Tom Davidson, Founder and CEO, EVERFI from Blackbaud David Nason, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, TIAA; President, TIAA Wealth Management Vanessa Okwuraiwe, Principal, Edward Jones Moderator: Diane Brady, FORTUNE
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00 - Hello, Tom, David, Vanessa, good to see you.
00:02 - How are you?
00:03 - I know I've been stopped, but I do like lightning rounds.
00:06 I think it's good just to get the juices flowing.
00:09 Since we're talking about preparing the next generation,
00:12 I'm gonna start with you, Tom.
00:13 What do you think we're spending too much time or money on
00:16 when it comes to this space?
00:19 And hi, thanks for joining us.
00:21 - Great, hello.
00:22 It's really great to be here.
00:23 I would say, and this will sound counter
00:25 to what I spend every single day of my life doing,
00:28 but I think we've talked too much about financial education
00:32 and financial wellness.
00:33 There's just an enormous amount of terrible advice
00:36 kind of coming through the system now
00:38 and new channels that there hasn't been before.
00:40 There's also incredibly strong new ways to reach people,
00:43 but we've done a lot of talking,
00:45 and I think it's the opportunity now
00:46 to actually come behind that and build the infrastructure,
00:49 particularly for young people,
00:51 to allow them to automate getting into the game
00:54 of financial services.
00:55 - Okay.
00:56 Do you disagree?
00:58 - No.
00:58 - I actually agree, and I'll kind of double down and say,
01:01 generic advertising about this is the biggest mistake.
01:04 What really needs to happen, in my view,
01:07 for financial education is it needs to be short,
01:09 relatable, and understandable,
01:11 and not at this very high macro level
01:13 that people can't understand and make it real for them.
01:16 - Okay.
01:17 - Well, no one has mentioned meme stocks yet,
01:19 so if you're thinking about,
01:20 so if you ask me, well, what's been overhyped
01:22 at the moment? - Game stops.
01:23 How's it doing?
01:23 - Meme stops, definitely.
01:25 But I would agree that we have spent a lot of time
01:28 talking about financial education,
01:30 but really, we need to make sure we start to activate
01:33 and use technology as an enabler,
01:36 rather than this, you know,
01:39 having a bad, for want of a better phrase.
01:42 - So let me get to that second part, then.
01:44 Let's go from the 30,000 foot down.
01:47 You know, when you think about
01:48 some of the more intriguing tools,
01:51 or, you know, maybe tactics out there,
01:55 you mentioned, let's start doing,
01:57 what's rising on your radar
01:58 in terms of what's actually making a difference?
02:01 - Yeah, I think that you're seeing still
02:03 the very early innings of what I would call
02:07 is unlocking mechanisms.
02:09 If you think about reward systems
02:11 and things built into actual learning
02:13 that allow you to actually activate an account,
02:16 a 529, a long-term savings program for a child,
02:20 their families, or others,
02:22 that's something that we feel very strongly about,
02:25 that there's lots of avenues,
02:26 but the schools are the most structured,
02:30 literal, physical plant that we have
02:32 in order to make this happen.
02:34 So we've focused for 16 years
02:36 on actually going into schools
02:38 and going, literally going where
02:41 all of the wonderful learning,
02:43 and there's infrastructure and support.
02:45 And so we feel very strongly
02:46 that that's not the only place, but that's a place,
02:49 and that the country in particular
02:52 needs to triple down on that idea of enablement
02:55 for young people in schools, in classrooms, in buildings.
02:58 - So you use that as a venue.
03:00 - So I'm gonna give you the perspective,
03:02 TIA is a company that is driven and mission-driven
03:05 to help people prepare for retirement.
03:07 So I'll give you the employer's perspective.
03:09 What's working?
03:10 Things like auto-enrollment,
03:11 things like making it easy for people to save.
03:14 - Opt-out, not opt-in.
03:15 - Opt-out, not opt-in, incentivize employers
03:17 to provide the tax breaks that are available
03:19 to their employers, teaching them what those things are.
03:22 These are very easy things.
03:23 Retirement policy is, I think,
03:25 one of the three issues left in America that's bipartisan.
03:28 So policy actually helps with this type of thing.
