always calm.
He always drove all of us towant to work harder.
(28:14):
He had this brilliant abilityto truly make you want to do
better.
It wasn't you were doing betterfor a paycheck or for a
promotion or because you weretold to.
It was his truth.
He helped really harnessintrinsic motivation, and so
that's something I've beenworking on throughout my career
and I've never seen anyone do itas well as he does.
(28:36):
But that really was eye-openingfor me because through the
financial crisis, really thehouse was burning.
No matter what bank you workedin, the house was burning, and
yet he could motivate peoplethrough a burning house to
continue to want to do better,which I think often what you see
in crises is the exact opposite.
So that leadership through acrisis was very influential for
(28:57):
me.
And then the other was a womanwho was the CEO of the
Transaction Bank in the Americaswhen I worked at Deutsche Bank,
and she's also always been verymuch a mentor to me and she was
probably one of my first realsponsors, so a person who helped
advocate for me when I wasn'tin the room and helped suggest
(29:18):
stretches in my career thatmaybe I wouldn't have thought of
for myself, and I think that'ssomething that more women need.
We need true sponsorship.
We don't need as muchmentorship, I would argue.
We are educated, we understandour strengths, weaknesses,
coaching, things we need to workon, but we women still often
need the person who's going topush them when they're not in
(29:39):
the room, who's going to speakup for them, and I still think
we don't find we don't find thatas prevalently for women as we
often do for men or younger mencoming up in their careers.
So that really taught mesponsorship and she's still
because she's been an expert inpayments and transaction banking
.
She's still a person I willtalk to about the industry.
(30:00):
She knows so many people.
I'll often talk to her aboutpeople in talent.
So it's just another real area,another person who I really go
to a lot.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Okay, so kind of follow on question.
So you talk about sponsorshipas opposed to mentorship.
How do you suggest someonemaybe a little bit younger in
their career?
How do they find that sponsor?
Does that sponsor find them?
Sort of?
Maybe elaborate on that if youdon't mind.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Yeah, sure, I think you can't find it almost.
So a sponsor has to be a personwho knows you, who has worked
with you directly and who trulyencourages you to do your best
and leads you.
So there's a great leadershipstyle called radical candor, and
radical candor basically saysthat you need to challenge
(30:48):
people directly and you need tocare for them deeply as well.
And what that means is youestablish that relationship with
an employee, that you trulycare for them.
That gives you that ability tochallenge them.
And so, if you think about it,if you challenge somebody who
doesn't think you have any carefor them, they just think you're
(31:08):
kind of being a jerk.
Somebody who doesn't think youhave any care for them, they
just think you're kind of beinga jerk.
And if you care for an employeebut you don't really challenge
them, then you're just sort of awet noodle and not an effective
manager.
And radical candor is findingthat balance where you truly
look out for how an employee'scareer is going to go, how
they're doing, you understandtheir personal motivations and
(31:29):
then you can challenge them tohelp them improve and get better
and help develop them.
So I think what's reallyimportant is you need to find a
sponsor who actually balancesthese two sides, a person who
understands you and takes thattime which is very important but
who's willing to challenge you,because how do you get better
if nobody's willing to challengeyou or develop you?
(31:50):
And then that person is reallygoing to be the person who is
sponsoring you in the background, because by showing these two
traits they will help convey toothers.
Here are the things that personis really good at.
Here are the things that drivethat person and what they'll
take back to that person are.
Here are some of theperceptions.
(32:12):
Here are some of the thingsthat you need to work on to
really achieve that next level.
So I would encourage people,when they are trying to find
their mentor or sponsor is,think about who has invested the
time into them, invested thattime to understand what makes
them tick and then invested thattime to truly give them honest
feedback on how they get better,because those are the people
(32:34):
who have an interest in yourdevelopment and your getting
better.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Okay, great Now.
Thanks for sharing that.
That's awesome.
So if you have someone justentering payments female looking
at building a career inpayments what one piece of
advice would you give them?
Speaker 3 (32:51):
I always think, play the long game.
And what I mean by that is whenyou go throughout your career.
There are points to move up andthere are points to move
laterally.
And I think people who don'tplay the long game are always
looking at the up how do I dothe next thing, how do I get the
next promotion?
And they're not thinking how doI develop depth in certain
(33:14):
areas?
How do I develop that skill?
How do I take jobs that movesideways, that truly move
laterally?
They're going to expand mythinking, broaden my network.
So I tell people play the longgame.
Now you need to know when toadvocate for yourself.
I've had points in my careerwhere I have taken a move and
(33:36):
somebody said, oh, but that'slateral.
And I've been very clear whereit's not and where that needs to
put me in line for a promotionor put me in line for something
new.
But I've taken tons of lateralmoves in my career for something
new.
But I've taken tons of lateralmoves in my career which have
enabled me to understand abreadth of banking, a breadth of
different functional areas,which brings me back to the top
(33:57):
of our podcast, which is, youknow, as chief operating officer
, I have a very broad role.
But I can take on that broadrole because I've worked in
different areas of banking orhave taken the time to
understand how they impact eachother, how you influence the
movement of the bigger business.
So I always encourage peopledon't always go to the next
(34:19):
shiny thing.
Think about where you actuallywant to stay put for a period of
time, and that period of timemight be three, four, five, six
years longer.
It's been a shift for me,mentally too, in that you know
the younger generation jumps thejob hop a lot faster.
