Latest / Two in Twenty / with HSBC Asset Management's Joanna Kalenska

Transcript

with HSBC Asset Management's Joanna Kalenska · Two in Twenty

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two In20.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Quickfield.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hosting this podcast.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: And today I'm talking to Johanna Talenska.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: She is the CMS HTTP.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: She is avoided, and we talked about five posts from point to the voice points and how to thought that would be avoiding that experience being avoided systematic process of understanding.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think also a feel of humidity as well and the way that you get the best time and making sure that you're ready and that you are open to being told that you are wrong.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So really interesting over to that conversation.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Johanna, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's always such a treat to get a moment chatting to you.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And to become customary, we try and get a little bit of a view as to your career.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So perhaps you could just give us an overview of um what you've done to date.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Twink.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Always a pleasure, always fun.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose I need to be a bit more organized today in the way I think and the way I speak.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think I can master that.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, listen, I'll start with the fact that I'm Polish.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a very important uh you know, beginning of everything, I think, in my case.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I did my studies uh in Poland, so I did my bachelor's and master's back home.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: But my professional life started in the UK.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I moved to the UK in 2000 and I spent 13 years across a number of really fantastic agencies.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that was just a brilliant beginning of a of a professional life in this field.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um just such a foundational, foundational time.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: In 2013, I moved to to the EK.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um to Hong Kong, actually.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, see, this is this is where this is where I uh this is where the real me comes in.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I moved to Hong Kong in 2013, and I've been here ever since.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I I moved from agency to agency, so I spent the first five years running sapien razorfish, or originally uh what was Razorfish, and then became Sapien Razorfish.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: And in 2018, I think, I joined HSBC.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I spent the first couple of years on the retail side, I looked after uh marketing for a number of Asian markets, um, and then my role expanded to include asset management, and when um an opportunity uh was there to take a dedicated role within asset management when my new CEO joined the company.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: I decided to apply for the role, and actually he was uh the one who created a dual role of marketing and client experience.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a brilliant opportunity which I um which I took on, and I've been with asset management now for six years.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many questions in there I want to ask you.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um and also really fascinating because I started in-house and then went agency side, and you've gone agency side into being in-house.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe just um a little reflection uh of your journey.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that you've missed from the agency side or any kind of I guess anything that you think it set you up so well to do your job now, having been on that side of the table?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's an 18 years on the agency side.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, how long do we have a lot to say?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as I said, I started in the UK, and I think it was probably the best start I could have wished for.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, hugely um hugely demanding market, I would say.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: I I obviously I haven't worked in the UK for a few years now, but very demanding.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, huge amount of brilliant people, very smart people, you know, creative strategists, account people, brilliant clients, um working with um headquarters, so a lot of strategic work as long as well as executional work across a number of markets.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: So just learning the craft.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was just a brilliant way to learn the craft, often in quite a you know, harsh way.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: In the the uh my uh you know brilliant creative and strategic partners, they were not very forgiving, you know, when we're writing briefs and we're demanding that time and it had to be perfect, and every word had to be perfect.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and I must say that trauma of brief writing remained with me.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: But it's actually really interesting how how few people are able to write a good brief.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, a good brief is uh um beyond the way to start a good outcome.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I definitely miss the dynamic nature of the agency, maybe a little bit less the pace.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um now, you know, I was a little bit younger back then, so it was uh definitely easier to follow the the demands of the of the industry, you know, simply speaking.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and actually the advice of the person who hired me for HSBC was to watch the pace and maybe um slow down a little bit because the the environment is a little bit different.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it was probably uh a very good advice because you come in and uh you're used to being required to drive immediate change or immediate, maybe not change as much as impact.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um and of course, you know, the way you look at responsibility, which is quite personal, because there is very little, it's very lean environment, so so everything sits with you.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: So the you know, the the successes and the failures feel very, very um personal and very um the accountability really sits with with sort of every individual, um more so that sort of being collectively spread.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I think that was quite a quite a big difference.