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Dena Upton, Chief People Officer at Advisor360° · Beyond the Paycheck

• Kelsey Willock (00:00) Welcome Dena Upton, Chief People Officer at Advisor 360. We are so beyond excited To kick us off, I would love for you to introduce yourself to our audience today and particularly kick us off with what you've done in your career, your background, and your current role today. Dena Upton (00:18) Sure, thanks Kelsey for having me. It's really fun. I love talking about this topic because I'll explain. It's kind of a big full circle, but the high level, I started my career at ⁓ Accenture in systems integration work. So I did coding and loan application software actually, and then transferred out to the Bay Area with the help of one of the partners ⁓ at Accenture. kind of got the startup bug. So I did a lot of crazy startups in San Francisco in the people function, sort of staffing and resource management, ⁓ benefits, all that kind of stuff, and picked up the small hyper growth company startup bug and then moved to Boston, worked for a couple of FinTech companies, then logged me in, then a MarTech company, and now I find myself back in the. wealth management fintech space at Advisor 360. So that's the elevator description of what I've been doing. Kelsey Willock (01:18) Amazing. And before we dive into all the work you've done and your vision for the future, I'd love for you to share with our audience a bit more about who you are. ⁓ So can you start by telling us your earliest memory of money? Dena Upton (01:34) Yes, so I grew up spending as much time as I could with my dad. So my dad's like an entrepreneur, founder. He worked at the time at Carbondyme Abracives, which was a sandpaper company in like upstate New York and worked his way up. He was an electrical engineer and then worked his way up to CEO. So I spent a lot of time with my dad, absorbing a lot of things. And I say that because my first memory of money was mowing the lawn with my brother. We split the front yard and the backyard. We got a dollar a piece for mowing the lawn. And then that was raking leaves, chores. My parents took chores very seriously and making sure that we earned money if we wanted money for a hot dog or a candy bar or something that my parents weren't cooking in the household, we had to fund it ourselves. So that's my first memory of money. And I hoarded my money, Kelsey. Money was, you know, that be frugal mentality came from my parents, but it helped me sort of formulate my relationship with money. Kelsey Willock (02:49) Well, you're already ahead of me in my next question because I was going to ask you, what did you do with your first paycheck? And it sounds like you saved it, which is wonderful. Do you remember or recall a first memory of how you spent that money? Dena Upton (02:53) You Well, I'll say after Silver Family, which was my maiden name family, of chore money, my first real job was at Niagara Falls Water Park, Niagara Splash it was called. And it's funny, I looked up what I made at the time because I kind of look back to what I was paid. I was paid $3.35. to lifeguard, which was stressful. know what I mean? People could jump in. The insurance company always sent a dummy down the water slide, so you had to be ready and prepared. But 335, you had to save your money in order to buy something meaningful. ⁓ I think my first purchase was this great jacket. winter jacket that I really wanted that my parents thought was just you know too fancy, but I had saved up enough money to buy it for myself. So I was really excited about that first purchase after earning my own keep and being able to spend it. And there's some you know there's a little bit of freedom that comes with being there's a lot of freedom actually that comes with being able to buy something that's really important to you but also like had earned the money in order to buy it. Kelsey Willock (04:13) Right. It just feels so much more gratifying. I remember spending my first paycheck and what I had bought. If it wasn't my first paycheck, it wouldn't have mattered as much. It's just that the freedom that you get with it is so cool. ⁓ Can you tell me a little bit about how you think your money story and even your parents' relationship with money that sounds like it got passed down slightly onto you? How do you think that's helped you think about pay and benefits for employees? Dena Upton (04:15) Yes. I know. I know. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, as you know, Kelsey, like especially in your field of work, the earlier you can start saving, the better it is for you and the compounding benefit that happens. Like there's, you know, several studies around particularly investing money. I talk a lot about this with my son who's just starting to enter the work, going to be entering the workforce. He's a junior in college and, you know, his tolerance for risk. is a little bit different than my daughter's tolerance for risk. And it's funny because we play, and one of the things that we've gotten our girls over, the risk tolerance, is to play poker as a family or to play cards as a family and have sort of real money bets on the table so they're comfortable taking that risk. But I think the earlier you develop the muscle to invest and the earlier you develop the muscle to take maybe a cautious risk and understand financial markets, the more comfortable