Tag Archive for: Wells Fargo Asset Management

Yeng Butler, Head of Liquidity Client Group, Wells Fargo Asset Management

Yeng Butler“Joining Wells Fargo & Company when I did, just prior to Covid-19 has certainly given new meaning to the phrase ‘trial by fire’ as I had to learn how to effectively navigate within the firm on a very quick timeline.”

Yeng Butler joined Wells Fargo Asset Management as the head of Liquidity Client Group in November 2019, after eight years at State Street. However, Yeng Butler’s career has been anything but linear. She recounts that she has always followed her curiosity and hasn’t been afraid to look beyond immediate and obvious career opportunities.

“Trust yourself.” She states, “I have taken risks that other people might not have taken. There are choices to make and you can benefit by taking a broader approach, and not be so linear, narrow or ‘safe’ in your career choices.”

The Importance of a Sponsor

As a student of government and Asian studies, Yeng entered financial services via a graduate training program at Merrill Lynch which gave her a two-year rotational experience in New York working in investment banking, private wealth, equity sales and trading, asset management as well as the retail aspect inside branches.

During one of those rotations, she met a person who would become a lifelong sponsor of hers.

“Before the program ended, I proactively called my sponsor up and asked if he would consider hiring me, as I knew I could learn so much from him, and that this was someone that I wanted to work with.”

The sponsor immediately said yes and thus began an eight-year journey from analyst to salesperson to vice president of sales leading a team. In 2010, the sponsor who had given her the first big break called again and invited her to come and work with him back in Boston with State Street.

By this time, Yeng was based in the West Coast. “We loved the Northern Californian way of life, but I knew I was ready for a big challenge again. From a team of two people, we built the business to a global team of 30. It was there I realized that my skillset and passion was strong on build outs and turnaround work.”

Butler is excited about her role at Wells Fargo Asset Management and is currently managing a team of thirty and is running a business with $240B under management. She took the role because she wanted to solidify her skills around expansion of an established business.

“The mandate is to double the business which despite what is going on is a very exciting challenge and the new flows have already surpassed our targets for the year.”

When asked about career advice to her younger self, Butler states that she would have told herself to shake off the imposter syndrome.

“Own your voice! You are expected to have an opinion so offer it, and do so cogently.”

Butler believes that constantly developing EQ (emotional intelligence) around communication and how to deliver the message effectively is something that is a critical skill to develop for everyone to bring others along on any journey. She also recognizes the value of other traits and behaviors in the Wells Fargo culture that she is embracing.

“There is great collaboration here and although it’s a big company, there is a sense of urgency to get things done. In addition, I see a lot of women in senior leadership roles and there are clearly so many areas of opportunity here. There are visible jobs for women at Wells Fargo outside of the stereotypical areas.”

The Wider Road Taken

Talking about wider as opposed to narrow and linear career paths that many people follow, Butler, despite having a clear path of institutional sales ahead of her, left Merrill Lynch in 2004 to pursue a master’s degree.

“I knew if I stayed that I would stay in institutional sales and that would be all there was to my story and although it was hard to leave, I believe to this day, it was courageous. Courage to take the non-traditional path, to carve your own career path and to do so with thoughtfulness and patience. ”

Six months before starting her masters at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government to pursue a graduate degree in public administration, she set off to volunteer in Western Samoa.

“I reached out to a great organization called MicroDreams, who provide microloans to women entrepreneurs. I said I have six months to offer you, can I be of any help?”

This opportunity was enriching after graduating from Harvard. Butler saw that environmental, Social and governance (ESG) investing and policy was an emerging area and moved to the Bay Area in 2005 to work for a policy organization called Business for Social Responsibility.

The Balancing Act

Yeng Butler candidly talks about how she purposely opted out after six months to focus on starting and caring for a family, which included running her own business.

“I lasted six months before realizing it just was not a fit for me. I think fit is important to talk about. I made the choice to run a retail insurance business and it was an excellent lifestyle business where I could bring my infant daughter to work. I hired and managed a team of eight people and got to keep my skills sharp on my terms.”

She muses on the having-it-all question. And lands on that she believes that you can have it all – but not all at once.

“Now that my kids are older, I have a bit more flexibility to be hyper-focused at work. However, when I am with them, I try to be entirely present, and that means putting the mobile phones in a drawer.”

In her spare time, Butler enjoys spending time with her family solving jigsaw puzzles, tinkering in her vegetable garden and watching her daughter perform in musical theater.

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Calling All Imposters

By Monisha Jayakumar, Portfolio Manager with Wells Fargo Asset Management’s Analytic Investors Team

Monisha Jayakumar Imposter Syndrome. It’s a term I’ve heard a lot recently. It seems mysterious and eerily like a medical diagnosis—but fear not, it isn’t.

It’s just a tiny critical voice in your head that says “You don’t belong here!” when you’re on the brink of doing something courageous. It calls out when you are about to speak in front of an audience, take on a new role, pitch a new idea in an email, raise your hand and ask a question, or consider asking for a raise. So when we encourage people to speak up, stand up, and be seen, what if you are the one holding yourself back?

