In this week’s episode of the CNBC Changemakers and Power Players podcast, CNBC Senior Media and Tech Reporter Julia Boorstin spoke with Standard Chartered Chief Sustainability Officer Marisa Drew about how she turned skepticism into innovation, why she believes purpose and profit can go hand in hand, and how a little bit of rebellion helped her change the way global finance thinks about the future.
Listen to the full episode here. New episodes drop every Tuesday.
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DREW ON HER AHA MOMENT
JULIA BOORSTIN: Alignment of purpose and profits is something that we saw so much in not only our Disruptor 50 list, as we’ve seen more of our Disruptor 50 companies have an additional purpose in addition to profits, but also on our Changemakers list. There are so many women on the list who are focused on not just doing good and also doing well, but aligning those two things and making sure in success they’re either benefiting society or the environment, etc. But wait, go, take me back to that moment. What was that moment in digging through that research where the light bulb went off?
MARISA DREW: Well, it was really about the disruption, and I, and I could see that it was captivating all sorts of stakeholders you had the next generation in our wealth business that were saying, and they were, they were very emotional about it is when I inherit the business, I’m going to do it differently. Or when I receive the family wealth, I want to invest it for positive outcomes. So you had that sort of ambition setting, on the one hand, at the same time, you had the advent of UN Sustainable Development Goals that tried to define some of the biggest systemic, thorny issues of our times in this overlay, or this context of 17 goals. And at their heart, they seemed incredibly audacious to try to tackle, and yet they’re so necessary to a healthy and functioning society that right there is your addressable market. And that was my aha moment is that this market is massive. And think that if we could somehow mobilize capital and create industries that would tackle these challenges, there is no separation between the purpose and profit. They’re mutually reinforcing. And, you know, we all leave ourselves with a better place, and what a legacy that could be. So that’s, that’s my moment. That was my moment.
DREW ON HER LEADERSHIP SUPERPOWER
BOORSTIN: What kind of leader are you? What is your leadership superpower now?
DREW: I always had an innovative mindset. I think I said at the CNBC Changemakers event that you held when we first were so privileged to be part of your list, that there’s a little bit of a rebel side to me, that when people tell me something can’t be done, it gets my energy up because I want to prove them wrong. And I think I surround myself so it was maybe similar minded rebels that say, wait a minute, I think we can probably find a solution here. And so when I look back over my career that – that that desire to innovate, that desire to do something differently, to be a solutions provider, has always been pervasive throughout my career. I think I lead teams who are naturally biased to wanting to be like that. I am impatient. I know that, that’s one of my, I don’t know if that’s a strength or a weakness, but I know I’m impatient and I need to move fast and I need to have results, or we need to move on. And I think I instill that in my team, but that there’s an energy that is created by that. So as I bring that in sustainability, that’s what we’re all about. We have to think about things differently. We’ve got to have that innovative mindset. And I hope, and would expect, that those who are on the team, you know, are inspired by that, and that is what keeps them going in challenging times.
DREW ON AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP ON WALL STREET
BOORSTIN: You ended up going into finance, which is so male dominated. How did you learn to not only lean into uncomfortable situations, but to thrive in them?
DREW: When I entered investment banking, there were very, very few women. And in fact, I worked for one of the first female managing directors on Wall Street. Her name was Joyce Greenberg and very famous female banker and and I she, I know she won’t mind me saying this, but people were scared of her. She was one of these sort of terrifying forces. And as a junior banker, I’m not sure you want to work for Joyce Greenberg, because she had a very hard exterior, and that’s what you needed. I called her the suit of armor to get by. And there was this belief that you had to present yourself in this very aggressive way because that was the way that things got done in Wall Street back then, and all those movies that we’ve seen, there’s a whole lot of truth in some of that sensation of those movies. But funny enough, the rebel side of me said, well, I’m going to take on that challenge. And I ended up becoming an analyst in her group. And, you know, we had our breakthrough moment, and I my way of operating with her was, I’m sure I can deliver and I hopefully successfully did that, but she did take me under her wing, and it was a wonderful opportunity to work for somebody who was incredibly demanding, but she was demanding because she cared.
DREW ON HER MOTHER’S LESSON
BOORSTIN: Tell us why your mom was such an inspiration.
DREW: She was the only daughter in a very Italian family, in a very traditional time in a traditional family infrastructure. And at that time, the belief from my grandfather was that as a woman, your your role in life was to get married and procreate, and the the careers that were available to you were placeholders until you could get married and have children and you could be a teacher or your nurse, and that was about it. And my mom was very much, I guess, that sort of rebel that that maybe that that trickled down into my DNA, that she had a vision that she wanted a different life for herself, and that if her father wasn’t going to support it, she was going to be independent and pay for it. So she took loads of odd jobs until she could finance her way through business school and that was very rare at the time to pay for your education and then to go to higher education, so she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. And as they say, that inspires me a lot because when I think about those roadblocks where there has been something in my way, there’s a little voice that’s right here on my shoulder that says, have the courage of your convictions if you genuinely believe in it, don’t take no for an answer.
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