Lule Demmissie: Investing in Ourselves and Our Communities

who found success their own way. Consider this your real world MBA designed for the new Now. I'm Kim Azzarelli and thanks so much for joining us Today. Smart investing is a path to empowerment, and lu Lay Demissa is on a mission to see that everyone from every background has an opportunity to succeed financially. Lu Lay is president of ally Invest, part of ally Bank, the all digital bank. She wants to help get more people on the path

with secure financial future now. Lu Lay's background gives her a unique perspective on financial services. Not only is she a woman of color and a member of the LGBTQ community, she also took an unusual and fascinating route to her current role. In today's conversation, lu Lay is going to reveal why money is more than dollars and cents, why we need a new definition of investing, and why we can all benefit from listening to the many voices around us.

Enjoy my conversation with lu Lay Damasse from ally Bank. Lula, thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here. So you are the president of ally invest which is part of Ally Bank. What does your role involve? So? I run the product and business that really governs the investing arm for retail investors for Ally. So that means individuals who want to trade securities for their own accounts, or who would like to have their money managed because they may want to have

an expert sort of hand on it. All those things come to my businesses doorstep in terms of how people interact with market. List obviously a very important and incredibly timely role. And Ally Bank is such an interesting bank. I'd love to talk more about that. But before we get into that, I'd love to hear a little bit about your background, maybe both your your personal background and also your professional background. Yeah. I often refer to myself

as a vagabond. I am technically speaking an immigrant. I was born in Ethiopia. I'm originally from Ethiopia. I was there until I was about eight years old. My parents stories much like many others. They immigrated both for opportunity but also for political freedom. At that time, we had a very rigid communist regime that was governing Ethiopia. Most of my family fled from that, and then my father, who thankfully was very well educate hated, was able to

find jobs in different parts of Europe. So I was raised in different parts of Europe, from Greece to England, and then came back to East Africa. And then I ended up in the US for a few years in my high school years as well as college. And really when I came to New York is when I said to myself, Wow, I'm home New York City for a vagabond like me as a home for vagabonds, and so that's a New Yorker. I'm happy to hear that. Um so really that that's that's sort of like the footprint

of my geographic experience in my life. So you early on found your way towards finance. Did you have an early childhood inclination towards this or was this something that came to in college, How did you get into finance? So, you know, it's interesting. I was always a curious child. Um, So regardless of finance, I was. I was always, you know, I loved to see how things worked, how what made things take. So I've been a student of human behavior

and just everything that really just makes things tick. I've always been curious, and when I came across finance, it struck me that, in indeed, it's one of the most superpowers to understand behavior and how things tick. And so for that reason, it felt really interesting to me. So

I pursued first as an undergrad and economics major. I was at a liberal arts, cool school, which I really enjoyed, and then after my undergrad years, decided that I wanted to pursue a career in financial services because I felt again it was a place that could both empower my career but also really sort of satisfy this curiosity I had about how things really ticked. I think you're at Smith College, Is that right? I was. I was an undergrad.

I went to a women's school. I was a harmony in my generation, and so I felt like if I went to a normal women's school, I wouldn't feel so awkward raising my hand and and partaking that curiosity often turned me into the one who would raise her hands a lot. Well that's that's a good thing, as we all know that that's how success is built. And from there,

your first job was at JP Morgan. So I was fortunate enough to be at a school where opportunity was was made available and if you were smart enough to take advantage of it, which I was, just because you know, as an immigrant you can't look back often enough, and so I applied for an internship program at JP Morgan.

It opened up a lot of opportunities and really taught me how capital markets worked, how the understanding and the intelligence around money was so important, and very early I understood money it's not just about what it buys you, but what systems and powers and so that was really a fascinating place for me to start. Well, as you know, I was awesome in that JP Morgan program by chance, and I'm you're probably the only person I know or that i've met recently that was in that same program,

so I know how powerful it was. So from there you decided to pursue finance as a career. And how did you make your way to ally Bank, so a long way path. I've been at this now for about twenty five plus years. I started after JP Morgan. A team of financial advisors recruited me at Meryl who were working at JP Morgan to be part of their team, and so I learned how to be a financial advisor,

