$4 Trillion Savings Gap: TIAA’s CEO on The Retirement Crisis

26:58And our culture, that fraud specialist spent hours talking to this person. And our participants said to us, you saved my bacon. But this is an example. I know, that's a lot of bacon. But the point in this example, this was the intersection of your workplace, which is our people, your culture, and AI. And that, to me, is the opportunity. AI by itself would not have necessarily protected this person. And look, a good AI use case. That's not scary. It's a great AI use case. That's not scary. And I think that's the point. The human is not just in the loop. It's still all about the humans. It's not just the loop.

27:44It's the whole highway. It's everything. The people are still everything. And it's how you think about designing the use case, how you think about the problem to solve, how you think about embracing the tool and the flags and not ignoring it, how you think about going the extra mile and leading with empathy, not just the facts but to understand this person does not fully appreciate that they are being scammed and there's a real emotion with that and ultimately saving that person from not moving their money that to me is just the epitome of our culture and the epitome of how I think we have to think about the intersection of AI culture in your workforce not to take it to the negative place on AI but given how connected retirement and jobs are I'm sure you seep yourself in kind of the data and the numbers and the predictions about how this could play out, how it could impact jobs.

28:37And now, of course, you know, Anthropics is going public. OpenAI expect to do similar. And their leaders' tunes are changing a little bit. They're getting more positive. It's not all doom and gloom about jobs. But from your vantage point, how much are you thinking about, well, what if those bad predictions about mass job loss are real? And how can you plan for that as a CEO of a company that helps so many retire? In order to have a secure retirement, you have to have a job. So the labor market matters. But for us, you look at different scenarios. The most important thing is that people will work.

29:08I don't believe we will have a scenario where none of us are working and we're just enjoying life. I don't even think we would enjoy life if we're not working. Working comes with dignity. Working comes with connection, purpose, all the things. But the question for us would be more of regardless of how work evolves, How do you ensure people can have access to a secure retirement plan? And so portability matters. People are moving jobs. How do you make sure their retirement can move with them? How do you design different product solutions to meet the needs of everyday Americans in terms of how work will be formed over time?

29:44But I don't subscribe to a scenario that there will be no work. I do think you want to run sensitivity analysis in terms of what happens if the labor market goes X to Y. More practical, if you will. But I think the most important thing is regardless of how workforce evolves and changes, will people have the ability to contribute to their retirement plan? To me, that is the most important thing. But I think just like every period of time where innovation has come, It took jobs away, but it created a lot more jobs. And I think that will be the same thing. I think the hard part is the rate of change is so fast.

30:27And how do we make sure that you can shift people into new skills, new opportunities, to see new roles differently, to think about their career in a different kind of path than what you thought of. But I'm excited about what it can bring ultimately. But I also think the cautiousness for us, especially in the example that I gave you, is that cyber is a big risk. We will need more people in cyber. We will need more people monitoring. We will need more people analyzing what AI is telling you to inform in the way in which I gave you the story. And I also don't subscribe to the entry-level jobs not being there.

31:05You know, I think our young people have always informed leaders on where the puck is going. And so I think it would be a bad play to not continue to make sure that this younger generation is excited about the workplace, can come into the job, start and build a career. We learn from them. They are using the most recent tools more than we are inside our own companies. And so I don't subscribe to AI should eliminate young students coming out of college and getting that entry level job. I think we have to operate with intentionality to embrace the fact that these young people are coming out with a different set of imagination.

31:47They're coming out with a lot more comfortability on these tools, but they're also giving us the flags, giving us the flags of what AI can mean, the isolation, the mental health. So they're giving us real information that can also help us improve our culture, can help us solve tomorrow's problems. So I think we have to create internships, continue. I think we have to make sure you have these entry-level positions, but the entry-level position may be more escalated or elevated than our entry-level position. And that should be okay, too. Today, as a Fortune 100 company, TIAA manages roughly$1.5 trillion in assets and serves millions of people saving for retirement.

32:25Under Tashanda's leadership, the company has expanded beyond its traditional roots in higher education and healthcare. care. Unlike other CEOs, her path to leadership started very far from Wall Street with an internship that introduced her to corporate America for the very first time in Texas. So I want to talk about your personal story a little bit. I know you joined Fannie Mae through an inroads internship program and you rose through the ranks there to be spotted by JP Morgan, where you were there for 17 years. So talk about your path, because I know I've heard you say, if I planned my future, I could never plan this.