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I would say to your question about what helped me, you know, I spent 18 years having difficult conversations both internally and with clients, and that really um develops a skill, um communication skill simply, an ability to manage conversations, to ability to say no in the right way, um, to redirect um you know approach to a different past, uh, etc.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: etc.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that skill has really benefited me.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um adaptability uh in you know in the agency world, you you talk about you know one product in one industry in the morning, another sort of you know, midday, and another one in the afternoon.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: So the ability to sort of um mentally switch between things and learn quickly is also uh very important.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it builds a sort of confidence, doesn't it, to be able to uh maneuver like that and be in a room and sort of go quite deep on a particular product or problem, as you say.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that is a sort of muscle in and of itself, you know, to sort of trust yourself in the moment to kind of have the right answers and to lead the conversation in the right way.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's even the courage to ask questions, because where agencies often fail is where there isn't enough courage to ask the right questions at the point of briefing.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because um, as I'm sure you very well know, going back and saying I didn't quite understand that, or we we we we ended up going in the wrong direction because not enough questions were asked really served me well here because it was a new industry pool.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Financial services and you know asset management specifically.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: So knowing when to ask the question and when it's okay to ask the questions, and often um you know, quite basic ones is um is really also at the core of I think what served me quite well.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then are you back asking more questions now in the sort of expanded role going from CMO to CMOX?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'd love to kind of hear a little bit more around what that kind of broader role that you've taken on now entails.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think what my my journey uh around CX started before I joined HSBC because that was really a part of sort of sapien's world and therefore the world that I I was a part of, uh, you know, journey mapping, uh, you know, proposition development, uh sort of service design.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that was already sort of a part of my world.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it wasn't when I joined HSBC, but it was very much a quickly developing sort of area and expertise within within the bank.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: So when I joined asset management, it was like you know, obvious, I think, to to um to my CEO that the conversation around you know client and client satisfaction and making sure that we understand what happens where and why and and gathering the right data and being able to and being able to act on it uh is very important.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, you know, if you look back at the at the the the pure and the proper marketing was always about understanding the customers, understanding the clients.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: That was really at the absolute heart of marketing, being able to identify insights from available data and and then making sure that it's it's articulated in what we do as a marketing team.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder whether there's also that sort of default setting that you bring has come from having gone for the kind of more retail environment and then over so that that sort of prominence and focus on the on the client has always been there, whereas I feel like the investment industry was a little bit slow to really put the client at the center.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's an interesting thought.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think B2B in in in general maybe um is not as mature or advanced in this in this space versus B2C.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's partly because the um the the sales journey is different.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's it's it's longer, the the the the processes are longer, so it's much harder to also have direct feedback and have a direct understanding, an immediate understanding of sort of what happens.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yes, I think in B2C naturally uh uh having that direct access to end um and users and consumers is is fundamental to that maturity, I think, and how that maturity developed.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think there's a huge amount of knowledge around clients in the business, but they sit they sit in different pockets, and I not necessarily that knowledge is not democratized for the use of um uh across the organization.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, our our sales salespeople know clients very, very well, but it it is not just about it, it's about a systematic process of understanding um you know where we are with clients, where we are within the industry, and therefore an ability to analyze this in a systematic way and then and then do something about it.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: So um, and not just of course, because the client satisfaction um uh is around any interaction with a brand.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just around the interactions with our with our salespeople uh or or client service people.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's um any perception and interaction will impact impact that so that responsibility sits at the at a at the business level, right?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: It needs to sit at the at the top of the pyramid um rather than with individual teams or individuals within the teams.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's a sort of collective focus of bringing all that you know about the client together and sort of removing any silos, sort of physical or or or otherwise, really, to make sure you have that understanding and then can sort of put that into the journey.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: I and I was just thinking maybe to switch lanes, you we've talked a bit about um what you sort of came with in terms of understanding into your role.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what do you on the other side of that coin, I guess, what do you wish now that you had known then?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what would have been a really useful thing as you maybe changed geography?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Let's sort of say that, you know, because obviously you went from um agency then into um in-house and then also switching um geography.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: So how was the how was that transition from going from London over to Hong Kong?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then what do you wish you knew in that in that change?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose the knowledge building started much earlier.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was when I you know moved from Poland to the UK.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: There was already quite a you know quite a shift and quite a difference, but of course, um that transition between sort of Europe and Asia was quite a significant one.