Aoifinn Devitt: Our next guest lives by the Four Agreements and believes in always looking for the good in everyone. Find out what he learned from his unconventional journey into the world of investment operations, and then from his weekend job on the beat. I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to The Fifth Faces podcast, a podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people and their stories. I’m joined today by Darren Johnson, who is Chief Operating Officer in Listed Equities and Executive Director at Impax Asset Management, where he is responsible for global operations including portfolio services, technology change, project management, and client onboarding. He previously worked in a series of accounting and operations roles. Welcome, Darren. Thanks for joining me today.
Darren Johnson: Thank you.
Aoifinn Devitt: So, Darren, let’s start with the first question, which is always where did you grow up, what did you study, and how did you come to enter the world of finance?
Darren Johnson: Well, my story, I don’t know how strange it is or how odd it is. Hope I it is odd. But basically, I was born in London, grew up in Clapham, Clapham South, and then later on moved to Croydon. As a young man, or young boy, I you know, lived at home, a single-parent family with my sister, and we lived on a council estate in Clapham South. And that was really interesting because I had to grow up quite quickly as a 7-year-old. My mother used to work 3 jobs, and she used to go and do night duty and then go and do a morning job. Sometimes she would then come home in the afternoon, but we wouldn’t see her because we would be at school. When we came back from school, she might be at home and getting a few hours sleep, and then she’d just repeat it. So it was quite interesting growing up because we didn’t, you know, although we had a good relationship with my mum, we didn’t see her all the time, so we had to kind of fend for ourselves. And so I always say, you know, I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. These types of challenges as a young boy made me fend for myself and made me a lot more resilient and a lot more, you know, my with sort of maybe problem solving. So I used to just solve problems all the time and I used to love it and enjoy it. And I guess it’s probably one of the reasons why I’m in the job that I’m in right now. Where did I study? So I went to— went through high school, went to college, and then I guess maybe because of my background or whatever, I did well, but then decided not to go to university. And that’s quite interesting because a lot of people say, why didn’t you go to university? And I guess at the time when I was thinking about it, I just felt that— it was two things. One, I wanted to earn money coming from a situation where there wasn’t a lot of money around. So I wanted to earn money, I wanted to you help, know, my mom, my family. But then I also thought that experience would be more more valuable than a degree. But it didn’t mean that I wouldn’t educate myself. I just felt that if I was going to do that, it’s probably better to do it on the job and actually do something more relevant to the career that I had chosen. Now, how did I choose the career? Well, this is where I was saying the story is a bit odd. So when my mother used to go to work, obviously we were left alone. We were on the top floor of a council flat. And, you know, I used to pretend— my mom used to ring up around 9:30 in the evening to check that we were going to bed, and I used to pretend for lessons that I was groggy and I was going to bed, but I wasn’t really. What I was doing was I wanted to watch TV, and the program that I watched was a program called Family Ties. So some of you that may be old enough to know that program where Michael J. Fox was the star, and he played a character, Alex Heaton, and that character was the opposite of his parents. So his parents were left-leaning, democratic, kind of hippie, and he was kind of right-leaning, conservative, after the wealth, and wanted to be super successful, super wealthy, and working in the city. And so for whatever reason, I had an affinity with that character, and that character became my role model. So I wanted— the only reason why I know about the industry that I’m in, financial services, asset management, is because of that character. And if I had never fallen in love with that program, I may have never ended up where I am today. The other program that I also used to love and watch was The Bill, crazily enough. And when I started working as a COO, I just wanted to be in the police. And so what I did was I applied to be a special constable for the Met Police. And I got in. And I did that for 4 years. So after— work on a Friday, believe it or not, being a senior, senior person. I used to go get dressed in the police uniform and go and police Camden and do a night shift until 2 AM there. And I used to do 999 response, I used to do drugs operations, undercover operations, all of this coming from financial services. But it was so super interesting, I really, really enjoyed it. And again, it gave me a different perspective. If you end up doing well, sometimes you forget, you know, where you come from and you forget what happens in what I’ll call real society. There’s some real problems out there, and being in the police, you get to see that close up, and you get to make people feel good, actually. I know there’s a lot of negative stereotypes about the police. One of the reasons why I really enjoyed being in there, to try and change those stereotypes, you know, you get to see people, and actually people are pleased to see you in the, in the May. So that kind of gives you a kind of roundabout tour. I know I jumped about a bit, but as as to, to why I went into investments, what the kind of relatable, or maybe not so relatable, role model that helped me get into the industry, and a bit about my background, which, you know, wasn’t by any means privileged. But as I say, I feel that that was a really good way of growing up. Sometimes there are disadvantages that are advantages, and I certainly believe my background is an advantage.
Aoifinn Devitt: Such an interesting background and set of observations, but also such a surreal juxtaposition. I’m imagining your weekday in the city, weekends on the beat. I’m sure absolutely fascinating cross-fertilization of insights across those two sectors. Just getting back to the first point, that point of role models, I think that’s really interesting because one of the issues we have, I suppose, in the financial services industry is the whole, you can’t be what you can’t see. There there aren’t sufficient role models. I don’t think I’ve actually thought more about media and, you know, entertainment being a source of role models in that way, career way. And I wonder, are there still the same set of role models out there, maybe through television, or is it now more YouTube influencers, which is another interesting thing?
Darren Johnson: That is a very interesting question. I think for me, I know you’re absolutely right, you can’t be what you can’t see. And being a Black leader in the financial services or asset management industry, I realize that it’s great because people look at me and hopefully believe that they can also achieve what I have achieved and even more. But what I will say is that my own role model was not Black. My role model was, was white, was conservative, was a fictional character, and that’s still— I saw that person or that character and it still kind of had an impact on me. So I think Of course, it’s great to get relatable role models, but you can still have a role model, right? So you can still see and extrapolate what you want to extrapolate from people you see around you. I have loads of, actually, role models. I’m very lucky in the sense that I’ve got people like Gavin Lewis, who some of you listeners will know. I’ve got people like Justin Onyekwusi, Marisa Hall, Rachel Green. There’s so many people that I look to And there’s different parts of them that I think, fantastic, wow, I would love to learn more from them. And I look up to them in all different ways. You know, my CEO, so many people around me that I look to and want to learn from. And I think it doesn’t really matter whether it’s YouTube, whether it’s the TV, whether it’s your next-door neighbor. The fact is, if you’ve got something to look at, something to aspire to, that should help you. And I always look up. That’s another thing, I always look up. I always appreciate that wisdom comes from so many places, and you shouldn’t let education get in the way of wisdom. So.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’S what I say. Very, very interesting. And we’re definitely going to dive a bit more into the investment industry and hiring into it, as well as diversity. But before that, I just want to say a word or two about the role you’re currently in, investment management operations. What are some of the pressing issues for you today? And has the COVID disruption been a a setback hack or an accelerator for some of the issues on your mind?