you are in it as you get more into the workforce, into the working force. And the compounding ⁓ benefit that you can have if you start to invest at an earlier age will help you later in life. just showing that to my kids is just something that I learned just with. by spending time with my parents. ⁓ And they grew up in ⁓ a mining town four hours north of Toronto, a little town called Sudbury, Ontario. My parents are Canadian. very working class family. so I joke about the lawnmowing, but my dad mowed our lawn until he died. You know what I mean? It was just something that if I can do it, if I can fix that, if I can do this on my own, I don't, know, just the frugality and saving gene was passed down to me really from both of my parents. Kelsey Willock (06:32) And it sounds like it's not only passed down from your parents, but you're also passing it down to the next generation. And it also sounds like your workforce. So I want to talk a little bit about getting into benefits and today's challenges. Where do you see compensation and benefits breaking down most often today, whether it's pay equity, transparency, individuals understanding their rewards? Dena Upton (06:41) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, think what's interesting, and I love where pay transparency is going, because it's a practice that I've always practiced and preached at organizations that I've joined, but I think it's a formula, right? We're very transparent about our pay salary bands, explaining to our employee base that the way to move up in the band is to gain skills, to perform. and also to know what you're worth, right? Like we do it in a very transparent way that if it's done formulaically, behind the scenes conversations or biased conversations that like, what you think about, I'm gonna slip a piece of paper and negotiate my salary doesn't happen anymore because it's done in the open. It's exposed both internally and externally and people feel while sometimes Kelsey Willock (07:44) you Dena Upton (07:49) Getting an organization to be comfortable with sharing that information at first can seem scary. But then when you realize as a recipient of it or as a manager that's working with their employees, it's in their control. And then conversations ⁓ center, it's not so much compensation conversation. It's how can I develop as a leader? How can I develop my skills as a software engineer or marketing? demand gen specialists, how can I gain as many skills as I possibly can inside these walls of the organization so that I could take those and maybe start another business or start, but the conversation starts around compensation and then it gets just much more in depth and meaningful conversation with your manager. But it starts with that pay transparency piece. And then there's several elements to it, right? There's base compensation, there's bonus, there's equity, there's the whole benefits offering. And you asked about where benefits and financial freedom is moving. think gone are kind of the days where just your 401k account or your 401k is gonna carry you to retirement. It's not, you have to sort of think about... adding different financial wellness components to your employee base. I mean, we provide software for financial advisors. So our benefits offering to employees is concentrated on financial freedom and financial responsibility. And that means not only do we offer a very lucrative 401k matching program, but we also offer Robinhood Gold membership for employees so they can think about investing. investing their money in the stock market or wherever their risk tolerance is. So there's several different avenues as well as financial advisory advice, et cetera, to our employee base. So I think it's moving in a direction that you work for an organization, you want to gain as many skills as you possibly can to maybe go start your own business. Are you the kind of person that wants to develop a nest egg for yourself so that you have that to fall back on to go start something else and then that carries on. And then we've got a whole group of great alums that worked here that had their first, they came to the organization to understand what a hyper growth financial wealth tech firm looks like. And then they can move and do that for themselves later in life. So it weaves into a lot of different things for us. Kelsey Willock (10:03) you I love how you're also bringing up the fact that you understand this is an evolving workforce and people may leave the company someday and giving them the support they need to pursue whatever version of rich looks like to them, whether it is starting a business, whether it is perhaps even retiring early. The company is thinking about that, not just you need to be with us forever and we're going to ignore that there might be other things going on outside of work. I love how supportive you are of the future goals of your employees. It's really, really interesting. Dena Upton (10:50) Well, and then like you say, don't know, are people jumping into the organization with some student debt? Are they jumping into the organization where maybe something, they have to get over something financially before, potentially, right? We don't have to solve that for them, but people are, we wanna meet them where they are on that journey of financial freedom. And we might not be able to solve it for them, but at least we can. Kelsey Willock (10:56) Mm. Dena Upton (11:15) help advise them to take a dent at it when they're with us. Kelsey Willock (11:19) That actually is a great segue to my next question, which you've bit half answered. Can you share one change you've seen that's moved from just attracting talent to transforming individuals' lives? It sounds like you're already getting into it thinking about how do I holistically support them, but would love to hear you one. Dena Upton (11:36) Yeah, think historically I've had the benefit of working at some organizations that have been transformative for me. Meaning that when I spent my time at Log Me In, I worked really closely with our CFO, Jim Kelleher, who helped me gain responsibilities. And with that came options, the equity options. That was kind of one of my first sort swore, I I had that a little bit at some of the startups in the Bay Area, but they weren't as, the exits weren't as lucrative as log me ins were. And Jim had confidence in me, made sure that I was, you know, well equated, if you will, when I joined. And then that helped create the, I mean, our down payment on our house, you know, these are, and helped me buy my first car. And so those were. Kelsey Willock (12:23) Right. Dena Upton (12:25) sort of life-changing moments for me and I realized that a leader took a bet on me and helped ensure like I was delivering but I was compensated for that in the form of equity. I laughed and went to drift at the same thing with David and Elias, those two founders and when Vista Equity Partners acquired us there was a good equity event for me that helped secure my children's college education. you know what mean? So these were like I was part Kelsey Willock (12:51) Thank Dena Upton (12:52) of organizations that believed in me, I gave back and I worked for those things, but they were big life-changing moments. And I'd like to create that same environment for people that are working at Advisor 360 or, you want, not everything is gonna be, you're gonna have the ability to buy a house or a car, but it could be. helping to fund your child's education later in life, or helping take care of your grandmother or grandmother or something. It's generational wealth that we're helping to explain. It's not just about the paycheck, right? There are other total rewards components that can help you set yourself up so that you do have financial freedom that you might not have thought possible when you were kind of thinking about going on this journey. I love where like total rewards is going with different versions of RSUs and options and buyback options and making sure there's like a liquidity event for employees, et cetera. I think companies, sort of startup companies are being really creative about how they think about attracting talent and keeping that talent. And I know financial freedom and wellness is a big part of why people jump on the bandwagon with a company. Kelsey Willock (14:06) And what's the measurable impact you look for when introducing these types of transformative experiences for employees? you looking for heightened engagement, ⁓ more engagement in equity programs, retention? What's that look like? Dena Upton (14:20) Yeah, it's sort of multifaceted really. Like we look at a couple things. do engagement surveys. We do a deep dive engagement survey over the summertime, which takes a look at like all of our offerings. But we're doing sort of pulse checks across the employee base. We just changed our pay for performance philosophy at Advisor 360 to have it be really, really driven on bookings. so. everybody's in sales across the organization, has, you know, you have engineers and product managers that are really worried about what's our pipeline, what's happening in the sales funnel. Like you want everyone wearing that sales hat. So if you're posting something on LinkedIn and you're talking about a product launch that we have, you know, you have like, money at stake as to whether or not we're going to close that next deal. And so everyone's kind of working and rowing the boat in the same way. that's, you know, that's engagement is one piece. Attrition, while that's a lagging indicator, can tell you if someone took a call or left the organization based on compensation. We're always looking, especially on the recruiting side of things. You know, we do, as many organizations do, we have comp bands and we do market analysis every year, but that's also a little bit lagging too, because as much as companies, Radford and Pave, ⁓ et cetera, will tell you their data is robust, it's not as robust as what your recruiters are hearing as they're talking to a generative AI engineer in the Philadelphia area, and that comp structure is changing like crazy right now. Kelsey Willock (15:59) right. Dena Upton (16:00) We try to, we're looking at it through several different angles. ⁓ And then, you know, on the recruiting side of things, it's time to fill positions. ⁓ You know, what's our acceptance rate? Some of those ⁓ things that tell us whether or not, look, how far into a comp band do we have to go when we're offering particular roles? Where do we, kind, and what's our, you know, what's our... pay practices and comp philosophy? Does that change based on region? So it's an ever evolving analysis that our teams are looking at. Kelsey Willock (16:32) And what benefits trends do you think are going to shape the employee experience in the next year