So I have shifted tounderstanding that that is.
It's a different outlook to howyou manage your career.
(34:40):
But I think it's also whereI've developed at some of the
advice I give to younger peopleof playing the long game is
going to pay off, I think, inthe longer run as well.
But again, know when toadvocate to move up and know
when it makes a good, whenthere's a good opportunity to
move sideways, and don'tnecessarily fight to always move
(35:01):
up, because what you're goingto gain from those lateral moves
is equally important.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Okay, I think that's great advice.
So let's wrap up with one finalkind of fun question.
So when you look at your phone,what is one non-business app
that you use the most, and whatdoes that say about you?
Speaker 3 (35:21):
So I was thinking about this and trying to analyze
in my own phone usage and Ithink this might sound boring.
There's two, but I'll talkabout one, which is Google Maps.
So I have always loved maps andI'm the generation that grew up
with an Atlas in the car,looking at maps on paper, and I
(35:43):
still love doing that.
I just do it in digital form.
So I've you know, I've lived inmy neighborhood in Brooklyn for
12 years.
I just do it in digital form.
So I've lived in myneighborhood in Brooklyn for 12
years.
I've lived in and out of NewYork City for 30 years,
practically.
At this point, I still lovepulling up my map because it
does two things.
One gives me certainty as towhere I need to go, and so it
(36:04):
clears up my headspace to thinkabout other things.
But also, what I love withdigital maps now is they show
you so many things in theneighborhood you never thought
of.
So we talked about innovationearlier.
Part of innovation is justbeing open to new things and new
experiences and, funnily enough, when I pull up maps, it'll
show me restaurants I didn'tknow.
(36:25):
It'll show me shops I didn'tknow and things in the
neighborhood, so it could be aneighborhood I'm familiar with,
but I'm going to see new stores,especially living in New York
City.
Things roll over all the time.
So I tend to look at GoogleMaps a lot, to the point that
it's a joke with my husband ofyou really don't need to pull up
a map, don't?
You know where you're going bynow, and I just think but it's
(36:51):
so much fun to just look and seewhat's new in the area or to
not have to worry that I amgoing in the wrong direction.
So I hope that on one hand, itsays, even though I'm a little
bit old fashioned and rooted incertain things, like enjoying
looking at a map, I am alsoalways thinking forward to what
are the new things I'm going tolearn and it's going to teach me
every day.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
So, that's awesome.
I love it.
I love it.
So, before we go, I want togive you the chance to see if
there's anything else you'd liketo add before we wrap up the
show.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
You know I want to go back on one thing when we
talked about leadership and thatmove to much more
people-centered leadership.
One of the things I loved aboutcoming to the Clearinghouse is
it is really giving me theopportunity to change the
culture of the company to bemuch more people-centered.
So I've talked about thelearning and development that
we're rolling out to all of ourpeople managers.
(37:38):
We've also rolled out learningand development to all of our
employees.
We also recently launched awhole new set of parental leave
benefits to give better benefitsto our employees who are having
a child, whose significantother is having a child, who are
adopting a child, who arefostering a child, really
opening up what that means to bea parent.
(38:00):
We've opened up so much morearound wellness and I just think
I didn't have the opportunityto mention it earlier, but I
really think it brings togetherso much of what we've talked
about in how leadership ischanging, how culturally it's
really exciting to changecultures in a company and how
you can drive that culture andhow that takes time, but the
steps you can do, how much funit is to work at the
(38:21):
Clearinghouse, where we arereally trying to be
people-centered, and then howwe're thinking about that next
generation down, of what'simportant to them, what are the
opportunities that theircompanies that drive them and I
love being in a position wheremy job is getting to think about
those kinds of things how do Imake the clearinghouse the best
(38:42):
place it can be and the bestplace to work for all of our
employees?
So I didn't get a chance tomention that earlier and I just
wanted to bring that together.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Great, great.
I think that's a great way towrap up the show.
So, shefali, thank you so muchfor being here.
I know your time is veryvaluable, so I really, really do
appreciate you being on theshow today.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Great.
Thank you so much.
This has been so much fun.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Great, and to all your listeners out there, I
thank you for your time as well,and until the next story.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Thank you for joining us this week on the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
Make sure you visit our websiteat leadersinpaymentscom, where
you can subscribe to the showand where you'll find our show
notes.
If you enjoyed listening,please share on your social
channels as well.
Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast,
where we talk to C-level leadersfrom across the payments
landscape.
We'll be discussing theproducts and services that
impact the payment space today,as well as trends and
predictions for the future ofpayments.
We will also hear stories fromour guests about their journeys
to the top.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
I'm your host, greg Myers, andthis episode is part of our
Women Leaders in Payments month,something we do every year in
the month of July, and it's oneof my favorite times of the year
.
This year's theme is redefiningleadership, influence, impact
and innovation.
So those are some of the thingsyou're going to be hearing
about during the month of July.
So first, a special thank youto our sponsors.
(00:41):
Our title sponsor is WorldPay,our participating sponsors are
VisiPay and Payrock, and ourepisode sponsors are the
Clearinghouse and Genico andPaySafe.
So special thanks to thosecompanies.
Today we have a very specialguest, shefali Welsh, the Chief
Operating Officer of theClearinghouse.
So, shefali, thank you so muchfor being here and welcome to
(01:01):
the show.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Greg, thank you so much.
I'm very excited to be heretoday.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Great, so let's start off with a little icebreaker.