Darren Johnson: Yes, great question. So I think it’s a really interesting time to be in our industry because people always talk about it, but it’s still true, the kind of trends or macro trends that are going on still exist. So, you know, we have regulators wanting us to be more transparent, report more, do more, etc. We also have clients that want us to be more transparent, and clients that more and more, of course, care about returns, but also care about the impact of their capital. And that goes into the kind of ESG kind of discussion. So we’ve always, as in Impact Asset Management, have always been in ESG. We are leaders in that space and, you know, have done it for many, many years, 22 years at least, leading first with climate. What that’s meant now, now that it’s becoming more mainstream, clients are demanding and trying to understand literally where the impacts are. So when I talked about regulation earlier, talking I was about— I’m talking about examples like the you TCFD, know, Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosure. Financial disclosures now you’re having to put on your financial statements, as well as sustainable finance disclosure rules, SFDR. You know, that’s also kind of having an impact in terms of how we have to demonstrate exactly what we’re doing, where the money is going, etc. Now that has an impact on the operating model because clearly when we’re talking about beyond financial returns and trying to report on those, you now have to think about the new data sets that you need, one to help our portfolio managers make investment decisions, but also to be transparent to clients. So that’s something that having to make sure the operating model can manage that across all the asset classes in which we choose to invest is a big consideration. And of course, digital, which everyone obviously talks about, and this has very much come to the front of mind given COVID. Now, we’re very lucky, Impax has been very innovative in the way we’ve approached this stuff. We were early cloud adopters, we’ve been in the cloud for, you know, 12, 13 years. So fully in the cloud, cloud-first kind of strategy. As well as a digital strategy for many, many years. So when COVID hit, we were in a very, very strong position to just operate normally as if we were all in the office together because our infrastructure was secured and very much in the cloud. And we’ve been testing it, you know, every day we go to work because we’re not connecting to infrastructure. So we were in a good position, but it didn’t mean that there still weren’t workflows that were non-digitized that were clunky whilst working remotely. And so what we’ve done there is to look at those things and, you know, reevaluate whether the tasks that we’re doing are meaningful. Should we be doing it? Or if we feel we should be doing it, should we be looking at better ways of automating that? And then of course outsourcing. So outsourcing, you know, when we look at the cost-to-income ratio, of course we want to We want to do better. My job is to make sure that works. And so, you know, looking at whether there are elements of our operations that we should be considering outsourcing, that’s something that I’m sure every manager does. And you’ve got to try and make sure you, you, you get a balance right, because clearly when you outsource, it’s not to save money per se, it’s to maybe make you more efficient and allow you to scale. So you’re not going to save money up front, but you might save money over a number of years. Rather than kind of reinventing the wheel all the time and building up your own team. So, you know, looking at that to figure out if that’s going to help us, that’s all these types of things at the forefront of mind. And I guess the last point, again, going back to ESG, is really when we’ve seen change of president in the US, and of course how that administration feels about the climate, when we think— I think the US may rejoin the Paris Treaty And then you also have a number of organizations talking about going to carbon net neutral as well in 2030. You know, when you’re looking at all these trends, again, this goes back to asset management. You know, it’s not about also where investing, it’s also about what we actually do, how we run our organizations, because we’ve got to practice what we preach. And so from an operational standpoint, that’s another trend. Are we and our suppliers doing the right thing when it comes to the environment, when it comes to social, when it comes to governance and looking deeply at that because we want to make sure that across our supply chain we’re being, or certainly trying to stick to the same standards as we do with how we look at our investments, etc. A long-winded way of answering that question, but there are, I guess there’s never been a time where there’s been so much being thrown at firms, asset management firms, So much so that I actually think in future, when we look at talent in asset management, I think a lot of them are going to come from the kind of technical technology space. I think automation is going to be a really big, big thing, and we might one day get a CEO that comes from— that has an engineering background rather than the sales background in future. I kind of feel that the way the industry is going and all the regulation, all these changes that are happening, it might be about an about-face in terms of where where the kind of revenue generators and front office have always been key. It might— the onus might now be more on the kind of operating side of the business because that enablement is becoming so, so important in so many different ways. So it’ll be interesting to see in future how that balance of power changes.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s so interesting. And that’s always been a barrier to entry, I think, the amount of firepower you need at the middle and back end, and as well as to comply with new regulation. One question, the last one, on this topic for you is, do you foresee a future where we outsource more? And this question has come up a lot, you know, regarding the remote working, that certain whole divisions maybe may never need to work from the, the central office environment again. And does that then open up the possibility of these divisions being based offshore, which may then bring up its own issue of governance? So what do you see in terms of that trend?
Darren Johnson: Yeah, it’s a difficult one because I think You’ve got to think about regulation as well. You know, we’re in a highly regulated industry, so there’s a lot of onus and responsibility on the asset manager which cannot be outsourced away. You know, the risk that we’ve got to manage— so sometimes it’s quite— you prefer to manage your own risk than, you know, try and get someone to manage the risk, but you oversee them managing that risk. So there are certain parts of our industry that would work very well being outsourced, absolutely, and there’s certain parts that I just wouldn’t want to do that. So of course portfolio management, you shouldn’t be outsourcing that, but you might outsource your middle office, you know, if that makes sense and it’s kind of a utility and allows you to concentrate on the more add-value things. And you know, that might be a simple thing to do, but again, it all depends on your model. But the good thing about outsourcing is that you are able to then potentially bring new talent and different into the industry, which I think is fantastic personally. And I think actually I didn’t mention that, but that’s one of the things that COVID has really opened up the eyes to, that look, if we’re all working remotely and most firms have reported better earnings than last year, great successes, cost savings, better efficiencies. So when you look at that, you think, well, that’s great. Now where we you say, know, we need people to come into London to go into an office, you know, we’ve demonstrated that we don’t necessarily need that to be effective. So that means that if we’re trying to hire a particular role and we want to bring in some diverse talent and that talent doesn’t— does not live in the locality, or you don’t have much exposure to different types of talent in a particular locality that you’re stationed in or based in, now you you can, know, potentially get that talent from another part of the country or another area and get them working for you and bring them in from time to time, obviously for team culture, etc. But you can actually do that, it’s possible now, and it’s credibly possible. So I think the trend of outsourcing will continue, but I think it’ll be very like it is now, very tactical, very considered as well, given the regulatory environment and given the risks that firms such as Impax are running. I do think that trend will carry on.
Aoifinn Devitt: Very interesting, and a perfect segue actually to my next question, which is around talent in the investment industry and diverse talent in particular. Can you just give a little bit of insight? You said you didn’t have a traditional educational path. There seems to be now some interest in taking interns almost as a kind of apprentices, maybe trying to see the talent that has not gone through traditional, perhaps university paths. What are your thoughts on that, and also on the diversity in the industry? History where we are now?