03:31 So policy direction and the right way
03:33 to help people save more,
03:34 and making it easier for employers to do this,
03:37 and then letting assets flow easily
03:39 from different employers as people move around a lot more.
03:42 These things really work.
03:43 - Yeah. - They really work.
03:44 - So an 18-year-old, the beauty of compound investment,
03:46 and they'll put all their money in that.
03:48 I do think that's very powerful.
03:50 How about for you, Vanessa?
03:51 - Well, so Edward Jones, we've been around for a long time.
03:53 We've been around for over 100 years,
03:55 but we're in almost every community in the United States.
03:58 - Every, what, one?
03:59 Isn't there one community that's in the country?
04:00 - But one county, and I need to investigate why.
04:02 - Vanessa's going there afterwards.
04:03 - They're on the radar.
04:04 - We'll get there. - 168 people.
04:06 - We'll get there, but we know that we have
04:08 this massive footprint that we can definitely leverage.
04:12 And so what we've been trying to do
04:13 is to make sure that we can get into schools.
04:15 So of course, we have a financial education program.
04:18 We partnered with FFI in 2020 to make sure
04:22 that we can get into, especially high-need schools.
04:25 So we're in over 50% of high-need schools,
04:28 over 6,000 high schools, and making a difference.
04:32 We did say that by the end of 2025,
04:35 our goal was to reach at least one million learners,
04:40 and we're over 900,000.
04:42 So we're making progress.
04:43 Thank you very much.
04:45 We're making progress in partnership
04:47 with our great company, FFI,
04:50 but there's still a lot of work to do.
04:52 And just making sure that we can have financial information
04:56 in a smart and digestible way
04:58 that's really appealing to young people,
05:00 because they want it.
05:02 - You know, one of the things that's interesting
05:03 in the last few years, you think about
05:05 what would seem to be innocuous,
05:08 financial inclusion, economic justice,
05:13 and addressing, especially for marginalized communities.
05:15 This has become more difficult,
05:18 and I'm curious about whether the,
05:21 or how the backlash against DEI and the like,
05:25 how is that impacting, if at all, this space?
05:28 Is it, is the conversation?
05:30 - Well, I would say broadly, you know, it's interesting.
05:33 We do a lot of other things besides financial education.
05:36 What's interesting about this one is this.
05:37 First of all, the politics.
05:40 I'm like a washed-up politician.
05:42 I was a state legislator for a long time,
05:44 and so I'm like kind of--
05:45 - Weren't you a state legislator at 22?
05:47 - I was, yeah.
05:47 - That's for you, there you go.
05:48 - Lot of wisdom there, a lot of wisdom there at 22.
05:51 All I had learned.
05:52 But the, you know, what's fascinating about this one is
05:57 we focus on, you know, mental health, suicide prevention,
06:01 we focus on bullying, like we focus on a lot of areas.
06:04 Those are incredibly difficult things
06:07 to inculcate into the culture of a school,
06:11 the conversations, kitchen table conversations.
06:13 This, you know, financial literacy is actually like
06:16 the easiest putt that we take,
06:18 and it's actually something in a world
06:20 that's very complicated.
06:22 This is actually one of the easier ones
06:24 from an infrastructure perspective.
06:26 You can either, we have it in, you know,
06:28 we have these massive institutions
06:29 have the ability to do it.
06:30 We've got incredible hearts and minds that wanna do it,
06:34 and this is just a focus on in the next 10 years,
06:36 can you do what Jones has done
06:39 and go and do something on a massive scale
06:42 for kids in areas that there isn't any money for,
06:45 and are you willing to step up and do that?
06:46 That's a big idea, but it's an attainable idea.
06:50 And so that's what gets me excited
06:51 is this is actually something that can happen.
06:53 - So there's momentum behind it.
06:55 Have you noticed any difference with the?
06:57 - With regards to?
07:00 - With regards just to sort of the political environment
07:03 and such?
07:04 - Not really.
07:05 I think to your points, people do align
07:08 on the need for financial wellness.
07:10 That's a goal that we have,
07:11 financial wellness for as many people as we can reach.
07:14 So I think that's something that is bipartisan
07:17 and people agree.
07:18 We haven't really seen any pushback.
