0:00

We are in the final weeks of the year, and

0:02

if you are a small business owner, an entrepreneur,

0:05

a startup founder, I highly suggest

0:08

you listen to my recent episode Evaluating

0:11

your Tech Stack because at the end of the year,

0:13

you want to start thinking about what systems

0:15

have you been using that no longer

0:17

serve you? Because on January one, for

0:20

many people and for many processes,

0:22

you need to clean break, and a fresh calendar

0:24

allows you that clean break so that you can

0:26

go in the year and do things more efficiently,

0:29

more effectively with better tools

0:31

that suit your needs. That's episode

0:33

one forty three Evaluating your Tech

0:35

Stack. I highly recommend it for you.

0:37

You, yes, you, I highly recommend

0:40

it for you as you close out twenty twenty

0:42

three. Did you know you can get your daily dose of

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black tech news at afrotech dot

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com. Well, you can like this new

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story up about Terrence Howard, who is suing

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caa creative artists agency,

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claiming he received thirty to fifty percent less

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than what he should have per episode of Empires.

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As everything always about business with check class

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out of your voice when you're talking to me.

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That story's up and it's brand new right now on afrotech

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dot com or this story former NBA player.

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For one point four million dollars

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with these things, dope technology, risky

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proposition. Find these stories

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in more at afrotech dot com,

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bookmarket in your web browser. I'm

1:25

well, lucas Black Tech Green Money were

1:27

here with another episode. I'm so excited for this

1:29

one because this one actually recorded

1:32

live in person in my studio back

1:35

at toe House, and so you're actually gonna see the video

1:37

of this recording. I believe it drops

1:40

next week on YouTube. So makes you subscribe

1:42

to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube.

1:44

But John Villard is

1:47

programmed.

1:47

Lead of this SAYRE task Force

1:50

at.

1:50

Northwestern Mutual, which stands for Sustained

1:53

Action for Racial Equity Sarah

1:57

Sarah encompasses an accelerator in

1:59

Northmester Mutuals ongoing

2:01

commitment to fight racism,

2:04

prejudice, and social injustice in

2:06

all forms and focuses on making

2:08

BOWLD long term positive impact

2:11

within Black communities. Through SAYRE, they're

2:13

focusing and supporting black entrepreneurship,

2:16

black small business supplier diversity

2:18

accessibilities for clients and other important

2:21

enterprises initiatives. So prior

2:23

to Sayer, John was senior

2:25

director of Centralized Supervision

2:28

at Northwestern Mutual. And Northwestern

2:30

Mutual actually recently committed one hundred and seventy

2:32

five million dollars to reduce

2:35

the wealth gap and support businesses

2:37

and entrepreneurs as they continue to grow and

2:39

create positive economic momentum within

2:41

local communities. And as we

2:44

reported in October, they've

2:46

made a total of sixteen investments

2:48

nationally and local to Milwaukee,

2:51

which has led to further investments of nearly

2:54

fifty five diverse businesses, the majority of

2:56

which are black owned. Enjoyed

2:59

this conversation with John Vard.

3:01

John's good to have you here.

3:03

Willis an honor pleasure to be with you.

3:05

Absolutely. So you are program

3:07

lead for Sustained Action for Racial Equity

3:10

task Force at Northwestern Mutual, and

3:13

I want you to talk a little bit about how

3:15

you came into that role, a little bit about your

3:17

personal story.

3:18

Sure for sure. So I am a first

3:20

generation American. My parents both immigrated

3:22

from Haiti in the late seventies

3:26

and met in Chicago, and so I

3:28

grew up in a small household

3:30

of five but with

3:32

a deep, deep connection to a Haitian community

3:35

that was based in Emison. So titaned Haitian family

3:37

all about kind of uplifting each other and

3:39

making a way for ourselves in the country. So

3:42

fast forward, I started working at Northwestern Mutual

3:44

and have had an amazing

3:46

journey throughout my thirteen years with the company.