Darren Johnson: I think I was like, when I used to talk about this a lot, I used to say, you know, when I look at soccer, football, football’s got many negatives, but it’s got some extreme positives when we, when we look at how they, for example, recruit players. So if I can say this, so a team, I’m not going to mention any team because I’m sure there may be some soccer or football supporters on this podcast or listening to this podcast, but what I will say is that If you’re a big team, you are able to have your own academy and you can invest millions in it so you get your best coaches, best facilities, best everything to try and make talent for your first team, which effectively is your, your business. But you still know that even with you doing this, that there is still talent outside of your academy, right? You know that there’s talent everywhere, anywhere in the world, and what you do is you invest huge sums in your scouting network, in your recruitment network, to go and find that talent. And you might find that talent, I don’t know, in deepest, darkest Mongolia or Africa or America. And when you find that talent, you will bring that talent in. And what you do is you orientate that talent, you make sure that talent feels like they belong in the environment, you look after it, you’ll find them somewhere to live, you’ll make sure they have a buddy to make friends, and then you integrate them slowly into the team. And once they’re in the team, they work in a unit. And you see some of these top teams, you know, the people there, they’re not all English, they’re not all from the UK, they’re from different parts of the world, you know, Senegal, France, Spain, all different parts of the world. And you put them together and you get them operating as a unit. And some of the, the teams that have won championships are completely diverse in terms of people’s backgrounds. And for me, I think our industry can learn a lot from a model or soccer or sports like that, that understand that talent is not just in the top universities. Talent doesn’t look— always look a particular way. You can get talent from anywhere, and if you’ve got the right processes within your organization to make that talent succeed, make that talent feel that they belong, then they’re going to go and hopefully win you a championship, hopefully take your business to the next level. So I think asset management generally needs to be open to that way of thinking, and I think it is open to that way of thinking now. I you think, know, 2020 has been a really like pivotal year in maybe how some firms thought about talent Now, I’m very lucky maybe that when my business— when I’ve been working for my business 14 years and when I came into the business, that the CEO who hired me only saw talent, didn’t see anything else, only saw talent and brought me in on that basis. And we’ve taken the business from when I started, it was $400 million-ish, and now we’re $30 billion. Million. £1 And that’s because, as I say, he’s seen talent. I think the talent didn’t come from the traditional places, it came from somewhere completely left field, but the talent was still able to come into the organization and thrive because the organization created the conditions for talent like me and other talent that’s come in subsequently to thrive. That’s how I kind of feel. I think, again, just to reiterate, the industry is making big strides now, and I’ve seen so much from some great organizations that are really embracing the challenge, because we know our industry is great at managing challenge and understands that it’s really important to have fresh perspectives, particularly looking at companies, particularly in the decision-making processes as to where to invest clients’ money, etc. We understand that that could be a competitive advantage, so We get, I think the industry gets the message and is trying its best to address it. But like I say, just simplify it, be like football.
Aoifinn Devitt: Yeah, it was the first time I’ve heard that, but very interesting. And I think, you know, just, I mean, there’s no denying, I mean, it’s a tough industry even when you’re in It it. Is, it’s a challenge. I mean, and even people with the most, I think, traditional backgrounds and even, you know, just a natural kind of, I suppose, path to it, they struggle. It’s, you know, there are high stakes and I suppose there’s a need to really for individuals to be nurtured, particularly those for whom it may not come as naturally or may not be as familiar. And it’s thanks to leaders like yourself that I think there is more and more inclusivity being embedded in that. You spoke very poignantly about some of your, the adversity you faced as a child and how that really made you resilient. Did you face any challenges along your career path, maybe before you got to Impacts? Were there any setbacks or obstacles then?
Darren Johnson: Yeah, loads, I would say. I think not going to university kind of hindered me at first because I think when you come out of university, you— I think there’s a kind of way you’re trained to think and potentially deal with issues, or there’s an etiquette maybe, especially the top universities, that you, you kind of learn. I don’t know if it’s implicit, explicit, but you kind of learn that. And when you come into an organization, you assimilate much easier because chances are the people that you’re working with have also come from a similar background. So when I came into industry, not— I didn’t know what the etiquette was or the protocol was or what office politics are and all of it. I had no idea. So I’ve come in and I’ve been myself, and being myself caused a problem, certainly in my early days. And at that time, I didn’t understand. I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand. I certainly felt a tension, and I felt that I didn’t get the opportunities that perhaps I deserved when starting out, just because I didn’t understand the protocol. And it took me a while to kind of get it, I would say. It’s hard to say assimilate, but I had to really understand and act in the way in my early days that these firms expected of me, and not to not to challenge too much and things like that. Things like that were some of the early problems I had. And, you know, I’ll give you one example. So I won’t name the organization, but I worked in a firm and I was getting married. This firm, I asked for holiday. Sounds crazy, but I asked for holiday. But I asked for holiday in one of the busiest periods of the firm. Because I was getting married, so it was really my honeymoon. The firm said— my line manager at the time said no. Like, in my mind, I’m like, what? I couldn’t believe it. So I didn’t talk to the line manager again. I just went above the line manager, and I went above— I went to above the line manager and went to talk to another boss and said, look, I don’t know what’s going on, it’s ridiculous, and they’re like, yeah, yeah, I hear you, yeah, let me have a word with them. And see if we can sort this out. So I said, okay, fine. And then obviously that word happened. Now, the line manager that I had didn’t take it very well that I went to the boss’s— her boss’s boss. And actually, the relationship got worse. And what I, I didn’t— I failed to understand is I, I should have, you know, looking back at that scenario, even though, you know, you could argue it’s ridiculous that they said no, they should really be accommodated to something so significant in someone’s life. I should have probably had a chat with that boss first and explained and tried to get them to change their mind before escalating, if that is what was needed. But I just jumped to that and thought that’s the best way and didn’t understand that there is an etiquette to follow. Things may have changed nowadays, but when I was young and, and fresh into the industry I didn’t get that, I didn’t understand that, so it became very uncomfortable for me to work there, so I actually ended up leaving there and going somewhere else. But I’m sure things have changed now, but I don’t know if that’s kind of an example of some of the things that happened. I wouldn’t say that if we talk about discrimination or prejudice or anything like that, I would never say that I— only in my first role there was a situation which was quite overt in regards to racism. But aside from that first role, and that was back in 1999 or whatever, but apart from that first role, I’ve never experienced or felt that I’ve experienced discrimination because of who I am.
Aoifinn Devitt: Yeah, that’s certainly very reassuring to hear, although I think that challenge point is a really tricky one, and I wrestled with this one myself because where I suppose with the current narrative is that uh, it’s, it’s good to you challenge, know, the whole International Women’s choose to challenge. It’s good to challenge. We should be our authentic selves. We should speak our mind. And that good leadership should welcome challenge. I think there are a few unwritten rules, though, as you mentioned, that do still continue to govern that area. It’s very hard to know where the lines are drawn. I think we’re all wrestling with it, but it’s also that those unwritten rules, which is exactly what— if there was a handbook for that, I suppose they wouldn’t be unwritten, but that’s probably where the guidance is. As needed. And I think also just a good mentor, someone who you respect, is sometimes the best person to guide you through that. Jose, you’ve already spoken about a number of the people in the industry who motivate you and who inspire you. Maybe just throughout your life, was there one or two key people that you can mention that was really influential for you?
