Jenny Johnson

Sharon Fiehler:

Hello everybody, I'm Sharon Fiehler with ABC to CEO. We have a very special guest with us today: Jenny Johnson. She's president and CEO of Franklin resources and serves as a member of the company’s board. And this year, what I found really impressive, Jenny was named to Barron's inaugural list of the 100 Most Influential Women in US Finance. Congratulations on that, quite an accomplishment, quite well deserved.

Jenny Johnson:

Thank you.

Sharon Fiehler:

So what we want to do today is just get words of wisdom from you, that we can share with young career women, and also high school aged women and parents of younger girls and get some advice. So I would just like to hear what your thoughts are. One of the things we hear quite often from young career women is when we direct them to our site, they're like, CEO, I can't even think about being a CEO... I'm just so young in my career. So I'm curious: For you, was becoming a CEO kind of a goal for your career, or did it evolve over time? And maybe you can tell us a little bit about the path you took to get there.

Jenny Johnson:

It absolutely evolved over time. I never aspired to be a CEO. It was more that whatever position I was in, I honestly would think to myself: Okay, how do I do this well, and what is the next step? You do have to be your own advocate for your career. Managers are always told they need to develop their teams, but you also have to be your own advocate. And women are probably not as good as men at doing that. I would always have in mind what would be the next thing, but I'm not going to get to the next place unless I do a good job where I am.

Sharon Fiehler:

Well, that's true, I guess, for every role that people are in. Thinking about you, when you were in your 20s, you weren't thinking about being a CEO at that point yet. But tell us a little bit about the path you did take, when you got out of school, and about some of the roles that you think that are important to leading up to where you are today.

Jenny Johnson:

I knew I wanted to be in the financial services business, and my father gave me some advice: If you're going to be in financial services, you probably should work out in New York. So I did. I took kind of a management trainee-type position in New York. [Later…] …when a job opened up, I actually took over running a credit card department. And I have to tell you, it's one of those things where you don't fully appreciate what you learn: Those skills that come from there, and skills you're collecting along the way can be hugely valuable down the road. In the case of credit cards, now everything's about data. Well, credit card companies back in the early 1990s, they were really the only industry that really understood the power of data, and its predictive value in human behavior. And that has served me incredibly well now and in understanding how to use it. I did that for a while and did various banking things. I then took over, or we launched, an auto loan, business and finance company. So I did that for a while. But was not core to the business of Franklin Templeton and I wanted to move back into the core role.

At the time, the Internet was becoming the next big thing, and I took over a group called the E-Business Group. Hard to believe now. But at that time, people viewed their website more like a billboard versus a communication channel. So nobody quite knew what to do with it. It sort of sat outside, but it was sort of where things were going. So I took over and then eventually, was given great advice by a mentor, who was a gentleman by the name of Lenny Mendoza, who was with McKinsey. He said anybody who's going to be a senior executive in the firm better understand technology. So I took over the role. Even though I didn't have a big background in technology, I took over the role of chief information officer. Again, another thing that I looked at was a pivotal point in my career, because it is really nice to be a CEO today who understands technology. And I basically rolled up my sleeves and wasn't afraid to ask the stupid questions. You have to do that. And sometimes people are surprised when the boss doesn't know and when you're asking the stupid questions. And you have to be fearless and not embarrassed by doing that. And I was, and I learned a lot. And then I kind of moved on to various roles. I became chief operating officer and then co-president and then president, and then and then finally CEO.

Sharon Fiehler:

It's very, very impressive path you took. Your story reminds me of a friend of mine who he was an engineer and young and his career. Probably, and I don't know exactly, let's just say he was in his late 20s. And he was asked to take a role in PR and government relations. He was like, why would I do this? I'm an engineer. Well, his mentor said, just do it, put your time in. Well, he later became the head of a mining company. And that PR in government relations, he said, was one of the best things, but he didn't know it at the time.