07:20 - I would agree with that.
07:21 The only thing I would say is that the stats
07:23 are challenging for minority populations
07:26 that need to be addressed.
07:27 If you think about, so our research has suggested
07:30 that 40% of Americans are not ready for retirement.
07:33 That number is 50 or higher for minority populations.
07:36 So the issue is more profound,
07:38 but I think you're exactly right,
07:39 which is it's bipartisan and everyone kind of aligns.
07:42 - You're more worried about those older generations
07:44 than some of the older ones.
07:45 - Well, time helps all these types of issues
07:47 and an older generation has less time.
07:48 - And there's a food fight on all of these things.
07:51 You have to be prepared for the fact
07:53 that some people don't want the private sector in schools.
07:56 You have the fact that you've got
07:58 lots of different constituencies around a school
08:00 or around young people.
08:01 You've got different ways, media that are coming at them.
08:04 So it's a little bit of a complicated surround sound,
08:08 but again, doable.
08:10 - Yeah, I wanna ask a little bit about
08:12 the role of the employer.
08:13 And let's talk maybe whether it's millennials or Gen Z,
08:17 this is a generation that's perceived to be coming
08:19 from a deficit coming into the workplace.
08:22 You know, they feel they can't afford housing.
08:24 So the idea that their paycheck can then stretch
08:27 into savings maybe seems less attainable.
08:30 If what is your message to employers?
08:32 Are you working with them in terms of,
08:34 you mentioned opt-in, is there anything else?
08:36 - Opt-in is a big one.
08:38 We are absolutely working with their employers.
08:39 There's a couple of things we do.
08:40 Opt-in, auto escalation are two things.
08:42 Number one is providing financial education
08:45 at the employers that we service.
08:47 So we will basically create curated programs
08:50 for kind of high touch people that really understand it.
08:53 We'll also do Spanish language classes
08:55 for people in the cafeteria,
08:56 for other people who work at higher education institutions.
08:59 So you have to go where people are.
09:01 You have to understand those types of things.
09:03 I would say one other thing I think is important
09:05 'cause there's a lot of skepticism around Gen Z
09:07 and millennials, I'm less worried about them
09:10 'cause of two things.
09:10 One, they've got time.
09:12 Time is your best friend for these types of things.
09:14 And two, I like the fact that they're skeptical
09:17 and they push back.
09:18 I like the fact that they went through
09:20 a very tumultuous period in COVID,
09:22 understand what risk looks like,
09:24 understand what it's like to come back from risk.
09:27 I've got a lot of faith that this learning,
09:29 this population is gonna do well on this issue.
09:32 - They're not gonna be as reckless as us.
09:33 - I don't know.
09:34 I think that's the-- - I'm an optimist.
09:36 I'm an optimist.
09:37 - You know, Vanessa, one of the things I wanna ask about
09:39 is this EdWOW.
09:41 What do you do differently?
09:44 What do you think moves the needle?
09:46 How did you approach this space?
09:48 - Making things smarter and more digestible for young people.
09:52 So one of the things that we did,
09:53 we do a lot of research all the time at Edward Jones
09:56 and we partnered with a couple of companies
09:58 to just really understand,
10:00 do the next gen or gen next,
10:03 whatever we choose to call that big group
10:05 between 18 and 34,
10:07 do they actually think in very short term lenses?
10:11 Is that the case?
10:12 And so we did delve in a lot deeper to understand,
10:15 well, what's their situation?
10:16 We found that one in 10 of them still has student debt,
10:21 only a third have health insurance
10:23 and half don't have any life insurance,
10:25 which you wouldn't expect if you're less than 34
10:28 for the most part.
10:29 So once we understood what maybe some of the issues were,
10:33 we decided to create this new platform
10:35 that is really just a digital focus.
10:37 You don't have to come in person to get that education
10:40 and do it nice and short.
10:42 And so we did it in a way that acknowledges
10:45 that this generation especially has high anxiety.
10:49 And we decided to just make these snappy little videos
10:53 that really speaks to, well, what does it mean?
10:55 - TikTok videos?
10:56 Okay, we're not gonna cover TikTok.
10:57 - I'm gonna use that as a parallel.