Darren Johnson: I think there’s a blend of people. I think I’m very lucky that, again, maybe my background is part of it, that I’ve always had a can-do attitude. Like, I’ve always been, say, solution orientated. So it might be a problem, but I’m like, I I can, can get through that, and I can solve that, I can ask that question, I can deal with it, it’s not an issue. So I’ve had that inherent kind of mindset in me. I try to think about this, and to be fair, I think I look for the good in everyone because I’m always like, my mindset is always a learning mindset, a kind of growth mindset. Anyone I meet, anyone I see from afar or close up, my friendship circle, as I say, I’m always looking for the attributes that I think will make me better or will help me be better. So I can’t point to one particular person. I can just talk about a blend of people that motivate me to be better or act as role models. And sometimes, you know, with role modeling, You don’t have to go up to someone and say, I want you to be my role model or mentor or whatever. I sometimes don’t talk to people about it. I just see them and I’m like, in my mind, those people are all my role models. I don’t need to have a chat with them and let them know. I I just, just look at what they do and I appreciate what they do. And I think I say getting some attributes from them might be additive to me as a person in my career or outside of my career.
Aoifinn Devitt: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s the whole kind of almost like the carry the briefcase moment as well. It’s, it’s, you know, you can watch, you can learn by observing, by being in meetings, by being at a conference on a panel. I think sadly these moments are a little fewer and further between just at the moment, but hopefully they’ll return. But particularly for young junior people, I think it’s so important. Was there any key piece of advice that you’ve received, or any creed or motto or words of wisdom that you live by?
Darren Johnson: There’s a few, but I really like Aristotle. So Aristotle said said, you are what you repeatedly do. So make excellence a habit, not an act. So I personally love that. So you try it. I mean, you’ve got to be careful with what I said. You shouldn’t make perfect the enemy of the good. But certainly, you should strive to be better each day. And I know people might say that, but if you really strive to be better each day, these little increments, you will get to wherever you want to go. So I kind of try and live by that motto. I read this book called The Four Agreements. And The Four Agreements, which is also something that I talk to my kids about a lot— The Four Agreements are: don’t take things personally, don’t make assumptions, don’t assume. So that one is in business and things that you do. Do not assume. Ask. Make sure you know what the facts are. Always try your best and be impeccable with your word. And I guess what that means is kind of different ways of interpreting that, but, you know, the gossiping and things like that, you should not get involved in that. Stay focused on the prize. Don’t get drawn into debating, discussing. Don’t be negative. Just, just be impeccable with your word. If you say you’re going to do something, make sure you do it. Don’t cross it. That’s it.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, I’m going to go to my MBA nerd state now and go back to some operations principles, because I’ve discussed on the podcast before how some of us who did organizational behavior in an MBA kind of came into that course saying, why are we looking at this? This is all the soft skills, and actually learned a tremendous amount. The other area I learned a lot from was the operations management course, which again, I came in thinking this isn’t relevant for me, I’m going into finance. We learned a tremendous amount. One of the things, I think it’s in terms of you mentioned being excellent at every little thing you do, focus on the excellence there, practicing it constantly. I would imagine that leads to a more— this was robust operations. The other things we learned were things like building slack into the system in operations means you will be able to cater for, I suppose, the emergency, as what the emergency sees surge. Similarly, that kind of business continuity, a discipline, all of which we deeply relied on today. So I’m sure those, some of those principles you mentioned have been very helpful in your operations business as well.
Darren Johnson: Absolutely right, and helpful. I mentor a lot of young people from different backgrounds as well. You know, some of these principles or some of these things are really, really very simple, but really, really important. And I’ve had feedback that some of my mentees have put some of these things into practice and they’re like, this is great. Particularly the don’t assume, I always get comments on that one, that the amount of times they could have made a mistake or could have done something wrong, or they felt someone didn’t like them and they’re assuming they didn’t like them, so therefore their behavior towards them was a bit, you know, like me, I don’t like you kind of stuff. And when they’ve gone and had a discussion to understand that, they’ve realized it’s completely not the case. All of these things that they probably wouldn’t have done if they didn’t take the Four Agreements seriously. So yeah, absolutely.
Aoifinn Devitt: And my last question is any advice you might have for your younger self? Maybe, I don’t know if it’s that kid watching Family Ties on the sly or maybe somebody a little older. Is there anything that you know now you wish you had known then?
Darren Johnson: Yeah, I think so. So I think it’s really understanding that I have the talent to succeed or I had the talent to succeed at that age. But make sure you have the guts to fail. And then to understand that to get something you’ve never had, you have to be prepared to do something you’ve never done. Now, I would say I’ve done all of that, right? But I got that, I think, much— if I, in the start of my career, if I had that mindset, I personally think I would be much further along, whatever that means. But, you know, when you start your career, you’re so scared to fail. You’re so scared to fail. So what you do is you don’t take risk. You avoid risk as much as possible. You avoid responsibility as much as possible because all you want to do is survive, right? When you first start out, now I can understand that mindset, but if you really want to get on and you want to learn quickly, I always say when I interview people and they’re like, we want 5 years experience. And when I talk to my, my staff that are interviewing, I say, 5 years experience, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. There’s some people that do a job for 5 years and still don’t understand it. And there’s some people that come in and do a job for 1 year and it’s like they’ve got 5 years experience because they understand everything about that role. So that same 5 years experience is a guide, but it doesn’t mean that the person that you hire is going to actually know the job that, that you’re asking them to do. So you need to take risk. You need to really have the guts to fail. So, you know, take on responsibility, and if you fail, you’ve got to learn. That’s the only reason why failure is there. It’s a learning opportunity, and you should take it and see it as such. And like I said, you know, if you, if you want to be a leader— being a leader, it’s easy, just, just lead people, right? And look after the person to the right of you and to the left of you. That’s, that’s leadership. But also be prepared to do something you’ve never done before. You know, it’s like what got you there won’t get you there. So it’s great that you’re doing a great job now, but let’s, let’s try and do something else. Because if you want to get to the top of your business, then you’ve got to try and give yourself the broadest knowledge possible and the broadest experience possible, or working with the broadest set of people possible, and turn them into your cheerleaders. And that will help you navigate your organization and hopefully get you to where you want to be.
Aoifinn Devitt: So, so powerful. And I think another point that we have to all bear in mind is freedom to fail is not a given for so many people, and it’s nothing to do with their mindset. It’s to do with their circumstance. So that the more we can ensure that future generations have the freedom to fail, the more they will fail forward and learn through doing. Well, Darren, it’s been such a pleasure speaking with you. We’ve managed to cover quite a lot from the overall importance of transparency, the importance of tough experiences early on, which can make you more resilient, and really just how to embrace some of the challenges that we currently still face in the industry. Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us.