which is a really interesting profession. As well. It taught me an appreciation for the customer, the end customers understanding around money. Uh. It gave me a deep appreciation how money is more emotional than it is logical for most people and how that emotion was triggered. It taught me about what is it you have to listen to and consumer behavior, and so I always tell people that you know where I got my first inkling on wanting to be in front of the customer and financial services was

becoming advisor. And then after about two plus years of doing that, I decided, as an immigrant, I really needed to load up on my credentials because ultimately I should. I should also mention I'm a member of the lgbt Q CAN Unity and I felt like, for many reasons, this was going to be my America was going to be my home. I just embraced everything about the way. It was more accepting from where I came from. And so I went to grad school. I pursued my business

school degree there at Columbia Business School. And so you you get your business school degree, you have a pretty impeccable background from there, and you ultimately end up at TD Bank before going to Ally and building a very significant business. So you're sort of a builder as well. I am. I am actually started out Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley gave me an offer after business school, and that's where I got the bug. Really. I was in strategy

and product development. I'm Morgan Stanley, and I realized I'm a builder. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate running a business. I love running a business, but I run a business as though it is continuously evolving, and that's not always the case in every company you're at. But what I realized is I needed to work at companies that understood and embraced the idea of continuous evolution, regardless of whether

the business was established or not. And so that's when TV A merrit Trade came knocking on on the door. After I had about seven plus years of experience at Morgan Stanley, which was a fantastic place to work, and TD merrit Trade asked me to build out their long term investing capabilities. And I remember when I joined there were about five people and we let when I left it was you know, a multibillion dollar hundred plus people or organization. And so it was just really satisfying seeing

something from creation from seed to a full capability. Um And as that happened, Ally knocked on the door and offered me. It seemed to happen to you a lot. By the way, No, I mean, you know, I am lucky for sure. You know, luck, as I said, is an essential part of things. And so when they knocked on the door, it was another opportunity to be a builder again in a different frame and a different lane. And it's so tell us a little bit about Ally, because it allows you to express other types of values.

I believe, given the sort of the nature of the consumer and what you're looking to build there. Yeah, you know, back to the point of like the empathy towards the consumer and money. Being sort of a lover of a study or of human behavior, what I realized was in order to express some of the next things that all this experience had afforded me to be able to express them. I wanted to go to a shop that actually catered to a changing demographic, and that is exactly where Allies

at right. So Ally is an online bank, it's about ten years old, and the investment shop they purchased a few years ago. But the demographic sort of makeup of our client base, first of all, is fully embracing of digital because we don't have any footprint, right, we don't have any storefront in the in the classic sense of it. So by definition already like a digitally inclined customer comes to us, which also means not necessarily that it only

excuse young, but it does skew young. And so the demographic of people coming to ALLY was very different from the demographics that I was experiencing at tv Imrrige Trade, which then really does shape and open up the possibilities when it comes to product development and services that you develop. So when you think about building for this next changing demographic, how do you what's your design model? What do you

focus on? Yeah, so a few things. So one design model is really like you know, at the end of the day, the things that I embrace are really universal in the sense that I don't think there's anythings revolutionary about the things that I embrace. What I think I do is I bring a different area of focus, and so I really believe in the concept of simplification. Right typically in our industry, more is better, more products, more tools,

more portfolios. I really espouse to the model of less is more, and so in the way that we design products and services, my whole thing is, if you violate the less is more model, you've just put work on the customer's plate, and that is a sin. You cannot

put work on the customer's plate. And so one of the premises when I walk into any business problem is how do I find it's simple, elegant truth, rather than pasting on top of it a ton of product solutions and product features and complexity that might not be necessary. I feel like we need you across all industries. It's hard to live up to, but you know, I find that if you make it an ethos, you hold yourself accountable throughout the creation process. By definition, creation can be

an additive thing. So you end up like at the end of the rainbow and you've created this monster, and you're like, how come I had the intention of keeping it simple, but then I ended up with this complexity. And I think that's because you just have to be really like maniacle that simplicity throughout, to look at every step of the creation process and say what editing should

