diversity efforts across the industry and was named one of ... · management’s executive team,...

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Transcript: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Awareness and Action 3: Shundrawn Thomas –

Leading the Way (EP.153) Published Date: August 24, 2020 Length: 1 hour 4 min Web page: capitalallocatorspodcast.com/dei3thomas

Shundrawn Thomas, President of Northern Trust Asset Management, where he oversees the $900 billion organization. Shundrawn joined Northern Trust Corporation in 2004 and rose to the leadership team in 2008. Over the last 8 years, he has hired and promoted much of Northern Trust Asset Management’s executive team, whose fifteen members include nine women and minorities.

Shundrawn is deeply involved in diversity efforts across the industry and was named one of this year’s Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America and previously one of the Most Powerful Blacks on Wall Street.

Our conversation covers Shundrawn’s early career and issues of race, the culture that drew him into to Northern Trust, and examples of unconscious bias. We turns to his values-based methodology to foster change across recruiting, mentorship, promotion, leadership and performance at Northern Trust, and we close with his perception of how the renewed interest in diversity provides an opportunity for businesses to take action.

Edited by: Rev.com

mailto:[email protected]

http://capitalallocatorspodcast.com/dei3thomas

http://capitalallocatorspodcast.com/dei3thomas

Capital Allocators Podcast EP.153 Shundrawn Thomas

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Ted: 00:00:05 Diversity, equity, and inclusion, awareness and action is brought

to you by Northern Trust Front Office Solutions. Northern

Trust's platform empowers asset owners with better operations

and tech support to allow investment teams and CIOs to meet

their middle and front office needs. Their blend of technology

and service has resonated and generated a lot of interest from

listeners of the show. Diversity, equity, and inclusion is deeply

ingrained in the culture at Northern Trust and a special thanks

to them for sponsoring this important mini-series.

Ted: 00:00:49 Hello. I'm Ted Seides and this is Capital Allocators. This show is

an open exploration of the people and process behind capital

allocation through conversations with leaders in the money

game, we learn how these holders of the keys to the kingdom

allocate their time and their capital. You can keep up to date by

visiting capitalallocatorspodcast.com.

Ted: 00:01:18 Shortly after I finished the interviews for the sustainable

investing mini-series, Black Lives Matter took center stage in the

United States. I asked around and discovered that the subject is

uncomfortable for many to discuss and that while many CIOs

are interested in being part of the solution, most are not

familiar with the underlying nature of the problem or the

actions to take as a result. This mini-series, diversity, equity, and

inclusion, awareness and action is a four-part introduction to

the issues at hand.

Ted: 00:01:53 We'll explore what's been going on for a long time and hear

what some are doing about it. It's my small part in contributing

to fostering the conversation. My guest on the third episode of

diversity, equity, and inclusion, awareness and action is

Shundrawn Thomas. The president of Northern Trust Asset

Management where he oversees the $900 billion organization.

Ted: 00:02:20 Shundrawn joined Northern Trust Corporation in 2004 and rose

to the leadership team in 2008. Over the last eight years, he has

hired and promoted much of Northern Trust Asset

Management's executive team whose 15 members include 9

women and minorities. Shundrawn is deeply involved in

diversity efforts across the industry and was named one of this

year's most influential black executives in corporate America

and previously one of the most powerful blacks on Wall Street.


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Ted: 00:02:50 Our conversation covers Shundrawn's early career and issues of

race. The culture that drew him into Northern Trust and

examples of unconscious bias. We turn to his values-based

methodology to foster change across recruiting, mentorship,

promotion, leadership and performance at Northern Trust. We

close with his perception of how the renewed interest in

diversity provides an opportunity for businesses to take action.

Please, enjoy my conversation with Shundrawn Thomas in the

third episode of diversity, equity and inclusion, awareness and

action.

Ted: 00:03:30 Shundrawn, thanks so much for joining me.

Shundrawn: 00:03:31 Ted, how you doing today?

Ted: 00:03:33 I'm doing great. Thanks. I always love to start with someone's

background, so how did you initially get into the asset

management industry?

Shundrawn: 00:03:41 The way that I got into investment management was really

along the continuum of a career in financial services. So, I was

born and raised in Chicago, grew up on the south side. I had a

great educational experience in starting in high school going to

a magnet program and the reason I start there is because that

was the first place I really got introduced to practical exposure

to business.

Shundrawn: 00:04:03 I had known since I was young I wanted to go into business, but

I really didn't know what that meant, right? I saw people

wearing suits on TV carrying briefcases. I thought that was cool

and I thought they were doing things that were important. But

at that time, I took an accounting course. I took an applied

economics course. I really began to understand how it applied

in real life.

Shundrawn: 00:04:21 I had worked all the way through high school, but I did a co-op

working for what was then Anderson Consulting. The author

Anderson as we know it does not exist today. That kind of set

me on a path where I did an undergraduate major in business,

and then while I was in my undergraduate, pursuing my

undergraduate degree at Florida A&M University, that's where I

did some internships. The last one actually being working for

Morgan Stanley, because over time I moved from having an

interest in accounting believing that I would be an auditor to


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really getting exposed to the capital markets and investing in

those things.

Shundrawn: 00:04:53 You fast forward to today, 26-year career principally working in

various areas of financial services, primarily I've spent my career

in the capital markets, and then on the investment side of the

business and that's my role today.

Ted: 00:05:07 At what point in time did you transition from being effectively a

producer to a manager and leader of people?

Shundrawn: 00:05:14 I was fortunate to have a managerial experience fairly early on

my career. When I came out and I worked for Morgan Stanley

was an analyst there, had an opportunity to move and be

promoted to associate role. I knew I wanted to go to business

school, so I went to the business school in University Chicago.

When I came out, I went to work for Goldman Sachs, and there I

was working in the equities division, working in an institutional

sales capacity and my role was actually advising institutional

investors. Whether you think large public pension funds, you

think large asset managers, alternative managers like hedge

fund managers, those would have been my clients.

Shundrawn: 00:05:53 A couple of years into that as our business was growing, I had

the opportunity to then move from where I was part of a team

to co-managing one of our territories. Again, it's fairly early on

having an opportunity to be, at that time, a player coach, and

that's different, right? Because you go beyond just what you

have to do in a very demanding performance oriented business

from thinking about what you have to do specifically in your

capacity to thinking about how a team works together, how you

encourage the development of people working with you and

around you. Those sorts of things. That was my first opportunity

to have managerial responsibility.

Ted: 00:06:28 How did you learn to do that?

