Jen Driscoll took a chance. She wrote a letter that led to her having an illustrious 24 year long (and counting!) career in finance.

The following is a transcript created using AI technology so please forgive any grammatical imperfections.

Jen Driscoll
Be who you are and own that and find the greatness in that because that's the thing that's actually ultimately led me to the place I'm at now. And it's something that I would never have known at 20 years old.

Camilla Love
Welcome, everyone, back to another episode of Shares Not Shoes, an insider's guide to careers in finance. I'm your host, Camilla Love, founder of F3 Future Females in Finance. Shares Not Shoes is a podcast whereby I interview some of my favourite people all with one thing in common, they work in finance. We lift the lid on who they are, how they came into a career in finance, and arm you with some knowledge about why a career in finance could be a good fit for you. I will promise that all my guests will share some amazing personal stories. We'll be open and honest and will inspire you. So let's go.

Welcome, everyone. And as you know, this season of Shared Notes, we're focusing on CEOs in financial services. And today we are in for a special treat. In today's episode, we are getting to know a person I've admired for a really long time. She's the CEO of Alliance Bernstein, otherwise known as AB here in Australia. And from her accent, you'll quickly realise that she's an international powerhouse. She's worked across three continents at least and has been with a funds manager for over 20 years. Quite similar to me, been in the same place for a long time. She's also the Deputy Chairman of the Financial Services Council, one of Australia's preeminent industry bodies. Without much ado, Jen Driscoll, welcome to Shares Not Shoes.

Jen Driscoll
Thank you so much, Camilla. It's great to be here this morning.

Camilla Love
Well, can I tell you that I have been listening to your wisdom for probably, I was thinking about, approximately about eight years, maybe a little bit longer than that, but I think it's about that long. And for all of you out there, you'll find out that Jen has these wonderful little gold nuggets of advice. And they're generally what I perceive as they're learned through perseverance, mistakes, and just good old good luck. And I'm really looking forward to hearing about a number of these today with you, Jen. So let me open up with the first question, right? Sure. So tell me a little bit about you, who you are personally and what you do for a job, because I know that you're very an authentic leader, and I love that the most about you. And that that personal and professional life always interacts. And some people don't like to show that. But you are one of those people who absolutely does. So tell me a little bit about you and your own words.

Jen Driscoll
Sure. I'd love to. So maybe starting with the personal side, as you mentioned in the intro, I am not born and bred in Australia, but definitely an Australian at heart now. I was born in Boston, lived there. And there are two of me in the world because I am an identical twin. My other half is still in the US. Watch out, everybody. Yeah, watch out. She would absolutely be the powerhouse you'd want to have on this podcast if we were trading places. But that's a conversation for another day. So one of four children born to a father who's Irish and a mother who's American. So I think that colored the perspective of the world that I came into. I went to university in New York in the Bronx. Again, very formative and informative time of life. From there, started working actually out of university after traveling around Europe with my twin sister after we graduated in New York City and started there for a couple of years, just joining at the entry level role of a client service associate, working with institutional clients in the Northeast. Didn't know the difference between a stock and a bond when I started.

That's okay. It doesn't matter. We learned these things on the job. Really enjoyed getting to know the clients and the communities that we were serving there. When the opportunity presented for AB to open its first office outside of the US, I went over to London for three years with them and started managing a team of client and consultant relations associates over there. Then as life tends to do, it took me on a different path. I met a young man who was a KiwI. Tell all the odds in my life. I didn't know any better at the time, but we ended up making it and deciding that it was time to leave London. We came down to Australia for what we thought was a year and basically loved it so much that we decided never to leave. I had left AB at the time to come down and travel and take that year and ended up rejoining AB back in Sydney about a year and a half after we moved down here. That was back in mid 2004. Going back in time to being a client relations associate on a contract and then becoming permanent. From there, really just suffered the highs and the lows of what came over a career in the last 17, 18 years here, navigating through Australia to the point of ultimately becoming the CEO back at the end of 2013 of the local business here and continuing to work with our Asia X Japan business on the Institutional side.

Camilla Love
You mentioned when you first started back in New York that you didn't even know what a difference between a stock and a bond was. Do you actually even know that you wanted to go into finance as part of your journey, or is it just something you fell into?

Jen Driscoll
Yeah. I guess I fell into it in a way. And there was a little bit of a story there. But when I was at Fordham University in the Bronx studying, I actually studied economics and political science, so I was in the School of Arts. But I did a work study and worked for the College of Business Administration. I worked with the Deans of the college and just did filing and answering phones and lots of general office admin. They looked at me as like an honorary member of the College of Business. They had these, what they called at the time, CEO breakfast clubs, and they'd bring students that volunteered to go into the city and meet different companies over breakfast or a late morning tea and hear from companies just to get the students socialized with what it was like to be working in the city and different careers that were available to them in the business world. I got invited to come along to one and the one I happened to attend was at Bernstein. It was a presentation by one of their private wealth advisors. I remember going into the office and thinking, Oh, this is cool.

