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Our Guest today is Bob Moritz chairman
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and Senior partner of pricewater house
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Coopers LLP the US member of PWC
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International we plan to speak about two
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topics leadership and financial
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literacy Bob thank you so much for
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joining us here today happy to be here
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so you've been in your current role of
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chairman of price order house scoopers
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since July of 2009 that's correct uh but
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I wonder if you could tell our audience
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about your earliest experience of
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leadership what was that like probably
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the earliest example of leadership was
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when I used to work back at home during
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high school and college Years uh believe
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it or not I worked at a women's clothing
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store my role model was in charge of uh
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the back office so to speak responsible
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for delivery stock uh management of the
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the office and the functions and over
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the first couple of years while he was a
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clearly a role model someone people that
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sought out I ended up eventually
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becoming that person probably by the
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time I was a sophomore perhaps uh in
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college at that point in time so gave me
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a chance to see what it was like to be
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that sought-after individual to have the
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responsibility to look after other
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people and the responsibility for the
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accountability of getting the job done
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each and every day in the right way
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possible now based on that early
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experience how did that shaped the kind
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of leader you became and and did you
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believe that leadership is something
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that's inborn or it's something that you
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learned I personally believe leadership
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can be
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learned as I think about my own career
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progression starting with the time I was
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at this clothing
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store I saw many different examples of
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people that inspired me Shaped me and
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even sponsored me in my own career
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progression and if you have the right
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mindset where every opportunity is a
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learning opportunity you do have the
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opportunity to grow into and learn
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examples of how to do things and not do
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things and that goes both to management
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and Leadership responsibilities so in
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that particular role I think it did give
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me an appreciation of what others do how
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they do it the personalities associated
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with it and how do you think about
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pulling the strings to get the most out
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of the people to get an effective team
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to operate as appropriately as possible
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and for you to get some credit
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um not from a compensation perspective
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but rather from a self-fulfillment
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perspective in terms of what it's it
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like to have a high performing team and
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you actually be a major role player in
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that team and that means one day you
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might be leading it one day you might be
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supporting it one day you might be part
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of it but that's the interesting part of
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leadership it's not necessarily just by
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those that have a title it's by the
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acting and the behaviors that people
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bring to the job each and every day
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right now and and looking over your your
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your uh bio one of the things that that
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I found really interesting is that you
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spent three years uh in pwc's Tokyo
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office uh how was leading in Japan and
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in Asian culture different than leading
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in the US much different um it really
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was an inflection point in my career to
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understand for the first time ever
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personally being outside of the states
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to interact with business and for that
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matter a culture uh that was much
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different than I was used to uh from a
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western civilization
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so the first challenge was how do you
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become
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accepted um and it taught me honestly
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the first learnings I ever equated to
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around the concept of diversity because
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in Japan I was the minority without
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changing skin color or gender or
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anything else associated with it um
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second was the responsibilities that
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were provided to you you could choose to
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work 247 or you can choose to
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self-correct work versus life um and
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make each one of those personal and
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professional opportunities a leadership
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responsibility and a balancing act that
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you have to take responsibility for and
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third the position itself gave me a
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higher obligation higher sense of
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purpose I was sent there to serve our us
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and European uh institutions
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particularly with a focus on the
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financial institutions but on a
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self-initiated way to then interact with
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the Japanese the Japanese government
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agencies and other things like that
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which was all part of what I'll call an
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innate obligation to serve a high higher
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responsibility which I think really
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helped position me to understand a life
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outside of the US help understand the
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concepts of diversity and for that
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matter understand and appreciate the
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concepts of
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responsibility and people's belief in
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you that you can be accountable for
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those things and then it's up to you to
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actually dictate what you want to do
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with them and how you want to do it so
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as you just said it helped uh redefined
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the way you looked at diversity how how
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has that translated into the way you
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lead PWC today
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so it is translated into sort of three
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different things um diversity in and of
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itself and inclusiveness is a huge
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priority for me personally um it's
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something I speak about all the time um
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and that could be across cultures gender
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race uh sexual orientation doesn't