3:49

But in the summer of twenty twenty, was

3:51

finding myself really sort of having

3:53

an identity crisis around you

3:56

know, what am I doing in this kind of corporate

3:58

space, not really being as much part

4:00

of the solution, you know, certainly post George

4:02

Floyd and everything that happened that summer, and

4:04

I was thinking about my wife was that was nine

4:07

months pregnant at the time, and I was thinking about what would

4:09

I tell my son about

4:12

our roles to play, you know, during

4:14

this really trying time for the country, and

4:17

like what do we do about anything?

4:18

Right?

4:18

And this Sareah role came up

4:21

in terms of like how do you align the

4:23

mission and objectives of a corporate entity with

4:26

actionable impact.

4:28

Outside our walls.

4:29

And so I went from very much being on the brink

4:31

of like I don't think this is this

4:33

corporate thing is for me anymore. I think I need to

4:36

like really step out to now. Not

4:38

only can I have a meaningful career here, but I.

4:40

Can drive like real impact.

4:42

And I would argue, maybe even more so than some local

4:44

politicians or what have you can when you can channel

4:46

millions of dollars of corporate resources to moving

4:49

the needle.

4:50

So yeah, yeah, so I'm interested. Twenty

4:53

twenty was a year that a lot of

4:55

corporations were making promises, you

4:57

know, around what I want

4:59

to talk about impact funds and why it's important

5:01

to Northwestern Mutual because you know, you

5:03

guys committed a hundred and seventy five million last

5:06

I looked to your impact fund

5:08

designed to you know, help

5:11

neighborhoods, to small business owners

5:13

and et cetera. There's ultimately

5:16

no entity outside holding people

5:18

accountable. So how do you guys hold yourself

5:20

accountable to the promises that

5:22

you guys have made to you know, these communities.

5:25

Yeah, that's a great question. It's a really important one.

5:27

And so what I love about the way our CEO,

5:29

John Schlisky has kind of set this all up is

5:32

we treat this as though it's any other business

5:34

imperative. Right, This is not like a nice side

5:36

project. We have a budget

5:38

with oversight, executive oversight. We

5:41

have you know, regular

5:43

cadence of meetings with our CEO

5:46

at the table saying where is this

5:48

and why isn't this moving fast enough? What

5:50

are the impediments unless clear them? And

5:53

we've had that really since its inception. And

5:55

the other thing that I think is really cool is we have very specific

5:58

measurements again like you would any other say,

6:00

sales strategy or growth measure

6:02

right, and we're held accountable littles on

6:04

a monthly basis. So stuff is not looking

6:06

right or moving at the pace that folks think

6:08

it should, believe you'll have to

6:11

answer to that at the literally senior most level

6:13

of the company. And that's what makes it a game changer

6:15

is that you have CEO investment

6:18

in presence basically day in and

6:20

day out for the last three plus years on this.

6:23

One of the things I love about what you guys

6:25

are working on not only funding you

6:27

know, things externally, but also incorporating

6:29

small businesses, minority owned businesses, black

6:32

owned businesses, and your vendor profile and

6:34

so often you know, because I've

6:37

have small businesses and you hear this term

6:39

about capacity a lot. You know, we

6:41

don't work with them because they don't have the capacity, And

6:44

so how do you clear that

6:46

hurdle and what kind of responsibility

6:49

might you feel to help people build

6:51

the capacity so that they can do more stuff?

6:53

Yeah, I love that question.

6:54

So one of the things that I love about what we did

6:57

with the supplier diversity or business diversity

6:59

spaces. Okay, uh, the

7:01

large, tried and true suppliers that

7:03

we that just maybe do have the capacity

7:05

that we've relied on for years. It's

7:08

holding them accountable to as the

7:10

experts in that particular field, how are

7:12

you building up other small like smaller

7:14

businesses or more nascent businesses. And

7:16

so we changed our contract language and our

7:18

expectations of the those bigger vendors

7:20

that we are in a position to kind of jump away from

7:23

right away to how are they building up

7:25

others and certain targets within our

7:27

spend with them that need to go to those

7:29

smaller, newer businesses. In addition,

7:32

we're doing things like a mentor protege relationship

7:34

where Okay, your business may

7:36

not be ready for a fortune one hundred

7:38

supply chain today, but how can

7:40

we dig in your books, dig in your

7:43

pitches, dig into how you present you

7:45

know your business, proposition your value, and

7:48

help coach you up so that you're ready and we'll

7:50

go first and bring you into our portfolio.