My title at work is portfolio manager with the Analytic Investors team within Wells Fargo Asset Management. I oversee approximately $8 billion in quantitative factor-enhanced strategies. In plain speak, I work with financial data and code processes to extract useful information that our team uses to make investing decisions for our clients’ assets.

As someone who analyzes data to create usable information, I have found that imposter syndrome is ubiquitous. My informal data collection—which includes many smart, ambitious, and successful women and men in my book clubs, parent groups, and friend circles—tells me that this lurking feeling of inadequacy at work is a feeling many of us share. We just haven’t had the courage to openly discuss it at the workplace.

I recently came across the work of Brené Brown, a courage and vulnerability researcher. In delving into her book Daring Greatly, I discovered a contrary idea to the years of “fake it till you make it” advice I’d been getting. Brown states: “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen. True belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world.” According to the author, courage requires embracing three things: vulnerability, uncertainty and risk. She goes on to make a radical connection: without vulnerability and courage, there’s no creativity and innovation.

Courage is about vulnerability. Vulnerability builds trust and authentic connections. Isn’t that what businesses need? During the summer before graduate school, I was assigned heaps of summer reading that I did not get through. My “imposter” self was convinced that everyone else probably knew the reading assignment forwards and backwards. Anxiety rumbled that morning during our orientation breakfast when a fellow classmate whispered, “I still have several chapters I haven’t finished and I’m kind of nervous about it.” Pure relief and an authentic friendship ensued.

Courage is being okay with uncertainty. I was once afraid to ask for a pay raise for eight years. The small employee-owned firm that I was with at the time regularly researched pay scales and provided timely pay raises. But I am fully aware this is not commonplace. When I debated asking for a raise—something I believe was well earned—I would hear that “imposter” voice that doubted my worth. Accepting the uncertainty of an outcome is the key to your courage and vulnerability. When I let go of being wedded to a specific outcome, it became easier to express myself. And despite the discomfort of the conversation, there was great comfort in knowing I advocated for myself.

Courage is about risk taking. If you work in a profession where you stand out, it means you took a risk. There was a time when I didn’t understand that gender differences really matter. Why would I care if 10% or 50% were women? But here’s the thing: The more people who’ve done this before, looking or sounding exactly like you, the more confident you feel replicating prior success. In some ways it was motherhood that made me stop pretending it didn’t matter if I was a woman. In grappling with reasonable expectations I could set about maternity leave, a mentor said, “No one can do your job like you do it.” I realized that what I need, and what we all need, is different. I also realized what I contribute is different. I began asking for what I needed from a place of self-worth instead of a place of fear. Have the courage to value your uniqueness and own your seat at the table.

If there’s no courage, there’s no creativity and innovation. People and corporations both value these tenets – but are we making room to empower one another to truly be courageous? At some point in our careers, we’ve all seen unhealthy posturing. In my industry, the loud hyper-competent facade doesn’t serve anymore. What if being courageous enough to be vulnerable is the antidote? What if being authentic could be the key to actually shedding this personal and collective “imposter” syndrome?

Looking forward, I want to grow within the system but also encourage it to expand. So here’s my call to action. Risk being vulnerable: when you take on a new role or when you have changes in your personal life, share your fears and hopes. Accept uncertainty and have the uncomfortable conversations on inclusion and pay transparency. Take chances. If you are asked to speak at a conference, ignore the “imposter” voice and say yes, and empower others to do the same. Participate in creating the culture you wish could be created for you. And then watch that spark light the fire.

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Voice of Experience: Kristi Mitchem, Chief Executive Officer and Head of Wells Fargo Asset Management

Kristi's Mitchem Wells FargoWells Fargo’s Kristi Mitchem believes that women need to visibly support one another. Where a man might readily high five another man for something unremarkable, research shows that women can be more reserved in their praise. Women are naturally aligned with other women and as such, Mitchem stresses the importance of consciously and vocally “friending” one another in corporate settings. “I tell women not to come out of a meeting without commending another woman. You want her to know that it’s important that she shared her opinion,” Mitchem says. “You also want the men in the room to recognize that she has value to add. “

Erasing gender inequality is an issue that Mitchem is passionate about—particularly in Corporate America, where she’s spent her career. “If you’re a young woman coming into finance today, you don’t see a lot of successful women in elevated positions. We need to have women visible in high-level positions so young women can see what’s possible.”

As it relates to advice she gives others, Mitchem cites strong communication skills as an imperative for success. “I consistently see women who could improve their skills in the area of presence and would benefit from seeking guidance on how to talk persuasively and powerfully,” she says. “One of the most wonderful things I have realized is that it is a learned behavior that you can enhance over time.”

