Game Changers: How companies can redefine the future of business: PwC

Big challenges can yield big payoffs — for everyone. That’s why some companies are positioning themselves to be game changers. These companies are innovating new technologies that can enable exponential returns on investments at the center of new business models and pointing it towards solving major societal challenges, all to create value for stakeholders along the way.

In this episode, Sundar Subramanian, US Strategy& Leader, is joined by Heather Lavallee, CEO of Voya Financial, to explore how game-changing companies like Voya are challenging the status quo and redefining the future of business.

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About the podcast participants

Sundar Subramanian serves as the PwC US Strategy& Leader. He brings an investor mindset to value creation. By applying systems thinking and advanced analytics to decision-making, Sundar builds business models, improves performance and creates transformative value.

Heather Lavallee is chief executive officer, and a board member, of Voya Financial, Inc. With 30 years of experience in the financial services industry, Heather is a collaborative leader who excels in building high-performing businesses. Prior to assuming her current roles, Lavallee served as the company’s president and CEO-elect, overseeing Voya’s Workplace Solutions and Investment Management businesses, as well as Voya’s technology and data organizations, strategy and risk teams. Previously at Voya, Heather served as CEO of Wealth Solutions, and prior to that she was president of the company’s Tax-Exempt Markets business, and earlier she was president of Employee Benefits (now Health Solutions).

Episode transcript

Find episode transcript below.

ANNOUNCER:

00:00:01:00 Welcome to PwC Pulse, a podcast to provide insights to help you solve today's business challenges.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:00:09:27 Hi, I'm Sunder Subramanian, the U.S. and Mexico Leader of Strategy& PwC’s Strategy Consulting Business. I'm happy to be your host today. Some companies are positioning themselves to be game changers.

00:00:22:27 They're putting new technologies that can enable exponential returns on investments at the center of new business models and pointing it towards solving some major societal challenges, all to create enormous value for all stakeholders along the way.

00:00:36:17 One of these game changing companies is Voya Financial. It's a privilege to have joining today Voya’s new CEO Heather Lavallee. Heather just took the helm as CEO after leading Voya’s Wealth Solutions and Health Solutions businesses, among other roles. It's very exciting to have you on, Heather, and welcome to the podcast.

HEATHER LAVALLEE:

00:00:56:21 Thanks so much, Sundar. It's great to be here with you today.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:00:59:14 Before we dive in, Heather, we have a very exciting and heavy topic today, but we wanted to start out with some rapid fire questions to just get to know you better, right? I have a few here. I know you travel a lot. What is your favorite city in the world to visit?

HEATHER LAVALLEE:

00:01:13:20 By far London.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:01:14:15 Wow. Why?

HEATHER LAVALLEE:

00:01:15:23 I love the walkable nature of the city. The fact that you can sort of balance modern and economic center around the world with all of the history that's there. I will admit that I have always been a fan of the Queen, so I definitely love visiting London.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:01:30:15 Fascinating. What is a book you would recommend that you have recently read?

HEATHER LAVALLEE:

00:01:35:16 So a book I'm just finishing reading right now is called Janesville, and it's actually about the closure of one of the GM plants in Janesville, Wisconsin, and really what happens to the city and the workers post closure and the community.

00:01:49:16 And just for all leaders, it's a great book to really understand kind of what's going on in the foundation of our workforce.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:01:55:11 And one last one here. Who is your inspiration?

HEATHER LAVALLEE:

00:01:58:21 So I'm gonna say my inspiration is my sister-in-law who in her forties realized she had a passion to become a midwife and went back to school. You think about all of the intensity of what that training takes.

00:02:12:21 And every single day I talk about whenever we have conversations, I say you're making a difference in the lives of others by bringing healthy babies into the world, so my sister-in-law, without a doubt.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:02:20:15 Wow. Very inspiring indeed. Okay, let's get into our topic for today. First, congratulations on becoming CEO. What an amazing achievement. I'm always curious on the journey that people take and I know you started out as a sales representative. What insights can you share about your journey to the C-suite?

HEATHER LAVALLEE:

00:02:38:11 So it's been an interesting journey. And what a lot of folks may not know about me is when I was in college, I was actually a psychology major and why that's been so important is when you think about what it takes to succeed in business, you have to understand people.

00:02:52:16 You have to understand how to motivate people, how to communicate with them, and how to work together as a team. And so that background really helped me to kind of get a better understanding of human nature.

