High tides lift all boats: Connecting for success at J.P. Morgan's Board Summit
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Rebecca Thornton: Hi. You're listening to What's The Deal?, our investment banking series here on J.P. Morgan's Making Sense podcast channel. I'm your host, Rebecca Thornton, head of Director Advisory Services at J.P. Morgan. This podcast is a special episode, spotlighting J.P. Morgan's Board Summit. For the past 13 years, J.P. Morgan has hosted this annual event that convenes influential public company directors to explore critical business issues. Later this month, we're thrilled to welcome board directors back for an in-person gathering, offering insightful discussions with leading experts. As we look forward to the Board Summit, we're delighted to have Jan Singer with us today. Jan has held C-suite and board director seats in various consumer-facing companies. She currently serves on the boards of Acushnet Holdings and Brown‑Forman Corporation and previously on the board of Kate Spade. Jan was most recently the chief executive officer of J.Crew and, prior to the role, Chief Executive Officer of Victoria's Secret lingerie and Spanx Incorporated after having spent a decade at Nike. Jan, thank you so much for joining us.
Jan Singer: Hey, Rebecca. Thank you for having me today.
Rebecca Thornton: Before we dive into the Board Summit, could you take a moment to share a brief introduction about yourself and your professional journey?
Jan Singer: Thanks, Rebecca. In terms of my background, I had about 20 years to start in luxury goods, specifically in beauty and mostly on the brand marketing side with companies like Chanel, Prada, Calvin Klein. And then from there, transitioned into more of a product creation role in sports of all things, which was first with Reebok, a quick stint there. And then ultimately had the most incredible decade of my career with Nike, where I headed up their global footwear business and then reset their global apparel business. Which means spanning everything from innovation, design, engineering, sourcing manufacturing, and product merchandising at an incredible brand, as we know. From there, I had the unbelievable opportunity to take a leadership role in great brands like Spanx and J. Crew and Victoria's Secret.
Rebecca Thornton: And tell us a little bit more about how all these experiences connect?
Jan Singer: I always think about, you know, what did beauty and maybe basketball shoes and, if you will, bras have to do with each other. But the fact is that these are incredible brands and all of them do a couple things alike. They put the consumer at the center, and they really drive business through innovation. And to do that, they all embrace different perspectives and different types of leadership in order to find a new high ground. So, there is a connective thread through all of that and it's been a great journey.
Rebecca Thornton: It's an incredible cross-section of brands, particularly at pivotal moments in their growth. So we're gonna dig into your experience across that value chain. But I wanna circle back just to the Board Summit. Obviously, we're thrilled you're coming back to join us for this year's summit. Maybe you could share with our audience a little bit about what brings you back year after year. Observations maybe from past experiences, what you found most valuable about the event, or things maybe you're able to bring back to your boards as learnings.
Jan Singer: Well, it all starts with the firm. I mean, J.P. Morgan for me, just like the brands I worked with, premium, really steeped in progressive and innovative thinking and best in class in terms of information and knowledge. In these times especially, there are a few trusted sources we all go to try to find patterns that are happening in the world and a path forward. And so I have a trusted belief in the firm and the program that you're going to put together. I was so impressed with the last summit. And at every hour, minute of that program, there was information or introductions or conversations that were not just inspiring but super informative and helped me shape many things. Whether it was how I show up in boardroom and the topics we should cover, because there were actual workshops. Or whether it was, really, just connecting. Because frankly at this point in my career and in these types of roles, there is not a lot of community in terms of being in the same place at the same time. Everybody's busy. Boards, funny enough, for me when I started, I realized go very narrow and deep. Narrow, meaning concentrated amount of time and very deep at the time we're together and we are diligent but then we disperse, right? Because we're not management. And then we come back together. And so you really don't have a lot of intersection with people outside of your boards. And so having an opportunity to come together and share best practices, talk about topics that are trending, and really just the time is a gift. So, I am super excited. I know it will be very helpful as I kind of navigate the next year-plus in today's economy and today's environment.