7:52

But then not only that, you're ready to go compete for others,

7:55

and so recognizing that there's there's a heavy

7:57

front investment to get people to that point of maturation.

8:00

Everybody's not ready for this for fortunate one hundred

8:02

and what comes with that?

8:03

Right?

8:03

Do you feel like it's your responsibility to help people

8:06

not only get them in and

8:08

vet them to see if they can do their work, but

8:10

also to help them Do you feel like that's your

8:12

responsibility one percent?

8:14

Hundred percent?

8:14

I think specifically as it relates to like a place like

8:16

Milwaukee, which has been our home for oh, I don't

8:18

know, one hundred and fifty plus years, there's

8:21

definitely this this this ownership

8:23

of what are we doing as a huge corporate

8:26

citizen, as one of the biggest corporate citizens to uplift

8:28

others and invest in others in our own backyard

8:31

first and foremost. So you'll see, even

8:33

as you talk about like the Impact Investing Fund,

8:35

we have a whole sleeve that is just dedicated

8:38

to what's going on in our backyard at Milwaukee. Right,

8:40

So we can be doing all these things on the national sleep, but if we're

8:42

not making those investments in our community to build

8:44

those businesses up down the street, yeah,

8:46

that's not really worthwhile.

8:48

You know, I was doing some research on

8:51

the Grow Gather Against the Gap conference

8:53

and I found this quote from you, and you

8:55

had said, you know, we have a small army dedicated

8:58

unapologetically to accelerating progress

9:01

and not just with today in mind. Everything

9:03

we do at NM is with the next one hundred

9:05

years in mind, not just the next quarter.

9:09

So like, talk up because you mentioned some of the those that

9:11

you guys hold yourself accountable to talk

9:13

about some of those goals that you're measuring

9:15

against to see if you're actually making progress.

9:18

Yeah, absolutely so.

9:19

I think if you can think about our work

9:21

in say as sort of being like within

9:23

our house, get our own house in order first

9:25

and foremost. So it's what's the representation

9:28

look like across all levels of the organization,

9:30

So not just frontline you know kind of folks

9:32

answering the phones, but what do we look like in the executive

9:35

ranks. And I think our best sort

9:37

of barometer for our measurement for successes,

9:40

Does.

9:40

It look like the nation that we operate in? Right?

9:42

If we're a national company and let's

9:44

just say black folks, for example, are thirteen

9:46

and a half percent roughly, well, we should

9:49

at least be reflective of that thirteen

9:51

and a half percent, Not that it's a quota

9:53

per se, but that's a good starting point

9:55

to say, do we even look like the nation we're trying to

9:57

serve?

9:58

Right? So we have that, So that's kind of getting our

10:00

own house in order.

10:01

And then one of the things that we're doing externally, it's

10:05

all about the goals of you know, one, helping

10:07

to close the wealth gap. So how are we putting the

10:09

hundreds of billions of dollars that we, as an

10:12

enormous institutional investor have putting

10:14

it to work in building small

10:16

business, building black businesses of

10:18

varying sizes, right, narrowing that wealth

10:21

gap through investment, access to capital,

10:23

et cetera. And then the last piece is what

10:25

our company does is leave

10:27

people off better off than we found them

10:30

with financial plans, you know, risk

10:32

mitigation strategies, right, things like

10:34

life insurance that black folks folks may

10:36

not know, have a higher propensity, they have a higher

10:39

desire for life insurance than any other segment

10:41

in the country. There's this like this, this notion

10:43

of legacy and paying it for it. How

10:46

are we reaching more black households to help

10:48

give them access to that, to

10:50

those critical products and strategies to help

10:52

protect their family for generations. So

10:54

we talk about more black households, We talk about

10:56

putting more billions of dollars to work. We

10:59

talk about, you know, diversifying

11:01

our supplier pipelines and things of that nature, and then

11:03

of course getting our own house in order. Uh.