10:59 - I would say, you know.
11:00 - YouTube videos.
11:01 - Yes, more YouTube videos, very short.
11:03 And it speaks to budgeting, savings, compounded interest,
11:06 all these things that we think are still important.
11:09 I know value systems are changing,
11:12 but there's still certain things that are universal
11:15 and will apply whatever age you are.
11:17 So we've got really good feedback that this is helping.
11:21 And the other thing we found is that we can't underestimate
11:25 the importance of our parents and guardians
11:29 in terms of immersion.
11:31 So children learn their first languages at home.
11:35 Financial education should be treated as a language.
11:38 And when people are immersed at the home front,
11:43 you find that they develop better habits
11:45 when it comes to financial services.
11:47 So we combine that lens to be able to create
11:50 this new digital platform that is really snappy
11:53 and is getting really good feedback,
11:55 we launched it last August.
11:57 We've had over 500,000 engagements
12:00 and people seem to be happy
12:01 with what messages they're hearing.
12:03 - You know what I like,
12:04 and it pivots to what you actually said earlier,
12:07 you have to treat people as like the whole person.
12:10 We talk about anxiety.
12:11 How much do you think about that
12:13 in terms of the programs you're developing?
12:15 'Cause you now, you have this expertise
12:17 in mental health and other areas.
12:18 Does that apply to how you approach financial education?
12:22 - Sure, yeah.
12:22 I think Dave made the point earlier about,
12:27 all of this is moving to thinking
12:29 about the student individually,
12:31 unless the concept of classroom
12:35 didn't change all that much for a couple of hundred years
12:38 and 40 seats and a chalkboard.
12:40 And it's now changing pretty dramatically.
12:43 And I think that's a positive thing
12:44 'cause what it ultimately does
12:46 is allows you to, within reason,
12:49 take a lot of individual factors
12:51 about that student's life.
12:52 And I think that's been the biggest thing
12:54 that we've learned.
12:55 You walk into any classroom,
12:56 that is 40 very different humans
12:59 showing up in very different ways.
13:01 And any technology ultimately
13:04 has to be able to track that over time.
13:07 And that's really where we are in this moment.
13:10 There's incredible things going on
13:11 that make me very, very optimistic about that potential.
13:16 - This is like both, these are national issues,
13:18 it's hyper-local.
13:19 I'm gonna ask each of you,
13:20 what advice do you have in terms of
13:23 how we can create better infrastructure around this?
13:25 Of course, you mentioned the schools.
13:27 You were a former lawmaker.
13:29 I mean, whether it's on the regulation side
13:31 or the employer side,
13:32 give us something you would change.
13:34 What would you prioritize to really move the needle?
13:37 - You were higher ranking than I was.
13:38 - Yeah, say you're higher ranking.
13:40 We'll start with you.
13:41 - I would make, I'm gonna go from the employer's lens again.
13:43 I would make money portable.
13:45 I would make financial education
13:47 a part of a employee wellness program.
13:50 And I would make an employee wellness program mandatory
13:53 for all employees over 100 people.
13:55 - Vanessa.
13:56 - We already have the infrastructure.
13:57 I think the educational institutions, the employers,
14:01 and of course, lobbying the governments.
14:03 We've got financial education in at least 33 states.
14:07 They're not necessarily all mandated,
14:08 but they're either recommended or required.
14:11 So that's the, I think we're heading in the right direction.
14:14 We just need more alignments across business
14:16 in order to drive policy on the government side.
14:20 - So do you wanna add anything?
14:23 - I would just say, I think the concept of
14:26 the public sector doing their part of implementing
14:29 actually a very good required and multi-step,
14:33 not a one and done.
14:34 A lot of times, including us,
14:35 we tend to do something senior year
14:38 during senior week or something,
14:40 have multi-year from second grade on.
14:43 And then on the private sector side,
14:44 I think every financial institution should actually
14:47 step up to open accounts and create
14:50 the long-term infrastructure that's portable
14:52 and can travel with a young person
14:54 and start that from kindergarten
14:56 and rock and roll on that for the life of good.
14:58 - My tactic was not giving them any money after 16.
15:01 That works.
15:02 That works very well.