Shundrawn: 00:06:31 Maybe it's one of the dirty secrets about like most professional

services firms is that more than not, you actually don't, prior to

going into some sort of management capacity, get formal

management training. Now, I will tell you, I did actually go

through management training when I was at Goldman Sachs,

but it was like after getting the manager role. But what I would


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say is I have certainly been the beneficiary throughout my

career of wonderful mentors.

Shundrawn: 00:07:01 It started with my parents. I mean I have wonderful parents. We

have a great relationship and they were always my foremost

coaches and teachers. One of the things that you realize is like,

now my parents they have no expertise whatsoever in the world

of finance. They pursue different things vocationally and a lot of

what they do in terms of development of people came through

their service in ministry because they're senior pastors of a

church.

Shundrawn: 00:07:25 They were bi-vocational in that sense, but a lot of what they did

and everything that they did was about the development of

people, and so understanding how you engage with people

starting with your own self-development, how you work in

teams, and then if you're fortunate enough like I had over the

course of my career to have really strong mentors and sponsors.

I think that shapes a lot of how you approach management.

Ted: 00:07:46 So before we get to sort of Northern Trust where you spent a

lot of time, along the way as a young African-American

professional working your way up those ranks, what were some

of the challenges that you saw and faced specific to the racial

differences?

Shundrawn: 00:08:04 Well, there are a couple of things that you deal with as it

pertains to race. The first thing that you deal with is, one, in

societies around the world and I would say it's particularly acute

in the US, race is a topic that just influences like every aspect of

life. What's interesting is so many people probably under

appreciate even the inception of concepts around race and all

those things, but it's a social construct that we all accept and

buy into because that's what we know.

Shundrawn: 00:08:36 If you're an African-American, if you're a person from a racial

standpoint, that's characterized as black, there are so many

things that you deal with, in a sense in a direct sense, but a lot

of them are subtle particularly in the workplace, because there

are stereotypes or perceptions or things like that that precede

you. One of the things is your reality is you have to navigate a

culture and that has its own challenges for anyone.


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Shundrawn: 00:09:01 You have the instance of race and what that means in terms of

everything from biases to stereotypes, to preconceptions, but

then you have this other element which is race is a very

uncomfortable topic. It's one of those proverbial third rails. It's

not something that's in a sense engaged on directly or talked

about in polite company. It's having to navigate something that

presents its requisite challenges, at the same token at a time or

in most normal settings where something that people feel quite

uncomfortable engaging on.

Ted: 00:09:34 When you got to Northern Trust, you had had some

management experience, you certainly worked your way up.

What was the culture like either then or in today as you're

running asset management?

Shundrawn: 00:09:48 First of all, I would say if you think about an organization that's

been around for over 130 years, there's something to be said

about longevity and probably one of the things that is entailed

in that is some strong in a sense cultural bearings or norms. All

cultures have two forms of capital, performance capital and

relational capital, but Northern Trust as an organization is a

highly relational culture.

Shundrawn: 00:10:12 Two, Northern Trust, we talk about the business that the firm

was founded on if you think about it being a trust bank and

beginning with sort of the management of people's wealth, but

the fiduciary heritage and responsibility, and that fiduciary

heritage it permeates the entire culture so in terms of that one.

Shundrawn: 00:10:32 I think that at Northern Trust, I would say it's a conservative

culture. Now, conservative often means something in this day

and age. I'm not talking about from a political standpoint. I'm

talking about there's a purposefulness and a decisiveness and a

long-term orientation and a way in which decisions are made

over time. It's not a hurried kind of culture and there's a our

team.

Shundrawn: 00:10:53 Then, I would say as a culture if this makes sense, all cultures

have norms or behaviors, but some cultures are really strong

cultures and some cultures are weaker cultures, but cultures

nonetheless. Northern Trust is definitely a strong culture. Those

are some of the things that I encounter when I join Northern

Trust and are consistent to this day.


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Shundrawn: 00:11:12 The last thing that pervades the culture is while you don't want

to be stereotypical about a culture, it really does have this

Midwestern ethos in terms of how you would think about it and

the things that would entail.

Ted: 00:11:26 How do you define what some of those behavioral norms are

for the company?

Shundrawn: 00:11:31 One of the behavioral norms of our culture is definitely the

enterprise or in the team precedes the focus on the individual

actor. You'll hear some people talk about "a star-based culture."

Well, we'd be the antithesis of that. Another thing is there is a

strong emphasis in terms of being collaborative and a lot of the

decision making is consensus driven. That would be another

element of the culture.

Shundrawn: 00:12:03 People, because of that sort of Midwest ethic, I think that there

is both a genuine concern and care about the welfare of your

colleagues, but I also think that brings with a certain level of,

and people from the Midwest can definitely appreciate this, a

certain level of politeness. The point I would make here, it's a

very important point, a lot of times when you talk about

cultures and you talk about the qualities of cultures.

Shundrawn: 00:12:27 Now, I'm biased. I've been there 16-plus years. Obviously, I

want to be there, I value the culture, but actually when I make

these observations. I don't make them as good or bad

observations per se. I make them as observations about the

qualities that distinguish this particular culture, because every

culture, it's like getting your performance review. There are

things that you do well and are your strengths and they're

always the opportunities that you have of the things that you're

trying to evolve and improve.

Shundrawn: 00:12:55 I would say as an individual, I have certain strengths. Some of

those are just a function of how I'm created, like my design so

to speak. I have certain things that people would perceive as

weaknesses and on some level, I guess your strengths belie your

weaknesses. There's no such thing as having all strengths as

people might use those terms. That's true of cultures as well.

Ted: 00:13:13 What do you see as some of your particular strengths and

weaknesses?


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Shundrawn: 00:13:17 Personally, my orientation is in terms of my temperament. I'm

definitely an intuitive and a thinker, so an NT. If people did

Myers-Briggs, you might refer to that temperament type as a

rational. That means, for me, I have a natural strategic

orientation. When I think, I don't necessarily get to a point

linearly. I can get there very quickly because I have an abstract

way of deducing things and problem solving. Those are natural

strengths for me.

Shundrawn: 00:13:44 I'm also an abstract communicator in that regard. I would say in

terms of my disposition, I'm very much an independent thinker.

So while as all of us, we have an open emotional loop, we care

about how we get on and collaborate with others. If there is a

continuum, Ted, I'm not overly conflict averse. There's a certain

kind of independent thinking stream a tough-mindedness and

that's a function of how I'm built or wired. That along with that

strategic thinking orientation, those things have their strength.

Shundrawn: 00:14:18 I would say that I have found since early on in my life, I really

thrive in being able to not only work with, but pull together and

over time as my influence is going to lead very diverse teams.