00:03:00:19 But if I go to specifically working in sales, that really has been such an instrumental part of my career because you've got to understand your customers how to work with them hand in hand, how to really understand their needs, their challenges, and then how we can really work with them to address those challenges and solve problems.

00:03:17:07 So that is something that I've been able to take into my experience with Voya. And as we think about what we're trying to do of achieving better health and wealth outcomes, working with customers closely from their lens has been something that's been a great journey for me. And two other things I'd point to is the importance of mentorships during my career has been such a critical aspect of my own development.

00:03:39:13 Sometimes that's been a formal mentorship and sometimes less formal, whether it's a mentor within Voya or outside of the company. And why that’s so important is often a mentor can help you really look into the mirror and see a true version of yourself that you may not always see and allows you to challenge you and really push and sort of think, What do you want out of your career and what do you need to do to accomplish that?

00:04:01:02 And then one example I would point to is it's not always that formal mentorship. Sometimes it's just a matter of watching them and learning what good looks like. And I often talk about Rod Martin, who has been Voya CEO for the past decade. He's somebody who has taught me positive leadership qualities well before he became my formal mentor of things around humility and being a good listener.

00:04:21:23 And the final thing I'd point to around my career to where I am today is my path has not always been a linear one. I've raised my hand for different assignments, whether it's running different businesses, taking on different enterprise roles.

00:04:36:23 And I've always looked at it as it's about learning something new every single day. And I actually have a philosophy of I believe you should do something that makes you uncomfortable every single day. And it's that experience that I think is one of the reasons I've kind of gotten to where I am today.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:04:49:04 How fascinating. I encountered a recent study of job descriptions of CEOs or how they have changed over the last 50 years. It showed the importance of managing stakeholders and your psychology major that point resonates a lot. Profile has been changing from operator CEOs to CEOs that can actually work with different stakeholders to balance a lot of different needs.

00:05:11:05 So that makes a lot of sense. You also talked about trying different things. That leads into our next question around game changers. So I know Voya has been transforming itself to right and positioning to be a game changer. Can I ask you, what exactly does it mean to you to be a game changer?

HEATHER LAVALLEE:

00:05:29:10 And being a game changer to me is really about being successful in terms of doing right by our employees, our customers and the different partners that we serve. And to the point that you just made, I think the time is right for a different type of leader. It really is one about stepping up and putting our employees first and empowering folks.

00:05:48:06 So when I think about specifically within Voya, what we try to do is we've got to understand, you know, within our industry, what are those things that Voya is uniquely positioned to solve in terms of major societal challenges?

00:06:00:10 We focus in on that and not just around the status quo. One of the other aspects I think about being a game changer is something I'm referring to is this technology and business interlock.

00:06:11:15 So what do we mean by that? Is really, when we think about it, how we deploy new technology, how we scale and empower people so critical, But we need to make sure that our business teams and business leaders really understand the technology capabilities. And that's a way that we can unleash both creativity and imagination in terms of solving client problems.

00:06:32:05 And similarly, we need to make sure our technology leaders and teams really understand the business strategy and what we're trying to accomplish. And so it is through that connectivity that allows us to really focus in on bringing the right solutions to market, focusing in on the right customer experiences and outcomes. Even things like how do we drive operational efficiency, how do we build capabilities that are reusable?

00:06:54:18 How do we bring things to market at a faster pace? And one of the things we've talked a lot about within Voya is driving things like digital transformation and meeting customers where they are and meeting their needs is not mutually exclusive. With driving operational efficiency, we can do both. And so that's something that we'll talk a lot about in things that we're focusing in on.

00:07:15:14 And the other thing I will say is you think about really driving change. Effective change requires companies to be flexible and adopting a strategy in which we can test and learn and respond.

00:07:28:14 And so that's one of the key things we talk about, is how do we engage our customers that are really focusing in on, you know, leveraging that strategy, focusing on positive outcomes.

00:07:36:11 And we spend a lot of time co-creating things with our clients and, you know, the other thing I would mention is when we think about our technology strategy and those foundational capabilities, we think about things like leveraging an agile methodology, which is a repeatable way that our teams are working, really thinking about how we're meeting the customer's needs.

