[MUSIC PLAYING] PAUL G: What I really liked about my progression the past 10 years were the opportunities that I got to do other things, to explore other stuff and to find out, hey–
CLAIRE H: There’s so much more to Vanguard.
PAUL G: It’s one of the world’s largest asset managers, so there’s a lot more to it. But just tactically, the things that we got to experience, there wasn’t one path.
I didn’t think when I came here that I was going to ever get involved in people leadership. And that’s something where I actually found that I had an interest in and got an opportunity to do that. I’m currently in a project management role that focuses on technology. I have a history degree.
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How you get from early American Jacksonian America to sort of big data and working in cloud computing, from there to there, it’s a very interesting progression. The great thing is as you talk to people, everyone has a different path. There’s not one way.
Granted, there are advanced development programs and other programs that will accelerate you. But there are different ways to get there. And I think that’s really cool.
KRISTEN G: What you find that you’re good at’s really amazing because we all talk to clients on the phone. I think the benefit we got from that is amazing. We all know the systems probably better than a lot of people.
And then I went on to ghost writing in our complaint group. And now I found out that I love risk and control and auditing. And I’m really good at it, and people recognize it.
CLAIRE H: How do you ever figure that out?
KRISTEN G: I have no idea. I have no idea. But Vanguard gave me the platform to see what I can do and go from there.
AMANDA S: As a people leader, one of the things I always tried to stress with my crew was forget department. Forget level. Forget name of the role. What are the core competencies you want to do day to day, because I guarantee you–
SPEAKER: There’s a place here.
AMANDA S: There’s a handful of places here.
SPEAKER: Yeah.
CLAIRE H: In some firms, you go to consulting firms or other places. And it’s like, hey, two years at this, three years at that. And it’s much more sort of checklist. But it pigeonholes you in some sense, in some way.
But here, it’s saying, hey, we get exposed to different projects. We get exposed to complaints and controls. And we get exposed to hey, how are we audited? Or what do our high net worth and advice clients want? And I think that’s a piece of that, in terms of saying, hey, we are constantly thinking about the future across the organization.
So as you’re in client service and you’re taking those phone calls and you’re learning the ropes and you’re gaining those core competencies and skills, you can start to pick out, hey, I actually really enjoy this. Or I really enjoy that. Or I’d love to try this.
But I think that’s one of the unique things about it is that starting in a place like that gets you so foundationally solid. And then you can go and do all sorts of other things.
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