32:57This is an incredible path. I am so grateful that the power of information and the power of advocacy changed everything. So En-Rodz was founded by Frank C. Carr during the 70s. He was inspired by hearing Dr. King speak. He was a white male, and clearly it was during a time where there was a lot of injustice. And Frank C. Carr decided to do something different. and he decided to create inroads to give under-resourced Americans access to corporate America. And so I'm incredibly grateful to Frank C. Carr. I never even heard the word corporate America until inroads. But then how I got the internship is the power of advocacy when I didn't even know what that meant.

33:51So the way it worked is that companies would say I want one intern or 50 or five, Fannie Mae was looking for one intern. We happened to be on the campus of SMU, a lot of college students being interviewed. And a woman by the name of Valerie Manning was the HR recruiter. And she interviews me and a bunch of other talented people. She goes back to Fannie Mae and says, I found our one intern. Her name is Sarah. My name's not Sarah. But Valerie Manning, for whatever reason said, but there's this other girl. And by Valerie Manning choosing to advocate, there's this other girl, Fannie Mae added a second intern.

34:36You do not get extra credit for adding an extra intern. You know, you don't get an extra bonus. But for whatever reason, Valerie Manning said those words. And so that is how I got to Fannie Mae. And so I am incredibly grateful for the power of information. And I'm very grateful for someone willing to say someone said something, I don't know what I said, that we should take a look at. And it didn't matter her position or title. She just decided to advocate for me. And so I started my career at Fannie Mae, loved it. I drink the Kool-Aid. The mission is our business. The business is our mission. I could definitely relate to home ownership because we did not own a home.

35:19So it was aspirational for me growing up, but I wanted to get closer to the consumer. And so no matter how much I loved Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae was in the secondary market. And so I was on Fannie Mae business at a Chase event. The CEO of the mortgage company at the time asked me a question. I answered it. And then he asked about me and, you know, people shared, you know, my reputation there and he wanted to interview me. That's how I got to Chase, the brand of people learning more about who you are, but also me recognizing that there was something that this company could not give me no matter how much I loved it.

35:57And I think that created space for me to see something different because I truly enjoyed my time at Fannie Mae. And then I joined JPMorgan Chase and had a fantastic 17-year career there with some of the most iconic people like Jamie Dimon and Gordon Smith, people who I admire and learn from every day. But when an opportunity came along to lead a Fortune 100 company, a company that is so mission driven, which is something that deeply resonates with me, that's just an opportunity I could not turn down. So what is it like behind the scenes of being recruited to run a Fortune 100 company? Well, this was also in the middle of COVID.

36:40And so I was running the consumer bank. And so mission one was navigating all of our branches and ATMs and working. You were the CEO of consumer banking. I mean, not a small job at J.B. Morgan. No, it's a very big job. Actually, maybe even more people than might be in all of TIA. Yes, yes. I had way more people, yes. So that was mission one. But then we were navigating just a lot going on in our country. And I'm raising young kids and my son had questions. And so you're navigating, trying to explain really hard things to your children, which was very hard during that time. But timing sometimes is not perfect.

37:17And so behind the scenes, it was more of you get the call from a recruiter. You do not not take the call, right? It's a phenomenal opportunity. And you start asking a ton of questions. and then you get to the point where you're like this is something that I can't pass up and even though I loved my tenure at JPMorgan Chase it was phenomenal for me this was an opportunity to make a different impact it was an opportunity to learn something different it was an opportunity to run the entire company and I was following the footsteps of someone like Roger Ferguson, who is phenomenal, and making history at the same time.

38:07And ultimately, I believe taking the baton during this season to modernize the company and to continue to build on such a rich history to make sure that we can make retirement more secure for even more Americans. So not easy, not an easy decision, but the right decision for me. Yeah, amazing. And I'm incredibly grateful for it. So one of the things you say too is that you rent your title. Yes. But you own your character. Yes. So you do have an impressive title, of course. But what is it about your character that you want to preserve? When you say that, what do you mean and what do you want others to take away from it?