That's something I think that's really important. I also believe

that with respect to both how I communicate and just my

natural values and ability to connect on a genuine way with

people of all kinds of experiences and backgrounds. So those

would be strengths.

Shundrawn: 00:14:50 In terms of the continual areas of improvement in life, one of

the things that I think that one can never be good enough at

and I always work on, it's just listening. It seems like a really

simple thing. I'd like to believe I've gotten better over time, but

this thing that's really powerful and I talk to people about the

ability to listen both with our head intellectually and with our

heart emotionally, and I feel like that's an area where over time

particularly as someone who has positional leadership

responsibilities I've improved, but it's a place that I'm constantly

focusing on and you see the areas where you need to improve.

Shundrawn: 00:15:26 Another area related to that is that your strengths belie your

weaknesses. I am a very outcome-oriented person, very

performance driven in that regard and there is a such thing that

I would describe as understanding pace and so my natural

orientation if this makes sense, Ted, is like if the car has five

gears, mine's stuck in fifth. At my best, I learn when I need to


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adjust and to put it in the right gears, which for me means at

times you actually have to downshift.

Shundrawn: 00:15:59 The way I would describe it is, if you're racing on a racetrack

sometimes when you're going into that curve, you actually got

to slow down a little bit, so you can speed up to come out the

other side. I would say those are examples of, as I've

introspectively looked at myself and how I've engaged things,

I've focused on in areas of constantly sought to improve.

Ted: 00:16:19 You mentioned as one of the strengths this ability to lead

diverse teams. I'm curious what you mean by diverse.

Shundrawn: 00:16:27 Diverse to me occurs on a number of different levels. First of all,

I fundamentally believe that when we think about diversity of

culture and ethnicity, that's very relevant. I know that people of

good intent and goodwill will say things like I'm colorblind. I

know what they mean by that, but the reality is we're not really

colorblind.

Shundrawn: 00:16:51 At our best, actually, if we want to use the term color, we need

to be color aware, because appreciating people of different

cultural backgrounds, ethnicities, if we want to use the

construct of race, they bring different perspectives to a team,

an environment, a group, and I think part of it is maybe it's

because of some of my lived experience, maybe it's just who I

am as a person, but being sensitive to the fact that while we

might have a common culture that everybody's a unique

person.

Shundrawn: 00:17:19 I think it's given me an ability to appreciate that, and then

appreciate how to engage people as their unique selves to allow

them the space and the grace. I like to say to be themselves.

The way I like to describe is bring the best of who they are into

the workplace.

Shundrawn: 00:17:34 Now, I think one of the ways that you get that, Ted, frankly, is I

actually think you have to learn to do it first yourself. If people

are really honest, a lot of the times people struggle in any sort

of workplace or corporate environment to just be authentic,

because there's one such a pressure to conform to whatever

the cultural norms are. We have to buy in to be part of that

culture and then there's another thing to conform to whatever

people believe they need to conform to be successful, whatever


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that is, but sometimes in that process, the authentic self can get

lost.

Shundrawn: 00:18:09 I think what happens when you have the commitment and

sometimes the courage to find your authentic self, people

respond in kind. I think those are some of the keys to

connecting with people, but I also think diversity of thought is

important. Again, we come at solving things different ways and

you know how sometimes you can be with a group of people

and they will be inclined towards people who think the way

they do or come at problems the same way that they do, and

they will attest a high value to that.

Shundrawn: 00:18:38 I'm actually quite the opposite, and so oftentimes when I'm

working in a group, I'm literally listening for and scanning for

people who use in a sense a different rubric or a different way

of looking at the problem than I do. My bias is I know how I

think about things and I know in a sense what my two set is.

What would complement or expand that? I think diversity of

thought is an important element of diversity as well.

Shundrawn: 00:19:04 Then, the last part of diversity I would say is diversity of style.

What I mean by that is there are multiple ways of getting things

done. I think one of the mistakes that you can make say as a

manager, for example, is focusing so much on the process or

with an individual the style that you miss focusing on the

outcome and not giving people the space to say, if they can

effectively accomplish an outcome and it's not inconsistent with

the cultural norms, why not give them that space or that

flexibility.

Ted: 00:19:36 As you walk through some of your strengths and then tied this

into your beliefs now and how you lead, there are a lot of

synergies, right? The fact that you are an independent thinker,

the fact that you're not as timid about conflict as other people

that leads you to think differently in those group settings. I'm

wondering along the way in your path to being in the seat that

you are today, if you ran into situations that very specifically

whether by race or thought, it doesn't really matter, that you

saw people not embracing diversity as you defined it broadly.

Shundrawn: 00:20:12 Oh, well, for sure. I would say that, one, there are both times

when people consciously and unconsciously reject diversity. Let


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me start on the second element, which is many would argue the

most common. Those unconscious rejections of it.

Shundrawn: 00:20:31 The reality is when you work in a setting, there is a normative

standard whether it's acknowledged or not. Let me give you an

example right when I joined and I worked for the first firm that I

worked for, I'm working for a large Wall Street firm. I'm working

in sales and trading, particularly in the fixed-in condition. We

have these really large trading floors, right?

Shundrawn: 00:20:52 So on one trading floor, we have multiple trading floors. I think

the one trading floor that I worked on, there were

approximately 600 professionals. My rough recollection was

there were no more than, counting me, I believe five African-

Americans on the whole floor. I think there were only to my

best recollection, maybe two people of Hispanic backgrounds or

ethnicity.

Shundrawn: 00:21:20 I mean think about that, right? It's just not bad, we won't call it

inherently bad, but it's just it's not diverse, right? The normative

standard is different. If you think about everything from if

you're stepping into that environment, say, I was in an analysis

role and I would also have to do presentations to the broader

group of my research findings. So little things in terms of the

style in terms of how you present, so maybe natural, more

common to your ethnicity if you on the margin were more

expressive.

Shundrawn: 00:21:52 You may get a lot of feedback about telling you how you need

to change that and is it because you're not effective in

communicating or is it because it's dissonant with the

normative standard? That's more of an innocuous example that

I would give you. There are many others. There were times early

on in my career where there would be say if you're on a trading

floor, you keep the TVs on, you're watching financial markets

and I can tell you, I can chart my experience in life by different

things that happen socially like the OJ Simpson trial.

Shundrawn: 00:22:27 You'd have to imagine the emotions that that brings out and

what that's like for say a young person of color navigating that

environment, because there may be many people obviously

who don't know you, and so if that creates or brings up certain

views or perceptions based on stereotypes, it's hard for that not


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to be projected on you in certain ways. It's all kind of ways that

those intersect in very real and practical ways.