I do? I do? What simplification should I do, so that by the time you've reached the end again, if you've done it right, you've distilled it to the simplest and truest form. That's such an interesting technique. How do you not get invested to invested in your own work product that you're able to then throw it out and simplify it. A few things I mean I borrow, you know, As I said, I'm a I mean I'm a little bit of a geek when it comes to things that

help with process. So I'm a student of lean, I'm a student of agile, and there's a lot of stuff that I've borrowed over the years here and there. But a few ways. One is I have learned over the years that if you show your work along the way, it gets you out of your head because other people are not their navel gazing with you, right, they can look at it objectively right and be like it doesn't work in this way or it doesn't work that way. And so I am a huge proponent of a culture

that promotes the showing of the work as things are happening. Again, it has this edifying quality to it. Right. Another thing I really believe in is sort of transparency across the board,

like it, you know. I feel like creation in this era requires a tremendous amount of courage and because to be transparent, you have to be courageous, right, And so if you try to drive a culture of transparency, both in terms of how the work is done, how the thought process was testing with customers on a regular basis, I think it allows you again to make sure that you are creating something that doesn't have an element of like everybody else thinks your baby's ugly except you. Yeah,

that's not where you want to end up. We'll be back with Seneca's Made by Women after this short break. So you've been building at ally a pretty interesting model, and you've been looking at this changing landscape of the consumer. How can we be intentional about making sure that women and people of color are part of this new reality? A few ways. I think one is making sure that we bring different voices into the conversation of what financial

services is about. I think a lot of times we talk around the circumference of like the outer edges of what diversity looks like, meaning what the intentions around diversity is, rather than the work that it takes to happen, right, And so there's a few ways. So one of the things that we've started to really lean into it ally is not just the empowering of the consumer through education. I think education is an important antidote to lots of things.

But it's not just education. It's education, financial education, and insight that brings different voices to it. So how does a new immigrant who is working their way through and is doing well invest versus a third generation, a third generation per sin who's you know whose forefathers went to college and grad school and went to you know, versus a new immigrant who has this pull and tug between the money they're saving and the people they need to help,

either within this country or at home. And what does that do to their financial picture? How does how do you give them tricks of the trade so that they don't reach sixty years of age and had the same career as somebody who's a third generation, but is that much poorer, right, because of the fact that they were

not given these adaptive skills that recognize their situation. So I do believe that one of the ways we make it inclusive is bringing in those stories, those financial stories, and giving in those financial tricks of the trade, if you will, and best practices for a wider net of

people and a wider net of stories around it. I think what you're saying is so important because again, and it kind of comes to your customer first mentality, right, which is what's the experience that you're trying to solve for. And I think that's maybe very different because I think a lot of people right now are focused on how do we include women, women of color, people of color, But maybe people aren't really thinking through what's the real issue.

What are the structural barriers? What are the situational barriers that are holding women back, for example, from investing. Yeah, I think that's really interesting, it is, and I think that part of it is barriers. But you know, I'm

a person. You know, there's an old Swedish saying that I say all the time, which is that those who wish to sing always find a song, And you know, as a person who grew up where my parents left their country with no money in their pocket and they had some wealth when they were in Ethiopia, no money in their pocket because of what situation we have to start it all over again. As a person who's understood what starting all over is, I'm always going to find

a song. Right. So part of it is, yes, how to think about the structural barriers, but part of it, the other part of it is what's their song? Why don't you give some mics to their song? Because they're singing a song there. You know, these folks are not just on the outer edge suffering. They have stuff they're doing to help their financial picture. Bring that in, make that part of the playbook to advise others to give

them a song as well. So, yes, structural barriers, but also the flip side of it is see people, what are they doing? How do we learn from them as much about how what their tricks of the trade are in understanding their financial situation. It's super interesting. I remember Professor Prahlad, who you probably remember, who wrote the Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. I thought, I remember in two thousand five I heard him speak and it really changed my perspective because it was it was an

interesting day when he was speaking. Jeff Emilt, who was in CEO G was speaking, and my former boss Andrew Young of Avon was speaking, and he was talking about why are we viewing the emerging markets as poor people and as you know, people who need to be reached out to with charitable um ideas. We should be looking at sort of the emerging markets as partners in growth. And when you look at people that way, it's a completely different strategy, same widgets and so like you'll see.

So we we've seated what we call a point of view strategy and invest which is trying to have organic perspectives on the markets and investing. So we we hardly use like third We don't just put a step rubber stamp on third party reviews. We have a team of experts that are sort of formulating how to help you navigate the markets. But then we also bring in people to interview them to say how do you handle the markets?

