FTF News interviews Cheryl Nash, president of Fiserv Investment Services and the recipient of the Editor’s Choice Award for 2018.
(Cheryl Nash, president of Fiserv Investment Services, is the recipient of the Editor’s Choice Award for 2018, a top honor of the FTF News Technology Innovation Awards. This interview is a follow-up to a Q&A done in the spring when Nash gave the closing keynote address at the ISITC 24th Annual Securities Operations Summit. Nash has more than three decades of experience in wealth management and is a subject matter expert on customer experience, technological innovation, digital enablement, understanding investor segments and diversity in wealth. For this chat, Nash is focusing on her achievements and challenges at Fiserv and how she has helped others especially other women get ahead in the financial services industry.)
Cheryl Nash, president, Fiserv Investment Services
Q: What do you like best about being president of Investment Services at Fiserv?
A: Being president of Investment Services affords me the great privilege and responsibility of driving thought leadership, innovation and change into the financial services industry.
I truly believe there has never been a better time to be a technology leader. Our clients are very focused on helping their investors reach their financial — and really, life — goals. It’s great to provide technology solutions that enable investors to buy their dream home, send their kids to college and enjoy a comfortable, on-time retirement.
I’m proud of the solutions we deliver and even prouder of the people who come to work every day to make sure we deliver on our commitments to our clients.
Building true partnerships and driving real change is what I like best about being president.
Q: You’ve been President of Fiserv Investment Services since November 2011. So, what in your opinion have been your biggest achievements? And what do you see as your biggest challenges?
A: I’d say I’m very focused on our clients and helping them achieve their goals.
It’s so important that we provide our clients with excellence — at every touchpoint. We have really talented and committed people here at Fiserv who are driving meaningful change.
When I look back at all that we’ve accomplished since I stepped into the division leadership role in 2011, we truly have supported our clients by listening and consulting with them to help solve their unique challenges, and by providing technologies that make their lives easier and enable them to grow their business.
With respect to our challenges, we often ask ourselves ‘How can we better partner with our clients to help them with change, and in some instances, help them see the need for change management?’
Everything in our world is moving so fast and clients need to be able to deliver innovative and more intuitive technology solutions.
As a technology provider to more than 300 clients, we need to draw the correlation of how it is today versus what technology will look like tomorrow and help them map that out.
In some cases, it may take longer to get to where we want to be and that’s a challenge as well — we must be ready for what’s next.
Q: To switch gears, you’ve done a great deal to help women get ahead in the financial services arena. Why have you made a major commitment to helping women advance in this industry?
A: I’m very committed to furthering diversity and inclusion in our industry.
I think there’s a very strong acknowledgment that women bring different perspectives, very valuable perspectives, and unique capabilities to the profession. There’s progress that’s been made but not enough and I think not fast enough.
My focus is to educate women in college about great careers in financial services — I want them to know that they can have very rewarding careers. There are so many opportunities for women from running an operations team to managing a client-service desk.
Many women today are the primary bread winners for their families. Women are inheriting wealth faster than they ever have and, unfortunately, there are so many who are not prepared for that. And businesses should be there to help educate women so that they’re prepared in the event something happens in their family and they need to take on all the finances themselves.
I’m passionate about furthering diversity. I think it’s important to have a team that doesn’t look or think exactly like you — encouraging different opinions and ideas is very healthy. It positions you for better decision-making and brings forth unique ideas you wouldn’t have were you to surround yourself with a team that looks, acts and thinks like you.
Q: That seems to be the common situation for a lot of firms — there is a lot of uniformity and not much diversity.
A: Almost every firm I know of in our industry now has a diversity and inclusion program. It has become an important area of focus.
However, the push needs to be from the top. It has to be embraced at the executive level for it to really take hold.
Fiserv has several affinity networks that are thriving — we have a dedicated women’s affinity network with very committed, success-driven members — many have come forward and been very forthright in articulating ‘This is what I want, and this is what I need to be successful.’
I think every business out there now should invest as much as possible in their diversity and inclusion programs.
Q: What advice would you give to women who want to take on executive management roles? They may be senior or just below senior level roles and they’re thinking about making that leap to the top.
A: I’d say build a network.
I think it’s really important, for women especially, to have a network of both men and women. That network should be people who you can turn to when you have different career questions, personal questions, and who can help you and guide you.
I also think it’s important that you have either a mentor or that you are a mentor, or you have a sponsor at your firm. I talk a lot about the difference between mentorship and sponsorship.
It’s important for a woman to have an advocate when she’s not in the room — someone who will speak up positively on her behalf and say, ‘I want ___ to be in this role and this is why.’ Because too often women are overlooked.
So, it’s really important to build up your network and surround yourself with really good people that are going to lift you up and are going to help you get to that next level.
Q: And you had mentors and sponsors?
A: I did. And, it’s funny that almost all of them were men, which makes sense when you think about the lack of women in our industry.
But that’s why I say for your mentor/sponsor, find somebody that you can really trust. It doesn’t have to be woman-to-woman. It could be a man in your organization who is going to really help you.
Really build that network and find a trusted advisor with whom you can consult and bounce ideas off of.
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