Jen Driscoll
They're right on Fifth Avenue and it's a great spot. The office was lovely. The individual who spoke was just amazing. He was so captivating. He was so passionate about what he did in serving his clients who were high net worth clients. He talked about his path to finding a path in finance and in financial services. It was quite a winding path for him. He talked about reading the book, What Color is Your Parachute, and really doing some soul searching. I just absolutely loved everything he said about what he did for a role and also the company that he worked for. We got back on the bus to go back to the Bronx after that session. Everyone was buzzing like, Oh, that was amazing. And Charlie was so fantastic. And the Dean got on the bus and she said to all of us, I'm going to say this and half are you going to do it and half you aren't. But if you really enjoyed that, I encourage you to write a letter of thanks to the company and to Charlie for taking the time to do that. And so, raised by my very strict parents, I was.

Camilla Love
Right on to that.

Jen Driscoll
As soon as I got back to my dorm, I was like, Dear Sam C Bernstein, dear Charlie, thank you so much, blah, blah, blah, blah. Wrote that letter, never heard back. I was at that time in my third year and fourth year degree. And a year later, I got a voicemail on my different dorm room from some girls who lived in the dorm room I lived in a year before. They said, Oh, we're looking for Jen Driskill. Some company, Samford Bernstein, called and left a message at this number, but we think it's for you. Here's the number. Give him a ring back. I did. They said, Oh, yeah, you came in a year or so ago? I said, Yeah, I did. They said, Oh, you wrote a thank you letter? I said, Yeah, I did. I said, I don't think I ever heard back. They said, Well, we kept it and you're graduating this year, aren't you? And I said, I am. And they said, Well, we'd love you to come in for an interview. And that was the way in which I think both fortune and luck coincided. A little bit of personal touch, I think, in writing that letter, which.

Camilla Love
Something resonated. And thanks to mom and dad.

Jen Driscoll
For bringing you up. Thank you, mom and dad. I'm going to say that was all mom, really. But that drill that we used to get every time we got a gift really came in handy and got me the job that has seen me work through a 24 year career to date. So yeah, thank you. That is.

Camilla Love
Such an amazing story because they could have just gone, Oh yeah, that's nice and chucked it in the bin. Or you could have just gone back and been like the other 50 % that never wrote the thank you letter. And then so sitting back and reflecting on that 20 something years later, that's just a lesson in itself, right?

Jen Driscoll
Yeah, it is. It's one of those things where I think of so many things where the little things you do go so far, so much further than you can appreciate at the time. And that was one of those things where really I didn't think anything of it. I thought, Oh, yeah, it's a nice thing to do. I should thank them. They put on this great discussion for us, and they really helped us get a sense of what it's all about and what they were passionate about. It came back to that point when I was interviewing and I was talking to both my mom and dad and my aunt, who was a preeminent figure in financial services for me as a growing up and seeing her in a role and getting their advice from them and thinking about, Is this a company I should join? And how do I want to think about that? They were US only at the time and I had in my head always thought, I want to work somewhere outside the US. Don't know why I just thought that was going to be part of my path at some point. It came back to that way that the engagement played out, the thank you letter, the interview process.

Jen Driscoll
I think it was my aunt that said to me at the time as I was contemplating it, she said, Well, I get that you want to work outside the US, but do you like the company? I'm like, Yes. Do you like the people? Yeah, I really like it. They made me interview with 17 people. And yes, I like them all. I was like, I'm 22. How many people do I have to meet for this entry level role? We did testing, we did all this stuff. She said, Listen, if you like the people, you like the culture, don't worry about the other piece because you never know what can happen down the line. And sure enough, two and a half years later, they were opening a London office and off I went. I don't know, my aunt might be a little bit psychedelic, but she certainly helped give me the right steer to get myself and get that foot in the door in the beginning, which was pretty amazing.

Camilla Love
It's amazing. I mean, it's a sliding doors moment. It's one of those things where anything could have happened. But do you look for that in the next generation coming up with the people that you interview with today? How does someone stand out like that today?

Jen Driscoll
I was having this conversation with a couple of young women at a networking event in the last couple of months. I said, So tell me your story. W hat's your background? Who are you? And there was a lot of focus on the academic achievements. And I was thinking, That's fantastic. I have no doubt you're an incredibly intelligent person. You're really focused on what you want to do in your studies. But I'm really trying to get to know who they are and what their story is. And I remember a young woman was talking to me about... We happened to get on the topic of sports, and I'm an avid sports person, so I was really interested. And she said she used to be a semi professional ping pong player in China.