Darren Johnson: It’s been my pleasure. Thank you. Anytime.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces Podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors on their personal journeys, please subscribe subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Series 4 is brought to you with the kind support of Federated Hermes Inc., a leading global investment manager. Guided by their conviction that responsible investing is the best way to create wealth over the long term, their investment solutions span equity, fixed income, alternative and private markets, multi-asset and liquidity strategies, and a range of separately managed accounts distributed through intermediaries worldwide. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
Aoifinn Devitt: Our next guest lives by the Four Agreements and believes in always looking for the good in everyone. Find out what he learned from his unconventional journey into the world of investment operations, and then from his weekend job on the beat. I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to The Fifth Faces podcast, a podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people and their stories. I’m joined today by Darren Johnson, who is Chief Operating Officer in Listed Equities and Executive Director at Impax Asset Management, where he is responsible for global operations including portfolio services, technology change, project management, and client onboarding. He previously worked in a series of accounting and operations roles. Welcome, Darren. Thanks for joining me today.
Darren Johnson: Thank you.
Aoifinn Devitt: So, Darren, let’s start with the first question, which is always where did you grow up, what did you study, and how did you come to enter the world of finance?
Darren Johnson: Well, my story, I don’t know how strange it is or how odd it is. Hope I it is odd. But basically, I was born in London, grew up in Clapham, Clapham South, and then later on moved to Croydon. As a young man, or young boy, I you know, lived at home, a single-parent family with my sister, and we lived on a council estate in Clapham South. And that was really interesting because I had to grow up quite quickly as a 7-year-old. My mother used to work 3 jobs, and she used to go and do night duty and then go and do a morning job. Sometimes she would then come home in the afternoon, but we wouldn’t see her because we would be at school. When we came back from school, she might be at home and getting a few hours sleep, and then she’d just repeat it. So it was quite interesting growing up because we didn’t, you know, although we had a good relationship with my mum, we didn’t see her all the time, so we had to kind of fend for ourselves. And so I always say, you know, I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. These types of challenges as a young boy made me fend for myself and made me a lot more resilient and a lot more, you know, my with sort of maybe problem solving. So I used to just solve problems all the time and I used to love it and enjoy it. And I guess it’s probably one of the reasons why I’m in the job that I’m in right now. Where did I study? So I went to— went through high school, went to college, and then I guess maybe because of my background or whatever, I did well, but then decided not to go to university. And that’s quite interesting because a lot of people say, why didn’t you go to university? And I guess at the time when I was thinking about it, I just felt that— it was two things. One, I wanted to earn money coming from a situation where there wasn’t a lot of money around. So I wanted to earn money, I wanted to you help, know, my mom, my family. But then I also thought that experience would be more more valuable than a degree. But it didn’t mean that I wouldn’t educate myself. I just felt that if I was going to do that, it’s probably better to do it on the job and actually do something more relevant to the career that I had chosen. Now, how did I choose the career? Well, this is where I was saying the story is a bit odd. So when my mother used to go to work, obviously we were left alone. We were on the top floor of a council flat. And, you know, I used to pretend— my mom used to ring up around 9:30 in the evening to check that we were going to bed, and I used to pretend for lessons that I was groggy and I was going to bed, but I wasn’t really. What I was doing was I wanted to watch TV, and the program that I watched was a program called Family Ties. So some of you that may be old enough to know that program where Michael J. Fox was the star, and he played a character, Alex Heaton, and that character was the opposite of his parents. So his parents were left-leaning, democratic, kind of hippie, and he was kind of right-leaning, conservative, after the wealth, and wanted to be super successful, super wealthy, and working in the city. And so for whatever reason, I had an affinity with that character, and that character became my role model. So I wanted— the only reason why I know about the industry that I’m in, financial services, asset management, is because of that character. And if I had never fallen in love with that program, I may have never ended up where I am today. The other program that I also used to love and watch was The Bill, crazily enough. And when I started working as a COO, I just wanted to be in the police. And so what I did was I applied to be a special constable for the Met Police. And I got in. And I did that for 4 years. So after— work on a Friday, believe it or not, being a senior, senior person. I used to go get dressed in the police uniform and go and police Camden and do a night shift until 2 AM there. And I used to do 999 response, I used to do drugs operations, undercover operations, all of this coming from financial services. But it was so super interesting, I really, really enjoyed it. And again, it gave me a different perspective. If you end up doing well, sometimes you forget, you know, where you come from and you forget what happens in what I’ll call real society. There’s some real problems out there, and being in the police, you get to see that close up, and you get to make people feel good, actually. I know there’s a lot of negative stereotypes about the police. One of the reasons why I really enjoyed being in there, to try and change those stereotypes, you know, you get to see people, and actually people are pleased to see you in the, in the May. So that kind of gives you a kind of roundabout tour. I know I jumped about a bit, but as as to, to why I went into investments, what the kind of relatable, or maybe not so relatable, role model that helped me get into the industry, and a bit about my background, which, you know, wasn’t by any means privileged. But as I say, I feel that that was a really good way of growing up. Sometimes there are disadvantages that are advantages, and I certainly believe my background is an advantage.
Aoifinn Devitt: Such an interesting background and set of observations, but also such a surreal juxtaposition. I’m imagining your weekday in the city, weekends on the beat. I’m sure absolutely fascinating cross-fertilization of insights across those two sectors. Just getting back to the first point, that point of role models, I think that’s really interesting because one of the issues we have, I suppose, in the financial services industry is the whole, you can’t be what you can’t see. There there aren’t sufficient role models. I don’t think I’ve actually thought more about media and, you know, entertainment being a source of role models in that way, career way. And I wonder, are there still the same set of role models out there, maybe through television, or is it now more YouTube influencers, which is another interesting thing?
Darren Johnson: That is a very interesting question. I think for me, I know you’re absolutely right, you can’t be what you can’t see. And being a Black leader in the financial services or asset management industry, I realize that it’s great because people look at me and hopefully believe that they can also achieve what I have achieved and even more. But what I will say is that my own role model was not Black. My role model was, was white, was conservative, was a fictional character, and that’s still— I saw that person or that character and it still kind of had an impact on me. So I think Of course, it’s great to get relatable role models, but you can still have a role model, right? So you can still see and extrapolate what you want to extrapolate from people you see around you. I have loads of, actually, role models. I’m very lucky in the sense that I’ve got people like Gavin Lewis, who some of you listeners will know. I’ve got people like Justin Onyekwusi, Marisa Hall, Rachel Green. There’s so many people that I look to And there’s different parts of them that I think, fantastic, wow, I would love to learn more from them. And I look up to them in all different ways. You know, my CEO, so many people around me that I look to and want to learn from. And I think it doesn’t really matter whether it’s YouTube, whether it’s the TV, whether it’s your next-door neighbor. The fact is, if you’ve got something to look at, something to aspire to, that should help you. And I always look up. That’s another thing, I always look up. I always appreciate that wisdom comes from so many places, and you shouldn’t let education get in the way of wisdom. So.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’S what I say. Very, very interesting. And we’re definitely going to dive a bit more into the investment industry and hiring into it, as well as diversity. But before that, I just want to say a word or two about the role you’re currently in, investment management operations. What are some of the pressing issues for you today? And has the COVID disruption been a a setback hack or an accelerator for some of the issues on your mind?