So if you could have dinnerwith any woman in history, past
or present, who would that beand why and what restaurant
would you take them to?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Ooh, that's a good one.
So any female leader.
I would have dinner withEleanor Roosevelt, and I love
Eleanor Roosevelt.
She is a woman who was ahead ofher time.
She broke the mold.
She broke gender norms andstereotypes.
She was a fierce advocate forsocial justice and human rights
(01:42):
and civil rights, which arethings that are very near and
dear to me as well.
So that would be my choice.
I would take her out for Indianfood, and the reason is I am
half Indian, half British, soI'm Indian by descent and I love
Indian food, and I think, withEleanor Roosevelt, it would be
just very fun to see her, youknow, learn to eat with her
hands, teach her about a newfood, and I would like to think
(02:03):
that she would have beenopen-minded to something new and
different from a foodperspective.
So that would be my dinner.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Okay, that's awesome, the great way to get started.
So let's talk a little bitabout your background and your
career.
So, if you don't mind, give usa snapshot of your background,
kind of maybe where you grew up,what you studied, what led you
into payments.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
So I had kind of a roundabout journey to end up
getting into payments.
But I grew up way upstate NewYork, in Rochester.
My parents moved when I was inhigh school to Westport,
connecticut, so that was myfirst real introduction to New
York City.
I lived about an hour outsideof New York City.
I went to college in theMidwest, so moved around.
From spending a lot of my lifein the Northeast, moving to the
Midwest was moved around.
(02:42):
From spending a lot of my lifein the Northeast, moving to the
Midwest was in Chicago forcollege, and in college I
studied cognitive science, whichis the science of thought and
reasoning, and so it's howpeople think, how people solve
problems, how they approachquestions, how they categorize
things in their brain.
So it's all that thinking, howthey categorize things in their
(03:04):
brain.
So it's all that thinking,rational thinking, irrational
thinking, very much studiedbehavioral economics as well,
which was at that time very muchconsidered part of cognitive
science.
And I came out of college and Iactually first went into
advertising and thinking morearound like research, focus
groups, what makes people makedecisions, and I didn't find it
(03:25):
very exciting.
And so I transitioned tofinancial services where I went
to GE Capital and I worked inthere.
Well, I was given a space intheir management development
program and what I loved aboutthat is I had the opportunity to
do lots of different things.
So it was a rotational programwhere I actually started in
marketing and communications butmoved in different areas of the
business.
So it was a rotational programwhere I actually started in
marketing and communications butmoved in different areas of the
(03:47):
business, and that was mylaunch of financial services,
but on a very broad basis and sofast forward.
I went back to graduate schoolat one point because I realized
I very much looked at processesbut I wasn't as tuned into the
financials like the hardcorefinancial work, because I used
to work in M&A, at GE, and myterritory was everything outside
(04:10):
of North America.
So I traveled internationallythree weeks a month and was
looking at how companiesoperated, but I wasn't on the
financial side.
So I went back to school andthen ended up working for large
banks.
So I was at Citi for a longperiod of time.
Then from Citi I went toDeutsche Bank for a long period
of time, then I was at Bank ofNew York, mellon, and then I
(04:31):
moved to the clearinghouse whereI am today, and along that way,
I have worked in almost everyarea of financial services you
can imagine.
So I've worked in the consumerside, I've worked in corporate
M&A, I've worked in sales andtrading and I've, of course,
worked in transaction bankingand payments.
So when I was at Deutsche, I washired in initially running
(04:52):
client strategy and sales andtrading, and after being there
about four years, an opportunitycame up to be the chief
operating officer of the GlobalTransaction Bank of the Americas
division, and it was a newbusiness area to me.
And the transaction bankcomprised cash management and
payments, but also trade financeand supplier chain finance and
(05:14):
the corporate trust business andother broader areas in
transaction and wholesalebanking, and that was
eye-opening.
What I loved about it was howtangible it was.
So when you are working inpayments and transaction banking
, you are truly driving theeconomy.
It's you know, payments impactsall of us, greg, as you know so
well.
(05:34):
So everybody from a day-to-dayto large companies, and I love
that transition to something sotangible.
And it was actually where I metDavid Watson, the CEO of the
transaction bank excuse me, ofthe Clearinghouse as well and so
spent some time in payments.
I actually ended up going backinto private banking for a
little bit and then fast forward.
(05:55):
Let's say we'll skip a littlebit.
David called me up about comingover to the Clearinghouse and I
was just thrilled to be here.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Awesome.
So thanks for that background.
I appreciate it.
So another kind of fun questionlet's say you're at a
conference and you're asked tocome up and speak and you have a
hype song.
What would that hype song beand why?
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Oh my gosh, that hype song would be Happy by Pharrell
Williams.
I love it.
I am a happy person.
I love what I do today.
I'm thrilled with my job.
I live in Brooklyn, which is anamazing place.
I have two wonderful teenagersand a husband and a puppy, so I
think Happy would be my hypesong, and it's just such a fun
song to come out to.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great answer.
So far, I've done many of theseinterviews for the month and no
one has picked the same songyet, so I think that's kind of
cool.
Okay, shivali, if you don'tmind, tell us about your role at
the Clearinghouse and maybewhat excites you the most on
sort of a day-to-day businessand what you're working on.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
So my role as Chief Operating Officer is running the
internal workings of theClearinghouse.