11:06

You previously mentioned Milwaukee, which I love. So

11:08

a lot of the work I'm passionate about is

11:10

about the middle is because I recognize

11:12

that most of us who are interested

11:14

in tech and et cetera don't live

11:17

in New York at LA. We live

11:19

in these other cities. And so what

11:21

is unique or important

11:24

or an advantage of being based in

11:26

Milwaukee? Then a

11:28

lot of other places that you guys could be

11:30

Yeah, yeah, are their advantages?

11:32

Yeah? I think so.

11:33

I think as somebody that is raising us his son

11:36

in Milwaukee, I definitely think so. I

11:39

think when I think about Milwaukee, I first and foremost

11:41

think about like the value proposition to like live

11:43

and just have a wonderful life. And actually I was

11:45

talking about this with a colleague of mind even today. The

11:48

accessibility, the

11:51

the the access to to culture,

11:53

to to just good hard working

11:55

people, like there's just all the things that you would want in

11:57

a place to sort of raise a family.

11:59

So that check there.

12:01

I think that there is tremendous opportunity

12:03

as you think about Milwaukee being a destination

12:06

for talent, that we might have some

12:08

work to do in terms of the external image, but once

12:10

you actually come and experience it,

12:12

it is a really special place with

12:14

I would argue world class amenities that are

12:17

kind of a best kept secret, if you will, so that when

12:19

people get there it's.

12:20

Like, oh, wow, this is dope. Milwaukee's dope.

12:22

Come people walking into summer, come in the winter, coming this

12:24

summer, and you'll say, wow, I

12:27

never would have envisioned this about you

12:29

know, Wisconsin or specifically Milwaukee.

12:31

And so I think as a place

12:33

to live, it's huge.

12:34

When you're talking about building tech talent

12:36

and things of that nature, I think what you

12:38

have are several really really strong

12:41

corporate entities, strong

12:44

partnerships across you know, government, and things

12:46

of that nature that are really trying to create an

12:48

ecosystem that fosters

12:50

that kind of creative growth,

12:52

if you will. So you have a bunch of leaders

12:54

in the area that are really invested in making it

12:57

a destination a choice for talent, for tech talent

12:59

in particular of them.

13:01

I want to talk about the Impact Fund again, and so I

13:03

imagine I don't know this, but I imagine

13:05

a lot of the bet you're making or funds

13:07

that you're exporting

13:10

from your bank counts to other folks, is put

13:12

into organizations who are doing the work in those

13:14

communities. I mean, I'm gonna let you speak to

13:16

that, but I want to talk about how

13:19

organizations who are doing the work reach

13:22

out to you guys to say, we're doing this great work

13:24

in whatever city. Can we be

13:26

part of this thing? How does the fund work?

13:28

Yeah?

13:28

Absolutely, So I would start by saying, impact

13:31

investing in Northwestern Mutual is the way to

13:33

kind of, you know, reach

13:35

out and download sort of what it

13:38

is that we do, what it is that we offer in that

13:40

particular space. And so our fund is really divided

13:42

into two sleeves that I think I mentioned earlier. One is

13:45

a local sleeve that is very much

13:47

focused on local impact investing

13:49

in Milwaukee business owners and Milwaukee

13:52

businesses. And in that space, we've

13:54

made some investments that we're really proud

13:56

of in CDFI, so

13:58

Community Development Financial Institute and

14:00

what those are.

14:01

Think them as like local.

14:02

Community banks that have the sort

14:04

of ground game to do the kind of

14:06

like smaller scale lending and investing

14:09

that our community needs. Right as

14:11

a huge corpord entity, we're looking at money

14:14

in pretty big terms, like in the millions,

14:16

right, but everyone doesn't need a million dollars

14:18

plus to get invested to get their business

14:21

off the ground are accelerated. So these cdfives

14:23

have the ground game to say, let me get

14:25

really intimately familiar with Will's business,

14:28

his books, et cetera, make the right

14:30

sort of lending and investment decisions to help

14:32

him be successful, and then also do other

14:34

wrap around services to help consult

14:36

on things like taxes and all these other things that you

14:38

may not necessarily be familiar with starting a small

14:40

business. So that's kind of the local sleep. On

14:43

a national level, we really partner

14:45

with a number of strong financial national

14:48

and global even financial institutions that have

14:51

a really good pulse on a number of different

14:53

sectors that advance sustainable

14:56

housing, that advance educational priorities

14:58

in all the sort of pillars that we have, and so they're

15:01

really looking at how can they put larger swats.