Rebecca Thornton: Yeah. As you teased earlier, it really is kind of a team sport-
Jan Singer: (laughs)
Rebecca Thornton: ... to play on your basketball experience early on, and the importance of community in terms of just sharing best practices and what others are seeing in boardrooms is really the intent behind the summit. So thrilled that you have found that content and community for our summit. I wanna go back to your executive career, if we could, for a few minutes. You've worked across the entire value chain, from product creation to new sources of growth. How have you found these experiences have translated into the boardroom and what value does that experience bring to boards?
Jan Singer: A great question. I mean, I think the first thing that people should always be curious about with board when you're exploring that opportunity is what voice you can bring to the table. And does that match with that particular board needs at that time? My core voice is really centered around consumer, definitely around channel retail, but also around the sourcing and manufacturing and product development complexity. I think having a subject-matter expertise in a certain pipeline or competency is important. And at the same time, when you've worked across the whole value chain, you can appreciate the conversations that are happening at the table. You can appreciate the management complexities or challenges, and even the tailwinds that they're having, and you can contribute. So, I think it's a balance of finding where your core voice is in that room for that board, but also having a full value chain understanding so that you can follow the conversation. I actually think that is more valuable than actually having mirror the actual business that you're sitting on the board of. So, it's not necessarily that I sit only on, let's say, an apparel retail or footwear board. I can sit in any category. It's more of the subject matter that's needed and how it's applied to their business that I think is critical.
Rebecca Thornton: What I think I hear you saying is how important the diversity of thought is and that pattern recognition you see across businesses, perhaps more so than a spike in a particular industry segment.
Jan Singer: Totally. And I think a great board has a great culture and they're very connected. And that help is really derived from the lack of redundancy at the table. Redundancy is easy for the CEO because it's familiar and they can sail through a conversation, but it doesn't give you a different perspective. So, I do think it's the diversity of voice and functional expertise that makes for the right governance and the right culture at the board level.
Rebecca Thornton: You've had the benefit of seeing the board in action from both sides of the table, as a member of management and as a director. I'm curious, once you became a CEO, did your views change at all on what makes a good director?
Jan Singer: Oh, definitely. I think the boardroom can be kind of a mystery for most of management, short of them participating maybe once or twice a year to present. I'm not sure it's very clear for everybody what the function of the board is versus management and what the work is of the work for a board member. And so as a CEO, you learn that very quickly because you're thrown right into the mix and it's really interesting. I think there are CEOs who really find it energizing and actually helpful and at times even inspiring to have the right board. And then, I think there are CEOs that probably feel it's pretty taxing. I would say that my perspective now is to make sure that that relationship is really seamless and always with mutual admiration and respect but is a relationship that is value added. And that happens when roles are really clear, and people embrace that and there's a lot of conversation. One of my boards goes as far as bring the board into a strategy conversation annually, not so the board can run the business but so that the board can understand where the business is going and weigh in. And not all CEOs feel comfortable with that. I think it's a very healthy dynamic when there is this very flowing dialogue between the board and the CEO. But if you don't know that, when you're not sure the role of the board particularly. Or you don't have a board that knows their role. That could be very challenging. So I did learn a lot being on both sides. I also think I can provide a unique perspective for the CEO in translating some of that back and forth and for the board to understand what the CEO might be facing. Not all members of boards have been CEOs or been operators on that cross-functional level. So, yes, lots of learning on both sides, and more than happy to share what I'd learnt along the way.
Rebecca Thornton: The role of a board is often around strategy, but most directors I know speak to the importance of succession planning. So on that theme, I'm just curious how maybe your views have evolved about the skills it takes to be a CEO. And how, if at all, you see those criteria specifications changing in the coming years with continued technology disruption, AI, et cetera. I mean, It's tough out there. We've seen high turnover in the CEO rank already this year. Your thoughts?