00:07:55:08 But from a digital data and cloud capability, doing beta testing, rapid deployment. Those are the kinds of things that are so critical. And at the end of the day, Sundar, it's really all about making sure we're treating our employees as our most valuable resource and we talk about it at Voya a lot, that people are a secret sauce and we truly mean that.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:08:13:15 There's a lot you said there. So let's unpack each of those. But I also loved how I started with game changers is, you know, business models, meeting technology, solving societal problems. But you introduced another dimension here, which is people, it's really how people work with technology as well. But let's unpack each of these so you mentioned societal challenges, right?

00:08:32:05 So what are some of the big ones as they relate to financial services that you expect to see over the next few years?

HEATHER LAVALLEE:

00:08:39:06 Sure. So some of the things that we think about is, you know, we focus our business strategy really at the workplace and with institutions.

00:08:47:14 So when we look at the workplace benefits and savings landscape, it has changed dramatically. And so one of the examples that we point to is if you think about 20 years ago, employees probably had four or five decisions to make when it came to their benefits.

00:08:59:15 Today, most employees have over 15 decisions to make that are complicated and disconnected. We often see employees making decisions that they choose to over ensure they get health coverage. That is potentially over insuring and that leads to off and under savings.

00:09:15:14 So that connectivity between those is really important. We talk a lot about the fact that employees are experiencing increased stress, competing financial priorities, and as a result, many are struggling.

00:09:26:07 And one of the other key things from a societal perspective is there is a wealth gap in our country, and different underserved communities have a different ability to be able to address that wealth gap. And I think that's something that we are focused in on as an organization.

00:09:41:14 But if I go back to the idea about stress and unease for employees, we statistically have seen that 59% of the stress that employees feel at work is related to their finances, and that work directly impacts both their well-being and their productivity.

00:09:57:09 We know that there's competing priorities that families face when it comes to how they're going to divvy up their paycheck, And that's even more prominent when we think about the inflation that workers are facing today. So those are some key trends.

00:10:10:14 And one of the other things we see is that the role of the employer is so important and often the employee is looking at their employer as one of the most trusted sources of information.

00:10:19:01 So employers play a really key role to helping employees thinking about how they can offset some of the burden of debt and how they can get back on track with savings and looking at resources like health savings account.

00:10:33:14 And that can help reduce the burden of medical costs, solutions to help employees pay down student loan debt. Tools that can help build emergency savings are so critical.

00:10:41:22 And then thinking about how do these solutions connect? It's not enough to just kind of think about it within my health benefits and then sort of separate decisions around my savings. We've got to think about those from a collective perspective.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:10:53:12 Very helpful. I mean, certainly each of us are customers and employees as well, but that's a staggering figure of 60% going through that kind of stress and financial well-being kind of affects mental well-being. But one follow up on that. Which of these challenges is Voya specifically aiming to solve or contributing to solve?

HEATHER LAVALLEE:

00:11:13:18 Simply put, I'm going to say it's focused on outcomes. We are really taking an outcome based approach and know at Voya we think about our whole business model and our strategy.

00:11:23:14 It's centered on serving individuals and their families through the workplace and institutions, and our goal is to help them meet their combined health and wealth needs as well as investment needs.

00:11:33:09 And so we think in a very analytical way, focusing in on those outcomes is so important because if we do that effectively, we believe that we can improve savings rates, we can improve the level of appropriate insurance and investment that they have, and then helping them to connect them is so important. And the other component is it's not enough to focus in on those needs.

00:11:55:19 We've got to be able to serve our clients how, when and where they wish to be served. And, you know, today one of the benefits of technology is that we can do things in a much more personalized way. That aspect is very, very important. And we think that Voya, we're quite uniquely positioned to excel. We've got a well-known brand, we've got scale across the markets that we serve.

00:12:15:18 We've made significant investments in technology and we're already a leader in this broader workplace benefits and savings. So we look at our path forward as an organization. We've got very ambitious plans to profitably grow our business, continuing to expand the capabilities and services because we really believe that these needs are not going away. They're going to continue to grow.

00:12:35:09 The demands of our customers from employers and employees and intermediaries continues to grow. And when we look at how this message is being kind of received within the market, it's really resonating when we talk to clients about this connection across the workplace and really helping them to deliver greater financial well-being ultimately for families.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:12:56:01 That makes sense. The financial wellbeing, just a challenge on that, right? There are a lot of other companies also focusing on similar goals. So what is it that is unique about how you're planning to solve these challenges?