15:03

Of money to work on a national sleeve.

15:05

So we're parted with folks like Black Rock and

15:08

others that that had that sort of ground game too.

15:10

You mentioned a little bit about your CEO and

15:13

his involvement, and so often these

15:15

efforts aren't led by somebody in senior

15:18

leadership, and yours is, and I wonder

15:20

can you speak more to how serious

15:23

you guys take this, because at the end of the day,

15:25

sustainability is what matters.

15:27

One hundred percent. I will say so from

15:30

day one and to this day, our

15:32

CEO has been at the table. He chairs

15:34

our Sustained Action for Racial Equity, the task

15:36

force that we talked about. We have six

15:39

of our senior leaders So think of these are folks that are

15:41

responsible for huge portions of

15:43

our business, that are directly

15:46

accountable for the results that

15:48

that that we set out to accomplish,

15:51

and so we have executive

15:53

oversight, we have we have rigorous

15:56

reporting metrics and

15:59

and real accountability in the sense that like if

16:01

we don't hit some of these things.

16:02

Some of this is out of our control, but the parts that are it.

16:05

Will have direct impacts on people's performance

16:07

and myself included performance

16:10

in a very very real way. This

16:12

is no different. I cannot emphasize

16:14

enough. It's no different than any other growth priority

16:16

that we would have as a fortune one hundred. It's

16:19

it's it's treated with that same level of intensity.

16:22

I would argue in some spaces even more leadership

16:24

investment an investment

16:26

in terms of like their physical presence,

16:29

their physical they're like engagement

16:31

in a meaningful way. And then again, what

16:33

gets measured gets done, and you

16:36

know, success is required for folks to accomplish

16:38

their their personal goals and their performance goals.

16:41

I want you to share some information about your

16:44

Black Founders Accelerator program.

16:46

You know, I think about some of the issues I've experienced

16:49

and heard about through black

16:52

entrepreneurs where they might get

16:54

invited to expos and conferences

16:56

where people want to hear about their business. And what

16:58

I've heard and often many different

17:00

spaces, is we come and do we

17:02

do these expos that we present and it's

17:05

a big it's a dog and pony show, but nobody

17:07

ever walks away with a deal or they never

17:09

walk away with a meeting to

17:11

actually get a serious look at what they

17:13

do, talk about how

17:15

yours is, how yours works, and how

17:19

it might be different.

17:20

Yeah. Absolutely so super proud of this.

17:22

So our Blackfounder Accelerator, we choose ten

17:25

businesses per year. We typically do two cohorts

17:27

of five each year. And that might not sound

17:29

like a lot, but it's intentionally very very

17:31

selective. So I think we have upwards of seven

17:33

hundred and fifty applicants that we like, thoroughly

17:35

vet and go through that process with. And

17:38

essentially what we're doing is we partner with a company

17:40

called Generator that has a really

17:42

strong sort of development

17:45

game for early stage entrepreneurs and mid

17:47

stage entrepreneurs as well, and

17:49

we go through a twelve week program with them

17:51

where we're helping them or find their pitch, their business,

17:53

their you know, every aspect of their business.

17:56

Really we invest one hundred thousand

17:58

dollars, so this is not like a get. We are very

18:00

much investors, and we also open them up

18:02

to further investment in other parts

18:04

of our business. And then we appoint an executive

18:07

mentor to sit in with those founders

18:10

and really provide particular

18:12

guidances unique to their business.

18:14

Excuse me.