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matter um and as a result we PWC try to
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then profile ourselves as we think about
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the type of people were recruiting and
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the inclusive environment for them to
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individually succeed and I have to role
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model that I have to lead that from the
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fr front and as a result that's why I
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Look to have a very diverse team because
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at the end of the day diverse teams give
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you the best thinking the best thinking
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gives you the best actions and
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ultimately the best results I think is
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proven by some uh many different
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academic studies and the like the second
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thing though is how do you allow for an
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organization like us even though I
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oversee the US operations I still have a
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global responsibility so making sure
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that our under PE understand people
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understand the cultural aspect of doing
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business business globally and not
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making any assumptions about what is
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said or unsa is hugely important so
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there's times where you need to set the
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right environment there's times you need
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to actually interject and course correct
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there's times you need to let people
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learn on their own or sometimes
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interject to help them learn and that's
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hugely important as you think about a
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professional service firm like PWC
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having the best talent the only way
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you're going to have the best talent is
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to have the most diverse Talent so I've
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got to lead that by example from the
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front so based on what you said said um
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I I guess a very important aspect would
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be uh to develop u a leadership style
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that would be effective globally uh how
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how would you define your own leadership
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style and how did you consciously
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develop it I think leadership styles
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develop both by conscious dedication and
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change but also by a lot of unconscious
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things that happen uh because at the end
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of the day there's again human behavior
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there were three things that really
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impacted me as I
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had my career PR progression one was I
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actually spent a year in the human
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capital function so as a Professional
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Services firm it was a great opportunity
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to see the other side how do you meet
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understand and develop a relationship
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with people to understand what they want
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figure out a way to match that with what
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you need and how do you get the two
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together to inspire the most and get the
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highest performance out of people so
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they can reach their fullest potential
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great learning opportunity that allowed
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me to then apply those same learnings at
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that at that point in time at a early
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junior age later on in career path Japan
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was another one and the the last one was
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probably the events in
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2001 where you had the combination of
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the demise of Anderson rcom and Enron
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you saw people with tears in their eyes
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that lost everything uh you also saw the
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events of 911 and it gave you as a
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leader a higher moral obligation to
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protect and serve so my style is very
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inclusive
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and more consensus building you have to
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strike the right balance between
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consensus building building and
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decision- making second is
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transparency the average age of our
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organization is 29 no one probably
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appreciates that when they think about
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an organization like PWC so I've got to
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turn the place upside down and engage
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everyone as if they're coming off a
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campus in the creation of our strategy
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and understanding of our strategy and
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then their role in playing a role in the
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strategy and its execution so rather
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than just talk from the top down I
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actually want to engage from the bottoms
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up so making sure that communication and
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transparency is visible to all of our
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employees because as I said if I can get
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39,000 people doing a little bit better
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each and every day the place has un
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unbelievable exponential potential and
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the last piece is how do you as best you
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can coach people individually and spend
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some time and you do that in our
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organization with four key behaviors
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you've got to have a relationship
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relationships take time you've got to
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deliver value that's value to the person
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next to you to the left or right that
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you are able to invest in the long term
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and team together you're both in this
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together an our firm uh Professional
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Services firm I would argue we're not an
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individual sport it's a team sport and
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last but not least you ever have to uh
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have a degree of empathy you and if
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you're going to have empathy for the
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person situation you need to have a
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relationship so that becomes really
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important and you need to actually
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deliver some value to that person that
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helps them along the way so those
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behavioral aspects are really important
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so that's the other element of
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leadership in terms of how do you
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demonstrate that more and more each and
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every day on a consistent
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basis so you've described your
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leadership principles how do you apply
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these to developing leaders within PWC
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so PWC has a huge
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responsibility to enhance someone's
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resume regardless if they stay or go
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from our organization I say many times
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we're an extension of the universities
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and colleges around the world in terms
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of the learnings that people can achieve
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on campus and we continue off campus so
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I've got to create the right environment
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for
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learning I've got to create the right
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expectation of our leaders to engage