So in the Chief OperatingOffice is human resources,
finance, corporate real estate,government relations, marketing
and communications, and businessanalytics and insight.
So it's a broad role.
And what's very exciting aboutwhat I do is it's not the same
(07:14):
role on any two days in a rowand I love the ability to work
on and do different things thatreally help drive the company.
And what I love about theClearinghouse is we are this
unique mix of a purpose-drivencompany in financial services.
So I've worked for global banks.
You know my entire careerpractically and in my personal
(07:35):
life I do a lot of advocacy andpurpose-driven work, and what I
love about where I work now is Iget to bring both of those
together.
So I work with really smart,driven people who are subject
matter experts and we all haveso much pride in what we do and
we take our purpose veryseriously of driving safe,
reliable and efficient paymentsarchitecture for the US economy
(07:57):
and the clearinghouse.
As you know, we are over 170years old.
We are the only private paymentnetwork operator in the country
.
We clear and settle more than$2 trillion a day through WIRE,
which is our chips network, ACH,which is our EPN network, check
image and now real-timepayments as well through the RTP
(08:18):
network.
And, in fact, rtp was launchedin 2017, which was really the
first new payment rail in 40years, and I think that's such a
great highlight of our role atthe Clearinghouse, which is also
fostering innovation across thewhole industry.
We are the place where multiplebanks, industry experts come
together to determine how do wenot only run safe architecture,
(08:42):
but how do we actually thinkabout what is coming in the
payments landscape.
So I love being here.
I've been with theClearinghouse almost two years,
not quite and every day I learnsomething new.
Every day I get to work on howwe make the company a better
place, and every day I have somuch pride to come to work and
(09:04):
be a part of this.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Okay, great.
So let's talk a little bitabout leadership and maybe some
lessons learned.
So you know leadership ischanging quickly, and how would
you define modern leadership andhow do you sort of embody that
every day?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
on leadership that have never changed and I'll get
to those in a minute.
If you think about when Istarted my career, you know the
leadership, especially inbanking, was very centralized.
It was very authoritative, veryhierarchical and top-down.
And now fast forward to wherewe are now and leadership is
very collaboration-based.
It's being a collaborator andinviting collaboration.
It's very much around tenets ofempowerment.
(09:48):
How do you empower youremployees to make decisions that
are appropriate within wherethey are, to really take
leadership and ownership Verymuch?
How do you inspire and supportyour workforce?
How do you connect them to asense of purpose of the company
workforce?
How do you connect them to asense of purpose of the company,
as I just spoke about a momentago?
And so that evolution thatwe've gone through over the past
(10:10):
couple decades, I would say, isit's eye-opening and I think
it's where we should have beenall along and we're probably
good leaders have been all alongthat ability to inspire the
employees underneath them, beenall along that ability to
inspire the employees underneaththem.
I also think a really big shiftnow we've seen, as we know in
(10:31):
the past three to four years,has been a hybrid workforce and
this sense of employeeflexibility and, I think, really
pulling in that empowermentelement, which is you can
deliver the on what is notexactly a traditional schedule.
You can deliver without sittingright outside your boss's
(10:52):
office.
You can inspire your teamswithout their being right next
to you.
And it's also now brought up awhole view on what are the
unconscious biases that we havein industry and as leaders.
How do we push through thoseand pass those?
(11:13):
So I think the shift has becomemuch more people-oriented and
much more employee-orientedversus employer or
manager-oriented.
I think it is having leadersthat are not just more
empathetic I think that's a wordwe hear a lot and I truly think
that's true but just moreunderstanding of the ebbs and
flows of real life.
(11:34):
And I think you know, I thinkback to when before I had my
children, I guess, and when Iwas sort of pregnant with my
first.
It was this idea of, like, youhide it as long as possible, you
don't tell anybody, because itwould be viewed negatively, and
I would challenge almost anybodyto think that today, right now,
(11:57):
we celebrate it.
We celebrate it's a milestonein a person's life that's very
big to them and it doesn'tchange how they're going to show
up at work and perform.
It doesn't change their careeraspirations, it just means
there's a wonderful life eventthat they should be welcome to
sharing with everybody.
So I think this change inleadership will also make very
much a change in employees andstaff why they come to work, why
(12:20):
they stay with a company for along period of time Again,
what's the purpose they connectto.
And, in fact, one more thingI'll say on this at the
Clearinghouse, we actuallylaunched this year a leadership
training for our entire peoplemanagement workforce, so every
manager in the company has theopportunity to go through a
training that focuses on threecore modules of connect, coach
(12:45):
and create an inclusiveenvironment, and it's really
built on the principles ofmodern leadership.
These are the things to lead aworkforce today to have
employees who want to come towork, to have employees who want
to stay with a company and stayin groups, or even have
internal mobility opportunitiesfor a long time to come.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Okay, is there a decision or maybe a moment in
your career where you look backon it and you see that it was a
really defining moment?
I like to call them like ahamoments, but did you have any of
those in your career?
Speaker 3 (13:20):
I think I did and I think I had two, but one leads
to the other.
So when I worked at Citi, Iworked there through the
financial crisis and I was thechief of staff to the global CFO
, so I saw everything happeningin real time and I truly learned
leadership through a crisisenvironment, which was very
(13:41):
different from leadership in anormal environment, and I had a
phenomenal boss who I reallylearned that from sort of a
front row seat in the financialcrisis and through that role I
knew everybody in the company.