Camilla Love
And I said.

Jen Driscoll
Oh, my gosh, that's amazing. And she said, Yeah, I had the opportunity to go professional, but I decided not to because I really wanted to focus on my education and my career. And it was really much around this conversation of how do you break in? How do you distinguish yourself? I said, that's it. That's the story. That's your hook. I said, the discipline, the training, the perseverance you've shown to become an elite athlete in a highly competitive sport doesn't have to be sports. It could be any club. It could be any extra curricular activity that you enjoy and feel passionate about that connects you to people. For me, that's what I'm looking for is just I feel, and this is again based on my own experience, so others will feel differently. But I know coming into this industry, as I said, very openly, I didn't know the difference between a stock and a bond. I didn't really have the technical grounding in what I was walking into. But I had a manager at the time who heard a story from me about captaining my soccer team and a coach that was really challenging. S he wouldn't let us eat on the way home from a nine hour bus ride.

Jen Driscoll
W e took that up with leadership at the university when we got back. He said to me, That's why I hired you. Because I knew that you're going to deal with some tough stuff. I'm going to place you with a sales advisor who was a very challenging individual. I felt like based on what I got to know of the story I heard about how you interact with challenges and conflict and the perseverance that you've had. And again, in my story, it was sports related as well. There was an element there that he felt would serve me well in the industry I was working in. I'm really grateful that he did that and took the opportunity to get to know me in that way because I really had no idea that my telling that story would have any impact on me getting hired. But it turned out it was actually the key element over and above my GPA and the studies.

Camilla Love
I was talking exactly, I was sitting on a panel at a uni last week and we were talking exactly the same thing. So about the authentic you, we need to see it. And so we don't want to see... To get to the point of the interview, the marks and stuff is great. But you need to stick out from the pack. You need to show me who you are. You need to show that you can culturally fit within the organization and be the team player that we all need. I think you're right that people forget about, bring that element and actually feeling somewhat, I would describe, vulnerable in people judging you that whatever it is that you love to do is perfectly fine and fits in every organization.

Jen Driscoll
Whether it fits, maybe is a question that on the other side, I remember through that advice my aunt gave me, the interviewee should be critically assessing because I actually think there are so many companies and we won't fit in all of them. And that's okay because ultimately you have to think about the culture that you would feel would be to bring out the best in you and how do you like to work? And there's lots of different companies, lots of different cultures that all have positive attributes to them, but they won't fit for each one of us. So I think that's one of the things that to your point, exactly, if you aren't comfortable being who you are in an interview setting, they're not getting to know the real you, and they're not going to be able to help you understand whether you are the right fit ultimately. So I think that's just another element of navigating the interview process and trying to be comfortable with who we all are because we do bring different things into these organisations.

Camilla Love
I've mentioned a few times before that you've stayed at the same organisation for 20 years. So what is it? So there's a couple of questions in here. So given that background, what is it that, one, makes you stay, two, makes you still passionate about what you do in the organisation you do it in it. And also, I'm always interested in times of when you're taking career risk. And lots of people talk about making career risk, moving outside of an organization, but you can definitely take career risk within an organization. So maybe talk a little bit about that risk taking within an organization and how you can feel comfortable in doing that as part of your journey over the last 20 years.

Jen Driscoll
Sure. Well, maybe I'll start there because I think that's been a recurring theme in the years that I've had at AB. Not that, again, I particularly was aware of it at the time. I think that's one of the great things about navigating a career from a youthful starting point through to a much more mature point where when I was in my younger parts of the career, the move to London, for example, I was in a place where I was thinking about what I wanted to do next, and I knew that I probably had enough time in New York. I had been offered to go to San Francisco with the company, and I had accepted that role and the London role came up, and through, again, happenstance of circumstances, I was offered that role and was able to try to decide whether to go over there. And I remember thinking and saying to my parents, again, they want me to sign a three year contract. And at 24, 25, that felt like a really long time. It's a long time. It's three years, Jen, it's okay. And she said, What's the worst that's going to happen? This is a company who's investing in sending you overseas.

Jen Driscoll
Do you really think that if you really didn't like it or really weren't finding success over there, that they wouldn't want to try to work with you to help find your way back? I thought, Yeah, okay, I've got to take that leap of trust. It was a time in my life where I didn't have commitment, so I was able to go over and do that and jump into that experience. I remember probably coming back to London from Sydney for a celebration of the London offices first five years. I had been there for the first three and a bit and I'd moved back, moved over to Sydney, come back. The CEO at the time, we were chatting because when we started, there were only 10 of us. We were all very close and we were ground level stuff where you're like, We have one client in this country and we're going to try to make this business work. I was so naive, I really just thought, Of course, it'll work. We're going over there, we'll give it a go. Remember him saying to me at the five year, Gosh, there were some times when it was so precarious, this business.