38:44I think it's so important for all of us to know you rent your title, regardless of the title. Yes, I am a CEO of this Fortune 100 company, mission-backed. I am jealous of me, you know, in terms of what I get to do every day. But I know that it is rented. There will come a time where I will no longer be the CEO of TIAA. But I am always Tashonda Brown Duckett. And what that means for me and what I want it to mean to everyone is what do you own? I own my character. I own my intellectual curiosity. I own my grit. I own my perseverance. I own my compassion. And the reason why that's so important is because sometimes your role will change because a company had to downsize or because maybe the role that you're in was no longer playing to your strength.

39:37That is not who you are. So I needed to always be able to separate the rented title for the human that I am. And that is something that no one can take from me. And I just think that's something that is so important for all of us because so many times you can become defined by your rented title. And then when you no longer have that job or maybe you're no longer the right person for the job, you lose yourself. You forgot that you were intellectually curious. You forgot your grit, your tenacity. I never want to forget it. And I don't want anyone else to forget it, which is why I say it publicly.

40:12I rent my title. I own my character. when this job is done, I can leave my business card, but what's coming with me is all of who I am. And no one can take that away from me. No one. And I think that's what's so important. And what I am always reminded of every step of the way, every role that I'm in titles are rented. Your character's owned. That's what I worry about honing. That's what I focus on. And I recognize that when you move from a different job, there'll be some people that won't move with you because it stayed with your title and that is okay there was a really interesting recent article that jeff immelt the former ceo of ge wrote that was very raw and he was like the phone stopped ringing oh you know people i thought were my friends were not my friends and it was very much like him kind of going through the realization that his purpose was his job and what is he next so i think it's just good advice for everybody to realize like you are bigger than your job you are and it persists no matter what the title is.

41:10And you are the CEO of your character. And that is for you to own. And I think that's important because I also am calibrated. And it's okay that there are some relationships that end it with my prior roles. That is okay. But if I always show up as Tashonda Brown Duckett, there will also be relationships that have transcended all of my roles. And they become lifelong friends, lifelong people that I stay in contact with because we connected with my character and our relationship deepened and it didn't end with just the title. And I think that's so important. And one thing I wanted to ask you about too, that you mentioned earlier was, timing is not always convenient for these big jobs and these big opportunities.

41:51And you had a story that you were telling me off camera about when you were six months pregnant and your dream came up to run a P &L. Could you tell me a little bit about that and about just like the messy parts of leadership? Yeah, I think every opportunity, one would say it was not the perfect timing. So in the example that you referenced, my goal in life from a work perspective was to run a P &L. I love that. And I'm talking like a manager of 10 P &L, and I would be winning. From never having heard of corporate America to like, give me that P &L. That's it. Like, I'm winning. That is why if someone would have said, dream your biggest dream, I would have fallen short.

42:29I could not have dreamt this dream. I didn't know these dreams existed. But I wanted to run a P &L. Goals. I was six months pregnant with my second child. So I had Madison, she was a high risk pregnancy. And so my second pregnancy, I was really concerned about. And so the opportunity comes along where my boss is like to Shonda, you've earned this opportunity, we think you'd be great to run the P &L of the mortgage business for the Northeast, the largest P &L. And my response always wanted this opportunity. I know I was performing. You know what my response was? You know, I'm six months pregnant, right?

43:12You know, this is not from eating bonbons. You know that I'm going to be gone. It's a scheduled C. I'll be gone for three months. I mean, I just unloaded on him to give him every reason to take it back. Every reason. And he was so amazing. He just said, you're coming back though, right? Like, oh yeah, I'll be back, you know? And of course, I had everything planned and all the things. But it was just such an important lesson that sometimes the dreams and the aspirations of what you want, what you deserve, what you know you are built to do, the timing can feel so off that you literally talk yourself out of it, which is fear.

43:53You know, I'm like, how am I going to figure this out? It was just the fear talking, the mental gymnastics in my head. The reality is it was going to be OK. it was going to be a schedule C section and I would be back and, you know, we would keep going. But it was such an important life lesson and one that I share all the time because so many times we will try to define the perfect moment and there will never be that perfect moment. We will always have a reason to tell ourselves not now, which is really fear. I remember when I was at Fannie Mae and I relocated from Texas to LA. Big move. And I was literally telling myself that I shouldn't do it because I just knew my husband was in Texas.