Jenny Johnson:

Yes, I believe that and, let's face it as a CEO, you have to have a really broad understanding of a lot of different things. And so with every part of that, you add something to what you do. In the case of the engineer, he's probably an introvert, he was put in an extrovert role. But what a great way to take that fearless risk–being able to take some risks and being not afraid to fail. And one of the things I learned along the way. Probably the time in my career that I learned the most was when I was running our auto business. We ran into trouble and made some mistakes and failed, and us back out of it. But to this day, that would be the time that I said I learned the most in my career. And I think that the key is that you're going to fail. Don't be afraid of failure. It's only failure if you fail to learn something from it. And I learned tons that became valuable later on.

Sharon Fiehler:

What a great way to think about that. You mentioned something else I'd like to touch upon. You said you wanted to move back into more of a core business. I think one of the things that I find with women particularly is that they get put into some staff roles, administrative roles, and they can be successful. I am a victim of this: successful kept moving up, but never went into the right roles to get you to the path of CEO.

Jenny Johnson:

Yes, that's definitely an issue. And that's where I think a great mentor is so valuable. Also, women are known for building deep relationships, but not building wide relationships. I'm definitely one of those people, but I have been working on widening my net of relationships. But a good mentor will help guide you through what that path should be. And honestly, I'm going to share just an experience I had today. I got together with a group of women from my industry. We've all become friends and supportive of each other. We were giving an update, and I want to talk to you about two things one of them said. She challenged me on some decisions I was making. And, you know, she's my friend. So it was nice, but it's so valuable to have somebody, because I needed to go through and talk through the process of why I was making those decisions. One of the things when you become CEO, is that it can be a lonely place. So you have to have built those relationships of trust in people to be able to talk to and talk through things.

Sharon Fiehler:

And you have to develop the kind of relationship where they are willing and don't feel threatened themselves in challenging you.

Jenny Johnson:

For sure, but it’s a great point, right? It's, it's how you respond when somebody comes at you. And if you get defensive or you don't take it well, then they're not going to come back to you next time. You're really going to miss an opportunity.

Sharon Fiehler:

Yeah, great advice. We have a lot of listeners that might be parents, but we also have some high school and college women. Do you think there are certain experiences in high school and college that that can help somebody become more successful in their role when they do start a career?

Jenny Johnson:

Sure. For me, sports were a big part of my high school experience. I think I think playing on sports is great training for anything, right? It's you have to learn to be a team player. You learn to be competitive, you learn to be strategic as you're trying to think about how to go. But to me, it can be any passion. If you're passionate about performance, it's building those networks of people being willing to risk yourself by trying to go after the really tough role. And so I think it's that taking a chance and taking risks that maybe people will laugh at you, maybe you won’t be successful. That's the only time that you're going to push yourself to really get to that next level. In college, I ran for student body president and I lost. I was president of my sorority. That was a great experience. But I have to tell you, probably going through the experience of losing the runoff for student body president was also a great experience for me. Hard at the time, but I learned a heck of a lot about it.

Sharon Fiehler:

It's all about what you do with the experience, and how can you tell you to actually make it to another level. I know that at Franklin Templeton and financial services in general, we've seen more women coming into that role, but how would you as a CEO create opportunities for women to keep advancing? ABC to CEO did a Women in Finance panel a couple weeks ago and had a lot of information about finance for women, all the opportunities. What are some of the things that you're doing that you might like to share with us?

Jenny Johnson:

Something was triggered by my daughter when I asked her, would she go into this business? And she said, “Oh, Mom, I want to do something that helps people.” And I said, “Are you kidding me? This is a business, it really helps. And we help people achieve the most important milestones in their lives.” As an industry, we had our own PR problem, right? We need to talk about the purpose of what we do. Purpose inspires people, and particularly women. I think one is talking about what we do in this industry in a way in which people can relate to the purpose. Number two, we are working hard to generate interest in this business. We’re involved in programs like Girls Who Invest where we bring younger girls in to be interns, and they learn about investing, hoping that they will catch the bug of saying this is an industry I can see myself in. We actually are now using that program to be one of the feeders into what we call our Futures Program, which is our college graduate program, where you rotate through different parts of the business. We're trying to make sure that we're recruiting from a diverse group and bringing more women in. And once they're in, we’re ensuring that they have support, that they have mentors, that they are being considered for promotion. We actually did an apprenticing.