most? Dena Upton (16:39) I think sort of financial wellness is going to be a big, you know, as you know, probably Kelsey, there's a big mental health and mental security is really, really important. But I do think it blends itself into financial wellness. And I think that's going to be a big area of the young generation of workers that are coming into the world. ⁓ It's changing pretty rapidly as well as sort of your evolving workforce. So I think financial freedom, financial wellness is gonna be a big part of CHRO, CPOs, agendas when you think about benefits. Like it's sort of table stakes to make sure you've got good healthcare and good dental coverage and. Kelsey Willock (17:19) Right. Dena Upton (17:22) disability, et cetera, that's all just gonna be table stakes. But are you doing anything bold around financial wellness for your employee base? I think that's gonna be a big piece of what makes an organization attractive. Kelsey Willock (17:34) I couldn't agree with you more. I think that... Dena Upton (17:36) Money is sticky. Kelsey Willock (17:37) Money is very sticky. However, money touches so many aspects of our life. I love how you even brought healthcare into the conversation. Money is the leading cause of stress and anxiety. And so when we don't address these root core problems that has such a ripple effect into other things, how we show up at work, the healthcare we access, that healthcare we choose not to access until it's too late, like these are all financial implicated situations. So very much to agree with you. Dena Upton (18:01) Right. Kelsey Willock (18:05) Can you share with me the tools or data you're using to measure and improve pay equity? You talked a little bit about services like PAVE. Is there anything else that you think that our listeners should know about? Dena Upton (18:18) Well, so I'm a big Rippling fan. So we went through an HRIS journey over the past six months. We made a switch over to Rippling. We made a switch on our ATS, our Performance Management System, our comp modules to Rippling. I love what the Rippling COO is doing over there. And they're just making these HR processes really easy to use with automated workflows. Kelsey Willock (18:20) Okay. Dena Upton (18:47) ⁓ and we've been jumping on the bandwagon to simplify it for our employee base. And so at the moment, we are on the journey of making sure that our pay modules and our comp banding positioning, it's fed in by external benchmarking into Rippling, but we are on the journey to try to use Rippling as much as we can to simplify the HR tech stack for our employee base. Kelsey Willock (19:12) And my last question on tools is, what's one 30-day experiment you think listeners could try to boost their financial well-being or engagement? Dena Upton (19:23) Ooh, that's a good one, Kelsey. So let's see, what would be a good tool to try? It sort of depends on where their journey is, right? We talked a little bit about pay transparency, big fan of ensuring that across different, because we got some pushback in India because they're not quite at the same transparency level as the United States, but. Kelsey Willock (19:31) Yeah. Dena Upton (19:46) My advice to people that have global teams is push the envelope. Push the envelope around pay transparency, even if it feels slightly uncomfortable or even someone would say, we don't do that in India. I think it benefits the entire organization because if you're transparent about your board decks or your financial status as an organization, you can create the same transparency when you talk about people. And people power businesses, so especially in the world of sort of generative AI and what's happening. The human element around finance, around ⁓ market-based compensation is really important to push it. So I guess my two cents would be, if you have a global team and you're getting pushback on pay transparency, because the US is pushing ⁓ hard to make sure that that's front and center. pushed a little bit with your global employee base. We did that with Indiana. It's been received really well. Scary at first, but. Kelsey Willock (20:46) Well, thank you. Sometimes when things scare you, it just is a sign that you're growing and growing in the right direction. So I absolutely love that idea. Well, thank you so much, Deena, for being a part of this conversation. learned so, so much for you, from you, and I feel as though our listeners are going to have the same experience. I particularly loved your insights around paid transparency, pushing the envelope, even if it makes you feel uncomfortable. Thinking about financial wellbeing as total financial wellbeing, not just as it applies to being focused on retirement, specifically supporting the next generation who are thinking about money very differently. I'd love for you to share with our listeners where they can connect with you. Dena Upton (21:31) Sure, I am, you can find me on LinkedIn. I am, you're gonna laugh. Kelsey Willock (21:39) Yeah Dena Upton (21:40) Wait, I should know exactly. I'm Dena, D-E-N-A hyphen Upton U-P-T-O-N on LinkedIn. That's the best way to find me. I am an X user, but I'm usually more on LinkedIn than I am on X. Kelsey Willock (21:56) Fabulous. Well, thank you so much again, Dena, and look forward to continuing the conversation and again, having our listeners learn so much from you. Have a great rest of your day. Dena Upton (21:58) Thank you. You too.