Shundrawn: 00:22:57 What I found over time is early on in your career, it's just really

challenging, right? Because you don't have enough experience

or the tools of how to deal with that. Over time, at least for

myself, what I found is an increasing willingness and a courage

to engage in dialogue. I realized that the only way you could

begin to make progress on the relational side if you started with

the dialogue.

Shundrawn: 00:23:18 That's not easy for many people. I would say I don't want to

pretend to you at all, Ted, that is in the past or even sometimes

when I have to do that today, easy for me. I think to your point,

I think there are two things. Some of it is just based on who I am

as a person and not only maybe I would say kind of how I'm

made, but I would say what my beliefs and values are so that

drives part of why I do what I do, because sometimes… I

remember I would talk to my dad about a lot of things growing

up, he would say, "Son, you always tell the truth." He said, "It's

the right thing to do and it's the easiest thing to remember."

Shundrawn: 00:23:55 But what he would say also is truth is rewarding always in the

long term, but, Ted, understand not necessarily in the short

term. That's one of the things you have to decide on your values

if you're committed enough to the truth to tell your truth, even

if you think maybe in the short term it won't benefit you or in

the short term it might even cost you.

Ted: 00:24:17 When you've now come into this leadership position that you've

been in for a while, I'm curious how you take those experiences

and inculcate them in an organization and maybe the easiest

way to walk through it is just to kind of go through some

different functional areas and the things you've tried to do. We

could start with the first step, which is recruiting and how

you've gone about thinking through these issues.

Shundrawn: 00:24:41 One of the things that with recruiting is interesting and that's a

perfect example where sometimes you have certain norms and

practices that don't present the outcomes that you desire. You

really have to have both the awareness, and then the

commitment to making changes. So from a recruitment

standpoint, I'll start with, if I can give you this step. Right before


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getting to doing anything, whether it's recruitment or training

or anything like that. Here's what I think is important.

Shundrawn: 00:25:11 The first thing that I actually engaged in when I, for example,

entered into my role as president of the asset management

business at Northern Trust was something I did along the way

every single step I've had in an increasing leadership role, which

is engaged with people in dialogue, get lots of feedback. What I

like to do is identify what I refer to as shared values. We all have

values, whether we expressly articulate them or not, they're

just our deeply held beliefs.

Shundrawn: 00:25:38 We don't necessarily have the same values, but we can choose

to if we're part of a common culture to agree on a set of values

that we'll share we commit to. I'm going to tell you why that

was very important to the question that you asked. We did that

as part of our exercise and I've done that before as my

responsibility has grown and within the context of asset

management there were five that we agreed on. It was a lot had

to do with what people shared in terms of their perspectives

and where we wanted to go, but those values were passion,

competence, intellectual curiosity, diversity and humility.

Shundrawn: 00:26:13 Now, to your question if I use recruiting as an example. So if we

have those share values those values actually should inform the

way we recruit. It would make sense if then I looked at the

recruiting processes and I said to our partners, "Hey, I've been

taking a look at the processes and while they're directionally

fine, I noticed that we don't have a lot intentional in the process

about how we think about bringing on people who share this

value of passion. Let's look at the questions we ask and let's see

if we don't need to be more intentional about how we prepare

to interview people.

Shundrawn: 00:26:48 Competence. Now, that we've articulated very explicitly, I've

noticed that we're inconsistent on how we look for or we're

tests for that. Now, let's get to diversity. Well, here's an

interesting thing. I went through and I just looked over the

results for the past year and I noticed that not only do we have

very little in the way of diversity in terms of what our goals are,

in terms of hiring in certain areas, but I also notice we're not

even seeing very many diverse candidates. Why don't we put in

place some practices to ensure that we increase the number of

diverse candidates we see?" I did that.


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Ted: 00:27:24 What were some of those practices?

Shundrawn: 00:27:27 One of the things that we did is both in terms of gender

diversity and ethnic diversity, we set explicit expectations in

terms of minimum representation on our interview panels. We

also set new processes in place for the HR teams or the

recruiting teams that were working with us in terms of their

expectations on delivering diverse pools of candidates to our

managers and then our manager's commitments to working a

lot of them.

Shundrawn: 00:27:52 You know something else we did that we didn't do on the first

pass. So first, we looked at our who we were interviewing, then

we said we also have to look at who's doing the interviewing. It

occurred to me to do that and I asked the HR folks to pull from

me over a period of time like who that we actually had on the

interview slates for the candidates who were coming in.

Shundrawn: 00:28:12 In two particular instances I found, and there was no ill intent

on this, but to give you an example, I found two instances

where we had extraordinarily talented female candidates come

in interview in our firm and we have a reasonable amount of

gender diversity, not one single person on their interview

schedule was a woman. I mean, Ted, you could almost throw a

rock in our building and not get that accident on purpose. You

have to change the practices. We would have needed to do that

either way, but you understand how setting an established

foundation of shared values gave the basis of which to inform

why we did it. I think those things were important.

Ted: 00:28:51 I want to push a little further on two aspects of that. The first is

probably less of Northern Trust than a lot of organizations, but

if we have an existing diversity issue within the hiring

organization and it therefore makes it that much harder at all

different levels to have the woman in this case be part of that

interviewing process if there aren't a proportionate number of

women already in the organization, how do you think about

solving for that issue?

Shundrawn: 00:29:19 You have to actually start from wherever you are. Here's I think

something that we can comfortably say, Ted. I've spent roughly

26 years working in financial services. I am grateful for all of the

firms I've worked for and I think the reason I've been at

Northern Trust for 16 years counting is because of what I think


- 15 -

about the culture. I can tell you for the industry and in every

place I've worked, we've got meaningful work to do as it

pertains to diversity.

Shundrawn: 00:29:46 There's no place that I've been a part of where I've been on a

continuum and I said, "Gosh, we really nailed it and we can fold

up our tent and go home." If that's the case, because your

question is a very fair one, but to your point, there might be

some companies at mass or there might be certain parts of an

enterprise or a company that there's just very little diversity as a

starting point. That doesn't mean that you can't change the

dialogue around diversity, that you can't train the partners and

especially the leaders that are there to have not only a greater

appreciation for diversity, but train them in areas like

unconscious bias.

Shundrawn: 00:30:28 That doesn't mean that if you don't have a lot of existing say

gender diversity or ethnic diversity that you still can't put into

practice or policies that at least allow you to do things like to

see more diverse candidates or it doesn't mean that you cannot,

and in fact, what it means is you should expose the leaders that

you have particularly if they're not very diverse to organizations,

networks where they can interact with more diverse people.