Right, Financial crisis, Citiwas the largest bank on the
street.
For anybody who lived that theycan empathize with what we
(14:02):
probably went through.
So, working directly for theCFO, if there was a question and
I needed an answer anywhere inthe company, I could get it.
So I was very entrenched andfor me, what was very the big
point there was going through atrue crisis situation and how
you put so many things inperspective and, again, how you
(14:23):
make decisions and how thatchanges in a crisis.
So then during that time I usedto also do a lot of reading and
research into what were some ofthe differences between women's
careers and men's careers.
It was still very much a timewhere men seemed to move a lot
faster in their careers and oneof the core pieces of research
was women tended not to takerisks in their career that men
(14:48):
would take, risks that wouldtruly change the trajectory of
their career, and women tendedto play it a lot safer.
So what came along then was anoffer from Deutsche Bank, and
the offer from Deutsche was toreally start a whole new group
in the company working in salesand trading, and it was around
client strategy and an approachto client strategy, and I had
(15:10):
done similar kind of work atCiti and yet I had such a strong
network at Citi.
I had actually moved on toanother role, running strategy
for the private bank there and Ithought, well, if I'm not going
to listen to the research thatI'm reading, I'll say about
(15:30):
taking risks in your career,then why am I bothering to do
this research?
So moving to Deutsche was a bigrisk.
I knew everybody at Citi.
I had been there quite a longtime, I had a very strong
network I worked for and withsome of the most senior people
in the company To moving to dosomething, setting it up
completely differently.
I could set it up how I thoughtit should be run.
(15:51):
It would be a true culturechange on that end of the
company.
And so I left.
I took the risk, I went overand I love it, because I was in
that role for four years runningclient strategy for debt sales
and trading and we reallychanged how we looked at clients
and it was a true culturechange.
(16:11):
And what I joke about is when Iwent, salespeople would say
you're not going to tell meanything about my client that I
don't know.
And you know what you're doing.
I don't believe in.
It's just another you knowflash in the pan, incentive or
program that senior managementwants to like.
A couple of years later, asalesperson coming over to my
(16:33):
desk and saying, chef, I've gota meeting in Chicago in two days
.
What do I need to know aboutthe client?
What's my competitivepositioning, what's the
opportunity I need to be goingafter?
And I love that because itgives me that perspective of
some patience and time.
If you believe in what you'redoing, you have the right
(16:58):
marketing pitch, you measure itappropriately, you can bring
people along that journey withyou and you can achieve that
cultural change.
So the aha moment for me therewas not only pay attention to
the research and take the riskin your career.
This is a risk, but could trulychange the trajectory, which it
did, but also just being ableto achieve that cultural change
(17:19):
after a period of about two tothree years and it took that
much time, but we performed somuch better and we really had a
much more strategic approach toour clients after that so much
better, and we really had a muchmore strategic approach to our
clients after that.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Okay, well, what do you think is something that
female leaders can bring to thetable?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
that our industry needs more of.
Female leaders bring a lot ofgrit.
Now, what do we mean by grit?
There's been, there are bookson it.
A woman named Angela Duckworthwrote a whole book on grit and
it is really the ability tostick with something despite
challenges, just persevere andbring sort of courage and
determination to a situation.
(17:58):
Angela Duckworth described itas this combination of passion
and perseverance.
I think women bring a lot ofgrit to leadership because,
especially sort of my generation, we had to play the long game.
We had to play the long game ofgetting that seat at the table
and having a voice, and I thinkin payments, payments is a long
(18:20):
game.
As we talked about earlier,right ACH was developed in the
early 70s.
We didn't introduce a new railuntil 2017.
We need to make sure that we'realways providing for safety and
reliability and soundness inthe financial system.
So it's a long game and I thinkwomen bring a lot of grit to
the table.
(18:40):
They bring a lot of grit andleadership and I think, when we
think about payments inparticular, that long game is
really important that ability tohave passion and to persevere
despite challenges and obstaclesyou might face along the way.
So that's what I think womenbring to the table.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
That's great.
That's great.
If I was in my office, I couldreach back and pull that book up
, because I've actually readthat book.
So that's a great example.
Well, let's shift gears andtalk a little bit about
innovation and influence.
So, as you know, the paymentsindustry is changing very fast.
It has in the last 10, 15 years.
So how do you stay innovativeas a leader?
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yeah, so part of it is listening to the team around
me.
Right, innovation, I think, isa team sport.
We all might have greatepiphanies in the shower in the
morning, but nobody comes upwith something new and brilliant
innovative all by themselves.
So, as I mentioned at the top,I have a really broad job, so I
really listen to the peoplearound me, to my team and then
(19:40):
to others in the company and inthe industry.
I love to listen to podcastssuch as yours, listen to our own
Payments Nerds podcast, where Igo to conferences hearing
speakers talk about what they'rethinking about and working on.
So I love listening to folksaround me.
I think that's one of thebiggest ways as a leader, you
(20:01):
stay innovative.
And then the different lens thatI bring to the table is not
being a 30-year subject matterexpert in payments, but working
in all different areas ofbanking and understanding how
payments actually impactsdifferent people.
So when I worked in privatebanking, how does payments
influence how people want tomove their money around within
(20:23):
their accounts?
When I used to work intransaction banking at Deutsche,
we used to talk about that flowof payments to a developer in
another region of the worldthat's getting paid, you know,
99 cents every time you downloada new app to your smartphone,
and thinking about things from adifferent lens and different
perspective is what I can bringto the table.
