Changing things up
March 4, 2024
Our monthly all-hands have usually been just me speaking to you about key topics for the month. In light of that, I'm pleased to share that we're going to be changing things up a bit this week and having one of our longest tenured board members, Navtej S. Nandra, coming in to share some of his thoughts around his experiences in being a part of our company for the last 4 years and where he wants to see us focus our efforts heading into the rest of this year.
Navtej is our independent director and comes with decades of experience in financial services and operating as a board member of several startups that have gone on to go public. He started his career in consulting before becoming the COO of Global Investment Banking at Merrill Lynch. He then moved to the other side of the house, becoming the COO of Global Wealth Management (back when I was a summer analyst, which was how we kind of met in 2009!) and seeing the company through its acquisition by Bank of America. From there, he became the Head of International for Morgan Stanley Investment Management before taking on the role of President at E*Trade. Post-corporate, he is or has sat on the boards of Nuvama (₹144B [$1.7B] market cap company where he oversaw the de-merger and the listing), Edelweiss (₹70B [$844M] market cap company), and OakNorth (SoftBank-backed UK fintech last valued at $2.3B), among many others.
He will be covering a variety of topics but they will all be centered around the five things he views as integral to the success of any startup - demand strategy, resourcing, execution, culture, and discipline. Demand strategy is something we've been refining for years, trying to better understand our market participants and what our value proposition is for them. Resourcing relates to all aspects of capital, including intellectual capital and capability sets, which requires the expertise of the team and external help. Execution is all about strategy, delivery, and monitoring our progress to what we expected. Culture we cover quite a bit here but it goes beyond just team culture, it's the culture that embodies how we think and the decisions we make around our strategy as well. Lastly, discipline is being able to understand the ins and outs of our business with data to make better decisions, prioritize, and knowing when to say no.
It's not often that we get to hear the perspective from someone who has seen it all before, whether it's in the form of financial crises or the trials and tribulations of launching and scaling startups. I encourage you all to come ready with questions as it's going to be a lively discussion where he is ready and willing to answer anything you'd like to get his take on