Shundrawn: 00:30:59 You ask a really good question because what happens

sometimes, Ted, is you know how you can do this with any

issue, but I think it sometimes particularly is the case with

diversity, if people are starting from a low base or the situation

looks difficult, it's sometimes easy to throw up your hand and

say, "Well, just forget it. We just don't have the stuff in place.

We can't find the people and all those different things." I think

you have to have an affirmative approach to starting where you

are in a meaningful and consistent commitment.

Ted: 00:31:25 The other question that I hear from time to time where there's

sort of pushback on this diversity issue is in the hiring decision.

If you're able to broaden the funnel, you have more candidates

and at the end of the day there's only one slot. People say, "Oh

all else equal." Well, all else isn't equal. You have two different

individuals, two different experiences. How do you go about

thinking about, particularly in an organization that hasn't

started with the diverse space of, is it appropriate and when is it

appropriate to incrementally favor someone on the margin?

This is all incremental and on the margin to foster that diversity.


- 16 -

Shundrawn: 00:32:06 The ironic thing is if you ask people this question, do you believe

you have any biases? What do you think most people would

say?

Ted: 00:32:13 Probably say.

Shundrawn: 00:32:14 Yes. If you have biases, it's reasonable to believe that from time

to time you act on those biases. Keep following this logic. It

means that of the many decisions we've made including hiring

decisions, those have been informed in part by our biases and

that's why we have the outcome that we have, right?

Shundrawn: 00:32:35 What you try to do is I think as it pertains to diversity, whether

you're trying to improve gender or ethnic diversity, there is

often a very adverse, and in some instances negative reaction in

cultures if you say, "We're going to in a heavy way put a thumb

on the skills," so forth and so on. Interestingly enough, the

challenge there is the very inequity that's often been created is

because of the biases.

Shundrawn: 00:33:03 Then, people are fighting against any conscious effort to offset

that. I think what you have to do is you start with creating the

expansion of what I call opportunities. I found in the majority of

cases, Ted, not all, in the majority of cases when you truly

create as a value a cultural norm around diversity and you

increase the opportunities of it, people will adjust. Because

what happens is we're all part of the culture. If people start to

believe, "You know what? Diversity is really important here and

I understand why and I buy into it."

Shundrawn: 00:33:41 Here's what will happen, Ted, without being forced in most

instances, because remember I said we had that open

emotional loop. You know what we'll do? You'll do it, Ted, you

say, "You know what? I'm closer on these two people." I mean

let's be honest. I'm not a perfect judge and because he's…

People will make the marginal decisions that achieve the

outcome that you want.

Shundrawn: 00:34:02 Now, here's what I will say, they're always the exceptions. If

you're in a culture and despite the best efforts to expand

opportunity and despite changing the processes, you're not

getting better outcomes, it ultimately then falls on the leader to

make some decisions. From time to time actually put the thumb


- 17 -

on the scale, and do we, as leaders, need to do that with

diversity? Absolutely.

Shundrawn: 00:34:31 You know why, Ted? Because we do it in every other area.

When my teams come to an impasse on an important decision

and they can't work it out, who has to push forward to make a

decision? I do. Yes. It's informed by all these different inputs,

but it is also informed by whatever my disposition or "if you

wanted to call it bias, so that the hope is that you're getting

good information and you have an informed bias. That is no

different as it pertains to pursuing better diversity.

Ted: 00:35:02 So once you've been successful in bringing some of these

candidates in, I'm curious if there are any unique or

differentiated methods of training that are important in a

variety of roles. It could be entry-level roles all the way up

because of the sensitivities and the biases that present

themselves through someone's career.

Shundrawn: 00:35:22 You know what's interesting? There's no usually a course that

you're given, I can tell you, I know this is no secret to you that

I'm an African-American. I can tell you in my entire career, no

place that I've went to work has had this course that I've

needed to take about how I can effectively navigate the culture

as an African-American, but what I would say is this, it's actually

a relevant question because in a sense it occurs.

Shundrawn: 00:35:47 Now, let me tell you how it does occur. It's an informal thing. I

think what you need to do is when you understand that all

enterprises and companies have to continue the evolution in

terms of diversity, have to work intentionally to be the most

receptive place we can, what we talked about from a cultural

sense, whether it's not just diversity, it's all kinds of elements.

We have to make our cultures psychologically safe.

Shundrawn: 00:36:13 Now, what's one of the easiest ways to make an individual feel

psychologically safe? It's to make them feel like they're part of

the group or the culture. One of the best tools at our disposition

is actually providing individuals with strong mentorship and

strong ways to develop relationships, especially organically

within the culture. Think about if I say start with the second

one, developing relationships organically in a culture.


- 18 -

Shundrawn: 00:36:43 A lot of good firms have really good efforts around things like

you may call them affinity groups or resource counselors or the

like, but the point is they are networks that people can become

a part of where they can develop meaningful human

relationships in the context of the culture. Now, I feel like I'm

more part of the group and the environment now feels more

psychologically safe to me. There are some companies who

invest no time and effort in that and they don't have strong

employee groups. So I would say probably for a lot of those

places on the margin, particularly if you're in a smaller

represented ethnic group or gender group, it probably feels less

safe. That just would be a natural outcome of that.

Shundrawn: 00:37:24 If you're in the majority, you don't even think about a lot of

times that element of safety, because it's just the norm for you

is feeling safe, right? The second thing though is the important

role that mentorship and sponsorship plays. What we have to

do is get people, particularly the people that are some of it is

positional, but you know what? In any culture, even if you didn't

know the titles, if you walked around enterprise for about two

weeks, you'll figure out who the high status people are.

Shundrawn: 00:37:54 It would just be obvious. We signal in all kind of ways through

human nature. You need people in positional leadership roles,

senior leaders to actually consciously go out and mentor and

develop relationships with individuals, because it does two

things. One, it not only makes them feel psychologically safe

and a part of the culture and that somebody and somebodies

actually are interested and then concerned about their career

well-being, but also there are teaching relationships.

Shundrawn: 00:38:24 That's the relationship through which the person learns to

navigate the culture, which by the way, we all have to learn and

that's the playbook that you don't get when you join. It's not in

the ethics manual, it's not in the first day training manual, it's in

the heads and the hearts of the people that work in the

organization and unless they choose to impart that knowledge

to you, you will never have it in any meaningful or fulsome way.

Ted: 00:38:48 Your group in Northern Trust has quite a diverse leadership

team and I'm curious effectively how you got there. You've

brought the people in through training, you've had these

mentorship programs, but ultimately there's promotion and

decisions as to who's running the organization. I wonder if you


- 19 -

could touch on how you were successful in getting to those

positions today.