44:39I was not dating anyone at the time. My husband was in Ohio. I was telling myself like, well, all my friends are here as if I could not make friends anywhere else. And so these moments of change and shift, I always had this explanation of why not, which really was fear. And I'm just so thankful that it never got the best of me, but I'm also appreciative of the people that I've surrounded myself with, including in this example, that just stayed focused on the main thing, which is to Shonda, you're a great performer. We think you can do this job incredibly well. I see that maybe you're pregnant or maybe it's baby weight or I'm not judging her food, but I see there's some gain, but you're going to be okay.

45:20And I think that's the message I would tell everyone is don't ever count yourself out. And even if it's not the ideal time, it may be the perfect time because there was a lesson for me to learn. And I'm so grateful that these moments happened at times that on its surface you would say absolutely not. And it was exactly what I was supposed to do at that time. And one other thing that you've said that I really want to learn more about and how to do it myself is living life like a diversified portfolio. Oh, yeah. Can you explain that? It's not the work-life balance thing, sort of, but what is it?

45:56Well, first principle to embrace is work-life balance is a lie. It never reconciles. Work and life does not reconcile. So get rid of that. No more work-life balance. It's a lie. But it comes from a place. I remember when I was working at JPMorgan Chase, I lived far. And so I would literally drive to the bus stop in New Jersey, then take the commuter bus into the Port Authority, which was like an hour 20, and then would walk or cab it to the office. Right. And I had young children. Jersey's far. It's close, but far, close, but far. And I was like out there. And I remember it was another late night and I was at the Port Authority in my business attire.

46:45And I was, I think the last person that was going to take the last bus in business attire because everyone was going to the casino. And I literally could see the janitor cleaning the port authority. That's when you know it's late. And I broke down crying. And I called my husband, who stay at home father, a Marine and engineer. And I broke down. And I said, Richard, when I wake up in the morning, I don't see my kids. When I get home, I don't see my kids like just crying. Now my husband, who's the only child from Ohio engineer, Marine says to me, then quit. There's logical men. I'm like, that's not the point.

47:29You know, I was totally looking for a pity party, but he was serious. He was like, if it's not working for you, it's not working for us. But it was in that moment that something had to change. And it was my mindset. And so this work life balance, I was catching an L. I was feeling like I was failing my husband, I was failing my children, I was failing my mom, my dad, my brothers, everyone, I was just not winning. And I needed a win. And so this diversified portfolio shift, because I am in finance, changed everything. So if you live your life like a diversified portfolio, you tell yourself the truth.

48:08You only have 100%. You do not have 110%. 100. The other truth is that you allocate to the things that define who you are. I'm a philanthropist. I'm a mother, a sister, an auntie, you know, a wife, an executive. You have to allocate. And the reality is my children don't get 100%. They get 30. First of all, you sleep. So it's math. You start doing the subtraction. Right. And then you have to work. They go to school. So this notion, you know, 30 is what I could do. And I had to divide that across three kids. But you tell yourself the truth. Why is that important? Because if you were like me, there were moments where I would be at a kid's game and I'm multitasking.

48:54Yeah, good run. Yes. But I'm working. But by recognizing that they only have 30%, I'm a more present mother. By living my life like a diversified portfolio, just like market volatility, life will life and you will have life volatility. When my brother suddenly passed away, I had to reallocate my 100 % allocation to be more of a daughter to my mom and dad and to be a sister and an auntie. When my children are working to go to college, you have to reallocate your allocation to spend more present time with them as they're stressed out about going to college. but just like market volatility, you reallocate your portfolio, you give yourself permission, you respond to market conditions, and you keep going.

49:38So here's the point. If you live your life like a diversified portfolio, on any given day, I don't feel like I'm the best mom when I'm traveling for two weeks, or I don't feel like I'm the best starter, but over time, I'm a really good mom. Over time, I'm a really, really good sister because everything that matters to me is in my portfolio. And I give myself a ton of grace. And so if you live your life like a diversified portfolio, instead of trying to reconcile work and life, you will outperform this thing called life because everything that matters to you is in your portfolio. And you give yourself a lot of grace to simply respond to the market or life conditions.