Weaving Her Way Around a Successful Career

Mitchem was a Fulbright Fellow in Costa Rica, and her study there ignited her interest in Latin America and her desire to flex her language muscles. One of her first positions was with CS First Boston in the firm’s Latin America Finance Group, where she split her time between New York and Mexico City, working primarily on finance assignments. After completing the analyst program, she went on to earn an M.B.A. from Stanford University and completed a summer program with Goldman Sachs, where she accepted a full-time position in the emerging markets fixed income group as a sales trader in New York City.

As her career took off, love intervened. Mitchem became engaged to someone she’d met at Stanford who was starting his own company, and given the geographic realities, she took a position on the west coast, moving from sales trading in emerging markets to equity derivatives.

It was an auspicious time given the rise of tech hedge funds coinciding with the greater predominance of index fund management, and being part of that rapidly growing business allowed Mitchem to make a name for herself. At Goldman, she was selected for a program within the firm that identified high-profile candidates and gave them specific support needed to move forward in their careers. Mitchem credits this program with helping her achieve the designation of managing director.

As Mitchem was ready to take her next career leap, family again interceded. Pregnant with her third child, she decided she needed to move away from working market hours and perennially waking up at 3:30 a.m., which can take a toll. So while she wasn’t looking to leave Goldman, per se, she knew she needed a schedule that was more sustainable.

She joined one of her chief clients, Barclays Global Investors (BGI), helping them turn around their transition management business.

“I brought in great talent, and we were cooking with gas within a year,” Mitchem says. “One of the things that defines me is that I have a lot of energy and like to move on when something is complete, and the talent is there to support it. My next thought is always ‘What’s next?’”

Her CEO asked her to take on something completely different, leading an initiative around the defined contribution (DC) market in the United States where she says she had the amazing opportunity to build a team from scratch and capitalize on this growing segment of the marketplace.

When BlackRock bought BGI, she decided it was time to move on so she joined State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) to help them grow their DC business. She was subsequently asked to take on various new roles and ended up managing all of the Americas institutional business.

While at SSGA, Mitchem achieved one of the professional accomplishments that she is most proud of, which is an intersection between a personal passion and professional opportunity. That came in the form of an ETF launched in 2016 that invested in companies in the Russell 1000 committed to making progress in terms of gender representation at the most senior levels of management. “We were putting capital behind the companies that were making a difference on gender equality, which is a true win-win — investing in something that will have a positive expected return and also aids in the achievement of gender parity,” Mitchem noted.

In June 2016, she began her new position as CEO of Wells Fargo Asset Management which she calls a “fascinating assignment and an incredible opportunity to deliver value to clients through a large organization with so much reach.”

One of the most interesting and challenging trends she is addressing is the money moving out of active management, as well as the changing regulatory environment. “Now more than any time in my career I feel I’m at the point where I can play a key role in helping an organization pivot, as we build expertise in multi-asset strategies and quantitative investment management to add to our already strong platform in fundamental active management.”

To that end, she has spent much of the last year building out quantitative capabilities at Wells Fargo Asset Management, including the acquisition of Analytic Investors, a leader in factor-based investments based in Los Angeles. Although active management is in the firm’s DNA, she contends that it can co-exist symbiotically with multi-asset and other quantitative strategies under the same roof.

As Mitchem looks back on her career, she says that one thing she wishes she’d known more about is the science on women in the workforce. “I remember getting a review as an associate at Goldman and after a positive performance recap, my boss said that I needed to be more ‘likeable.’ At the time I obsessed about it, but I know now that there are numerous scientific studies showing that as women become more successful, they are typically rated as less ‘likeable,’” she notes. Mitchem feels that if she had had that information, she would have pushed back or perhaps put the feedback more in context. The trick, she says, is to separate the feedback that is unique to you that you can use to improve your performance, compared to what’s related to more broad-based gender issues.

The Right Support Network Makes All the Difference

When Mitchem considers her success, she is quick to give credit to her husband and her caregiver. “It may sound strange, but you have to find the right partner for your life who will support your aspirations. If it’s to be a stay-at-home mom, great; if it’s to work, great. But if you are leaning toward one way or another, the person you choose may be different,” she points out. “My husband has always been tremendously supportive of my career, and I believe it’s important to model a working spouse for our children.”

Secondly she credits her children’s caregiver, whom she calls a “pillar.” “We have had the same caregiver for our children since our first daughter was born and she is truly a co-parent with us, enabling us to have successful careers and a well-adjusted family.”

Mitchem also finds time for camaraderie with other women; having reignited her love of tennis over the past couple of years after playing as a kid. “It allows me to dual task – getting exercise in a way I love while socializing with fantastic women.”

With three girls, ages 16, 13 and 11, she is acutely aware of her position as a role model, and has always integrated her children in her work, even bringing them on business trips when they were younger. “We love to travel as a family, and one of the interesting things about my career is that I’ve had the opportunity to live and work in different countries, which has given me a true appreciation of other cultures. I believe that, as a parent, it’s important to impart a curiosity about the world to your children.”

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