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Perspectives: Inspiring ambition
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This episode of HSBC’s Perspectives series features Yie-Hsin Hung, CEO, State Street Investment Management, in conversation with Suzy White, Group COO, HSBC.
They discuss how to lead growth in a long-established institution, while staying anchored in a client-focused culture – from inspiring ambition and accelerating innovation, to building operating models that balance near-term client needs with long-term strategy.
Watch or listen to find out more.
This episode was recorded on the sidelines of the HSBC Global Investment Summit in Hong Kong. Read more https://www.business.hsbc.com/en-gb/campaigns/global-investment-summit
Disclaimer: Views of external guest speakers do not represent those of HSBC.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast Series
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to HSBC Global Viewpoint, the podcast series that brings together business leaders and industry experts to explore the latest global insights, trends, and opportunities.
00:00:13
Speaker
Make sure you're subscribed to stay up to date with new episodes. Thanks for listening, and now onto to today's show.
Introducing Yi-Sing Hong, CEO of State Street
00:00:21
Speaker
Hello and welcome to HSBC's Perspective Series. I'm Susie White. I'm the Group Chief Operating Officer at HSBC. It's an absolute pleasure to be joined here today by Yi-Sing Hong, who's the CEO of State Street Investment Management. Yi-Sing, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. Right, so
Initial Impressions and Growth Ambitions as CEO
00:00:40
Speaker
let's jump straight in. So um you've been the CEO now at State Street Investment Management for three and a half years. and So when you joined this fantastic institution, what were some of your you know first impressions, sort of non-negotiables coming in as the CEO that um that you started with? Well, we were embarking on a growth ambition, and so I said to the team, let's just think big.
00:01:03
Speaker
You know, identify the biggest opportunities, and then together we'll decide which ones make the most sense for the organization. But we're going to come together and really focus on those and not think so much about how we're going to get there, but what is it that we want to achieve. Great. I love that. Starting with the the ambition and and what you want to do and and then thinking
Balancing Culture and Growth through Innovation
00:01:22
Speaker
about how you do it. ah So both HSBC and State Street have a long history and I think our our culture is really important to us. And as you think about making those changes and how you want to leave your mark on the institution, how do you balance that sort of ambition and the forward look with ensuring that your history and your culture ah remain intact? Yeah, ah so that's such a good question and we've thought a lot about it. Now it's very clear our mission is at State Street Investment Management is to be the world's leading partner and provider of innovative exposures and tailored solutions for our clients. And so much of our culture is around collaboration, really thinking about our clients as if they're our own. Now with all of that said, I think it's very clear our North Star, how we want to be with one another. It's really about embracing change and innovation and testing and learning and moving moving with some level of agility and urgency. That is what I've been focused on infusing into the organization. But all of these other aspects of what we stand for, the kind of people we want to attract and the way we want to engage stays very much intact. I love that. And I love what you said earlier about seeing your clients as an extension of your company. It's such ah it's such a good way to think about it.
Indicators of Strategic Success
00:02:41
Speaker
What do you look at to to ensure that the strategy is working? How do you oversee such ah such a large organization? with that clear direction, but but what are you looking at to to determine if if you've got it right?
00:02:54
Speaker
I mean, ultimately, if your strategy is right, it's going to show through in terms of the results that you do to deliver, right? But even before that shows up, I'm looking for internally, are we moving our initiatives with a faster pace? So product development, you know, was something that we really wanted to ramp up. And so we successfully introduced something like 200 new products in the last couple years, which was a multiples of what we'd done prior to that. So that was one good indication.
00:03:24
Speaker
And then I think with clients, it was really the nature of the conversations we're having. How strategic are they? and yeah Are we doing things differently or more than we've done in the past?