Jen Driscoll
And I was like, really? Totally oblivious. Totally oblivious. He's like, we have one client. And I just remember thinking, God, that was a massive risk that we all took, that we really just dove into and really didn't contemplate the what ifs. And I think that that is something which has held true to the way I think about risk, which is you assess the information you have at the time, you decide if it's right for you, and then you go forward with confidence and you don't look back and second guess what information you had at the time. Things may or may not work out that, of course, is the way life is. And if it didn't work out, we would have figured it out and we would have found our way back to a different path and some other door would have opened. That's just generally been my perspective. I think when I came to Sydney, I tried to follow the same logic. I had a year and a half off. I had lost a bit of confidence in feeling like I could step back into the industry. I interviewed in Sydney and was told I was too experienced for some roles, didn't have local knowledge for others.

Jen Driscoll
So it was proving really challenging. I was very fortunate that a role at AB did open up because they did know me. They were willing to take that chance of bringing me back in. But I stepped back into a role that was what I had been doing five years before, and I was okay with that. I said, Okay, well, I'm going to have to step backwards to step forwards. Sure enough, within a year, I was able to hire my own team in the client service space again and take on different responsibilities that then allowed me to continue to grow. I think that's one of the things, going back to your earlier question about staying at a company for so long, that opportunity to grow and do different things has meant that absolutely there are times when you think, should I be going somewhere else to do something different? Then all of a sudden an opportunity would jump up at me and I would take it and it would bring me into an entirely different place of connection into the company, responsibility and growth. And so when I think about that opportunity to grow and also just the people I've been able to work with over the decades I've been here now.

Jen Driscoll
That's really what's kept me here for so long.

Camilla Love
Yes, it's really refreshing because a lot of people.

Jen Driscoll
Feel.

Camilla Love
Either bored or a bit, I don't know, they got ants in their pants. It's like that two, three, four, five year mark and then want to move. But actually satisfying that itch internally can be equally as rewarding over time?

Jen Driscoll
It definitely can. I used to say I moved countries, not companies. But when I passed the three, four mark in Australia, I was like, oh, I'm here. I'm not going to move countries. You're going anywhere now. Yeah. I found home. I think I found the place I wanted to be for my life at a personal level and the place that I was just loving being at a professional level, and it coincided. So that worked, plus the fact that I then started to take responsibilities outside of Australia to Asia Pack and to EMEA over a period of years. And then when I took the CEO role, that was another huge challenge that just frightened me to death. But I thought, you know, yeah, give it a shot. Why not? We'll see how it goes.

Camilla Love
And if you're in an environment in a culture that supports you to be able to take that risk, going back to the original question, you feel supportive that it's all supported, that risk is way actually less than what is in your mind because, as you say, they're not going to let you fail, as your mom said, really. They're not going to let you fail here. They want to see you succeed. Otherwise, they wouldn't have offered you this opportunity.

Jen Driscoll
Yeah, it's so true. I genuinely don't think I could have done what I've done and made the decisions I've made without so many supportive people managing me and giving me guidance within the company, as well as those resources that I tap into outside the company. So without that support, it would have felt very different. And I'm not sure I would have made the same decisions.

Camilla Love
So on that and talking about moving on from risk, but is there a point in your career or something that sticks into your brain about a mistake or some what you would classify as a failure that you have obviously recognised what's happened, turned it around and actually come out the other side being a better person from? And can you tell us what that is?

Jen Driscoll
One thing that I find that I know was really tough for me was when we went through the financial crisis here in Australia and the company was... It was a really tough time. We significantly disappointed the market. Financially, the company was going through a difficult time. There were layoffs happening. It was not the first time in my career, but perhaps the first time I was managing through that type of situation. I remember having to make the decision around my team of someone who would have to be let go because the financial conditions were so difficult. And that was a really emotional time for me because our team was very close. There was a lot of camaraderie amongst the team. Our process was such that at the time, I wasn't able to be in the room when that individual was going to be told. And I really struggled with that. And I very vocally made my feelings known to our managers and human capital at the time. Not in a bad way, but just really trying to make the case for I need to be accountable for this decision. It's my decision. I need to be able to look them in the eye and let them know the context for this.

Jen Driscoll
And I was really conflicted because that wasn't the way that it was going to happen. It was really challenging. We had some really tough conversations, and I could tell that I was not a favorite employee at the time because of the way that I was handling it. This is your agenda. Yeah, very much pushing my agenda and probably, in retrospect, not respecting the process as much as just being very firmly rooted in what I felt I should be doing. And so play that forward. The situation did play out. I thought to myself, Gosh, I've really created some tension here that we have to be able to work through because this is a really tough time for the company and we need to be able to work through it. Because I'd gotten quite upset and I talk to people about this all the time. Maybe it's a female trait. I have cried in this office. I have done so many things that I would say, Oh, if I put my professional hat on, would I do that again? But it was real. It was raw. And it was me trying to process this in a way that I hadn't experienced before.