HEATHER LAVALLEE:

00:13:09:13 That's a great question. So a couple of the things that we're doing that we believe are unique is we're looking at how do we not only invest in products, but it's also partnerships. And our goal is to become a go to resource for our clients and intermediaries. But one of the things that's quite unique about our approach is we believe in an open architecture approach, meaning employers want choice.

00:13:31:12 So what does that mean specifically? We offer a lot of different services for clients, but they want choice. They may want to have a retirement with a different provider or benefits with a different provider. So being able to design our technology solutions in a way that can connect with other providers is going to be really critical. So we think, number one, that's quite unique.

00:13:52:07 And then when we think about where we are looking to accelerate our technology and digital, we're focusing very much on what are those customer pain points. How can we make it easier to do business with Voya?

00:14:04:14 How can we improve a client experience and give? One very specific example is often employers, they're working with different organizations. They've got to provide different census files for things.

00:14:14:22 And when you're working with a company and if you have to provide four or five of the same senses files for different products and services within your benefits ecosystem, that's not easy to do and that's something that creates a pain point for the HR staff. So we're really trying to take the time and just understand what those pain points are.

00:14:31:09 How do we make it easier every step of the way? One of the other things we see is when we look at both the end consumer as well as the employer, they are looking for more guidance and education in terms of how they can manage their finances. And they want that guidance to be specific to them, not generic.

00:14:49:12 We definitely see that generic advice is really something of the past. Fortunately, today the technology allows us to create something that is far more personalized in a way that can create that engagement and allow people to take action. The other thing we see is that more and more employees, they want to know how they should spend their money.

00:15:06:22 It's across their overall budget, thinking about not only their health benefits and the different insurance elections, the retirement student loan, but also on a personal level to all kind of take this forward and put a little more color to it. When we think about this idea of integrating and connecting workplace benefits and savings, one of the things we've done is we've launched a one stop solution.

00:15:26:15 It is a mobile application we call My Voyage, and it provides individuals with a complete view of their financial picture, which includes all of the workplace, benefits, their savings and allows them to integrate external accounts, to help them then make better decisions.

00:18:10:02 And so the anecdote I'll share is at Voya, we believe in kind of eating around cooking and we launch these capabilities to Voya employees first.

00:15:48:06 We had a couple employees come up to us and said, You know what, I use the app. And I plugged in all my information. I plugged an outside account and I realized I was completely overspending on my subscriptions. And so we were sharing this anecdote with some of our larger clients, and they said, Hey, how quickly can we get that?

00:16:03:17 Because I think I might be overspending on some of my subscriptions, too. So just something that by bringing these solutions and thinking about it very holistically, you know, that's very important.

00:16:15:14 And, you know, you also asked us what makes it unique, What's Voya doing that's different? But there is a disconnect between workplace benefits and savings decisions. So by connecting those in a meaningful way, we think that is something that is quite unique.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:16:30:00 That was helpful. So if I'm hearing you, we have a lot of different point solutions. I think you're saying your company is starting to integrate and create a connected experience, but also personalize it to drive outcomes on behalf of the employee, which we see other companies doing it for companies. But taking that kind of a view at an employer and employee level can be game changing.

00:16:49:14 And I can see how that can really help solve a financial stress that they may have had. So one of the things, as you described that, I could not help but wonder, like there's so much technology you're talking about and we hear a lot of stats and, you know, capabilities around what artificial intelligence can really accomplish.

00:17:10:14 But from a CEO's perspective, where do you think AI is helping Voya in achieving the mission and the use cases that you were starting to articulate? And how do you expect to see this change or expand in the future?

HEATHER LAVALLEE:

00:17:22:12 Yeah, I think having these types of advanced capabilities, it's not just a nice to have is a must have. It is absolutely critical. I do think it's a game changer to how we are going to be able to improve outcomes for our customers.

00:07:36:14 And it goes back to that technology business strategy interlock that I talked about earlier. It's not enough to have sort of the latest and greatest technology of whether it's artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing.

00:17:48:01 But it's got to solve a client, need a business strategy or help employees be more efficient in what they do. So point to a couple examples I mentioned that My Voyage. You know that is one where it is the first of its kind for us done completely from an agile perspective across multiple businesses, leveraging the most modern in terms of cloud, digital and data capabilities.

00:18:10:02 And that's one. And we were able to do that in a very short time period. Other one I would point to is we launched something called our Voya PAL chatbot.

