Chana Schoenberger:
Just to introduce myself to everyone. I'm Chana Schoenberger. I'm the Editor-in-Chief of American Banker, and I have with me here a very distinguished guest, Ranjana Clark, who until very recently was a top executive at MUFG, the largest bank in Japan, in their American division. Welcome.
Ranjana Clark:
Thank you, Chana. Good to see you.
Chana Schoenberger:
Yeah, so you and I, we've had many conversations. You were a long time honoree of our
Ranjana Clark:
Decades long. Yes. So I spent roughly 35 years in banking and technology and financial services and technology. The short version is I've worked with some phenomenal companies and teams in the early days. Started my career in India with Deutsche, was with Wachovia, which is now part of Wells Fargo, for 20 years. More recently was at PayPal as their global CMO. And of course my latest role was as head of global transaction banking for MUFG based in the US, but having a global role and of course everything that comes with that. In addition, I am on three corporate boards and joined my first board, which was a public company, an insurance company, 9 years ago. And then in the last couple of years, added two technology companies to my portfolio. One is public, one is private, rumored to go public. So board service has always been part of my plan way back when as a great way to learn and as also a great way to give back. So that's probably the nutshell.
Chana Schoenberger:
That's a lot. So you're sort of a permanent expat. You're from India, you've lived in the US a long time. You worked for a big German bank, you worked for American companies, banks, fintechs, Japanese bank. That's a ton of experience. So why decide to step down now?
Ranjana Clark:
Well, so I've been thinking about my transition a good bit, and I think where I am now is my motto is simplify to amplify. I want to simplify my life and the things that I'm working on not to slow down, but to really amplify the impact regarding dimensions that are important to me. So there are three things that I want to do in this next phase. I want to learn and grow. I want to have impact and I want to have fun. And all those three things really play together. It's not one to the exclusion of the other. So I want to think very intentionally about my next phase and reboot myself for my next run, for my next 10 to 20 year run, not my next two to three year run. So I wanted to give myself enough runway to make that happen. And so I'm starting a fellowship at Stanford in our orientation. Stanford orientation is literally starting next Monday. Classes start the following week. I want to have impact. And there are two pillars there around board service and around active philanthropy. Certainly happy to talk a little more about that. And then playing a little more golf, all the things that you never had time for, I certainly didn't have time for and now's the time to do it.
Speaker 1:
So sort of boiling down stock of your career, reducing it to get to the things that you really want to do that are most important to you, but at a higher level.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean I think that, so to sort of get to it, having impact has always been a big part of my plan. So across the sort of 35 plus year arc of my career, there are really five things I've done. I've done a lot of different things, but the five things that define me are global payments. I've been in and around the payments business for a few decades now. Digital transformation, marketing and strategy. So I really want to take those things and have impact at a board level and at a philanthropy level. So from a active philanthropy side, again, giving back has been, as I mentioned to you, Chana, I grew up in India. I grew up in Delhi, but my parents are from the eastern part of the country. India is 1.4 billion people. To say I want to do something in India is too broad.
And so I defined that I want to do something for underprivileged girls in rural Bengal. And I found the organization, I spent 10 days there within the last couple of months, did my due diligence and had focused in on an organization, Anudip, which is an NGO, focused on transforming the lives of marginalized youth through digital education. 95% of these students, girls in minority communities come from family income of less than $1.60 a day per person. And this training helps them increase their family income by 240%. So that's one thing I want to do, certainly boards. But the second thing that as I mentioned I'm starting is Stanford. It's called Distinguished Careers Institute. Stanford describes it as a program. It's an innovative fellowship program designed to help, they call it mid-career leaders thrive in their next chapter. I'm reading this, by providing opportunities through learn, reflect, and contribute through engagement with the Stanford academic community.
So to me, simply, it helps you figure out the what and gives you the tools around how most of us in our careers have been focused. It's been a little more around ambition, and now we are pivoting around impact. So it's kind of helping you define impact is a very broad word. Everybody wants to have impact. What does that mean for you? So it helps you define it, and then it helps you reboot yourself. You can take any class at any of the seven schools of Stanford. You don't have to take exams. You're an enrolled student, you're not an auditor. You have to be involved in it. So this is how I'm thinking of this as my gap year. So you're the two year program to define what it is and then skill myself, reboot myself for that next phase.