Darren Johnson: Yes, great question. So I think it’s a really interesting time to be in our industry because people always talk about it, but it’s still true, the kind of trends or macro trends that are going on still exist. So, you know, we have regulators wanting us to be more transparent, report more, do more, etc. We also have clients that want us to be more transparent, and clients that more and more, of course, care about returns, but also care about the impact of their capital. And that goes into the kind of ESG kind of discussion. So we’ve always, as in Impact Asset Management, have always been in ESG. We are leaders in that space and, you know, have done it for many, many years, 22 years at least, leading first with climate. What that’s meant now, now that it’s becoming more mainstream, clients are demanding and trying to understand literally where the impacts are. So when I talked about regulation earlier, talking I was about— I’m talking about examples like the you TCFD, know, Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosure. Financial disclosures now you’re having to put on your financial statements, as well as sustainable finance disclosure rules, SFDR. You know, that’s also kind of having an impact in terms of how we have to demonstrate exactly what we’re doing, where the money is going, etc. Now that has an impact on the operating model because clearly when we’re talking about beyond financial returns and trying to report on those, you now have to think about the new data sets that you need, one to help our portfolio managers make investment decisions, but also to be transparent to clients. So that’s something that having to make sure the operating model can manage that across all the asset classes in which we choose to invest is a big consideration. And of course, digital, which everyone obviously talks about, and this has very much come to the front of mind given COVID. Now, we’re very lucky, Impax has been very innovative in the way we’ve approached this stuff. We were early cloud adopters, we’ve been in the cloud for, you know, 12, 13 years. So fully in the cloud, cloud-first kind of strategy. As well as a digital strategy for many, many years. So when COVID hit, we were in a very, very strong position to just operate normally as if we were all in the office together because our infrastructure was secured and very much in the cloud. And we’ve been testing it, you know, every day we go to work because we’re not connecting to infrastructure. So we were in a good position, but it didn’t mean that there still weren’t workflows that were non-digitized that were clunky whilst working remotely. And so what we’ve done there is to look at those things and, you know, reevaluate whether the tasks that we’re doing are meaningful. Should we be doing it? Or if we feel we should be doing it, should we be looking at better ways of automating that? And then of course outsourcing. So outsourcing, you know, when we look at the cost-to-income ratio, of course we want to We want to do better. My job is to make sure that works. And so, you know, looking at whether there are elements of our operations that we should be considering outsourcing, that’s something that I’m sure every manager does. And you’ve got to try and make sure you, you, you get a balance right, because clearly when you outsource, it’s not to save money per se, it’s to maybe make you more efficient and allow you to scale. So you’re not going to save money up front, but you might save money over a number of years. Rather than kind of reinventing the wheel all the time and building up your own team. So, you know, looking at that to figure out if that’s going to help us, that’s all these types of things at the forefront of mind. And I guess the last point, again, going back to ESG, is really when we’ve seen change of president in the US, and of course how that administration feels about the climate, when we think— I think the US may rejoin the Paris Treaty And then you also have a number of organizations talking about going to carbon net neutral as well in 2030. You know, when you’re looking at all these trends, again, this goes back to asset management. You know, it’s not about also where investing, it’s also about what we actually do, how we run our organizations, because we’ve got to practice what we preach. And so from an operational standpoint, that’s another trend. Are we and our suppliers doing the right thing when it comes to the environment, when it comes to social, when it comes to governance and looking deeply at that because we want to make sure that across our supply chain we’re being, or certainly trying to stick to the same standards as we do with how we look at our investments, etc. A long-winded way of answering that question, but there are, I guess there’s never been a time where there’s been so much being thrown at firms, asset management firms, So much so that I actually think in future, when we look at talent in asset management, I think a lot of them are going to come from the kind of technical technology space. I think automation is going to be a really big, big thing, and we might one day get a CEO that comes from— that has an engineering background rather than the sales background in future. I kind of feel that the way the industry is going and all the regulation, all these changes that are happening, it might be about an about-face in terms of where where the kind of revenue generators and front office have always been key. It might— the onus might now be more on the kind of operating side of the business because that enablement is becoming so, so important in so many different ways. So it’ll be interesting to see in future how that balance of power changes.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s so interesting. And that’s always been a barrier to entry, I think, the amount of firepower you need at the middle and back end, and as well as to comply with new regulation. One question, the last one, on this topic for you is, do you foresee a future where we outsource more? And this question has come up a lot, you know, regarding the remote working, that certain whole divisions maybe may never need to work from the, the central office environment again. And does that then open up the possibility of these divisions being based offshore, which may then bring up its own issue of governance? So what do you see in terms of that trend?
Darren Johnson: Yeah, it’s a difficult one because I think You’ve got to think about regulation as well. You know, we’re in a highly regulated industry, so there’s a lot of onus and responsibility on the asset manager which cannot be outsourced away. You know, the risk that we’ve got to manage— so sometimes it’s quite— you prefer to manage your own risk than, you know, try and get someone to manage the risk, but you oversee them managing that risk. So there are certain parts of our industry that would work very well being outsourced, absolutely, and there’s certain parts that I just wouldn’t want to do that. So of course portfolio management, you shouldn’t be outsourcing that, but you might outsource your middle office, you know, if that makes sense and it’s kind of a utility and allows you to concentrate on the more add-value things. And you know, that might be a simple thing to do, but again, it all depends on your model. But the good thing about outsourcing is that you are able to then potentially bring new talent and different into the industry, which I think is fantastic personally. And I think actually I didn’t mention that, but that’s one of the things that COVID has really opened up the eyes to, that look, if we’re all working remotely and most firms have reported better earnings than last year, great successes, cost savings, better efficiencies. So when you look at that, you think, well, that’s great. Now where we you say, know, we need people to come into London to go into an office, you know, we’ve demonstrated that we don’t necessarily need that to be effective. So that means that if we’re trying to hire a particular role and we want to bring in some diverse talent and that talent doesn’t— does not live in the locality, or you don’t have much exposure to different types of talent in a particular locality that you’re stationed in or based in, now you you can, know, potentially get that talent from another part of the country or another area and get them working for you and bring them in from time to time, obviously for team culture, etc. But you can actually do that, it’s possible now, and it’s credibly possible. So I think the trend of outsourcing will continue, but I think it’ll be very like it is now, very tactical, very considered as well, given the regulatory environment and given the risks that firms such as Impax are running. I do think that trend will carry on.
Aoifinn Devitt: Very interesting, and a perfect segue actually to my next question, which is around talent in the investment industry and diverse talent in particular. Can you just give a little bit of insight? You said you didn’t have a traditional educational path. There seems to be now some interest in taking interns almost as a kind of apprentices, maybe trying to see the talent that has not gone through traditional, perhaps university paths. What are your thoughts on that, and also on the diversity in the industry? History where we are now?