Shundrawn: 00:39:11 It has to start somewhere. I would say it started in effect with

say my predecessor, when I joined the asset management

executive leadership team, which was back in 2008. It was not a

particularly diverse team. As a matter of fact, there was one

gentleman who was an African-American who moved to a

different part of the organization when I joined.

Shundrawn: 00:39:33 Then, when I joined I was the only, not only I was only African-

American, I was the only person of color on the team. We had

an executive team of 16 professionals, and there were no

women. But I want to point this out, but obviously there is a

conscious decision of the gentleman who's leading the team to

bring me on. In his tenure, he not only brought people of color

on the team as a starting point, but also we had our first women

on the team.

Shundrawn: 00:39:59 Now, for me, that's good because it began a path that I was able

to build on and frankly accelerate. If you look at our team today,

we've got a leadership team with 15 people on it. Nine of the

members of our team are either women or ethnically diverse.

We have six people who are ethnic diverse. We have six

women, some of that overlaps. Frankly, we're one of the largest

investment management firms in the globe.

Shundrawn: 00:40:25 I don't know the demographics for every team, I just know what

I can see anecdotally. I have to imagine, Ted, that we have to be

among if not the most diverse or one of the most diverse

leadership teams out there. But what I would tell you is I just

described to you something that happened over the course of

years. It happened, I always tell people this, not on accident on

purpose.

Shundrawn: 00:40:48 There's no magic that you can just hope it will be so. It was

through the intentional expansion of opportunities and I

fundamentally know, not just believe, I know that we're better

as a team because of it. I will tell you, we have more work to do,

but it's moving down through our organization and part of what

enables that and it's why I feel strongly about if you're serious

about diversity starting at the top, a lot of times what happens

is you have people of good intent, but they just may not have


- 20 -

say for instance connections to the diverse communities that

we have.

Shundrawn: 00:41:25 So if I think about my experience and I had a great working

relationship and a personal relationship with my predecessor.

Once I came on to the team if you think about things that we

were looking to do in different areas. If we were trying to

recruit more diverse talent anywhere in the firm, I immediately

expanded all those networks, everything from the schools that I

went to, to being part of things like the Toigo Foundation and

things like that. Those now relationships and networks in a

sense become his and the entire teams.

Shundrawn: 00:41:54 I can contribute that. When we wanted to expand, I started out

heading our capital markets efforts and running our broker

dealer business and we were building out and expanding

minority brokerage program. The difference for me is like we

have people with good intent who were going down that path

and starting that program before I stepped into it, but myself

and another one of the senior leaders there, we personally

knew the leaders of many of those firms. The ability to do that

and partner with them and accelerate, it changes in a different

way.

Shundrawn: 00:42:24 I also think to be frank to you, there is a sensitivity that you

have when you have a certain experience. When you're coming

from a diverse background, when you're ethnic minority,

frankly, you spent your entire career thinking about this,

navigating it or whatever. It is not an interesting idea to you. It's

a practical reality. So people take it for granted and that's why I

say this respectfully, I just don't fundamentally believe it's

enough for firms to say, "We really want to change our diversity

so our starting point our focus is going to be the establishment

or expansion of our internship programs."

Shundrawn: 00:43:00 Now, let me be clear. I'm big on internship programs. I think we

should multiply those exponentially and give lots of young

people opportunities, but here's what will happen. If we do

that, but we don't change the leadership of the boards or we

don't evolve especially the executive leadership of the

company, if we don't have women and people of diverse or

ethnic backgrounds and client-facing roles, first of all, as a

young person, I don't even see those as realistic possibilities for


- 21 -

me to ascend to in my career. There's no example of it in front

of me.

Shundrawn: 00:43:32 The reality is when key decisions are made that are affecting

diversity on any angle and you don't have any of those people

at the decision table, it's hard. I think exceptionally difficult to

come to the very best answers.

Ted: 00:43:48 As you look at the asset management industry as a whole, it's

such a performance outcome driven industry that you wonder

sometimes, well, people across the food chain of capital, do

they really care? They care about performance. They care about

returns, maybe they are completely colorblind and gender

blind, all they care about is their performance. How have you

seen the benefits of engendering that diversity flow through to

performance?

Shundrawn: 00:44:15 Well, first of all, it's interesting because you see it in a couple of

different ways. The first thing I would say is with respect to

performance, we have to perform on a lot of different levels.

We have to have investment performance, but we also serve

clients. We have to excel in terms of the client experience or the

relationship. We have to perform in terms of how we work with

other vendors and suppliers. We're often part of an ecosystem

and we alone don't determine solely our success.

Shundrawn: 00:44:44 We have to perform in terms of our ability to raise capital. We

have to perform in terms of our representation of the firm in

the marketplace, in the building, the brand through media. I

can, first of all, there are a lot of important elements of

performance. Many of those elements involve solving

oftentimes complex problems and it's proven and I give you 20

different formidable branches of research that will show that

diverse teams are particularly well adept at solving more

complex problems.

Shundrawn: 00:45:15 It's kind of a simple reason, it actually makes sense intuitive. If

you and I, once you get a certain level of IQ, everything above

that is just limited incremental benefit. You got to have the

requisite amount of intellectual capital, but after that it's like if

you're trying to solve a complex problem, you want as many

tools or tool sets as you can get to put towards it. If we all have

the same tool set, it just doesn't expand what we do.


- 22 -

Shundrawn: 00:45:41 That's one component of the performance. The other

component of the performance is what I call the opportunity

cost that we forget about. A lot of times, we don't realize that

we haven't been performing optimally because we've been

blinded to an area or a gap in our performance. Because maybe

as a starting point, all of the decision makers looked alike, we

didn't realize…

Shundrawn: 00:46:04 For instance, I'll make this up. We weren't doing well in the

female demographic. Well, you might not pay attention to that

if you have no senior women leaders. What happens is you have

a fallacy in your mind about how well you're actually

performing. Now, you have the opportunity to not only enhance

and improve your performance with that group, but expand

your business opportunities with that group. That's another

element of performance.

Shundrawn: 00:46:32 The other thing is in investments this is the inconvenient truth.

We talk about investment performance and it is important, but

investment performance is mean reverting, which means that

even when you're a great investor, you're not going to have the

top in a sense performing funds or products or however you

measure it all the time.

Shundrawn: 00:46:52 No one can show me that. You can show good consistent high

performance over time and those distinguish themselves, but

there's a mean reversion in performance and that means the

ability to maintain your business and keep clients over time is

not solely a function of investment performance. As a matter of

fact, it's proven in our business once you have a certain level of

performance there are a lot of other things that become more

important determinants of actually perpetuating your business

and your business model. The performance that you have to

deliver to shareholders, trust me, Ted, it depends on that.