Chana Schoenberger:
That's kind of a lot to go back to school after so many years of being an executive.
Ranjana Clark:
So fun.
Chana Schoenberger:
You got your Trapper Keeper binder all ready to go? Pencils?
Ranjana Clark:
Yeah.
Chana Schoenberger:
That'll be exciting. So you're just going to take regular classes with regular Stanford students, many of whom are in their early twenties?
Ranjana Clark:
Yeah, I think there are two parts to the program. So the DCI itself, Distinguished Careers Institute, there's actually, David Brooks just wrote an article on this in the Atlantic, but DCI itself is around a cohort of about 30 to 40 people, 33 fellows plus some partners in the program. So I'd say we give or take spend a third of our time together forming, supporting each other, but helping us define the what, if you will. And then the rest of it, two thirds of our time is really spent with the Stanford community at large.
Chana Schoenberger:
So interesting
Ranjana Clark:
18 year olds.
Chana Schoenberger:
So it's sort of like if you and your interns all went to class together.
Ranjana Clark:
Yeah.
Chana Schoenberger:
That's going to be fascinating.
Ranjana Clark:
Yeah, I think you start opening up to sort of new ways of learning, challenging yourself. It's kind of learning a new language. So all of the things, this generation, they're all digital natives aren't what we have to become. And of course there's some safety nets out here, but just allowing yourself the time, taking that gap year to really challenge yourself. You're not going to fall off the edge. You're not, firstly, there are no grades, and that helps you sort of relax into the experience and challenge yourself more than you otherwise would have. There are all kinds of things around sustainability, around AI, but also I feel like in my life, I grew up in India, I felt like our education was very vertically focused. Very early on it was physics, chemistry, biology, higher math. In college, it was a lot of economics and business and so on. I didn't really do things like literature or art history or philosophy or political science. Those I want to go horizontal and then I want to go vertical in certain dimensions that will be important to me going forward, even with regard to my board service such as sustainability and AI. And then I want to take a third set of classes that will help me enjoy the rest of my life better, enjoy, understand the arts or music and so on better so that you can hear or see with a more discerning viewpoint.
Chana Schoenberger:
So have you chosen any specific classes that you're going to enroll in? Can you tell us some of them?
Ranjana Clark:
Yeah, I mean, I think we've all enrolled. You wake up early in the morning at 4:00 AM and you're like a keyboard monkey putting in all the classes. I have enrolled. We can take a maximum of 22 units. I enrolled for all 22 units. And then you have this first three weeks. One to three weeks is a shopping period, an add drop period. So you try all the classes and then you decide which ones you're going to settle in on. So yes, I, I've taken classes in all the dimensions that I talked about.
Chana Schoenberger:
That'll be so exciting. And then in terms of the board service piece, so it sounds like that's going to continue to be a big part of your time commitment going forward. Three, you said almost four boards?
Ranjana Clark:
Yeah, I'm on three corporate boards right now.
Chana Schoenberger:
Okay. And
Ranjana Clark:
So, and I'm starting the active philanthropy as well, so that will be more hands-on. But yeah, sorry, go ahead.
Chana Schoenberger:
Right, right. No, we'll come back to the philanthropy in a second. That's also really interesting. But for the boards, so it sounds like if you started doing that almost a decade ago, was joining a board back then while you were still working as a banker, is that part of this eventual transition plan out of full-time banking or just something that interested you back then?
Ranjana Clark:
Yeah, I wasn't even thinking in terms of transitioning out at the time, actually, I was at PayPal and in technology, I would say there is a view that a board service is a good thing and being exposed to other companies and mature companies that have more mature governance versus the technology companies that are younger companies that will help you learn and grow from a standpoint of broadening out your management skills. So at the time, John Donahoe, who's currently CEO of Nike was the CEO of eBay, the parent company of PayPal. He and I had conversations, he was a big believer in board service. And so that sort of probably put that on my brain at the time. And shortly after I joined MUFG, I did join my first board as really a way to learn and grow on dimensions that are outside your day to day in terms of the businesses that you are running and the company that you sit in. It just gives you a broader frame to so many different issues. Board service, it's not -- being a board member, is not being part of the active operating management of the company. It is more around thinking about strategy, succession planning, risk management, governance, those kinds of things. So it just broadens you in a different,
Chana Schoenberger:
Right, definitely. So it's interesting because there are so many banks where they actively discourage their executives or just flat out don't permit their executives to serve on boards. How did you convince the MUFG folks that this would actually be good for you and good for the bank?