Darren Johnson: I think I was like, when I used to talk about this a lot, I used to say, you know, when I look at soccer, football, football’s got many negatives, but it’s got some extreme positives when we, when we look at how they, for example, recruit players. So if I can say this, so a team, I’m not going to mention any team because I’m sure there may be some soccer or football supporters on this podcast or listening to this podcast, but what I will say is that If you’re a big team, you are able to have your own academy and you can invest millions in it so you get your best coaches, best facilities, best everything to try and make talent for your first team, which effectively is your, your business. But you still know that even with you doing this, that there is still talent outside of your academy, right? You know that there’s talent everywhere, anywhere in the world, and what you do is you invest huge sums in your scouting network, in your recruitment network, to go and find that talent. And you might find that talent, I don’t know, in deepest, darkest Mongolia or Africa or America. And when you find that talent, you will bring that talent in. And what you do is you orientate that talent, you make sure that talent feels like they belong in the environment, you look after it, you’ll find them somewhere to live, you’ll make sure they have a buddy to make friends, and then you integrate them slowly into the team. And once they’re in the team, they work in a unit. And you see some of these top teams, you know, the people there, they’re not all English, they’re not all from the UK, they’re from different parts of the world, you know, Senegal, France, Spain, all different parts of the world. And you put them together and you get them operating as a unit. And some of the, the teams that have won championships are completely diverse in terms of people’s backgrounds. And for me, I think our industry can learn a lot from a model or soccer or sports like that, that understand that talent is not just in the top universities. Talent doesn’t look— always look a particular way. You can get talent from anywhere, and if you’ve got the right processes within your organization to make that talent succeed, make that talent feel that they belong, then they’re going to go and hopefully win you a championship, hopefully take your business to the next level. So I think asset management generally needs to be open to that way of thinking, and I think it is open to that way of thinking now. I you think, know, 2020 has been a really like pivotal year in maybe how some firms thought about talent Now, I’m very lucky maybe that when my business— when I’ve been working for my business 14 years and when I came into the business, that the CEO who hired me only saw talent, didn’t see anything else, only saw talent and brought me in on that basis. And we’ve taken the business from when I started, it was $400 million-ish, and now we’re $30 billion. Million. £1 And that’s because, as I say, he’s seen talent. I think the talent didn’t come from the traditional places, it came from somewhere completely left field, but the talent was still able to come into the organization and thrive because the organization created the conditions for talent like me and other talent that’s come in subsequently to thrive. That’s how I kind of feel. I think, again, just to reiterate, the industry is making big strides now, and I’ve seen so much from some great organizations that are really embracing the challenge, because we know our industry is great at managing challenge and understands that it’s really important to have fresh perspectives, particularly looking at companies, particularly in the decision-making processes as to where to invest clients’ money, etc. We understand that that could be a competitive advantage, so We get, I think the industry gets the message and is trying its best to address it. But like I say, just simplify it, be like football.
Aoifinn Devitt: Yeah, it was the first time I’ve heard that, but very interesting. And I think, you know, just, I mean, there’s no denying, I mean, it’s a tough industry even when you’re in It it. Is, it’s a challenge. I mean, and even people with the most, I think, traditional backgrounds and even, you know, just a natural kind of, I suppose, path to it, they struggle. It’s, you know, there are high stakes and I suppose there’s a need to really for individuals to be nurtured, particularly those for whom it may not come as naturally or may not be as familiar. And it’s thanks to leaders like yourself that I think there is more and more inclusivity being embedded in that. You spoke very poignantly about some of your, the adversity you faced as a child and how that really made you resilient. Did you face any challenges along your career path, maybe before you got to Impacts? Were there any setbacks or obstacles then?
Darren Johnson: Yeah, loads, I would say. I think not going to university kind of hindered me at first because I think when you come out of university, you— I think there’s a kind of way you’re trained to think and potentially deal with issues, or there’s an etiquette maybe, especially the top universities, that you, you kind of learn. I don’t know if it’s implicit, explicit, but you kind of learn that. And when you come into an organization, you assimilate much easier because chances are the people that you’re working with have also come from a similar background. So when I came into industry, not— I didn’t know what the etiquette was or the protocol was or what office politics are and all of it. I had no idea. So I’ve come in and I’ve been myself, and being myself caused a problem, certainly in my early days. And at that time, I didn’t understand. I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand. I certainly felt a tension, and I felt that I didn’t get the opportunities that perhaps I deserved when starting out, just because I didn’t understand the protocol. And it took me a while to kind of get it, I would say. It’s hard to say assimilate, but I had to really understand and act in the way in my early days that these firms expected of me, and not to not to challenge too much and things like that. Things like that were some of the early problems I had. And, you know, I’ll give you one example. So I won’t name the organization, but I worked in a firm and I was getting married. This firm, I asked for holiday. Sounds crazy, but I asked for holiday. But I asked for holiday in one of the busiest periods of the firm. Because I was getting married, so it was really my honeymoon. The firm said— my line manager at the time said no. Like, in my mind, I’m like, what? I couldn’t believe it. So I didn’t talk to the line manager again. I just went above the line manager, and I went above— I went to above the line manager and went to talk to another boss and said, look, I don’t know what’s going on, it’s ridiculous, and they’re like, yeah, yeah, I hear you, yeah, let me have a word with them. And see if we can sort this out. So I said, okay, fine. And then obviously that word happened. Now, the line manager that I had didn’t take it very well that I went to the boss’s— her boss’s boss. And actually, the relationship got worse. And what I, I didn’t— I failed to understand is I, I should have, you know, looking back at that scenario, even though, you know, you could argue it’s ridiculous that they said no, they should really be accommodated to something so significant in someone’s life. I should have probably had a chat with that boss first and explained and tried to get them to change their mind before escalating, if that is what was needed. But I just jumped to that and thought that’s the best way and didn’t understand that there is an etiquette to follow. Things may have changed nowadays, but when I was young and, and fresh into the industry I didn’t get that, I didn’t understand that, so it became very uncomfortable for me to work there, so I actually ended up leaving there and going somewhere else. But I’m sure things have changed now, but I don’t know if that’s kind of an example of some of the things that happened. I wouldn’t say that if we talk about discrimination or prejudice or anything like that, I would never say that I— only in my first role there was a situation which was quite overt in regards to racism. But aside from that first role, and that was back in 1999 or whatever, but apart from that first role, I’ve never experienced or felt that I’ve experienced discrimination because of who I am.
Aoifinn Devitt: Yeah, that’s certainly very reassuring to hear, although I think that challenge point is a really tricky one, and I wrestled with this one myself because where I suppose with the current narrative is that uh, it’s, it’s good to you challenge, know, the whole International Women’s choose to challenge. It’s good to challenge. We should be our authentic selves. We should speak our mind. And that good leadership should welcome challenge. I think there are a few unwritten rules, though, as you mentioned, that do still continue to govern that area. It’s very hard to know where the lines are drawn. I think we’re all wrestling with it, but it’s also that those unwritten rules, which is exactly what— if there was a handbook for that, I suppose they wouldn’t be unwritten, but that’s probably where the guidance is. As needed. And I think also just a good mentor, someone who you respect, is sometimes the best person to guide you through that. Jose, you’ve already spoken about a number of the people in the industry who motivate you and who inspire you. Maybe just throughout your life, was there one or two key people that you can mention that was really influential for you?
