Leadership Is About Being a Lifelong Learner

Education has always been an integral part of my life; my mother is a teacher, I'm fortunate to work with incredible organizations working to increase access to education like CollegeSpring and Quill.org, and I try to constantly learn about new topics. So I love opportunities to meet with students, share, and learn.

Earlier this month, I was privileged to share insights and learn about leadership, inclusivity, and the future of financial services at Harvard and Columbia. First I joined Kirsten Green and Monique Woodard in a panel discussion moderated by Megan Maloney at Harvard Business School's virtual Women's Student Association Conference, Inspire to Rebuild. Two key learnings from our discussion:

1. It's critical to establish an inclusive culture early in a company's growth. It's also a competitive advantage to do so - and much harder to fix later on. As you grow, it's key to track your progress on inclusivity in the same rigorous way you track things like market share and margins.
2. Some of the most compelling investment opportunities in the future will be in products and services for diverse and underserved consumers, in fields like healthcare, education, and finance. Investors who deeply understand those end users and their experiences are better positioned to win those deals. This mean it's a competitive advantage to have a diversity of backgrounds on the investment side of the table.

Later in the week, I joined the Columbia Business School virtual Silfen Leadership Series. In conversation with Will Bland, I spoke about my path to Goldman, our vision for the Consumer Wealth business and future of finance, and leadership through crises and beyond. Two ideas we discussed:

1. In addition to being the best you can be, what's really transformative is making the people around you better. By making this the goal, you unlock more potential for your team, which helps you all go further.
2. You often hear strategy and innovation are about discovering the next big idea. That's part of it, but a lot of it is about execution. Particularly when you're more junior in your career, a great way to stand out is if you can marry having big ideas with getting big things done.

One common thread here is leadership is about being a lifelong learner - not just when you get a new job but continually in your role, and not just when you're setting the strategy but also when you're in execution mode. As we all continue to manage a different set of challenges in this period, these conversations inspired me to keep learning with my team through it all. Thanks to the incredible hosts for having me - I can't wait until it can be in person again.