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I always remind people that when you're in Europe, when you're in a in a marketing role, and when you deal with consumers in in variety of countries, you also have to have uh your sort of cultural um uh um knowledge dialed up.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you if you deal with and with customers in Germany or Italy or Spain or France, they are not the same.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not not no different to when you go to another continent because it's just a version of that.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose um when I came to Hong Kong, there were obviously a few surprises in terms of the expectations that um you know people had of me as a as a managing director, which I think at the beginning I didn't quite appreciate.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so maybe that would have been helpful, or you know, how to handle at the beginning, before the trust is built, uh context um, for example, of a brainstorm, uh, which can end up being uh you know not hugely successful, for example, um, you know, before the rapport is is sort of built with with people.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: So when I came, I I think naturally I always focus on understanding the why, because you can deal with anything, you can deal with any complexity or any situation if you get to the why relatively quickly.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: So when they were things I didn't quite understand, I I always tried to go, okay, why is this?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, uh, relatively early uh in my during my time in Hong Kong, I found this fantastic book.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember the author because I am terrible at those things, but it's the geography of thought.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and anyone, I highly recommend reading it.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: It basically talks about um um research around cultural psychology and how sort of people in the west and the east uh differ, um, and and why and how they think.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it sort of talks about different uh nationalities, including some you know, European and and the various sort of um um sort of quite significant differences between some of the nationalities, some of the cultures.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it was hugely uh eye-opening, and I actually would probably um recommend reading this book, uh, you know, whether whether you work outside of your home country or not, because I think it's just uh hugely uh hugely interesting, and it just talks about like you know, it sort of goes from feng shui to um metaphysics and from um you know sort of linguistic comparisons, how geographies sort of impact people, how sort um uh history impacts people's behavior, um uh you know, religions and all of those things.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: So just super super interesting.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think nowadays it's probably even more important to read that book than any other have those sensitivities and understanding, absolutely, because of all the sort of challenges that we um you know we are seeing.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's super super interesting book.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: What a great tip! I know what my next Amazon order is going to be.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um and maybe just staying with that vein, Johanna, the um, you know, you must have seen a number of asset managers kind of coming into the region, looking to expand their footprint um and engage, you know, with provide their capabilities to the different audiences in in the region.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think, or how would you advise an asset manager who is looking to sort of to build out and and what you know, what are the biggest mistakes they can make, and what would you what have you observed in that regard?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think asset managers aside, I think any any company, any organization that is looking to expand into a new market uh needs to do a lot of homework.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I think uh um overall often I saw it actually in the agency world, probably more than financial sort of services, because you know, my you know, my colleagues from from other asset management, they're very savvy.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: They've you know they've been here for a long time, they know they know the market, they know uh they know what to do.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I think often we have a tendency to parachute people in when we set up a shop, whatever, whatever industry, uh whatever brand uh you know, we might take as an example.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's incredibly important to ensure that you have the right combination.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: I I think when you want to create obviously a culture, because every organization has a culture, which I think often why we have a tendency to bring people in, because they bring the process absolutely.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: But you have to marry it with the understanding of the market, with the understanding of the culture, with with connections, with network, with with ability to navigate um sort of be below the surface.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think often if you if you um you know, unfortunately, I don't speak Chinese, and of course I have a it creates a huge gap uh because I can operate um on the surface, um, and I need fantastic people um around me who allow me to see deeper.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the only the only reason why I'm able to do the job I do, because in every market where I have a team, I have the most amazing local talent who are able to unlock things for me, who are able to build my understanding, and often uh it means that um I am told I'm wrong.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's also okay.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's even more important than being told you are right.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: I bring certain expertise, but they but they are there to say, well, that won't work, and this is the reason why it won't work, but what we could consider is this, this, and this.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we bring different things to the table.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: So finding local talent and really listening and really engaging with with what they bring to the table, I think is absolutely key.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And um as you know, in the these podcasts we tend to ask, you know, what sort of tips for those who are building their careers?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I feel like we've we've already started answering that question to some degree in terms of like really listening and being open to being wrong, and that that's a sort of an incredible growth path.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um is there anything else that you would add to that before we maybe round out on um you know, kind of what success looks like for marketing and financial services?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I always feel this question has been asked before, um, and I always feel um this sort of tension in me between what I feel I should say and what the what the truth is.