(20:44):
And listening to the peoplearound me who are experts within
their own fields or withinpayments is how I continue to
learn about what's changing andevolving in this industry.
And then, of course, readingtrades, or reading, you know,
american Banker is a greatsource of new news and
information and then talkingwith young people.
So I have, you know, I have aniece and nephew who are in
(21:06):
their 20s and actually live inanother country, and my nephew
is coming to visit.
He lives in France and he wascoming to visit and I was
picking him up from the airportand his flight got in a little
bit earlier and when I came toget him he had like a coffee and
a bagel and I said, oh, did youhave money?
And he said, no, I likedownloaded an app that could do
(21:26):
some FX translation from myaccount in France and could
bring the money over, and then Icould just use that app to pay.
You know, the Dunkin' Donuts inthe airport and this is, by the
way, a number of years ago, sohe was maybe early twenties at
the time.
Now he's sort of mid to latetwenties and it was when a lot
of this you know what I justsaid.
Now your listeners might say,well, of course that's how
(21:47):
anyone would do it, but thatwasn't how anyone was doing it
back then.
So it was very exciting, youknow, to listen to him too.
So I think younger people, thegeneration below me, is always a
great way for me to getinformation and to think
differently, which is what willspark innovation.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, I love that thought because I have a
daughter who's 21 in college andshe's very much the same way.
I kind of pay attention to whatshe does from a payments
capability and it's kind of thatthing where we talk a lot about
in this industry is the wholefriction thing right.
If there's any friction inanything she does, she just
closes that down and goes tosomething else immediately, goes
(22:29):
to something else immediately.
So you know the same thing.
You can learn so much from justkind of watching a different
generation and how they dothings.
So kind of a good segue intothe next question.
So what's one kind of trend orchange in the industry that
you're really keeping up withright now?
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Oh my gosh, one is hard to talk about, but I will
follow the assignment.
Follow the assignment.
I've talked about real-timepayments.
I think the potential for howwe leverage a real-time payments
rail is you know, we haven'teven scratched the surface.
So, through real-time payments,people can move money between
(23:03):
their own accounts instantly.
So think about wanting to funda brokerage account to take
advantage of markets.
I also am a big believer inreal-time payments helping on a
broad scale from financialinclusion.
Now we haven't reached that yet, but in the old days of things
like payday lending was becausepeople couldn't get their money
when they needed it and so theyneeded a bridge.
(23:24):
Well, real-time payments isgoing to help us provide that
bridge for people to be able toaccess their money instantly.
We're already seeing what it'sdoing in instant wage access and
the gig economy.
You know an Uber driver beingable to get his or her payments
from the day on that day,enabling people to really fund
their day-to-day invest in theirdreams because they have their
(23:47):
money instantly.
I think that there's a world offlexibility that real-time
payments is going to provide.
You think about we're justtalking about the generation
below.
They are used to things whenthey want it.
You know how they want it.
So my daughter, who's 13, stilldoesn't fully understand the
concept that when I turn on theradio, I can't just switch the
(24:10):
song, and so she's alwaysplugging her phone into the car
because she wants to listen towhat song she wants to listen to
, whereas I'm perfectly happywith my generation of putting on
the radio and whatever songcomes on, the song comes on.
You know, I'll listen to agenre, but I'm not programming
the exact song that comes upnext.
Well, real-time payments is sortof going to give us a similar
(24:32):
thing.
Right, it's when do you need apayment, you know?
Do I need it now?
Do I need to schedule it acouple days from now?
How do I get paid?
I think that that's going toopen up just a whole new world
of possibility on how people getpaid, how people think about
payments.
So I am constantly thinkingabout what are the new use cases
(24:54):
that we have for real-timepayments, and that's where the
clearinghouse really is justahead.
As much as we launched the railin 2017, it is really starting
to gain steam, as we're seeingnow, and we're not only thinking
about what I've mentionedalready, but real estate
transactions.
So the real-time paymentsnetwork increased the size of
(25:15):
the transaction limit up to $10million in February, so that
actually opens up a whole newworld of types of transactions
you can actually do in real time.
If you can move that much moremoney, you can think about real
estate transactions, you canthink about private banking and
where you have ultra wealthypeople wanting to move money
between their accounts.
So it's constantly evolvingwhat we can do on a real time
(25:39):
basis, not just the use cases,but now the types of payments
people might be wanting to make.
So that's the big trend I thinkabout.
Of course, the other one I'llmention because I think your
listeners would find it strangeif I don't is the whole move on
digital assets and stablecoin,and that's a really stay tuned
right.
That's going to be the nextreal frontier, I think, in
(26:01):
payments.
We are seeing thisadministration put some kind of
legislation and we've seenexecutive orders come out, so
that's really accelerating, andI've listened to many podcasts
and people that you haveinterviewed who are really
playing in this space.
So that's another reallyinnovative, interesting area
that's evolving still.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, and it's funny you bring that up because I was
just thinking earlier.
It's like the conversations hadalways had AI in them.
The last month or two, three,maybe stable coins has come up
more and more and more, so itjust feels like that's the next
big thing, but everybody's stilltrying to kind of figure out
what does it mean and how do Iuse it in the payments and
banking world.
(26:41):
So, like you said, stay tuned.
A lot more to come on that.
So how do you think womenleaders can influence the future
direction of payments?