Ted: 00:47:26 As you talk to your peers that are running other asset managers

and particularly more recently started maybe with ESG a year

ago and now Black Lives Matter has certainly picked up, what

are you hearing of interest in action in the industry?

Shundrawn: 00:47:42 One of the things that I'm seeing is the dialogue and this is

important, it does feel different this time. What I would say is

some of the unfortunate things that have been brought to bear

in the pandemic in terms of some of the gross inequities in our


- 23 -

society, it's not like they're new, right? They have, in many

respects, been laying there in plain sight. You've had some

people that are I would say on the forefront of many of these

causes. So how they think about social responsibility articulating

that.

Shundrawn: 00:48:15 We certainly have had adopters that's something that's

important as part of our business, but not necessarily moving at

the scale or scope that some of us would think that it might

naturally do. Then, when you think about, again, for all of my

useful life and for decades preceding me and honestly for

generations preceding me, we've had the issues of race and

racial discrimination. I think what I'm seeing now in the

conversation is number one, Ted, an openness to have a

conversation that people have been reluctant to have in a

fulsome way, for most of what I've seen in my professional

career. That's number one.

Shundrawn: 00:48:53 Two, I'm also seeing a more comprehensive, in a sense,

empirical or fact-based assessment of it. The reason that's

important is because it's easy when you're just talking about

opinion sometimes to be dismissive of things, but I think people

are really realizing, okay, now, I can see in a tangible way why

this is important, not just to a segment of our community, but

to our collective community. Why discrimination is not a

problem just for people of color, but it actually retards the

growth and economic vitality of our entire country and

countries around the world. I think that's an important

advancement of the dialogue.

Shundrawn: 00:49:33 Then, the third thing that I'm seeing which is powerful, but we

need to see more of it is sometimes what happens when we see

problems, we spend a bunch of time describing the problem

and analyzing it, and then the conversation fades away. The

responsiveness I've seen in some people from initial dialogue to

taking an action, I've never seen it in my career move that fast. I

think that's important is because a lot of ways that you solve

problems is you have to iterate, you have to try something.

Shundrawn: 00:50:06 In the past, what's happened is we've been satisfied with

describing the problem, maybe analyzing it a lot, but not

actually testing anything out. Those are the three things that

I've seen on those issues that we need more of, but are very

encouraging to me, Ted.


- 24 -

Ted: 00:50:20 As we go through this period of the pandemic and hopefully

come out of it before too long, a lot of businesses that go in

with some level of strength come out stronger, the composition

of industries changes. You wrote a terrific paper recently and

I'm curious to get your thoughts on with this particular issue of

diversity and inclusion. How does the pandemic create

actionable opportunities on the back end to make change

happen?

Shundrawn: 00:50:46 Well, here's where it creates the huge opportunity. Beyond

expanding the dialogue, beyond hopefully making real change in

all of us personally, in terms of unpacking our own biases or

views or prejudices and growing and coming closer together

with our colleagues and the people in our communities, in

terms of really tangible and meaningful change in society, there

are a couple of opportunities we have.

Shundrawn: 00:51:12 Let me start with companies because look a lot of what we

talked about reflects businesses. The most important change

that could come out of this and we need to see out of this is

that businesses see the real opportunity to invest in, with, and

alongside those in diverse communities. Charitable intent is a

good thing, but charity will not remotely solve the issue we

have.

Shundrawn: 00:51:42 The issue that we have is not that we have not been charitable

enough. The issue that we have is we have not taken

accountability for the inequities that our conscious and

unconscious efforts have created that in many instances now

require the charity that we give. The vast majority of people are

not looking for some sort of handout, they're looking for the

same thing that people do in any relationship with people with

whom that they respect and they trust and they care about

involve themselves in.

Shundrawn: 00:52:19 We need to see that and so if we see that, all of the boats will

rise and the tide will rise. That's what we need to see out of

business. What we need to see a resurgence of in terms of

people's engagement in society. I think a lot of people, if we're

honest with ourselves, we either have withdrawn from civic

engagement or never really been in it in a meaningful way to

begin with.


- 25 -

Shundrawn: 00:52:42 It's hard to really say, and most people if they're honest, they

would cop to this. That, for instance, we can call our

government, government for the people by the people, because

the people aren't engaging. But if we engage, we can actually

begin to meaningfully impact the inequities that we have. That,

for instance, are baked into say, for instance, our legal systems.

Shundrawn: 00:53:04 I'll give an empirical example. We have to address the inequities

in the criminal justice system. If I look at blacks, we make up

13% or so, depending on when the last time you do the census

of the population, 13%, 14% that make up the same percentage

of drug users, but we make up 36% of arrest for drug conviction

and 46% of drug convictions. Something about that is

inequitable. How can you have three and four times the number

of arrests and convictions that you do of use?

Shundrawn: 00:53:39 It's not a figment of anyone's imagination when people talk

about systemic inequities, but they do not change if there is no

change in the policies and the approaches and the laws and the

policing. It means something to me when people are upset

when they find out that a police officer with a no knock warrant

went to someone's house unannounced and fortunately the

person gets shot and killed in their home, but here's the thing,

first of all, law officers have a very difficult job and before they

serve that no knock warrant, some judge signed off on it, and

before that judge signed off on it, some legislators decided that

was a law that makes sense.

Shundrawn: 00:54:23 It is not an unfortunate incident. It is a systemic problem, and

because it's a systemic problem that affects all society, unless

meaningful parts of society and members of society get

involved in advocating and pushing for the solution, it does not

get solved.

Ted: 00:54:38 Is there a step, a single step that you encourage business

leaders on that first point to take advantage of this opportunity

to engage with these communities?

Shundrawn: 00:54:49 If I could wave a wand, I know exactly what the step that would

be. Most established companies have usually some level of

charitable intent, usually expressed in specific ways. They often

have groups that focus on strategic philanthropy and often are

involved in making meaningful contributions from a charitable

standpoint. I think that generically is a good thing.


- 26 -

Shundrawn: 00:55:19 What I'd like to see companies step back and do and say, "Why

don't we think about doing what we do well? We're about

solving problems, creating opportunity, driving economic

growth." I'd like to see some of those dollars specifically

invested in creating opportunities for equity. By that I mean,

invest those in businesses in the community that you do

business with, as opposed to just only giving out and I don't

want to in any way denigrate the importance of being able to

give to charitable causes, but why not also give grants?

Shundrawn: 00:55:54 What I want to see companies doing is take a hard honest look

at what they're doing with the many suppliers that they work

with and ask themselves, are they providing opportunities

equitably for people to earn the right to do business with them?