Jan Singer: Yeah, I think you're right. I think we're gonna see a lot more churn because people are retiring, people are tired. They are people who've done quite well through crisis and those have struggled, and that's all fatiguing on either side. None of it has been easy. The strength of the CEO bench is critical conversation in the boardroom right now because of that, and we are at a huge inflection point yet again as a global economic model but also, political, social issues, so many things changing, the workforce, that this pivot is going to be huge. And you have to kind of have the fresh legs to get after it. So, a big conversation in the boardroom is about the CEO succession planning. It is the job of the board to ensure real talent at the top and a real pipeline and an ability to understand how the business is either developing, acquiring, or retaining that talent so that bench of that CEO is strong. So, yes, things are changing quickly, and that conversation should be one that is always on the agenda, at least as a touch base if not a deep dive for the board. For the CEO themselves, I think never before has a CEO had to manage so many different dynamics at one time. I think it used to be this CEO was deliver or die, and now delivering is not enough. You have to deliver, but you also have to really be aware of the dynamics in the organization culturally. You really have to be very crisp around talent and work develop so that you can deliver. And you're always navigating what to weigh in on and what not to weigh in on in these times of social conversation and change. So, I think the role of the CEO has never been more complex, along with their management team, specifically the CHRO. And I think never before has the board needed to be so diligent around the health and wellness of that CEO, particularly the person. And also the bench strength and talent pipeline leading up to that role, really critical.
Rebecca Thornton: Yeah, well said. As we think about talent pipelines on boards, I'm curious what some of the key skills or trends you're seeing as boards look for their next generation of directors.
Jan Singer: I love this question because it speaks to what I really believe in in general with org development in any way, which is, if you're looking for new directors, and we're always looking for new directors, it's always change, the competency part is not the hard part. Everyone who is a candidate has the competency to sit on a board. If you've been a CEO or CFO, COO, CMO even, you have the competency. The big question becomes chemistry. And chemistry because the culture and the health and wellness of that board is paramount to the speed of decision-making, the complexity of issues that we're facing, and frankly, the pressures of the management teams to deliver and drive a very productive and world-class culture. So chemistry really comes down to many things. It comes down to the thing we talked about earlier, which is, do we have the right voices at the table for what we need right now? Do we have diversity in those voices and not redundancy? Do we have a tone that is of mutual admiration, if you will, respect at the very least? Do we have good listeners? Do we have people who are curious, who will continue to seek how to do governance even better than they do today? You know, constantly life-long learning around this? But that is the chemistry conversation, and really relative to the management team and relative to the dynamics the business will be facing, that chemistry is important. Because these are not easy meetings, and the last thing you want to have is a board that burns a lot of time on their own dynamics and isn't value-adding to the management team or able to return shareholder value.
Rebecca Thornton: I love everything that you said and I would just maybe add a culture that's not afraid to disrupt itself, whether that's from a product, a business issue, or frankly even from an activist. So creating a healthy culture that's not afraid to disagree but can link arms and come out of the room aligned around the same decision, I think, is critical. I wanna shift to a space that you know much more about than I do, which is consumer dynamics. And these trends are constantly evolving with the advent of social shopping, the AI boom, value-conscious spending habits, et cetera. What specific trends have you noticed, and how do you see those impacting boardroom strategies? Do you think these trends are specific to business-to-consumer companies, or will they have a wider impact across industries?
Jan Singer: There's so much change right now happening. I was thinking about it last night, Rebecca, I remember Y2K and we all thought overnight the world was gonna change. In a strange way, I feel like all of that change we were anticipating has happened now. And whether that's a tech evolution again or whether it's just the landscape of consumer behavior, there's a lot happening, as we all know. First and foremost, from a very specific consumer space, I would say we all are seeing the shift from purchasing items to purchasing experiences and ideas. And there's a lot of implication to that around business models. First of all, if businesses sell goods, the goods input costs are going through the roof and the labor costs are going up as we know. And yet the consumer doesn't wanna see the price increases continuing, and it's actually creating quite a separation on many levels. The model is very pressurized in terms of delivering against the expectations of margin expansion or other metrics that are critical. So moving from a model that was very product-centric to a lot of businesses having to add into that experience is a pivot. And it is a costly pivot because developing experience or destinations or memories, if you will, is not just something you can gift-wrap, put in a shopping bag, and have people walk out. So it's capital intensive, it's labor-intensive, it's experience intensive from a training perspective and service. That's a huge expectation from the consumer. So know me, solve my problems, and serve me all day long, but it doesn't just happen with a little item in a bag with tissue paper any longer. So I think that's a big pivot. And there are many others. You know, obviously the introduction or the accessibility of AI is going to bring new ideas and opportunities as the consumer becomes more focused and understanding of what it could do. I think the advent of the gig economy and the really boom of being an entrepreneur and creating your own business has shifted quite a bit of business around from your usual big, branded, bold businesses into millions of small disruptors that we need because they bring innovation and new ideas. But at the same time, they do disrupt the usual churn of big business. So there are so many things happening, but I think those two things are critical from a consumer perspective and then have impact on the businesses. And for the boards, they just have to understand what those disruptors are for management and really get aligned with management on the path forward to combat them or get on board with them.