Speaker 3 (26:50):
So I think some of it is, as I mentioned earlier,
with bringing that long-termview and that perseverance.
I think it's something throughmy career I've seen women do a
very good job at.
I also think we are stilltraditionally in an area where
women are underbanked relativeto men quite often, and so if we
think about payments as aconnector, it connects people.
(27:13):
Really.
Listening to women as to whatthey need is, I think, going to
continue to open up new areas ofthe market and the network.
And again, I just think thatleadership aspect of looking at
things from a differentperspective and having that
passion and perseverance for thelong term is going to help
influence where we go as anindustry having that long-term
(27:34):
view, having a view to what arethe different use cases that we
can bring to the table.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Okay, well, let's talk a little bit about
mentorship and impact.
So, have you had mentors inyour career?
Who were they?
How did you get those mentorsand what kind of impact did they
have on you?
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Yeah, I think I've had, I think, of two key mentors
in my career.
One, as I alluded to earlier,was the global CFO of Citi when
I worked for him during thefinancial crisis, and he was
always calm.
He always drove all of us towant to work harder.
(28:14):
He had this brilliant abilityto truly make you want to do
better.
It wasn't you were doing betterfor a paycheck or for a
promotion or because you weretold to.
It was his truth.
He helped really harnessintrinsic motivation, and so
that's something I've beenworking on throughout my career
and I've never seen anyone do itas well as he does.
(28:36):
But that really was eye-openingfor me because through the
financial crisis, really thehouse was burning.
No matter what bank you workedin, the house was burning, and
yet he could motivate peoplethrough a burning house to
continue to want to do better,which I think often what you see
in crises is the exact opposite.
So that leadership through acrisis was very influential for
(28:57):
me.
And then the other was a womanwho was the CEO of the
Transaction Bank in the Americaswhen I worked at Deutsche Bank,
and she's also always been verymuch a mentor to me and she was
probably one of my first realsponsors, so a person who helped
advocate for me when I wasn'tin the room and helped suggest
(29:18):
stretches in my career thatmaybe I wouldn't have thought of
for myself, and I think that'ssomething that more women need.
We need true sponsorship.
We don't need as muchmentorship, I would argue.
We are educated, we understandour strengths, weaknesses,
coaching, things we need to workon, but we women still often
need the person who's going topush them when they're not in
(29:39):
the room, who's going to speakup for them, and I still think
we don't find we don't find thatas prevalently for women as we
often do for men or younger mencoming up in their careers.
So that really taught mesponsorship and she's still
because she's been an expert inpayments and transaction banking
.
She's still a person I willtalk to about the industry.
(30:00):
She knows so many people.
I'll often talk to her aboutpeople in talent.
So it's just another real area,another person who I really go
to a lot.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Okay, so kind of follow on question.
So you talk about sponsorshipas opposed to mentorship.
How do you suggest someonemaybe a little bit younger in
their career?
How do they find that sponsor?
Does that sponsor find them?
Sort of?
Maybe elaborate on that if youdon't mind.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Yeah, sure, I think you can't find it almost.
So a sponsor has to be a personwho knows you, who has worked
with you directly and who trulyencourages you to do your best
and leads you.
So there's a great leadershipstyle called radical candor, and
radical candor basically saysthat you need to challenge
(30:48):
people directly and you need tocare for them deeply as well.
And what that means is youestablish that relationship with
an employee, that you trulycare for them.
That gives you that ability tochallenge them.
And so, if you think about it,if you challenge somebody who
doesn't think you have any carefor them, they just think you're
(31:08):
kind of being a jerk.
Somebody who doesn't think youhave any care for them, they
just think you're kind of beinga jerk.
And if you care for an employeebut you don't really challenge
them, then you're just sort of awet noodle and not an effective
manager.
And radical candor is findingthat balance where you truly
look out for how an employee'scareer is going to go, how
they're doing, you understandtheir personal motivations and
(31:29):
then you can challenge them tohelp them improve and get better
and help develop them.
So I think what's reallyimportant is you need to find a
sponsor who actually balancesthese two sides, a person who
understands you and takes thattime which is very important but
who's willing to challenge you,because how do you get better
if nobody's willing to challengeyou or develop you?
(31:50):
And then that person is reallygoing to be the person who is
sponsoring you in the background, because by showing these two
traits they will help convey toothers.
Here are the things that personis really good at.
Here are the things that drivethat person and what they'll
take back to that person are.
Here are some of theperceptions.
(32:12):
Here are some of the thingsthat you need to work on to
really achieve that next level.
So I would encourage people,when they are trying to find
their mentor or sponsor is,think about who has invested the
time into them, invested thattime to understand what makes
them tick and then invested thattime to truly give them honest
feedback on how they get better,because those are the people
(32:34):
who have an interest in yourdevelopment and your getting
better.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Okay, great Now.
Thanks for sharing that.
That's awesome.
So if you have someone justentering payments female looking
at building a career inpayments what one piece of
advice would you give them?
Speaker 3 (32:51):
I always think, play the long game.
And what I mean by that is whenyou go throughout your career.
There are points to move up andthere are points to move
laterally.
And I think people who don'tplay the long game are always
looking at the up how do I dothe next thing, how do I get the
next promotion?
And they're not thinking how doI develop depth in certain
(33:14):
areas?
How do I develop that skill?
How do I take jobs that movesideways, that truly move
laterally?