Jen Driscoll
One of the things that I did do after that very difficult experience was go back to one of my colleagues and who was part of the process and say, I really want to circle back on what happened and the way our discussion progressed and the tension that it created because I just want to let you know, what I hadn't done was really share with them at the time my perspective and why this was hurting me so much, why I felt so strongly about needing to be in that room and also heard their perspective about what they were struggling with and how difficult this was for them. And so we had that post mortem cathartic conversation in which we were both a little bit emotional, but it was like... So therapeutic. Yeah, we just need to share with each other. And at the time, they had said to me, Wow, I really had no idea that for you it was about the accountability piece and it was about feeling like you could be authentic to this person who you respected and be in that room and really saying, I wish you'd let me know that. That would have been really helpful because maybe it would have changed.

Jen Driscoll
I don't know that it would have changed in the outcome, but I think having that conversation certainly brought our relationship right back on track to be one of mutual understanding, mutual respect and appreciation that we're all coming at things from different points of view. That was one major learning, which is quite frankly, we surfaced a few times in the context of being able to say, Listen, I didn't show up to that conversation the way that I wanted to, and I want to revisit it. Because that's something that I think all of us should be open to doing. But when I talk to people about challenges or conflicts, they're seeing it's human nature. We don't want to address it head on. But actually, the productive way to do it is to try and say, listen, I didn't handle that in the way that I had hoped because I got emotional, or I got defensive, or I couldn't quite articulate my thoughts in the moment, but I've thought about it and I want to revisit it and I want to see if we can work forward from there. That's been absolutely one of the biggest learnings for me.

Camilla Love
And it's absolutely and that's amazing learning to have. It's really character building. How I would describe it is being comfortable in, again, that vulnerability in being uncomfortable with others. And as a leader, people are ostensibly different to you. I've got a piece of artwork on my wall that says, Was it something I said? And it says it's half crossed out and it says, You heard? So to me, that just keeps reminding me of the way that we communicate and the way that what we all say as leaders might not be taken by others in the way that we either mean it or that they've taken it, or that maybe the tone is not right or whatever it is. And let's go back and have another conversation to really nut out the problem, make us all feel, make me feel uncomfortable, but make us, our relationship, better in the end. And I think that that is an amazing learning to share. So thanks, Jen.

Jen Driscoll
That was a pleasure. I would love it to have been a little less painful along the way to learn.

Camilla Love
But it's sometimes. But they're the best learnings to have. They are. The ones that are truly painful from an emotional point of view and also from a personal point of view, that uncomfortableness makes you a way better leader over time.

Jen Driscoll
Yeah. And it just shows, I think, we're nowhere without feedback, without people coming back and telling us, hey, that didn't sit well. I love when people are so good. I'm so fortunate to have a lot of people who come up and go, hey, I don't know if you realize this, but that person was going through this and they may not have appreciated that comment or they might not have realised where you were coming from. So you might want to circle back. And honestly, with all of us running so hard, having people around you that are willing to share that feedback, it's completely invaluable.

Camilla Love
Absolutely agree. Absolutely agree. But it's something that you have to practice. People expect that that's something you'll do. It's innate, but it's a learned piece of skill, right? Oh, it is. To provide and receive feedback in a positive win, win nature.

Jen Driscoll
Definitely. But you have to make the mistakes, too, right through that. You can't expect of yourself or of anyone else that we're all going to get it right 100 % of the time. So we've got to make a few mistakes and then be willing to revisit them and then say, Okay, let's move forward. Let's not hang on to the baggage, but let's also not shuffle it under the rug because as we all know, it stays there. And then something small comes down the line.

Camilla Love
And then something small down the line. And then it's.

Jen Driscoll
Never good. It's a constant challenge. But yeah, one, we continue to navigate with each other, hopefully.

Camilla Love
Now, talking about challenges, I want to ask, so in my googling, as I am good for, you're a long term supporter of Vinnies and their CEO sleep out. And oh, my God, I can't think of anything worse to do in that, sleeping on the street in a cold winter's night, but raising money for a really good cause and all that stuff. So what resonates? Why did you do it? And you keep doing it. What do you learn about yourself also? Sleeping rough.

Jen Driscoll
It's an absolutely amazing event to be a part of. It's a very small thing. I just want to frame doing that for one night a year has really put into context what a small thing it is. But going back to where it came from, it was raised to me by one of my colleagues in the Sydney office. He sent me an email 10 years ago and said, Hey, this sounds cool. Would you be open to doing it? I looked at it and I was like, Yeah. What? Yeah, that sounds amazing.