Rebecca Thornton: So you've just named some of the tensions and opportunities in the consumer sector. As we zoom out to more macro issues such as geopolitics, supply chain disruptions, and the future of work, how are boards and management teams navigating some of these real-time challenges? Do your boards have clearly defined roles when it comes to these events and issues?
Jan Singer: I think it's something to watch for, the growth is always a conversation in the boardroom of course, and growth is slowing in certain major geographies that companies have relied on, and so companies are looking for new sources of growth. And that can come from new geographies, or it can come from new methods of making whatever product or service they're providing. But with new becomes exposure, and also, risk. So, it's really critical that the Board's role is around governance and very clear and crisp, especially in the audit space, understanding of the exposures the company might be facing, and to be able to have strategies and actually plans and programs in place to mitigate or eradicate any risk at all. Now, that's whether you're opening up commerce in new geographies, or you're actually going into manufacturing in new geographies. You know, sometimes it's the tiniest thing, and it seems like in a faraway place that's not gonna get you in trouble that actually can take you down. So, I do think as the global marketplace shifts, from both a commerce side and a manufacturing side and a sourcing side, the Management team and the Board have to be very diligent on how they get into those businesses or into those countries and how they manage the exposure and any liability in that space.
Rebecca Thornton: As we wrap up today's podcast, I wanna go back to where we started, which is our upcoming Board Summit. Jan, is there a particular issue, topic, theme that you're looking to dive into later this month?
Jan Singer: I would say there are two things. So, one, just tactically, I'm always very interested in what JPMorgan and the speakers you assemble, the workshops we do, have to say about where this global economic model is going. Everybody wants to know, everybody is all ears. And in an election year, on a global stage, we all would like to hear, coming out of a pandemic. There isn't a better moment to kind of hear people's thoughts, who have the subject matter expertise about where we're headed so we can cotinine to collect another data point and put that into our thinking as we govern going forward. So, I'm very excited about the information. But really, I'm excited about the people that you invite. You always seem to pull together; I'll call it quite an assortment of leaders and directors. I love the connecting part of this. It's not just my connecting, it's connecting people with other people. And my dad has always said to me, "It's always been about people helping people." Just as you do, Rebecca, in the board practice. It's really important that we continue to connect the dots for up-and-coming people, connect the dots for people who have been in the mix and can add value, and even connecting the dots on people who are really starting to wind down but have incredible wisdom. So, I love walking in and seeing who's there, and learning about who they are, or reconnecting with people who I've known in my past and connecting those people to others who can add a lot of value to our landscape. So, I'm very excited about that.
Rebecca Thornton: Well, we love that theme of high tides lift all boats. We believe, truly, in the power of community and connection and we're thrilled for our connection with you. So, thank you so much for providing such valuable insights on your experience, your insights on your history with our Board Summit. We really appreciate you joining us today and look forward to seeing you at the Board Summit.
Jan Singer: Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you for having me and thank you for hosting such a great podcast.
Rebecca Thornton: To our listeners, thank you for tuning into another What's The Deal? episode. We hope you found this conversation insightful. I'm your host, Rebecca Thornton. Until next time, goodbye.
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