How do you handle investing? Again, because it's not just us that holds the collective wisdom, right, people hold the wisdom, and so if you bring their wisdom into the into the conversation. Not only does it make our services better, but then people see themselves. And there's no other motivator than to bring people under the tent of opportunity than

for letting people see themselves. Yeah, and that's really what we're dedicated to here this whole you know, being able to see yourself and see others and your people and hear them where they're at. One of the questions that I wanted to ask you about has to do with how we invest and obviously over the last several years there's been a big emphasis in investing in ourselves and self care. How does this relate to the grand scheme of things? How should we be thinking about investing in

our communities not just investing in ourselves. I mean, I think there's a several ways to think about it. You know. One thing is to to remember that investing is not only just money. Right, So, you know, what community activities do you take part in? Especially this virtual world has taught us how like the world is flat now, right, it's truly flat. You know. I have you know, an exercise group that now used to be just local but now has people from like Qualampore joining, right, because it's

gone virtual. The world is flat. So I think part of it is just you know, making sure that we expand our definition of investing. Our time is a form of investment. Our talent is a form of investment. Like do we share our talent with other people? Um, you know, I probably do at least two to three mentorship programs something somebody not only at ally but anywhere a week. And it's religious for me in terms of being able to do that. And then of course money is another

form of it. So I think I think it's just being intentional with all of the goods and services that we carry in our own skin, not just in our bank account. I think is a means of making sure that we get connected to our communities. But I think another thing is, as I said earlier, is sort of like knowledge is power, and so how do we share with communities knowledge? In my space, it's investing knowledge right

get the business I'm in. And so that's one of the things we try to do is like how do we share How do we flatten the word by making knowledge available? So we have conference as we hold for instance, we have a one coming up in this quarter in a few days where we are sharing knowledge both in terms of how to invest, but also just things you should know about what's happening in the markets and how

they could be shaped differently. So I think there's several ways we commit to our communities, But in the end, I think it's like we account by it by the time we've spent, not just the money we've spent. So I know there'll be many many people listening to this podcast wishing they could get advice from you, especially career advice,

certainly investing advice, but also career advice. Is there a piece of advice that you generally share with people who are trying to break into finance or breakthrough in this pretty difficult environment right now? I mean there's several things, you know, I have I called I tell people all the time, I have a lot of scar tissue, right So one of the things I tell people is like, don't avoid scar tissue. You can't do anything in life

unless you make mistakes. And so the advice I give people a lot is leaning, you know, really take advantage of opportunities. I've never felt there was an opportunity that was too low for me or too high. Um, yes, there were parts of my life where I had an impostor syndrome. Um, And I tell this to people knowing and I that's something I should disclose is I'm dyslexic. Okay, so I left my country at eight and I had

to learn a new language at eight. And so I often tell people, like, you know, just lean in, make a mistake, make a fool out of yourself, because it's the only way to find glory on the other side. And so that's one thing I said, and I'm not saying be silly in the sense that be imprudent or you know, don't think, don't be intentional. We should definitely be intentional, but fail because you were intentional. Don't fail because you forfeited, right, And so that's one thing I

tell people. The other thing I tell them in their career is you know, none of us, none of us get here alone. So be gracious about what you take, and be okay about what you give as well. You know, and so make sure that you are giving as much you're taking. And there's nothing wrong with taking. I think taking is you know that none of us will get somewhere without taking, But be gracious of also giving and giving back of your time and your wisdom, to other people.

But we are so grateful to have you on the show and we would love to have you back. Thank you for everything you're doing and to make fintech and financial services what we hope will be a new era of fintech and financial services. So thank you, thank you. It was wonderful speaking to you. What an eye opening conversation. Blue Lay Demissa offers such a fresh perspective and empowering and hopeful way to look at the world. Here are

some lessons I took away from the conversation. First, understanding what type of luder you are is crucial. Lu Lay learned that she's a builder and the rest is history. Second, simplification is a superpower. As Lulay says, less is truly more. When she approaches a business problem, she looks for what she calls the simple elegant truth, rather than adding products, features, or complexity that might not be necessary. Finally, take the

time to listen. When we've bring more voices and more stories into the business discussion, we get better services and outcomes for all. To learn more about investing in ourselves and our communities with Lulay Demass, head over to ally dot com Slash made by Women. That's a l l y dot com slash. Made by Women. Made by Women is brought to you by the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with support from founding partner PNG