Darren Johnson: I think there’s a blend of people. I think I’m very lucky that, again, maybe my background is part of it, that I’ve always had a can-do attitude. Like, I’ve always been, say, solution orientated. So it might be a problem, but I’m like, I I can, can get through that, and I can solve that, I can ask that question, I can deal with it, it’s not an issue. So I’ve had that inherent kind of mindset in me. I try to think about this, and to be fair, I think I look for the good in everyone because I’m always like, my mindset is always a learning mindset, a kind of growth mindset. Anyone I meet, anyone I see from afar or close up, my friendship circle, as I say, I’m always looking for the attributes that I think will make me better or will help me be better. So I can’t point to one particular person. I can just talk about a blend of people that motivate me to be better or act as role models. And sometimes, you know, with role modeling, You don’t have to go up to someone and say, I want you to be my role model or mentor or whatever. I sometimes don’t talk to people about it. I just see them and I’m like, in my mind, those people are all my role models. I don’t need to have a chat with them and let them know. I I just, just look at what they do and I appreciate what they do. And I think I say getting some attributes from them might be additive to me as a person in my career or outside of my career.
Aoifinn Devitt: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s the whole kind of almost like the carry the briefcase moment as well. It’s, it’s, you know, you can watch, you can learn by observing, by being in meetings, by being at a conference on a panel. I think sadly these moments are a little fewer and further between just at the moment, but hopefully they’ll return. But particularly for young junior people, I think it’s so important. Was there any key piece of advice that you’ve received, or any creed or motto or words of wisdom that you live by?
Darren Johnson: There’s a few, but I really like Aristotle. So Aristotle said said, you are what you repeatedly do. So make excellence a habit, not an act. So I personally love that. So you try it. I mean, you’ve got to be careful with what I said. You shouldn’t make perfect the enemy of the good. But certainly, you should strive to be better each day. And I know people might say that, but if you really strive to be better each day, these little increments, you will get to wherever you want to go. So I kind of try and live by that motto. I read this book called The Four Agreements. And The Four Agreements, which is also something that I talk to my kids about a lot— The Four Agreements are: don’t take things personally, don’t make assumptions, don’t assume. So that one is in business and things that you do. Do not assume. Ask. Make sure you know what the facts are. Always try your best and be impeccable with your word. And I guess what that means is kind of different ways of interpreting that, but, you know, the gossiping and things like that, you should not get involved in that. Stay focused on the prize. Don’t get drawn into debating, discussing. Don’t be negative. Just, just be impeccable with your word. If you say you’re going to do something, make sure you do it. Don’t cross it. That’s it.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, I’m going to go to my MBA nerd state now and go back to some operations principles, because I’ve discussed on the podcast before how some of us who did organizational behavior in an MBA kind of came into that course saying, why are we looking at this? This is all the soft skills, and actually learned a tremendous amount. The other area I learned a lot from was the operations management course, which again, I came in thinking this isn’t relevant for me, I’m going into finance. We learned a tremendous amount. One of the things, I think it’s in terms of you mentioned being excellent at every little thing you do, focus on the excellence there, practicing it constantly. I would imagine that leads to a more— this was robust operations. The other things we learned were things like building slack into the system in operations means you will be able to cater for, I suppose, the emergency, as what the emergency sees surge. Similarly, that kind of business continuity, a discipline, all of which we deeply relied on today. So I’m sure those, some of those principles you mentioned have been very helpful in your operations business as well.
Darren Johnson: Absolutely right, and helpful. I mentor a lot of young people from different backgrounds as well. You know, some of these principles or some of these things are really, really very simple, but really, really important. And I’ve had feedback that some of my mentees have put some of these things into practice and they’re like, this is great. Particularly the don’t assume, I always get comments on that one, that the amount of times they could have made a mistake or could have done something wrong, or they felt someone didn’t like them and they’re assuming they didn’t like them, so therefore their behavior towards them was a bit, you know, like me, I don’t like you kind of stuff. And when they’ve gone and had a discussion to understand that, they’ve realized it’s completely not the case. All of these things that they probably wouldn’t have done if they didn’t take the Four Agreements seriously. So yeah, absolutely.
Aoifinn Devitt: And my last question is any advice you might have for your younger self? Maybe, I don’t know if it’s that kid watching Family Ties on the sly or maybe somebody a little older. Is there anything that you know now you wish you had known then?
Darren Johnson: Yeah, I think so. So I think it’s really understanding that I have the talent to succeed or I had the talent to succeed at that age. But make sure you have the guts to fail. And then to understand that to get something you’ve never had, you have to be prepared to do something you’ve never done. Now, I would say I’ve done all of that, right? But I got that, I think, much— if I, in the start of my career, if I had that mindset, I personally think I would be much further along, whatever that means. But, you know, when you start your career, you’re so scared to fail. You’re so scared to fail. So what you do is you don’t take risk. You avoid risk as much as possible. You avoid responsibility as much as possible because all you want to do is survive, right? When you first start out, now I can understand that mindset, but if you really want to get on and you want to learn quickly, I always say when I interview people and they’re like, we want 5 years experience. And when I talk to my, my staff that are interviewing, I say, 5 years experience, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. There’s some people that do a job for 5 years and still don’t understand it. And there’s some people that come in and do a job for 1 year and it’s like they’ve got 5 years experience because they understand everything about that role. So that same 5 years experience is a guide, but it doesn’t mean that the person that you hire is going to actually know the job that, that you’re asking them to do. So you need to take risk. You need to really have the guts to fail. So, you know, take on responsibility, and if you fail, you’ve got to learn. That’s the only reason why failure is there. It’s a learning opportunity, and you should take it and see it as such. And like I said, you know, if you, if you want to be a leader— being a leader, it’s easy, just, just lead people, right? And look after the person to the right of you and to the left of you. That’s, that’s leadership. But also be prepared to do something you’ve never done before. You know, it’s like what got you there won’t get you there. So it’s great that you’re doing a great job now, but let’s, let’s try and do something else. Because if you want to get to the top of your business, then you’ve got to try and give yourself the broadest knowledge possible and the broadest experience possible, or working with the broadest set of people possible, and turn them into your cheerleaders. And that will help you navigate your organization and hopefully get you to where you want to be.
Aoifinn Devitt: So, so powerful. And I think another point that we have to all bear in mind is freedom to fail is not a given for so many people, and it’s nothing to do with their mindset. It’s to do with their circumstance. So that the more we can ensure that future generations have the freedom to fail, the more they will fail forward and learn through doing. Well, Darren, it’s been such a pleasure speaking with you. We’ve managed to cover quite a lot from the overall importance of transparency, the importance of tough experiences early on, which can make you more resilient, and really just how to embrace some of the challenges that we currently still face in the industry. Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us.
Darren Johnson: It’s been my pleasure. Thank you. Anytime.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces Podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors on their personal journeys, please subscribe subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Series 4 is brought to you with the kind support of Federated Hermes Inc., a leading global investment manager. Guided by their conviction that responsible investing is the best way to create wealth over the long term, their investment solutions span equity, fixed income, alternative and private markets, multi-asset and liquidity strategies, and a range of separately managed accounts distributed through intermediaries worldwide. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