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with those right
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behaviors and as needed put programs in
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place to help people's individual
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development because in everyone there is
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a leader in some way shape or form title
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or not does not matter and as a result
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how do you lead by example how do you
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coach appropriately when needed how do
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you challenge respectfully to improves
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people's behaviors and ultimately
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performance and get them to Aspire to be
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something they never thought they were
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capable of themselves and Inspire them
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enough to
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succeed and that's the kind of
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one-on-one conversations that has to
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happen that has that's the role modeling
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when you're in front of large groups of
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people to talk about the world and
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possibilities and how they play a role
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and that ties together engagement of
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strategy individual role playing their
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individual performance and then
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hopefully the development of leaders
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it's amazing how many people have left
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our
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organization uh for the right reasons to
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go on out things that are CEOs CFOs
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board members and the like I'd actually
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at times when you look at the facts were
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probably as good um as the Goldman and
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the general exit of the world that have
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at some point in time with been PWC and
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have left us to go on and do great
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things or stay with PWC and do some
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great things inside the firm that's
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that's that's great uh now when you try
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to
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recruit people for senior leadership
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roles what attributes do you look for so
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I've done this recently with my own
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leadership team uh what I look for in
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terms of attributes is someone who's
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going to demonstrate behaviors that I
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expect um I'm going to look for somebody
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who serves not somebody who should be
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served themselves um I look for
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agility I look for how did you deal with
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a challenging issue in front of you and
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what did you do to work your way through
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it up until the point of making
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decisions and what did you do thereafter
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and how did you yourself coach others
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along the way so this is not about your
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own self image it's around a learning
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opportunity for everybody else around
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you so I look for those key thingses and
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typically in a recruiting process try to
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get to examples of that the last thing I
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do look for is I'm always recruiting for
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best athlete um while they may be
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recruited for a particular role I want
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to make sure they have an understanding
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of the culture and whether culturally
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they fit in PWC and I also want to ask
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that question because I'm hoping at
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whatever age they may be it's for a
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lifetime so I'm looking to say this is
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only an option of a role that will
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create multiple options for many
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different roles over your career path
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and I know in today's
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generation people will leave jobs many
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times over we continue to to say two
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things if you stay two years at versus
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six years at PWC you probably have a 10
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times multiple of career earnings and a
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10 times multiple of uh career
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progression the other thing we say is
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that you can have many different
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opportunities in PWC because of the
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things we do without ever leaving and
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that's what we want to make sure happens
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even with our senior people as we
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recruit out in the marketplace right now
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I'm going to take one of the things that
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you just said and turn it back at you
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during your leadership career what would
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you say is the most
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challenging uh or the biggest challenge
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that you you ever faced how did you
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overcome it and what did you learn from
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it probably the biggest challenge I ever
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had to deal with
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was the events on
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9911 I was just responsible for our
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financial services
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practice any given day we've got 250
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people in the World Trade Centers I'm
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working on
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clients thankfully that day we had two
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training sessions a lot of people had
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left the World Trade Centers a couple of
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us were at a training event across the
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river in New Jersey someone walked in
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and said a planeet hit the first Tower a
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lot of us went outside we saw the second
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plane hit the tower then we saw both
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Towers come down from
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afar cell phones didn't work and from a
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personal perspective I knew my family
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and friends were generally
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safe but I had as a leader now 250
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people that I had no idea where they
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were huge challenge in terms of what do
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you do how do you organize people to
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track everybody down how do you decide
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what to do and when to do it and
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thankfully that day all of our people
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got out of the building we had about 60
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people in the building they all got out
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everyone was safe that was in the
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buildings unfortunately because of our
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size and scale we did have six people on
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the planes that lost their lives that
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day the most challenging thing was day
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two we closed the office down but three
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of us went into the office to plan out
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how will we track everybody down from a
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personal perspective and what will we do
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with our clients thereafter and it was
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always people
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first by the afternoon became the most
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challenging point if you hadn't heard
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from those people at what point in time
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did you call mom or dad to say we've not
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heard from your son or daughter have you
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it might not have been top of mind for