15:03 So I don't think anybody hasn't yet,
15:04 before we get to final thoughts,
15:05 any tactic that's stuck with you
15:08 in terms of that you would adopt?
15:11 Again, we are in the audience as parents, employers,
15:14 employees, et cetera.
15:15 What advice?
15:16 I think the portability and opening those accounts early
15:19 is very powerful.
15:20 Is there anything else you would add?
15:20 - I would say, I wanna do two things.
15:22 Number one, when I say mandatory,
15:23 I said mandatory by the companies doing it,
15:25 not the government.
15:26 I gotta be true to myself here.
15:28 But what you said is so important.
15:29 I think parents, I think parents are underrated.
15:32 I think parents can make these issues very relatable,
15:36 very relevant, and very tangible to people.
15:40 Relatable and tangible is everything
15:42 for financial education.
15:43 So I think parents and guardians are undervalued
15:46 in terms of their necessity to be a part of this.
15:48 - Yeah.
15:49 - Yeah, and David, I'll double down on that.
15:51 So we found that, in this research study
15:54 that we did recently,
15:55 we found that 18 to 34-year-olds
15:59 would rather go to their parents.
16:01 So almost 70% of them would go to their parents
16:04 for financial advice.
16:06 So you would think that in the social media world,
16:10 everyone is gravitating to social media,
16:12 especially for financial guidance,
16:14 but we're finding that maybe they can get
16:16 their financial information and everything else,
16:20 but when it comes to guidance, they're going to parents.
16:23 So for me, what I do, I'm trying to start early
16:25 with my kids, they're eight and 10 years old.
16:28 Not all your pocket money can be used for Lego.
16:31 It's not gonna happen.
16:32 So how do you take a small portion of that
16:34 and put it into your bank account
16:36 and just start those habits really early?
16:38 So that's something, again,
16:39 that we've built into our financial education,
16:42 not just for the young people,
16:44 but for the parents across the board.
16:45 - I love that.
16:46 So I'm gonna give you each a chance
16:47 to give some final thoughts, takeaways.
16:49 I'm gonna start with you.
16:51 - I think that this is,
16:53 there's gonna be a really, really great next five years
16:57 where a lot of the work that the people in this room,
17:01 you should see yourself deeply
17:03 in the middle of this conversation.
17:05 Like every company that was up here today
17:07 actually has a really important role in this,
17:10 and it sounds a little cheesy,
17:11 but you have the ability to weaponize your employees
17:15 and get people out in classrooms,
17:17 and most importantly, figure out a way
17:19 that your infrastructure can get baked
17:21 into a long-term infrastructure for kids,
17:24 and you're gonna change, it's tombstone stuff.
17:27 You will change the trajectory of the country
17:29 if you do that. - Excellent.
17:30 David?
17:31 - I would say two quick things.
17:33 The first is that I would like people to understand
17:36 that we do have a preparedness crisis in this country,
17:38 that people are not saving enough,
17:40 and people are living longer, and it's getting worse,
17:42 so encourage people to save as much as they can
17:45 as early as they can and understand that.
17:47 And two, I run a wealth management business.
17:49 You're in the wealth management business.
17:51 People think that financial advice is just for the wealthy.
17:54 It's not.
17:55 It needs to be democratized.
17:56 People need to feel comfortable asking questions
17:58 about these types of issues,
18:00 and taking that fear away is massively important.
18:03 - Yeah.
18:04 Last word to you, Vanessa.
18:05 - Yes, I will double down again
18:07 on the importance we have as employers.
18:10 We have over 52,000 employees,
18:14 and the influence we can have over all those people
18:17 is immense, so I think we need to put
18:18 our own oxygen masks on first,
18:20 make sure that all our employees
18:22 have the necessary financial information,
18:24 and then you create champions who take it out
18:26 to the rest of the community.
18:28 So I would say double down on putting
18:29 our own oxygen masks on first,
18:31 treat our own people right,
18:33 and then we can make a bigger impact.
18:35 - I love that.
18:36 Tom, David, Vanessa, thank you very much.
18:38 Please join me in thanking our guests.
18:40 - Thank you. - We've got more to come.
18:42 - Thank you.
18:42 (audience applauding)
18:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]