We were just awarded the Gender Diversity Award by Citywire for the number of female portfolio managers that we have. That's great, but there's still more opportunity to get more women involved in this industry. Another opportunity for the industry is deploying capital to women entrepreneurs. Only 2.9% of venture capital money goes to female entrepreneurs. And yet, the study said the IRR for women entrepreneurs, the internal rate of return, is 112% versus a traditional venture capital investment at 43% return. So clearly, women are excellent entrepreneurs, but they haven't been getting allocation of capital. I'm an advisor for something called the Shatter Fund. We're looking at launching our own fund that is focused on deploying capital to female entrepreneurs.

Sharon Fiehler:

So you're saying part of it is finding the organizations who are willing to give it to women, but do you also think that some of it is women having the confidence to know: I can go after that capital?

Jenny Johnson:

Absolutely. I think it's quite a few things, but it's having the confidence to say I'm willing to go try this and somebody will believe in me. But also, you only have 12% or 13% of venture capitalists that are women. There was a great story I read about the woman who created the prototype for the disposable diaper. In 1948, her father was an entrepreneur. She has a child and the cloth diaper keeps spilling out. She's frustrated by it, so she takes her sewing machine and her shower curtain, and she sews and creates what ultimately evolved into a disposable diaper. She couldn't get anybody to fund her business. She eventually did get Saks Fifth Avenue to do it, but even with her father's network, she couldn't get funded. It reminded me that 53% of women say that they were turned down by the venture capitalists because they didn't understand their business case. I'm thinking about the story and imagine in 1948, she's pitching to the equivalent to venture capitalists today. How many of them had changed a diaper? I think there's also a disconnect there. So as a women, you get turned down and get right back up and go to the next guy. Don't look at a turndown as if it's a bad idea. Look at it as a game of numbers: I'm going to get turned down by X number, before I have the successful one. I'm going to dust myself off and go in and make the next pitch to somebody who actually gets what I do.

Sharon Fiehler:

…And find somebody who really understands what it is that it's going to look like success in what you've got in mind. That's a really good point. You mentioned your daughter a while ago. You have five children, and yet you've been extremely successful. There will be some people who would think how can that be. How can you have five children? You must have no work-life balance. I think some people think that balance needs to be that everything is equally weighted. I mean, to me balance is kind of like whatever is balanced for you. But why don't you tell us a little bit about your, how it works for you?

Jenny Johnson:

First of all, there is no such thing as work-life balance, because everybody does think of it as equally weighted, and that doesn't make sense. But before I get into that: My mother had seven children, and then went back and graduated from Stanford Medical School. I was probably in 7th grade and attended her medical school graduation. And so I you know, jokingly, I’m the underachiever with my five children. But, but in all fairness, that enabled me. I have a great relationship with my mother. She was involved in our lives.  I could see how you can balance those two things, because I lived it. I think one of the great things that a mother can do is teach the daughters to not only have the confidence–and a father does it too–have the confidence to try and, and be able to pursue whatever their dreams are, but also know that you can still have great relationships with your kids. It’s a great message.

Back to that kind of true work-life balance: The reality is, sometimes work is going to take you in and demand all of your time or most of your time, and sometimes your family is going to. One of the things that I used as a tool to guide me when those two conflicted is to try and throw myself forward five years and say, if I look back, which of these things is going to be more important to me? It was amazing: Often that provided clarity about what thing you needed to do right then.