00:18:20:02 Think about it as a virtual digital assistant and today it supports our clients within our Wealth Solutions business, which is a retirement business as well as our Health Solutions Claim Center.

00:18:29:11 It allows our customers to be able to solve issues with ease and as they're interacting with us.

00:18:36:14 And so specifically the way we've leveraged the technology here is our Voya PAL leverages real time artificial intelligence that enables it to quickly understand customer intent and provide an easy and intuitive interactive experience to the customers. So when we launched it, we saw this chatbot had about a 70% resolution rate of customer interactions.

00:18:57:05 And since we have then subsequently layered on conversational AI, our PAL resolution rate has improved up to 85% and we expect that to continue to improve as the AI engine gets smarter.

00:19:11:05 And that's just one very tangible example. And the exciting part is the teams that have been working on that are thinking about other ways we can deploy that same capability across the organization.

00:19:20:14 The second example I will share is something we've done to help our sales and distribution teams in terms of their outreach. And there we were using machine learning to be able to organize our customer information into very specific groups and attributes.

00:19:38:05 And so what it does is allows our sales teams to be much more impactful in terms of how they're identifying and prioritizing either intermediary or plan sponsor prospects to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing campaigns, how we're customizing content to reach targeted audiences.

00:19:53:17 And finally, one of the other things we're doing is a focus in on operational effectiveness. So a couple examples I'll point to there is we're leveraging natural language processing to enhance our portfolio stock selection processes within our investment management business.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:20:11:17 Wow.

HEATHER LAVALLEE:

00:20:12:17 And we do this by scanning company SEC filings. So, you know, 10-Ks, 10-Qs, earnings call transcript. And what it does is it assesses management sentiment and it gives us some really powerful insights around our investments.

00:20:15:01 And final example, I'll share that we're actively doing is we're using machine learning to improve our ability to detect potential fraud activities by looking for anomalies related to human behavior. So what we can do with machine learning is look at both the frequency and duration of different web and phone activity.

00:20:42:01 And we look at the number of devices that are utilized to log in and the location of these actions that leverage different geolocation capabilities. And at the end of the day, it helps us to ensure that we're protecting our customers from potential fraudulent account takeovers.

00:21:00:02 And we're not stopping there. We're continuing to look at ways that we can leverage natural language capabilities.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:21:02:11 Very fascinating examples. So I want to go in a different direction. First of all, appreciate how you connected the dots between what exact societal problems you're aiming to solve, how we are bringing a unique open architecture kind of integrated model to help good outcomes for your employees and employers, but also how you're embedding technology and leveraging the strength of your people, which sounds game changing, right?

00:21:26:16 It's easier to hear. I can only imagine how hard this can be in practice. So the question for our business audience, you know, what advice do you have for our listeners as they think about their companies becoming, you know, game changers or being in this journey of solving societal problems? What advice would you have to share?

HEATHER LAVALLEE:

00:21:45:10 Coming from our own journey and learnings along the way? The first thing I would say is find one or just a few of these challenges to solve and make sure that they're aligned to your strategy and to your customer needs.

00:22:00:10 That's going to ensure you're going to put the right people on the right problems and make sure that you're going after those challenges that your organization is really uniquely suited to solve that problem, figure out what it is and then focus in on it.

00:22:11:10 From there I think once you've identified that problem, then you can think about what are those technologies that can help in a really are there things that can address issues from kind of an exponential perspective? And it is so important.

00:22:25:10 I want to go back to this tech business strategy interlock. You have to build a strategy that your business teams understand the technology capabilities and your technology teams understand the business strategy.

00:22:35:20 And I just can't overemphasize that enough because it's so easy to spend a significant amount of dollars building out one bit of capability. But if it doesn't align with the business strategy, what you're trying to solve, you may have wasted dollars.

00:22:51:10 So I think that's so important. Really make sure you can prioritize those capabilities through which you can truly differentiate your organization.

00:22:57:02 For everything else you can find good partners. You don't have to build everything yourself. We at Voya talk a lot about this build by partner approach and recognizing where do we leverage our strengths, where do we lean in on others?

00:23:10:10 And then it goes back to the point you made. It's not just around technology, but it's also around your culture and really on tapping the power of amazing people within your organization.