Ranjana Clark:
Yeah, so as I mentioned, this was something that was very much a part of my career plan and development plan before I joined MUFG. And so this was part my discussion with MUFG prior to joining. And so they had documented it as part of the plan for me. So I would say that for most people, if this is part of your plan, have that conversation with your company, with your manager, with your boss, with your boss's boss. Let them know that it's part of your aspiration set and development set, and have that discussion early. Have it as a part of your development plan and the conversations because the company has to view it as being in your interest because it is also in their interests. Obviously they care about you as a professional, as an individual, but they also care about you in the context of being an asset for their company.
But it's not going to happen overnight and it's harder when it's a mandate from the top. So in this case, I would say that it was always a part of my plan. I articulated early, I articulated it early on. It was sort of a precondition to me joining. I did not, I think for most companies in particular, when you come into a new role, they're concerned, can you do this and do your day-to-day job because that's what they really, that's kind of job number one. And you have to make it clear to yourself and to them that yes, job number one will be my job number one, and I can also do this. So I committed to MUFG that in my first year with the company, I would not take on a corporate or public company board, and I didn't. But at sort of year one plus day one, I did join a board pretty soon. And so I think these conversations take time. The exploration, finding the right fit takes time. So start thinking about it and know that when the time is right that you should make it happen.
Chana Schoenberger:
Definitely. Okay. Yeah, we actually, I'm seeing a number of questions about this from viewers. How does one get on a board? How do you find the board seat? How do they ask you? We had a very interesting panel session on this at our Most Powerful Women conference last year, and it's a very tactical thing. You have to think very hard about what your skills are, what you could bring to a board, how you could help them, not so much about how they could help you, right?
Ranjana Clark:
Absolutely. Absolutely. So certainly have confidence in the value that you can bring. I would say the biggest referral source for leads for boards is your own network. I think just making random calls to search firms, they get a lot of calls. So having the right sponsorship within your company or within your network is helpful. And then of course, some of the three companies that I currently sit on, one of those came through one of the major search firms, my first one, my next two just came through networking. People spot you in a certain setting and they have a need within the company and your name comes to mind. Also think about what you can bring to the board, but also what the board can add to you. It needs to be a portfolio. Too much of one thing, just like when you're running a marathon, just too much of one thing is not going to make you run the 26 plus miles that you have to. So I think it has to fit from both perspectives.
Chana Schoenberger:
Let me ask you also about the active philanthropy. So I assume by that you mean not just simply writing checks. How are you envisioning this as being active philanthropy, the Indian nonprofit?
Ranjana Clark:
Yeah, I would say that I've written checks for a while and I've sat on many nonprofit boards. I think I started my sitting on nonprofit boards within the first 10 years of me entering a career. So that was 20 plus years ago. I've probably sat on 10 plus nonprofit boards. Most recently I was on the board of UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. I was on the board of the Bay Area Council, which is a public policy advocacy group in the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area focused on housing, homelessness, water, transportation, broad issues. You get exposed to some fantastic thinkers and great issues and so on. So what I want to do is not just write checks or be on boards. I want to have a voice and I want to touch the work. So in this case, as I mentioned, I grew up in India.
I had this passion around marginalized youth, underprivileged girls in rural India. I went to India, I went to Kolkata, I went all the way to the Bangladesh border. I went all the way to the India-Bhutan border, the Bengal-Bhutan border. I touched the work, I touched the girls, I touched the mothers. I touched women who've been trafficked. And I got a visceral feel of how the work that is being done by this organization, it's called Anudip, how this impacts their lives. I know the co-founders, they are based part-time, 50% in Saratoga, actually in Silicon Valley, and 50% in Calcutta. It's a mid-size organization. I didn't want to target a very large organization where my voice at this stage would have more limited impact. I was invited to be a part of that first strategic planning summit. I got a sense for that. So that's what I mean. And in doing this, I will actually fund one of the digital education centers and we'll have a finite group of a couple hundred people who I will interact with. So that's what I mean is I want to touch the work in addition to funding the work. And in addition to helping the company with that strategy and fundraising and all of the things that a board member does.