Sharon Fiehler:

That's a really good way to think about that. I've never heard somebody describe it that way. That's a wonderful way to think of it. I know so many young people who have seen their parents work really hard, and probably a number of them did miss family events and children's events and things like that. To think of it in that light kind of helps you see what's really important to you.

Jenny Johnson:

Yes, definitely. You're going to miss some. You're never going to be perfect. And, you know, it's not a bad thing for your children also to learn that life has some of those trade-offs that happen. But you have to be there for the important ones.

Sharon Fiehler:

I committed to 20 minutes, and we just have a couple left, but I would just like to ask: Is there some other message, something else you would like to say to our listeners that maybe we haven't talked about? Maybe something that you see in women today. What if women did this, or if young girls did that? What else would you like to talk about?

Jenny Johnson:

Here's one thing I would say: If you find yourself thinking that you want to do something, and you find yourself being the one talking yourself out of why you're capable of doing it, stop, and just say: Go for it, I'm going to take that risk. Because I have seen more women talk themselves out of an opportunity before they ever were even allowed to go in and try and to fail. I'm going to share a story. I won't say who it is because I don't know whether it's mine to share, but she is now a CEO and ranked in the, I think, 100 Most Influential Women in the world. She tells a story that her boss came to her and said, “I'm going to be retiring. I'm looking for who do you think would make a good CEO.” She went, “Hmm, that's really interesting. Let me let me think about that.” And then she gave a couple of names. Then she was asking a couple of people, and one of our colleagues said, “You understand, he's asking you whether you want to be the CEO.” She said, “I never even thought of that.” So she went back to him and said, “You know, what about me?” And he said, “You're not ready. You're not ready, because your response wasn't immediately: I'm ready to be the CEO.” So it passed up on her. But then he came back about six months later, and he said, “Well, I'm still thinking about it again, let's go through any ideas.” And she said, “At that time, I made the point that I was ready to take that job.”

Sharon Fiehler:

What a great story. I love that because I think you're right. This is not meant to be a negative towards men, but there's just a difference here: If a man knows the 20% of the job, he thinks I'll learn the 80%. The woman needs the 80% before she gives herself a chance to learn the 20%. Well, we are out of time in order to stay to your schedule, but you have been a delight to talk to.

Jenny Johnson:

This was a lot of fun, and thanks for what you do. I think it’s a really important podcast, so thank you for doing it.

Jenny Johnson is president and chief executive officer of Franklin Resources, Inc. She is also a member of the company's board of directors. Jenny Johnson is responsible for developing the company's overall strategic direction, executing on its strategy, and advancing Franklin Templeton's client-centric culture.

Jenny Johnson joined the company in 1988 and previously held the role of president and chief operating officer. Over the past three decades, she has managed all major aspects of the business, including investment management, distribution, customer service, fund administration, technology, and the company's high net-worth business. She serves as a director of Fiduciary Trust Company International and several other subsidiaries of Franklin Resources, Inc.

In 2020, Jenny Johnson was named to Barron's inaugural list of the 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance. She has been named one of Money Management Executive's Top Women in Asset Management and was chosen by her peers as one of Ignites' Most Influential Women in Fund Management.

Jenny Johnson is a recipient of the Robert L. Gould Award presented by global investment management association NICSA, which recognizes outstanding achievement in helping the mutual fund industry better serve investors through customer service, thought leadership and technology. She has also been recognized by the San Francisco Business Times as one of the Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business. Ms. Johnson is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, notably on the topics of leadership, technology and innovation. 

Jenny Johnson earned her B.A. in economics from the University of California at Davis. She is a board member of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, JMT Wilderness Conservancy, and the Carolands Foundation, and a trustee at Crystal Springs Uplands School. She also serves as an advisor to Shatter Fund LLC, a venture capital firm focused on investing in technology companies led and founded by female entrepreneurs. In addition, she is a member of the NYSE Board Advisory Council, which identifies and connects diverse board candidates to NYSE-listed companies seeking new directors.