Adapting to Market Changes while Keeping Commitments
00:03:35
Speaker
So when we think about sort of, you know, the the world is changing and and things are faster, you know, delivering that sort of product capability is amazing, but clients are expecting faster time to money. We are looking at how we as an organization think about how we use AI, how we use technology, how we re-engineer the bank so that we can deliver faster, better outcomes to to our customers. When you think about that and you think about what you need to do in the short term, how the how this sort of environment is changing, but then what you need to think about long term. I mean've you've been an institution that's had had a long ah long successful track record. How do you balance what you need to do here and now today for the clients But when you're thinking about how the environment's changing, how technology is changing the way that we operate, that longer term view. Yeah, no, it's fascinating. And and obviously we were in a ah you know we're operating within a market environment that is also changing pretty rapidly. So so many of our clients are focused on how they're positioning their portfolios. So we want to be mindful of that, providing insights to them, but at the same time, remaining long term in our commitment to
00:04:44
Speaker
partnering with them and delivering good insights, um innovation, solutions at the end of the day. And in some ways, I've addressed this through our organization where we have a broad client coverage team. They're really engaging with clients and what's very much top of mind for them and delivering what we have across the organization.
Client-Centric Product Development and Collaboration
00:05:04
Speaker
But we also set up a chief business office, which in essence houses our product expertise, our business lines, thinking longer term. about what are the products and solutions we need to deliver not just today but three years, five years down the road. What is that thought leadership that we want to bring? Because ultimately that's my job too, which is balancing the short term and the long term. And the more i believe that there's different parts of the organization that are tasked with some of these critical initiatives like
00:05:36
Speaker
ai and how do we embed that and change our operating model. Having individuals and leadership align with those really helps bring that to life. It keeps the focus on, right? It makes sure that we're focused. And you know, you spoke there about the amount of products and new products that you're delivering, which is fantastic. Is that in response to client demand? So what ah what are clients asking for today that they weren't asking for two years ago? Yeah, very much so. And you know, we benefit from being a very large global organization. servicing many, many sophisticated large investors. So we have conversations all the time about what are the custom exposures they want. And that ends up sort of informing our R&D process. If we're hearing the same themes, that's going inform maybe the ETFs that we launch. And so there's been a mix ah of looking at our broad range and saying, are there things that are missing in there?
00:06:29
Speaker
What are we hearing from clients? And then some of our own thinking around you know private markets. Is there a way to wrap private credit investment grade private credit inside an ETF? yeah And how do we work with firms, in that case, Apollo, firms like Bridgewater, they're so well known.
00:06:48
Speaker
for their strategies and then bringing that to market. So it's a combination of what do we have we're going to deliver, but we're also going to work very actively with others to bring sort of a scenario of one plus one equals three.
AI's Impact on Processes and Efficiency
00:07:01
Speaker
It's great. I mean, we have to build products that our clients want. you know AI is allowing us to do things now that we couldn't do in in in the past, and the speed at which we can review data, the the speed at which we can think about how our processes are going to change. So let's let's talk about AI um a little bit. where are you Where are you using AI? Where are you seeing AI already impact your business, your clients? And and where do you think this is going to go? I mean, it's such ah an interesting time to be in our industry right now with with the way it's changing. But I'd love your thoughts on where you're seeing it um improve efficiency or or productivity at the moment and what you think the opportunities are forward looking. Yeah, I think we're not unlike other companies like HSBC. We're looking at areas where you know you have repetitive tasks, you have lots of data, and maybe manual processes where ai really lends itself to streamlining, executing with better quality. Obviously software coding is another area that is remarkable at how quickly that can move along. Yet at the same time, I think the core of much of what we do, which is engaging with clients, understanding their objectives, what are their constraints, helping with the judgment around how do you allocate portfolios, that to us is infinitely human. But then once you get to setting that overall allocation,
00:08:26
Speaker
everything that comes behind that, execution, trading, yeah client reporting, performance analytics, all of that can be very much sort of handled by ai And I think one of the very exciting things beyond sort of the efficiency aspect of it is that it enables mass personalization yeah at scale. right What a wonderful ability to be able to cater something just to you, yeah right that leverages the institutional quality of what we bring, but takes into account the things that you care about. yeah And that's where we see AI really making a difference.