50:17That's what living your life like a diversified portfolio is. I love that. And there's not going over 100%. Yes. I appreciate that as well. There is no 110. It's 100. Yep. Make it work. Make it work. And tell yourself nothing gets 100 percent. By the way, if this was a stock, no financial advisor would say put everything in one stock, no matter how great it is. That's a lot of risk, a lot of volatility. So every good advisor tells you to have diversification because over time you'll outperform. and that's why I compare it to life. Over time, I will outperform. In any given market, you may have a little choppy waters or some volatility.

50:53Give yourself some grace, recalibrate. You may have to short the stock. If it's not working for you, let it go. But yeah, it works for me. It gives me a different perspective and it makes me feel great about all of who I am, understanding that I can't be everything at that particular time, but over time, I'm doing just fine. So you have this life you couldn't have planned. And it came out better and still lots to go. When we plan who our most powerful women in business are going to be, we use a quantitative formula. Part of it is also where you are in the trajectory of your career. And you seem like you're just continuing to be on the up and up.

51:26As you think about your kids who are going to be graduating college soon or the next gen who is looking at all of these crazy forces happening around them that they're going to be entering the working world in, that they're going to be hoping to retire someday in. what do you think is the most important thing for them to do as they are looking to have great success when it comes to having a secure retirement when it comes to having a secure retirement and a life that they feel fulfilled by yeah well I think to answer your second question I try to live a life of joy not happiness happiness is a reaction kids happy I'm happy good day at work, happy.

52:07Joy comes from within. And so I think the most important thing for everyone is to always get to joy. And for me, that's really important. And joy is this inner thing going on inside of me and being grateful for all of who I am, the good, bad, and the ugly, but just being grateful for this life and understanding that it's precious. So joy. In terms of a secure retirement, especially for young people, you know, retirement seems so far away. But there's a hack. The hack is first job, first dollar. You know, I made$26 ,000 when I graduated from college. That was$26 ,000 more than I made ever. And so I immediately maxed out on my 401k plan.

52:51Even with$26 ,000 salary. Because before I get the check, whatever that check is, it's way more money than I had the prior week. So the first thing I tell young people is your very first job max out before you get the check. Because once you get it, you will find ways to spend it. Exactly. But if you do that, why? Power of compounding. A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. Two, companies, many match it. So unless you're like, no, don't worry about that money you were going to give me in my package. You can have it. You want to make sure you take full advantage of that match, which is why you want to max out.

53:26And then also tax policy. You know, retirement tax policy is very favorable to making those dollars work harder for you longer. And so for young people, max out, understanding that you have to save to invest. So many young people are talking about all kinds of different financial instruments. But I'm like, max out on your retirement. Have your rainy day fun to make sure that you can afford the flat tire and all the basic things that life will give you. Then you can start investing as well. And as you start to invest, you can start to do all the things that you're curious about, but do the main things well first.

54:02That's what this system is designed to do. Make sure it's working for you. So savings to investing, take full advantage of the retirement policy in your workplace plan. It gets you great muscle habit, I think is really, really important. And I'm optimistic. I think the last thing, I know there's so much going on in the world. And our country is celebrating 250 years. And I just want to remind this next generation is if you go back 250 years and you look at where we are today, there is no better day that I want to be in than today. The future is always brighter because we get to decide. We get to decide.

54:41And I just think we have to be reminded that there were times where there were exclusionary practices. There were times where we didn't have access. We have dealt with Great Depression. We have dealt with wars. We've dealt with so many horrible things, but yet we were resilient as a country. And so I just want to offer a lot of inspiration and hope when there's so much hard going on. Let's sit in hard. Let's design the future that we want to shape. And let's recognize that we all have a role to put to do the work. And so that to me, I think is important. And when you're doing the work, you can have a lot more optimism.

55:14When you're doing the work, you can preserve your joy. And when you're doing the work, you can have a lot more interactions and be able to conquer and face all the things that are happening and do it together. I think that's really important for everyone. Tashanda, thank you so much for sharing about your life, your philosophy on work, and for retirement advice that we all need. Thank you.