Camilla Love
Totally not knowing what.

Jen Driscoll
You're getting into. No idea. No idea. You read a website and you think, oh, okay, that sounds cool. And I think it was my first year as a CEO and I thought, Well, that's something that I can put this title to work for. I'm not a great fundraiser. I don't love the process of it in a way, but what I have been absolutely blown away with over nine years of doing it is just how incredibly generous people are. Whether in Australia or outside of Australia, of course, family, friends, but AB colleagues and the AB matching that we have as a program for the company has been absolutely tremendous. I'm really humbled every year that I do it because I hesitate to put it out there, but I was recently in Asia seeing some colleagues that I hadn't seen in three years post COVID. One of the colleagues there said to me explicitly, and I had not again seen her in many years, she said, I love that you continue to do the sleep out. It means a lot. It really makes me proud of working for a company where someone would do that. And it meant so much to me because they're not in Australia, they don't have to be associated with this.

Jen Driscoll
And it's not necessarily important whether or not they donate financially. For me, the fact that that is something which we can rally around and that people see it as a joint cause has been amazing. So I've learned so much over nine years, and next year will be my 10th year and I'm super excited to hit that milestone and hopefully blow through it. But it's just something which when you think about what we do and trying to support communities more broadly, and then you marry that with an organization like Vinnies who are in these communities, helping the most vulnerable, helping them try to find their way back. And you hear stories from people that have literally been in the same positions we're in. I've heard all kinds of stories from really brave individuals who've shared their trauma and their trauma and their challenges. And the fact that we're all probably one or two bad decisions away from this being an unfortunate reality that we're dealing with. And most of us, we hope, would have a support system to help us. But without Vinnies, these individuals don't have that support system. And so learning how to see someone and think about what the story is behind how they find themselves in that situation has been probably one of the biggest eye opening experiences.

Jen Driscoll
And one of the colleagues who shared a story in one of the Vinnies events a couple of years ago was asked, What can we do? Aside from donating money, what else would be a meaningful difference? And he just said, Just look us in the eye. Let us know we're still human. We still connect. We still matter. That's it. If you prefer, go buy us a sandwich. Be conscious because he said, Listen, of course, not every situation is safe. He's not trying to stereotype. But at the same time, I think those stories and the ability to come back into the company, which I do every morning after I do the sleep out, I like to come back straight in and talk to everyone who's in the office about what the event was like the night before, what I learned, what services Vinnies are providing, how we can help. So I just think it's something which has been really personally and professionally motivating over many years, and I'm looking forward to continuing it.

Camilla Love
Yeah, it makes me warm and fuzzy as well. But also the personal accountant, I think it's really important in a business, as you say, that supports you to do this. Now, I asked all my guests this same question, and everyone has a different take. So I'd love to know your take, another little nugget from you today, about the most valuable piece of advice you were given and why did it resonate with you? Why was it so valuable for you? Whether it was the time and place, whether the person it was from, whether it was something else.

Jen Driscoll
What is it? There were a couple that stood up, but one that really, I think, has framed where I'm at now and probably the journey to this point came again from my aunt who had smashed a few glass ceilings herself in her career and been someone who continues to fight the good fight, I think, and trying to tackle diversity.

Camilla Love
Shout out to the aunt out there.

Jen Driscoll
Yeah, shout out to Gayle. I think it resonated because it goes back to experiencing challenges at work. We all come in a little bit idealistic and we would like things to be pretty simple. I want to come to work, I want to do a good job, I want to go home, I want to have a life outside. And ultimately, as we know in a long career, it's not always quite so linear or quite so perfect. And I was at a point where I was really struggling with a few things that I was seeing that I was not particularly comfortable with or feeling we're really challenging at some level, my values, and how was I? Did I really want to do this? How was I going to continue feeling good about what I was doing? And my aunt had said to me at the time, if you want an ability to influence or change things, you need to get a seat at the table. I was like, Okay, I'm starting to have a bit more ability to share my views and my voice. And always felt that was important. I always wanted to be honest and authentic about where I was at.

Jen Driscoll
But that comment, I think, did catalyze me to realize that we do need leaders who are going to be thinking about these types of things all the time and focused on this. One of the big, I think growth areas in my career has been recognizing where my strengths are and where they are not and being honest with myself about where my contribution can and should be. I'm still extending myself but trying to do that. And I think that getting the seat at the table there really helped me realize that that's what I'm passionate about. I want to continue to advocate to make sure we're doing as a company, the things that serve both our people and our clients best, that we can have those conversations that are challenging and difficult if we feel stretched by something and ultimately trying to work to make it better because that's a day to day thing. That's not a once a year, once every five years. It's every day you look around, you assess, you take temperature checks and you feel like, what can I do to influence? And I don't think my aunt necessarily meant it in the context of you need to be a CEO.