Chana Schoenberger:
That's really exciting. They're lucky to have you. I mean, you seem to have virtually all of the skills that they would need.
Ranjana Clark:
Well, I'm lucky to be part of their journey.
Chana Schoenberger:
That's very, very cool. So as you think about how you're making this transition, it sounds like you were very intentional about it. What sort of process did you go through when you were thinking, well, maybe in four years or five years I'll start moving out of banking and into something else, and who do you really admire in how they've done this? Bankers who've gone before?
Ranjana Clark:
So I admire so many people, so it's kind of hard to put one name on it. I would say two things. And the first thing that I'll be going through at Stanford, which I did informally for myself, but now that I will have more formal resources that maybe ask people to short circuit that and begin with the end in mind. So there is a great book called Designing Your Life by Dave Evans. And in that basically they talk about creating your dashboard of your health, life, wellness, career type of dashboard, and then creating your life view and your work view and making sure you sort of articulate, 150 words, not like a manifesto or a term paper. And then making sure that your light view and work view have coherence and your dashboard will align you where you are, whether it's 25% full or so.
Anyway, that's kind of, try that. That'll give you sort of more of a tool set. The way I did it many years ago, I probably did this as part of a development program. I'm just sort of naturally curious. I just talked to a lot of people who had worked, had been in careers longer than me, and were in that five to seven year window in terms of considering their next chapter. And I asked them sort of a few questions in terms of how they had thought about their next chapter, what went well, what they wished they had known before they started it. And as I put those together, I came up with this path that I want to learn and grow. I want to have impact around corporate boards and active philanthropy, and I want to have fun.
Chana Schoenberger:
That's great. Okay. Another question I'm seeing from a viewer here is, are there other programs other than DCI that do a similar thing in terms of helping you figure out how you're going to achieve your goals next? Either university programs or nonprofit training programs, something else that you'd consider?
Ranjana Clark:
Yeah, I would direct them to this article by David Brooks. He's a famous New York Times reporter and bestselling author. He wrote, I think the Second mountain very recently actually. There's an article in the Atlantic, so take a look at that. But the ones, so DCI's, distinguished Careers Institute at Stanford has three pillars. The first of which is around helping you define your purpose pathway, building community because you're leaving your work community behind. And building community is a big part of wellness. Harvard has a program, Stanford has a program. I think Chicago is just launching a program. They talk about a program at Notre Dame. But given that most educational systems were designed when people live to be 60 years and we have another 20, 30 years, I think there are more universities and more programs that are coming up to say, how are you going to have impact in that next chapter? So there are a fair number that are coming up now.
Chana Schoenberger:
Really interesting. Well, this is so exciting. I talked not long ago to a banker, a man in a similar situation who had retired. He had formally retired, but he'd sort of done it in a similar way, which was he did it slowly, joined a couple of committees, stayed working at his old bank part-time, joined a nonprofit board, and also did volunteering. It was like he and his wife were doing different volunteering type things. And it was so interesting because he said that the key, and they were very happy. And when I spoke to him, it was probably 10 years after he had formally left the bank. And he said the key was really to line up these ducks all in a row and make sure that you have all the different things, the continued network, the community, the purpose, a way to feel like you have something to do. And of course, as you were saying, sometimes it's fun just to play golf or garden or stuff like that. So it sounds like you're really doing it the right way.
Ranjana Clark:
I'm looking forward to it. And this gives me a little more structure of the scaffolding, purpose, community and wellness. That's sort of important for all of us. So it's good to have the scaffolding to give you something a little more formal because we are all used to structure and it makes the whole thing more digestible and less scary, but also makes sure that you're making progress on the dimensions that are most important to you.
Chana Schoenberger:
That's great. Well, thank you so much. This has been really
Ranjana Clark:
Thanks, Chana.
Chana Schoenberger:
We are out of time. Appreciate having you with us here.
Ranjana Clark:
Great conversation.