00:23:16:17 And so when we think about that, we talk a lot about unleashing the power of our talented employees and how are we both engaging and inspiring our people. And, you know, at the end of the day, we are in the people delivery business.

00:23:32:10 And so that to me is the most important component is unleashing your talent. And at Voya, we talk very much about being a purpose driven organization and we talk about purpose.

00:23:40:04 Few years ago, we spent a lot of effort to really ask ourselves the question of why do we exist? What unique capability does Voya bring to the market, that if we were not here, it would create a gap in society.

00:23:52:10 And so our purpose is together we fight for everyone's opportunity for a better financial future. And we think about that not just about our customer, but also about our own employees.

00:24:00:17 And so one of the things we've done to activate our purpose within our organization is to date almost a third of our employees have participated in personal purpose workshops. So it's not just about understanding Voya’s purpose, but really understanding what motivates them, what gets them out of bed every single day, and how do they tie that back to Voya’s purpose.

00:24:19:05 And then the other component I would bring this back to is remember that solving societal challenges and creating long term value for your company, they're not different goals. As a matter of fact, they really have to be the same and you have to do one to be able to do the other.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:24:33:22 That's very intuitive. But one of the things you haven't brought up is you talk about purpose and how do you really help your customers achieve their goals and how are you positioning your firm long term for that?

00:24:47:10 But in these days of especially shareholder activism and potential concerns of a recession that's on everybody's mind, so let me take you there for a little bit. How might a recession change this kind of long term strategic moves or thinking, do you think?

HEATHER LAVALLEE:

00:25:01:09 It's a great question. And obviously, every business leader you will often talk about, you have a plan and then the world moves around you and you've got to react.

00:25:11:10 So when we think about this, I always think it's important to make sure we're taking a long term lens to even shape some of those short term moves that you're going to make as an organization.

00:25:18:08 Otherwise, you find yourself kind of a year from now is, all right, we've got to rethink our plan. So have a vision of where you're headed. It goes back to there's an old adage of if you don't know where you're going, any path will take you there. And so, you know, having that clear sense of where you're headed is important.

00:25:32:12 So for Voya and we think about our strategy, as you know today, in the long term, it's about helping our customers towards that secure financial future. So that's really our North Star from a customer perspective.

00:25:46:10 And when we think about, you know, at a time that we're trying to help our customers navigate these really challenging times, whether it's at the home, at the workplace and thinking about the tools that we bring to address some of these needs, it is that much more of a critical time for us to make sure we are a trusted partner as we face challenges of a recession.

00:26:01:19 So our role, we think, becomes that much more critical when we see the risk of a recession and elevates the importance of the products and services that we're providing to our customers. So that's the first piece of it, is knowing what happens with a recession, is it inflation, is it job loss? Does it create some of that increased stress?

00:26:20:01 One of the other things we talk about a lot is we've got to be able to adapt and pivot. And I think this is important for any organization when we think about how we are investing in technology.

00:26:32:10 We talked, you know, earlier in our conversation today about what we're doing for the customer in terms of how do we leverage data and analytics and things to drive security.

00:26:38:18 But we also have to continue to be focused in on efficiency within our own organization. Yeah. So how are we finding ways to bring products to market at a faster clip? How are we making sure we're making it easier for our talented employees to focus in on those higher value things that they're doing rather than routine manual operations work?

00:26:59:00 So looking for ways to drive straight through processing and drive efficiency is so critically important. And as we continue to focus on both, it's this combination view around how are we growing our business, how are we making sure we're focusing in on employees?

00:27:15:10 And we as a management team, we have a philosophy of control, our controllables, but plan for what you can't control and that gives us the ability to adapt and we focus in on the shareholder value.

00:27:26:03 And that's something we talk about a lot with our board is are we achieving and we have a track record of achieving strong EPS growth. And so when we think about some of those themes, our strategy and we set out a three year growth plan and our focus is on every day, each month, how are we executing against that?

00:27:42:22 So, you know, when I think about the future, I couldn't be more excited about all the opportunities that we have ahead of us as an organization.

SUNDAR SUBRAMANIAN:

00:27:49:12 Heather, thank you for joining us today on the podcast. But so many challenges in our society and so many exciting technologies at hand, it's really inspiring to hear you talk about how you're building a new business model that innovates using technology and solving a specific challenge for society.

00:28:07:10 And to our listeners, thank you for joining us on this episode of PwC Pulse. Thank you.

ANNOUNCER:

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