18:15

So you might have a business with

18:17

some strong regulatory concerns, So we're going to try

18:19

to find somebody from the Northwestern mutual ranks

18:22

that's an expert in regulatory you

18:24

know, fintech regulatory considerations,

18:26

and try to pair that founder with them so that they could

18:29

really get C suite level

18:31

insights on how to build their business

18:33

in a way that will ultimately be attractive to the

18:35

big both further

18:37

investors but companies that might want to use

18:40

that service into the future. So

18:42

we do that, We bring these cohorts in, we

18:44

really try to build a sort of spirit

18:46

of family across the cohorts and the alum

18:49

and then what we do after that is try to really

18:51

keep them as a part of this ecosystem

18:54

and introduce them connect them to as many

18:56

resources and further opportunities

18:58

to raise more capital. In fact, going back

19:00

to our dashboard and in

19:03

our metrics for results, one of

19:05

our results, one of our metrics is are

19:08

we helping our founders raise a particular amount

19:10

of capital? Right, So we have targets to help

19:13

graduates of our program meet

19:15

certain fundraising criteria, so

19:17

that incentivizes us to really be

19:19

diligent about how can I introduce Will

19:21

to as many people in that lane that can

19:24

help him further grow that business after he's

19:26

left our program. So we're specifically

19:28

very choose, like we're particularly picky

19:31

and very very much kind

19:33

of overweighted in the not overweighted, but

19:35

very much leaned into how do we make this

19:38

a very very thorough partnership and

19:41

be close with them?

19:42

And speaking about partnerships, you guys partner with

19:44

Kellogg, which is like a leading business

19:46

school in the world. You

19:50

partner with them for Gather against the Gap a lot

19:52

of your initiatives. Why is

19:54

that partnership important in what do

19:57

you hope that it lends to success?

20:00

Yeah, I think thanks for the question.

20:01

So our CEO is actually in the lum of Kellogg

20:03

and so that's sort of where the initial idea

20:05

came. But the thought being that Kellogg is a world

20:08

class institution, like you mentioned, I think, top

20:10

two or three in all business school rankings

20:13

year over year. And what's so special

20:15

about Kellogg is they have you know, many

20:17

many decades of shaping business

20:20

practices successfully.

20:22

And so we think about one Evanson

20:24

is but an hour away from Milwaukee. So there's

20:27

that proximity too. We had the connection

20:29

with our CEO being in lumber More importantly,

20:32

they have sixty five thousand executives

20:34

across the globe that sit at

20:36

the helm of real, real

20:39

capital like organizations

20:41

and dollar amounts that can change the makeup of

20:43

this country and even the world.

20:44

You know, I'm not Oh, it doesn't

20:46

sound too part this.

20:47

Guy, but the world like they can do that. They

20:49

have that in their alumni ranks. They have nineteen

20:51

of the Fortune five hundred CEOs or Kellogg alumn

20:54

Wow. So the thought was, Okay,

20:56

this is a world class research institution, world

20:59

class alumni bas teaming

21:01

up with them and using ourselves as a case study

21:04

to say, look, Northwestern Mutual doesn't have all this

21:06

figured out, like we're learning. We're still learning

21:08

every day. People have been at supplier diversity

21:10

and things of that nature impact investing for much

21:12

longer than we have. But we're here, we're

21:15

fully invested. What can we learn

21:17

from you as an academic institution, and

21:19

then what can we learn in and how can we inspire others

21:22

within your alumni base to

21:24

steer their organizations

21:26

towards driving impact as well? And

21:28

by the way, you're also pumping out and cultivating

21:31

future executives of tomorrow that

21:33

need to have this this as a part of their

21:36

game, right, they need to know how their organizations

21:38

are making an impact beyond just

21:40

shareholder return.

21:42

Right.

21:43

Gather against the Gap. I've been touching on this and lot

21:45

people don't know. Let's talk about first. What Gather against

21:48

the Gap was? Yeah,

21:50

speak to that.

21:51

Yeah, So Gather against the Gap was

21:53

this idea of Okay, again in

21:55

the spirit of us trying to get better at

21:57

doing this work. We don't have all the answers. We're proud

21:59

of what we done, long way to go. How

22:01

can we convene other leaders,

22:03

other you know, large corporate entities

22:06

leaders at the helm of these massive

22:08

amounts of capital. I think we had in the room

22:10

more than a trillion dollars in assets under management.

22:13

And that was just you, That was just

22:17

We had two hundred

22:19

I think it was like two hundred and twenty five, two hundred and fifty

22:21

something like that in attendance, physically

22:25

c suite leaders.