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the the reality is that I personally have I my path is not sort of completely um linear, and also I didn't in a way choose some of the things maybe I chose them, but they um were not um you know predefined somehow in my in my career path.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I've always followed um a bit of gut, uh gut feeling about things.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think I've always uh been quite happy to go into sort of contexts where uh maybe others were running away.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: So when there were mergers and people felt it was sort of not stable and they they they didn't want to go through that difficulty, I would always put my hand up and say, I'll do it.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, when we had different client, difficult client or difficult client situation and context, and and and somebody needed to sort of see if it can be fixed.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was always the one who was saying, I'll I'll I'll give it a go.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I think for me it's always of seeing whether something that on the surface might look a little bit uh um not fully straightforward and just just giving it a go.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um financial services, as you know, because we've spoken about this before, I I I had an experience with financial services on the agency side, but I must say I never myself quite um I suppose I didn't think corporations were my thing.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I naturally you know sort of uh steer towards a creative space uh um and here and here we are.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: So life can be a bit unexpected.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think that path can can can um lead you in different directions if you have your eyes sort of wide open, and I think that ability to be quite flexible in how you think about stuff.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I suppose the last thing I would say is you know it's a long game, and often when I you know do um uh sort of different mentorship programs, and I often think about the fact that it really is a long game, and often uh people I talk to think about it quite um uh sort of in immediate terms.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, they're looking for the um to see that progress kind of in very relatively kind of short order.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I love what you were saying around because it could echoes back to some of your themes earlier, Johanna, around courage.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it seems like you've had that from the get-go, from kind of going moving from Poland to London and then leaning into these opportunities and um, and then I guess being open to proving yourself wrong when you know, to your point around not thinking that corporations for you and yet here we are, you know, just being open to um to changing your mindset around something.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then finally, I was just thinking to your point around it's a long game.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: How do you, in that sort of coming out of the individual career perspective on that and looking at the kind of broader context of marketing being successful in financial services, often people talking to you know, sort of a long-term investment strategies, and that's what we're presenting and putting into the market, and yet there's very near-term, short-term performance that the business is looking for from marketing activity.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder whether is that in your mix in terms of how what does success look like for marketing and financial services?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: How do you balance that that sort of long-term positioning with with the kind of need for kind of performance marketing?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think we need another podcast on this one.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really tricky one because there is a lot to unpack here.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: The first one is regardless to financial services, uh, the tension between the top of the pyramid and the bottom of the pyramid is ever present.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because that the pressure on my colleagues are now.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, there will always be that pressure on activities that will immediately translate into results.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: But of course, as a marketeer, um, I also have a duty to ensure that people understand that the top of the pyramid that it has to be a balanced approach.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: You can't do one without the other.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but of course, at different points, you might have to dial one up and dial the other one down.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to constantly be very closely sort of in tune in where we as a brand are, what the needs are, and and have a you know good ability to um to explain that to the rest of the organization.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, it's not it's not always easy.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't think it's easy in in any industry, uh, like I said, because because of the the pressure that we all uh we all under.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: But of course, in financial services specifically, you know, we have such a huge responsibility.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it is how how do we achieve the the creativity and the responsibility in one go?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because we do we are in a regulated environment, so we have um you know big responsibility here, and we have sort of limitations in terms of the the what and the how, um, including very long disclaimers, which I think we all are familiar with, um, but it's it's it's it's a part of the job, um, you know, because consistency, creating that consistency, um, you know, across all the all the channels and building that consistency to reinforce the messages.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um but also financial services, you know, we we have a tendency to make what we do without meaning to, I think, quite complicated.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: So if we can um sort of unlock those quite complicated messages into something that can be um uh you know relatively easy to digest, um and it really doesn't matter whether that's B2C or B2B, um you know, we we talk to people who are time-staffed, who so obviously it's all relative, the the depth of the knowledge is relative to what people do, but it still doesn't give us a right to make it complicated.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: So if we if I feel that we have made something digestible and um you know as simple as we can, whoever our audience is, that makes them feel like they're more in control and it's easier for them to make decisions.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a success.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's success.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: What a brilliant point to to sort of to finish on.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much, Johanna.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's been such a pleasure talking to you.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: As always, Twin, thank you so much for your time.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.