I think the answer in many cases is no. That's the single most

important thing businesses can do.

Shundrawn: 00:56:16 You know what businesses can do? Do business well and do

business equitably and ethically.

Ted: 00:56:21 Shundrawn, I want to take a few minutes to turn to some

closing questions, but before we do that, somewhere along the

way and I was preparing for this. I saw that you had not just

worked on the values of the business at Northern Trust that you

talked about, but you also have done a similar exercise within

your family. I'd love to hear about that process and the

outcome of that process.

Shundrawn: 00:56:47 The process was done many years ago, in my context, if you're

married, your family is you and your wife. Now, we have two

wonderful sons, but they were very small, we went through

this, and my practical reality is the commitment that I've made

to my wife, whom I love and is better than I deserve is truly one

for life. While my sons, to the extent, we have raised them well,

will leave and we will enjoy a different relationship.

Shundrawn: 00:57:11 We will still be here, but one of the things that we said very

early on is we wanted to have an explicit articulation of a

mission for our lives, because we knew how demanding our

work was and the things that we were doing, but our

articulation was, "Look, we'll work hard, but our work plan…"

Because we won't work in the professional settings we are until

we move on to the next life, right? That has to fit in the context

of our life plan.


- 27 -

Shundrawn: 00:57:35 We said ultimately the most important decisions that we make

are value-based decisions. We went through a process of

saying, "Let's just talk about what we value, talk about the ones

that are common or shared among us and let those be

established for family and as our kids get older discuss those

and establish those and talk about how they guide our

decisions." Those values, we came up with seven family values.

Gosh, we did this, I mean, probably 14, 15 years ago, and those

values are faith, love, wisdom, accountability, leadership,

competence and generosity.

Shundrawn: 00:58:10 They are not throwaway terms. They really focus to drive how

we think about the decisions that we make, what's important to

us. For us, what I try to encourage the organizations that I'm a

part of, whether it's the company I work or the boards I serve

on, it's still a reflection of what I believe and what I do. We, for

ourselves, we give away a significant portion of the income that

comes through our hands into our homes, but it's always been

that way for us. It's been regardless of what our level of income

has been, because the value was always important.

Ted: 00:58:41 Great. Let's turn to a couple of fun closing questions. What's

your favorite hobby or activity outside of work and family?

Shundrawn: 00:58:48 I'm as for most people as boring as you get. My hobbies are

reading, writing, and running and reading by far. I'm reading all

the time. I mean on average I probably read three books a

month, notwithstanding all the periodicals and things like that I

read.

Ted: 00:59:02 If you started your career over today, money is no object, you

couldn't be a leader in asset management, can't be an investor,

what do you think you'd do?

Shundrawn: 00:59:11 For sure, I would be a teacher and writer without question. I

love teaching. In some capacity I feel like it's something I get to

do in a lot of roles that I'm in. The ability to translate maybe

complex matter into more understandable concepts and help

people in their learning and development. I love that.

Ted: 00:59:29 Do you have a daily habit that you've used for a long time that's

been very beneficial to you?

Shundrawn: 00:59:36 Yes and I would say the thing for me is my motor runs so hard,

right? That I realized the habit that I have that's most important


- 28 -

for me is the time that I spend in prayer, meditation, because I

realize that those times left to our own devices how little time

we can spend on reflection and how important that is for the

whole self. For me, personally, that's very important at this

point.

Ted: 01:00:01 What's your biggest pet peeve?

Shundrawn: 01:00:05 I'm really, really intentional about a lot of things and time is a

big thing. My biggest pet peeve is people being late.

Ted: 01:00:13 What teaching from your parents has most stayed with you?

Shundrawn: 01:00:16 The things that stick with me the most from them are always

deducing to their teachings on humility and service. In a two-

part thing I would tell you, my dad would always say, "Everyone

has something to teach you if you're willing to listen." My mom

driven by how she works, she worked in social work as far as her

career. She went back to school, got her degree, and then went

into social work.

Shundrawn: 01:00:40 I told you they also founded a church and so she would always

say, "Whatever you do, you do it on, is unto the Lord." That was

her belief in her faith, but it was also regardless of what your

professed faith is, this belief in a transcendent purpose and that

there was a service orientation that part of our goal was to pour

our life out for others.

Shundrawn: 01:00:58 Those are the two things from them. I can wake up in my sleep,

my parents aren't gone. I can wake up in my sleep and literally

hear them talking to me, but those things dominate a lot of

lessons in life they taught me.

Ted: 01:01:08 All right, Shundrawn, last one. What life lesson have you

learned that you wish you knew a lot earlier in your life?

Shundrawn: 01:01:14 Oh my gosh. This one I know it ties to something I said earlier. I

had a mentor, he said, "I got an important piece of advice for

you. I'm going to tell you, you're not going to get it at first." He

says and it's simple. He said, "Wherever you are, be there."

Then, I got what he said. I got it, but then I really got it.

Shundrawn: 01:01:31 It has taken me even though he gave me that advice earlier on

in my career, it took me later on in my career and my life and

with life circumstances to really appreciate the power of what


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he was telling me. Because we also don't appreciate that the

metaphors we use for life, one of the popular ones is a race. In

some ways it is a race, but the problem is we think that race is a

sprint.

Shundrawn: 01:01:56 We think that sprint is lanes competing against others. The

metaphor of a race is probably better served a marathon. It's

one that carries out over time and it's a full life journey. Now,

that I've run three marathons in my life, I understand, you're

not running against the other thousands of people you're just

running your own race. If you take the time to just appreciate

wherever you are being there, enjoying the grace of that

moment or that day that you're not necessarily promising you

might not get the next one, understanding whether it's with my

family or my sons or my wife or my colleagues or my friends,

right? Just the power of the experience of the journey, being

able to reflect, no matter how things came out versus your

expectations to say that my effort and my intent and my

experience was good.

Shundrawn: 01:02:44 It took me a while in life to fully appreciate that. I wish I fully

embraced it earlier. It's certainly important to me day by day.

Ted: 01:02:52 Well, Shundrawn, thanks so much for taking the time and really

for helping advance this dialogue.

Shundrawn: 01:02:57 Thank you, Ted. I appreciate it.

Ted: 01:03:00 Thanks for listening to this episode. I hope you found a nugget

or two to take away and apply in your investing and your life. If

you'd like what you heard, please tell a friend and maybe even

write a review on iTunes. You'll help others discover the show

and I thank you for it. Have a good one and see you next time.

Speaker 3: 01:03:18 This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not

be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. All opinions

expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion

and do not necessarily reflect those at their firm. Managers'

appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement

or investment recommendation by Ted or capital allocators.

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