Jen Driscoll
She just meant get around the table when people are discussing things, make your voice heard in whatever context you are. It doesn't matter if I've been there for two years or five or 25. It was really about trying to make sure that you felt like you had a channel to be heard. And that has definitely stayed with me. It's the reason that I feel really comfortable putting a few things out there that may not always feel entirely comfortable for others to engage in, but I feel we can navigate with a really constructive bent. So that for me has been one piece of advice which has always stood out above many others. Just quickly, the other piece, I think, is giving people the benefit of the doubt when we're trying to interpret to your point of, Is it something I said or you heard? There's always multiple different inflections and things that change the way people hear messages. Email has been both an amazing advent of technology and a terrible way of trying to put in written word with no nuance and so subject to so much interpretation. I think giving people that benefit of the doubt, thinking about asking the questions of, Hey, was this what you meant?

Jen Driscoll
Because it's how I interpreted it. And they go, Oh God, no, no, no, no. That wasn't what I meant at all. I was just typing a quick email and I thought I would just shoot it off. But God, I'm so sorry. Those type of things, if you don't give people the benefit of the doubt, we're humans. We rush to judgment and emotion and.

Camilla Love
And we're all guilty of it.

Jen Driscoll
Yeah.

Camilla Love
Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks. Gayle?

Jen Driscoll
Yeah.

Camilla Love
The seat at the table. Well, and I think that's great because to affect change, you need to be there.

Jen Driscoll
To.

Camilla Love
Navigate it.

Jen Driscoll
Yeah, I think so. And to be both on I'm sure you've had a million examples of where you've seen that in your career as.

Camilla Love
Well, right? Too many to go into now.

Jen Driscoll
Go on forever.

Camilla Love
Exactly. Okay, we're coming to the end. And, Jen, if you listen to any of my podcasts, we do this super quickfire round really just to get to know you a little bit more, to put you out of your comfort zone a little bit. So watch out. Oh, gosh. American. So you have to say what's first in your mind, right? Okay. And it's quickfire. It's not like we're not going to hear for another half an hour.

Jen Driscoll
Got.

Camilla Love
It. Okay, so you're ready?

Jen Driscoll
I'll.

Camilla Love
Start with an easy one. My friends would describe me as?

Jen Driscoll
Fun, hopefully kind and caring and active. Okay.

Camilla Love
What really bad movie do you absolutely love?

Jen Driscoll
I am a tragic for any romcom that is out there. Recently, I've gone into any type of foreign language romcom because I think I've exhausted all English language ones. So literally, my Netflix feed is probably one bad movie after another. If you ask my husband, he's horrified by what I watch.

Camilla Love
Just going to leave it there. What's your favorite romcom?

Jen Driscoll
Oh, my God. Ten Things I Hate About You.

Camilla Love
That is in my Netflix. It keeps reminding me. It's in the moment, Netflix algorithm.

Jen Driscoll
I'm like, What are they trying to say here? I think with Heath Bridger, it was like the Australian connection was in me from the time I was in high school and I never knew. Just those little things. Amazing. But yeah, my favourite.

Camilla Love
Good movie. My biggest investment mistake was...

Jen Driscoll
I don't know if I've had a big... I was trying to think about whether I've had an investment mistake. I'm so conservative. I think my... Actually, that's it. My investment mistake was being overly conservative in my younger years and not... That's a big one. Yeah, it definitely was. I would say that my best investment was in myself because I was immediately on that train of put the maximum I could into my, at the time, 401, my equivalent of superannuation in the US. But I think my worst mistake was not investing earlier.

Camilla Love
When I go out to talk to students and stuff like that, always talk about get started early, take more risk because you've got time on your hands, etc. It pays dividends to not be so concerned.

Jen Driscoll
It really does. I picked up the mantle, but not quickly enough, I think, if I was honest with myself. So yeah, definitely a mistake.

Camilla Love
What is the one piece of advice that you give to your 20 year old self that you haven't given already?

Jen Driscoll
Be who you are. I think for a long time, I believed in that I'm one person at home and I'm one person at work. And I've realized over years, it's just not what is the best for you or for where you work or for where you are at home. You just be who you are and own that and find the greatness in that because that's the thing that's actually ultimately led me to the place I'm at now. And it's something that I would never have known at 20 years old.

Camilla Love
So if I wasn't doing this job, you'd be a...

Jen Driscoll
I think I'd be working with young kids.

Camilla Love
Or.