22:26

Okay, and

22:28

you know, kell Loogg brought this academic lens

22:30

of Okay, if we removed all barriers

22:33

and thought about what are the levers

22:35

that corporations can pull that the business community

22:37

can pull to legitimately begin

22:39

to narrow and eventually close the wealth gap.

22:41

Like it's possible.

22:43

But what it takes was essentially investing

22:46

in black businesses, right, So black

22:48

business development. It's getting

22:50

more corporations to open up their

22:52

supply chains and start to bring

22:54

in black business as a part of that. So grow

22:57

business through through leveraging the supply chain,

23:00

and then that's access to capital.

23:02

And then when you.

23:02

Combine all those things over

23:04

time and you really can create a sort of like a multiplier

23:07

effect, we.

23:08

Can start to move that needle.

23:09

And so everybody in that room was aligned on

23:11

that vision and came to get actionable,

23:14

like practical when you go in on Monday,

23:17

here are three to five things that you can do

23:19

from your seat, and I think we accomplish that in

23:21

space.

23:23

Your CEO had this to say about one

23:25

of the themes that came out of the conference.

23:27

He said, sustained action requires

23:30

sustained leadership. When leaders

23:32

show up consistently for their impact

23:34

initiatives, they create a multiplier effect

23:37

to your point, within their organization.

23:41

What do you hope other businesses in

23:43

your vertical takeaway from that

23:45

conference and then you know, how do you

23:47

continue because you said you guys kind of want to be a representation

23:50

like this work is possible if we collectively do

23:52

this together. Like what do you hope they take

23:54

away from that initiative and that's the work that continues.

23:57

Yeah, I think what's been

23:59

most impact I think to folk so like obviously

24:01

if you got like literally skin in the game and this

24:03

is something that you know, this is just so you're so

24:05

passionate about this topic, Like that's one thing. There's sort

24:07

of the there's the moral imperative

24:10

to to close the wealth gap because it's

24:12

gonna help benefit the country undeniably.

24:15

But then there's also a real business case

24:17

for doing it too. So let's just say that's

24:20

not enough for you as a leader, Like, yeah, that sounds

24:22

good, but I've got I've got shareholders to worry

24:24

about. I think what our CEO would argue, you

24:26

know, not to be his ambassador necessarily, but there's

24:29

real growth potential and business

24:32

value. That's what we wanted to do together against

24:34

the gap. And in many respects, what we're doing

24:36

with say is how can we do

24:38

both? Right? It's not an either

24:41

or when you put these things together you'll see tremendous

24:43

growth like our company has enjoyed since we've

24:45

started this work, unprecedented

24:47

growth and our advisor force and the

24:50

productivity of our advisor force. And

24:52

that growth didn't come from you know, middle

24:55

aged white man. It came from the diverse segments

24:57

that we've been more intentional about bringing on.

25:00

It's powered unbelievable

25:02

growth for our business over the last couple of years.

25:03

So I guess what I would say to take away is

25:06

this isn't a charity case, right. This is a

25:08

combination of obviously the right thing

25:10

to do that will benefit us all, but then also

25:12

it's good for your bottom line too when it's done right.

25:15

For the people who when you think about

25:17

doing this work, the people who may never own

25:20

a small business and may never come to you

25:22

know, be in your pipeline of future employees, but

25:24

they just work normal.

25:25

Everyday jobs.

25:26

How does this work benefit

25:28

them potentially?

25:30

I love that question. That's a deeply personal one

25:32

for me. So I mentioned earlier this goal of trying

25:35

to reach more Black households, more American

25:37

households, period, but in particular black households, and I

25:39

think of my own family, right, So I mentioned family

25:41

came here from Haiti, built up from

25:43

the ground up, gave three kids a college

25:46

education, what have you? And I watched my parents

25:48

work very, very diligently to rise

25:50

in their own spirits. My mom did own a small business.

25:53

It was a home daycare owner, had

25:55

kids at our house every day. My mom my dad

25:57

worked for a variety of banks, worked up from the mailroom

25:59

to manageagement.

26:00

Will have you? So really a career company

26:02

man.

26:03

And at the end of that, I think about,

26:06

well, what did all that get them?

26:07

Apps in a financial plan?

26:09

And so right now we're at the stage of their lives where they're

26:11

looking at a retirement.

