out in a crowd. The fact that I am a female CEO who sings, I do kind of say business as usual
is not going to cut it here.It’s to distinguish us. Because we can’t keep doing business as
usual. And we have to stand out as an influential bank ’cause we’re
little, so we may not be noticed otherwise. I need to not look or act or talk like any other
bank CEO because we can’t. This model has failed us. We have to change everything.
I think for most people singing in public, and myself included, is a small act of courage
and humility. And that’s why I don’t believe things are courageous unless you’re actually
being vulnerable somehow.If you’re a person who gets a lot of power from mouthing off, it’s not that crazy to do it, it’s
just what you do. But if you could suffer some shame or disapproval or rejection then I think
it actually takes a lot of courage to do that. Yesterday someone asked, “What do you think
of credit unions since you’ve been so critical of banks?” And I said, “Nominally we’re quite
friendly towards credit unions because it’s a co-operative model. It’s distributed power,
it should have accountability at its governance, it’s observing all stakeholders.” So I waxed
poetically about how much I love credit unions. And then the banking expert says, “They
are as bad as banks, they’re part of the problem.” And I realised, okay, I just got schooled,
but actually we learned something from each other. That something that’s theoretically a
good model can suffer the same excesses. Which is basically that by the time a credit union
gets too big it’s no longer accountable to its members. But by the same token we need to
imagine how credit unions can work because if we’re going to have co-operative banking,
that’s the most refined model we have of it. SoI am really lucky in the company that I keep. But it’s
more like it’s a crowd that joined an idea and I’m lucky
to be on the ride. So it’s not me going out and finding
people as much as me trying to learn things, and I
think I can only learn if we put more and different
people in charge. I don’t know why we let go to the
masters of the economy to figure out how to change the
economy because they made it in the first place. So I
pay special attention to the people who’ve had the worst
experience of the economy because they must know
what was wrong. How did we get it so wrong that you’re having a miserable experience in the
economy? And unfortunately that’s more people than not right now given how many people
are wrestling with basic viability in this economy. It’s dis-serving us in just about every
way you can think of. When we put more and different people in charge, then we get new
points of view that have the material and psychological experience with what was wrong to
understand how to change it. So I’m really lucky that there’s a vehicle called the bank and the
venture fund and the Ranch, and that’s where my privilege comes in because it’s like a well
that people are drawn to, and then I meet them. And I learn all sorts of new things.our thinking has to be open to all points of view
and then discerning about which ones we allow
to change the model.I love that. One of your many superpowers is the
ability to identify remarkable people that share
your vision and push you and challenge you like
you just mentioned. And I’m interested in how you
navigate that, coming from a place of privilege
as you articulated earlier, and how you’re able to
whittle through the self-interested parties who
want to be part of what you’re doing and find those
deeply connected partners on the journey.Completely.
That’s right. Tell us about your singing.
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KAT TAYLOR
DUMBO FEATHER