Jen Driscoll
Volunteering somewhere in the community. It's a broad statement, but I love... My twin sister is a teacher, and I remember getting up in front of her classroom of kindergartners in many years ago and being absolutely terrified. I couldn't do it. She was like, tell the kids where you live. And I pointed to, like, we were in LA, I pointed to San Francisco. She's like, Jen, you live in Australia. It's lower. And I was so nervous. But what I love doing is playing with young kids and being around them. And so I think that there's something about that young age group that I would gravitate towards if I wasn't doing what I do now.

Camilla Love
Great. I think anyone at that age group would love to have you to be with lots of fun. Lots of fun. I would love it. So is it shares or is it shoes?

Jen Driscoll
I'm so glad you raised that because I really wanted to talk to you about that. It's both. Actually, that is one thing my friends would say is shoes are amazing. I'm a sneaker person. I used to be a heel person, but my knees don't allow it anymore because I'm old and whatever. But my shoes are my thing. But then shares is you can't not have that investment side there. So for me, this is one of those situations where you can have the best of both. It's shares and shoes all the way. Shares help you buy lots of cool shoes.

Camilla Love
Totally. But you got to start with the shares before the shoes is my view.

Jen Driscoll
You do have to. Yeah.

Camilla Love
Agree. So if you were a superhero, who would you be?

Jen Driscoll
I always really wanted to fly. So I feel like the going the old traditional superwoman is really where I'm going. I think.

Camilla Love
You're already there. You're already there. I am.

Jen Driscoll
Definitely not going to say I've made it, but I do admit to practicing the superwoman pose in front of the mirror every now and again when I need to boost that confidence.

Camilla Love
So there's a little bit of... I can see that in you. For sure. Hands on the hips, chin up.

Jen Driscoll
Yeah, I.

Camilla Love
Got this. That way.

Jen Driscoll
I've got this. Definitely. That's it. So I'm going with traditional there for sure.

Camilla Love
It's the truth, people. It's the truth. Tell us something that no one knows about you.

Jen Driscoll
Well, I like to be mostly an open book, so I don't know if there's anything that people don't necessarily know. I think one thing that always freaks people out is the twin factor in my family. So my mom's a twin, I'm a twin, and I have twins.

Camilla Love
Which.

Jen Driscoll
Is fun. And there's a fraternal identical fraternal thing happening as well. But it's an amazing relationship to have to be a twin, to raise twins, and to have seen that modeled from my mom and her twin brother when I was growing up. So that's.

Camilla Love
A bit of a.

Jen Driscoll
Unique one.

Camilla Love
Are you in any twin studies? Any of your family are in twin studies?

Jen Driscoll
No, I don't think that my parents ever did anything with that. We were thinking about it with our boys because there's this small possibility that they may be identical because they do look really similar, even though they are fraternal technically. But we just felt, That's not important to know. So we're like, We'll live with the mystery. We like the mystery.

Camilla Love
And it's been three generations. So who cares now? Exactly.

Jen Driscoll
Someone else will pick up the mantle some way down the line and hopefully carry on the trend.

Camilla Love
Yeah. Okay, last question. A career in finance is? I think it's.

Jen Driscoll
What you make of it. But in my experience, it's definitely been challenging and really rewarding.

Camilla Love
Great. Well, Jen, oh, my God. It's been amazing to spend all this time and suck up. I told everybody that there's all these crazy nuggets, and Jen has them in spades.

Jen Driscoll
Well, I don't know about that, but it's been an absolute pleasure to chat to you and to reflect on a lot of what we've been able to talk about. So it makes me excited thinking about the next generation of young people coming into the industry and the career. And I can't wait to hear their stories.

Camilla Love
Totally. And you know what? I want to meet your aunt. She sounds like the bomb.

Jen Driscoll
She's a special lady. She really is. And I think she's going to be fighting for all of us for a very long time just to try to keep pushing that dial. So I'm going to do my best to follow in those footsteps and take the rest of the advice that comes from having some pretty switched on parents that are been able to push and support me at the same time, which I'm very.

Camilla Love
Grateful for. All in your superwoman cape? Totally.

Jen Driscoll
Yeah.

Camilla Love
But thanks for being so warm and vulnerable and telling all the stories because that's how we all learn and we really appreciate it. So hopefully you can come back.

Jen Driscoll
One time. I would love to. And thank you for this podcast, Camilla. Without it, we're not able to tell our stories. So thank you so much for the format and the forum and just a great conversation.

Camilla Love
Really appreciate it. Great. Well, everybody, the next episode of Shed's Not Shoe s will be out in a week or so. So check it out, man. And we'll see you soon.

Jen Driscoll
Bye, everybody.

Camilla Love
The information that is in this podcast, we always talk about finance in this podcast, but it's not financial advice. It's actually really careers advice. If you really want financial advice, I recommend that you speak to a financial planner or a broker and work out your own personal circumstances with that. But this is all about careers advice and how finance would be a fabulous career for you.

Transcript