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them to call us but worst fears might be
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that they're under Rubble
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so the learnings then which I do equate
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to going back to my time in human
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capital and the HR function was how do
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you make sure you take care of people
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first if you do that the rest will
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actually be taken care of itself um and
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that was probably one of the biggest
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challenges I've ever dealt with from an
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emotional perspective a leadership
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perspective and then making the tough
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calls in terms of what to do and what
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not to do and when to do it sure oh
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that's um that's a great answer uh one
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thing I've I've often noticed is that uh
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truly responsible leaders uh look beyond
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the immediate bottom line and try to do
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things that affect society as a whole
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and and that's what sort of brings me to
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the the initiative of financial literacy
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earn your future now I will say in the
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interest of full disclosure that
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knowledge at Wharton is a partner with
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PWC it is very proud to be a partner
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with PWC in this initiative
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but what inspired you to make financial
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literacy such a priority for your firm
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so like everything else this isn't a bob
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meritz decision this was a team decision
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for us to go
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forward we have two fundamental beliefs
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one is if you look to today's societal
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problems government can't solve them by
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themselves business can't solve them by
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themselves nor can the communities solve
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them by themselves and particularly if
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you look over the last 5 years or so
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that's ever more evident than uh
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previously so we had an obligation to
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step our game up on corporate
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responsibility broadly we decided to
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focus on four areas one was around pro
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bono work in the communities uh because
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of the difficulties of the economy in
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the like second was this concept of
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diversity third was the concept of going
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green as you think about the challenges
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of limited natural
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resources and fourth was the education
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system particularly youth um in that and
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then we narrow it down to financial
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literacy and the way we got to this
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particular topic was pretty
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interesting 75% or so of the teachers K
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through 12 don't feel equipped to
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teach turning on its other head we have
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39,000 people that know all of this
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stuff that's what they do for a
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living to not ask our people to engage
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in this I would argue is reckless as a
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leader because you misused the assets to
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serve a higher purpose in society so we
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took the opportunity to say we will do
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three things we'll create the curriculum
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that we'll put online there for free for
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teachers to use we started off with 20
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courses and went to 30 based upon the
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demand we taught teachers as you know
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because obviously the first one was done
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here on campus and last but not least we
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said we would dedicate a million hours
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of our people's time to go in the
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classrooms and co-
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teach huge
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uplifting opportunity for our individual
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people because again our 39,000 people
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average age of 29 they want to give back
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too so you've got to demonstrate to them
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that their values are consistent with
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the Enterprise's values it's not always
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about just the bottom line it's about
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doing both and giving them the
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opportunity where they see their values
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and our values aligned actually allows
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for more stickiness for them to see PWC
00:18:56
as an institution that they want to be
00:18:58
part of want to stay with so we got
00:19:01
great benefit in three ways one is the
00:19:05
personal performance of those people is
00:19:07
higher now because they feel great that
00:19:09
they've contributed communities get
00:19:12
something back and we're seeing test
00:19:13
scores post the instructions go up
00:19:16
significantly and last but not least
00:19:18
there's a business opportunity here in
00:19:20
terms of the brand of PWC and what we're
00:19:21
all about which hopefully allows those
00:19:24
39,000 people to say man it's
00:19:25
unbelievable what PWC does in the
00:19:27
marketplace not just how we serve our
00:19:29
clients or the corporates or the
00:19:31
governments but rather what we do in the
00:19:32
communities as well so netn net was a
00:19:34
win-win-win we saw it was a GD
00:19:36
opportunity and uh hopefully it's
00:19:37
something we can continue for a little
00:19:39
long time but more importantly have a
00:19:40
huge impact on society and the next
00:19:42
Generations of Future Leaders going
00:19:43
forward what's your um ambition for the
00:19:47
ear future program uh do you plan to go
00:19:51
Global at some point or limited to the
00:19:53
US so first from a US perspective we
00:19:56
want to have an impact on 2 and a half
00:19:58
to three million students these are
00:20:00
Future Leaders um you know 10 15 years
00:20:03
from now so we want to make sure there's
00:20:04
an impact on them and again allow those
00:20:06
individuals who may not as be as
00:20:08
fortunate to have the world um in front
00:20:10
of them as a big potential uh we are
00:20:13
taking this globally uh we've talked to
00:20:15
various other countries now in terms of
00:20:16
what to do and how to do that and again
00:20:18
going back to the first part of the
00:20:19
conversation is how do you do that on a
00:20:22
culturally sensitive way respectful of
00:20:25
the different preferences or biases
00:20:27
conscious or unw otherwise that might be
00:20:30
in certain countries so we're talking to
00:20:32
certain countries they've actually in
00:20:33
many cases agreed to do something so
00:20:35
we're bringing all of that together now
00:20:36
to take a little bit more Global and
00:20:37
have an impact on the world as well as
00:20:39
in the United States great uh I have one
00:20:41
last question uh what words of advice
00:20:44
would you have for young people who want
00:20:48
to become financially literate but who
00:20:50
also want to nurture leadership
00:20:53
qualities within themselves what would
00:20:55
you tell
00:20:56
them so to anybody body
00:20:59
listening leadership comes from doing
00:21:02
the right things when no one's
00:21:04
looking uh to serving others not just
00:21:08
yourself and to maximize the team not
00:21:11
you as just the
00:21:13
individual and as I say with
00:21:16
npwc all of people on campus right now
00:21:19
are great in terms of their IQ what
00:21:21
we're looking for is the continued
00:21:23
evolution of their IQ but more
00:21:25
importantly is the the EQ the CQ and the
00:21:28
PQ and I call it the emotional quoti
00:21:30
which is the leadership skills
00:21:31
communication skills people that want to
00:21:33
be part of your teams want to be led by
00:21:35
you inspired by you and hopefully you
00:21:37
share some of yourself to do that the CQ
00:21:41
is that cultural quotient um this
00:21:43
country and the world tremendously
00:21:45
diverse a lot of different perspectives
00:21:46
around it um you've got to get out of
00:21:49
your own way and think things are
00:21:50
different than just the way you were
00:21:52
raised um and if you're not willing to
00:21:54
take a risk and open yourself up and not
00:21:56
willing to at least allow for for
00:21:58
another point of view you're missing a
00:22:00
big learning opportunity and development
00:22:02
opportunity for yourself to be a better
00:22:03
leader and last but not least is this PQ
00:22:06
what I call it the passion quotient if
00:22:08
you can't wake up every day energize to
00:22:11
make and have an impact you're not doing
00:22:15
what I think is appropriately been given
00:22:17
to you as a right to have a bigger
00:22:19
influence than just yourself and if you
00:22:22
want to be a leader it's more than just
00:22:23
yourself it's everybody around you not
00:22:25
you Bob mors thank you so much for
00:22:28
speaking with know at Warton happy to be
00:22:29
here thanks very
00:22:34
[Music]
00:22:53
much