26:12

That it's not looking so great

26:15

because they didn't.

26:16

Have somebody that sat down with them and got them

26:18

on a game plan early on. There were

26:20

things that I wish they had the right

26:22

advisor. I wish they had an advisor to expose

26:24

them to things really really

26:27

think things that would be seem like really

26:29

small investments at the time that could have been paid dividends

26:31

for them in their retirement years. So now

26:33

we're trying to figure out how do we supplement

26:35

that and give them a respectful retirement.

26:37

But it's kind of late in the game for that.

26:39

So what I would say is, as much as

26:41

our folks can get get a financial

26:43

advisor to help you, and you know, I happen

26:45

to believe that we have the best in the industry at Northwestern

26:48

Mutual, but get somebody to sit down with you

26:50

and.

26:50

Talk through a plan.

26:51

Talk through things like disability insurance

26:53

if you happen to be disabled and not able

26:56

to go back to work, talk about how you're putting money away

26:58

thoughtfully before it's so late in

27:00

the game that you know you're really trying to play catchup,

27:02

which is tough.

27:04

So you've guys said which I imagine

27:06

Gather Against the Gap falls under that, this relationship

27:08

with Kellogg falls under that Black Founder

27:11

Accelerator falls under that, the Impact Fund,

27:13

I imagine falls under that. When you think

27:15

about Kellogg, like that's an

27:17

important relationship. Just from externally,

27:20

I can know that that's an important relationship. What

27:22

does the future hold for? What

27:25

the direction you guys want to take that, How do you want

27:27

to grow that relationship.

27:28

I think we learned so much with Gather Against the Gap,

27:31

and the key being we need

27:33

to be able to provide the business community with actionable,

27:35

like tangible, practical takeaway

27:37

steps to make any of this stuff actually

27:40

happen. And so I think we've only begun to

27:42

scrape the surface of how do we take

27:44

the learnings from these in person convenings of

27:46

the different conversations or research that Kellogg

27:48

is doing, and then how do we partner together and

27:51

using them as a case study, Like we'll be that case study,

27:53

how do we partner to is still more of that down and

27:55

spread it across the business community. So we'll

27:57

look forward to looking at, you know, across

28:00

the different dimensions of say procurement and supplier

28:02

diversity. How do we get the best of the best

28:05

together to talk about those and distill those action

28:07

steps down you talk about access to capital,

28:09

impact investing, things of that nature, how do

28:11

we get the best.

28:12

Of the best there, pair it with the research

28:14

and distill that across the business community.

28:16

So we're really looking at not just hey,

28:18

we did this nice event, A bunch of people came, it was great,

28:20

we took great pictures, check out the video and

28:23

turn it into tangible a campaign

28:25

of academic and

28:28

sort of like business facing communications

28:30

on how to go put.

28:31

That stuff to work.

28:32

Right. It's not just it's not trying to be a commercial like, let's

28:34

actually get this stuff done.

28:36

So people want to learn more about what Northwestern

28:38

Mutual is doing, what the founders,

28:41

the Black Founders fund and so if they want to learn

28:43

more about this stuff dive in.

28:45

Where should they go?

28:46

Yeah, I would send them to Northwestern Mutual dot

28:48

com. And then if you have any any questions

28:51

or your business you think might.

28:52

Be a good fit, you want to learn more about impact

28:54

investing, impact investing in Northwestern

28:56

Mutual. And then we'll make sure we'll get your right folks

28:58

to hear that via due

29:00

We'll have you man Pleasure, Pleasure.

29:04

It's so much that

29:07

was fun.

29:21

Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity

29:23

Afro Tech on the Black Effect podcast

29:25

Network and I Hire Media and it's produced by

29:27

Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas.

29:30

The additional production support by Said and

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Rose Lucas.

29:34

Special thank you.

29:35

To Michael Davis, Vanessa Serrano, Mayam

29:37

Moltdrew. Learn more about my guess and

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other tech this There's an Innovator's an afrotech

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dot com. The video version of this episode

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will drop the Black Tech Green Money on YouTube

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next week, So tap in enjoying

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Black Tech Green Money Shore

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U to somebody, we'll

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get your money.

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Peace and love five