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Thasunda Brown Duckett has used her role as CEO of TIAA to speak out for gender equality, but it is TIAA’s employment numbers that “speak volumes,” she said.
More than half of the company’s employees are female: 57% compared to the financial services industry average of 34%. And nearly 40% of the executive leadership team at TIAA are women.
The financial services industry has made “painfully slow” progress in elevating women to senior leadership, said Duckett, one of only 52 women CEOs and only two Black women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
Leaders need to believe that “talent is created equally, but that opportunity is not,” Duckett said. “If we don’t start with that mindset, leaders can excuse their way out of having more women in their development pipeline.” To remove obstacles to career advancement, leaders should invest in mentoring, skills development and leadership training for women, she said.
Progress can also come from collecting and analyzing employee data, including the number of female candidates in the running for positions, which can show where the roadblocks and opportunities are for women, Duckett said. Pay audits can uncover pay gaps. And regular reporting about the talent development process — and tracking its outcomes — can identify challenges for women in the talent pipeline.
Besides gender inequality, Duckett has repeatedly returned to two topics in her public speeches and interviews during her three-year tenure at TIAA: the retirement savings crisis in the U.S. that urgently needs attention and the inspiration that she draws from her parents, both of whom grew up in the segregated South.
Duckett has pointed out that more than 40% of Americans don’t have enough savings to retire, and the percentage is even worse for women and minority groups. Women retire with 30% less in retirement income than men, and 53% of Black workers and 64% of Hispanic workers don’t have access to an employer sponsored retirement plan, she noted last year.
Last year TIAA, which manages $1.28 trillion, launched a “Retirement Bill of Rights” initiative, asking workers, employers and policymakers to advocate for the right of every worker to have a financially secure retirement. “We know this is not something that one company can solve; we know that this is not just about policy,” Duckett said in a speech earlier this year. “We know that we need all of us working together. And so with this Retirement Bill of Rights, it’s really shining a light on the statistics, and then giving simple recommendations and solutions on what we can all do better.”
Duckett has advocated for better financial education to help solve the retirement savings gap problem, both in the workplace and in school curriculums. “When I think about solutions, it’s going to take all of us,” she said in a CNBC interview last year. That includes thought leaders, policymakers, state education officials and educators in the workplace to make sure that employees are engaged with the information.
“Because remember, it’s not what you make, it’s what you keep,” Duckett said. “And education and understanding what to do with that dollar for not just today and not just tomorrow, but when we’re thinking about building wealth particularly in minority communities.”
On her other favorite topic — her parents, Rosie and Otis Brown — Duckett speaks often of her appreciation of them for inspiring her career in financial services. “My mother is a retired educator, my father worked in a warehouse; I’m first generation full integration,” she said at a conference last year. “And so when you think about that, to see that, and to see that regardless of where I’ve been, I see where I am, I thank my parents.”
Her parents and their life experiences also helped shape her sense of purpose in her career, Duckett said. “I feel like my journey was all in purpose because I have empathy and I have perspective of what it’s like to make sure that I’m doing everything I can to educate and hopefully to inspire people to act in order to make sure that we are investing in our future, and that we’re not transferring debt, but we’re actually transferring wealth.”
Duckett’s tenure at TIAA hasn’t been without controversy. One topic she hasn’t spoken about is an NBC News report in August that said an anonymous whistleblower complaint had been filed with the SEC alleging that TIAA steered clients to an investment advice tool that would yield the firm and its executives — including Duckett — significant profits.
In a written statement to American Banker, a TIAA spokesperson said that “TIAA does not put its own interests ahead of our clients. Any claims to the contrary are false. TIAA is not owned by investors or shareholders and operates without profit in accordance with our charter.”