They're going to expand mythinking, broaden my network.
So I tell people play the longgame.
Now you need to know when toadvocate for yourself.
I've had points in my careerwhere I have taken a move and
(33:36):
somebody said, oh, but that'slateral.
And I've been very clear whereit's not and where that needs to
put me in line for a promotionor put me in line for something
new.
But I've taken tons of lateralmoves in my career for something
new.
But I've taken tons of lateralmoves in my career which have
enabled me to understand abreadth of banking, a breadth of
different functional areas,which brings me back to the top
(33:57):
of our podcast, which is, youknow, as chief operating officer
, I have a very broad role.
But I can take on that broadrole because I've worked in
different areas of banking orhave taken the time to
understand how they impact eachother, how you influence the
movement of the bigger business.
So I always encourage peopledon't always go to the next
(34:19):
shiny thing.
Think about where you actuallywant to stay put for a period of
time, and that period of timemight be three, four, five, six
years longer.
It's been a shift for me,mentally too, in that you know
the younger generation jumps thejob hop a lot faster.
So I have shifted tounderstanding that that is.
It's a different outlook to howyou manage your career.
(34:40):
But I think it's also whereI've developed at some of the
advice I give to younger peopleof playing the long game is
going to pay off, I think, inthe longer run as well.
But again, know when toadvocate to move up and know
when it makes a good, whenthere's a good opportunity to
move sideways, and don'tnecessarily fight to always move
(35:01):
up, because what you're goingto gain from those lateral moves
is equally important.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Okay, I think that's great advice.
So let's wrap up with one finalkind of fun question.
So when you look at your phone,what is one non-business app
that you use the most, and whatdoes that say about you?
Speaker 3 (35:21):
So I was thinking about this and trying to analyze
in my own phone usage and Ithink this might sound boring.
There's two, but I'll talkabout one, which is Google Maps.
So I have always loved maps andI'm the generation that grew up
with an Atlas in the car,looking at maps on paper, and I
(35:43):
still love doing that.
I just do it in digital form.
So I've you know, I've lived inmy neighborhood in Brooklyn for
12 years.
I just do it in digital form.
So I've lived in myneighborhood in Brooklyn for 12
years.
I've lived in and out of NewYork City for 30 years,
practically.
At this point, I still lovepulling up my map because it
does two things.
One gives me certainty as towhere I need to go, and so it
(36:04):
clears up my headspace to thinkabout other things.
But also, what I love withdigital maps now is they show
you so many things in theneighborhood you never thought
of.
So we talked about innovationearlier.
Part of innovation is justbeing open to new things and new
experiences and, funnily enough, when I pull up maps, it'll
show me restaurants I didn'tknow.
(36:25):
It'll show me shops I didn'tknow and things in the
neighborhood, so it could be aneighborhood I'm familiar with,
but I'm going to see new stores,especially living in New York
City.
Things roll over all the time.
So I tend to look at GoogleMaps a lot, to the point that
it's a joke with my husband ofyou really don't need to pull up
a map, don't?
You know where you're going bynow, and I just think but it's
(36:51):
so much fun to just look and seewhat's new in the area or to
not have to worry that I amgoing in the wrong direction.
So I hope that on one hand, itsays, even though I'm a little
bit old fashioned and rooted incertain things, like enjoying
looking at a map, I am alsoalways thinking forward to what
are the new things I'm going tolearn and it's going to teach me
every day.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
So, that's awesome.
I love it.
I love it.
So, before we go, I want togive you the chance to see if
there's anything else you'd liketo add before we wrap up the
show.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
You know I want to go back on one thing when we
talked about leadership and thatmove to much more
people-centered leadership.
One of the things I loved aboutcoming to the Clearinghouse is
it is really giving me theopportunity to change the
culture of the company to bemuch more people-centered.
So I've talked about thelearning and development that
we're rolling out to all of ourpeople managers.
(37:38):
We've also rolled out learningand development to all of our
employees.
We also recently launched awhole new set of parental leave
benefits to give better benefitsto our employees who are having
a child, whose significantother is having a child, who are
adopting a child, who arefostering a child, really
opening up what that means to bea parent.
(38:00):
We've opened up so much morearound wellness and I just think
I didn't have the opportunityto mention it earlier, but I
really think it brings togetherso much of what we've talked
about in how leadership ischanging, how culturally it's
really exciting to changecultures in a company and how
you can drive that culture andhow that takes time, but the
steps you can do, how much funit is to work at the
(38:21):
Clearinghouse, where we arereally trying to be
people-centered, and then howwe're thinking about that next
generation down, of what'simportant to them, what are the
opportunities that theircompanies that drive them and I
love being in a position wheremy job is getting to think about
those kinds of things how do Imake the clearinghouse the best
(38:42):
place it can be and the bestplace to work for all of our
employees?
So I didn't get a chance tomention that earlier and I just
wanted to bring that together.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Great, great.
I think that's a great way towrap up the show.
So, shefali, thank you so muchfor being here.
I know your time is veryvaluable, so I really, really do
appreciate you being on theshow today.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Great.
Thank you so much.
This has been so much fun.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Great, and to all your listeners out there, I
thank you for your time as well,and until the next story.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Thank you for joining us this week on the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
Make sure you visit our websiteat leadersinpaymentscom, where
you can subscribe to the showand where you'll find our show
notes.
If you enjoyed listening,please share on your social
channels as well.
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