AI Governance and Responsible Usage
00:09:02
Speaker
What about the risks, though? I mean, we we often talk about responsible ethical use of ai There's always ah different stories going around about AI hallucinations. um You know, regulation is sort of trying to find its space around how we use AI.
00:09:19
Speaker
What do you worry about when you think about the risks of the area and how important is that for State Street? It's incredibly important for us, just like we are a G-CIFI, HSBC is too, right? And i think our regulators are really looking to us to make sure we have the proper framework, the risk procedure process, we're understanding what the application is, you know, what data are we pulling into our AI activities and then who is ultimately consuming that. so We spent a good deal of time getting that in place. yeah In some ways, it was to slow down, to be in a position to speed up. yeah Because then you have a very clear process that allows, you know, the thousand flowers to bloom. yeah At the same time, you know that it's well-governed, there's good controls in place, and traceability and understanding and managing this environment.
00:10:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's so important for us when we think about focus on our clients, we think about growth, we think about strategy. you know if we don't get the risk right, all of that becomes sort of a second order to the distraction that is remediation.
Empowering Teams for AI Experimentation
00:10:24
Speaker
um So risk is something that's really important to us. So how about like learning and and training and how we upskill our teams for the future?
00:10:31
Speaker
um you know there's ah There's a huge requirement, I think, on on all of us to make our teams AI ready and You know, there's a lot of curiosity and there's a lot of of interest in people are testing and learning. But what are State Street doing? What are you what are you thinking about um in terms of learning and and and ensuring that your team are equipped with the skills they need in an AI world? It's so incredibly important and it matters at all levels of the organization. i took my leadership team to Silicon Valley last week and we all sort of met with all the various companies there just to get a good understanding not only of what they're providing to customers but also how are they embracing AI and how are they thinking about developing and learning and teaching people. And I think so much of it is providing that support um and giving people the tools to really start to experiment and to learn because I think there's no substitute to sort of the hands-on approach and to provide that tremendous support because
00:11:34
Speaker
regardless of where you are in the organization, there's some very value-added things you do and there's probably some things that are quite administrative. And so if we can tackle those pieces, have people think broadly about not just, oh, it can fix this little part of the process, but this gives us an opportunity to step back and say, exactly is there a way that we could do this differently?
00:11:55
Speaker
and enhance the value of what people are doing. Yeah, it's music to my ears. I feel like if we just add AI on parts of the process, we'll have 10% efficient process. We have this opportunity to re-engineer, to rethink, to think about how our our customers want. And I love that you took your leadership team. You know, this is what it's about, top down. we all need to understand what AI is going to do to our industry, to our businesses, not just the guys that are running those tasks or or building building the code. um So it's
Leadership Insights: Openness and Collaboration
00:12:25
Speaker
great. So to staying on leadership, what do you tell your team when you think about strong leadership advice and what would you have liked to have known earlier on in your career um that maybe you didn't you didn't really think about until later?
00:12:38
Speaker
Yeah, maybe to answer the last bit of that question, I think when I was early on, I always felt like I needed to know where I'm going, what is the thing that I'm trying to achieve. And I've come to realize that, you know, the world is changing very, very fast to stay open minded, curious, interested, looking for those opportunities. And i think that's really what has been so exciting about the time that we're in. It's about bringing different perspectives around the table. We don't have the answers. We don't have a crystal ball. But if you can really lean on each other and that base of experiences, I think you're in a much better position to develop the right solutions. or tackle whatever those problems are. So being comfortable with being uncomfortable, of that I think is something that I've really learned to appreciate.
00:13:27
Speaker
Great. And that in itself is great advice. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. I love that.
Podcast Closing Remarks
00:13:31
Speaker
Yixin, it's been an absolute pleasure having you here, having you at the conference, having you as our client. Thank you so much. um It's been great talking to you. Same here. Thank you for this wonderful conversation. Thank you.
00:13:43
Speaker
Thank you for joining us at HSBC Global Viewpoint. We hope you enjoyed the discussion. Make sure you're subscribed to stay up to date with new episodes.