ANNOUNCER: TD Asset Management welcomes you to this week's podcast. As a reminder, this podcast cannot be distributed without the prior written consent of TD Asset Management.
INGRID MACINTOSH: Hello and welcome to our Special Women at TD Edition of the TD Talks Podcast. It's going to be a podcast where we'll discuss women in finance, our experiences along our career journey and discuss how we don't want to be defined by our gender, but by our value. My name is IngridMacintosh and I am VP of Marketing Communications and Sales Enablement here at TD Asset Management.
And I also have the privilege of being the executive sponsor of the TD Wealth for Women program. This is going to be a special episode in which we celebrate International Women's Day and Women's History Month in the month of March. Our theme for 2023 for International Women's Day is "Embrace Equity"; where people all over the world imagine a gender equal world, a world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.
On that note, I have two incredible colleagues - women in investment management, leadership positions here at TD Asset Management as guests with me on the podcast: Anna Castro, managing director and senior portfolio manager on the Asset Allocation team and Alexandra Gorewicz, Senior Portfolio Manager on our fixed income team. Anna and Alexandra, welcome.
ANNA CASTRO: Hi there.
ALEXANDRA GOREWICZ: Hi, Ingrid. Thanks for having us.
INGRID MACINTOSH: This is going to be a great conversation. I'm going to start with you, Alex. Can you tell me a little bit about your background and what led you to choose this industry - asset management for your career path?
ALEXANDRA GOREWICZ: I guess that when you talk about backgrounds - like personal/professional?
INGRID MACINTOSH: Who you are … because we're all more than just our jobs.
ALEXANDRA GOREWICZ: Yes, yes, we are. I was born outside of Canada. I was born in Romania and moved to Canada with my parents and my sister when I was very young. And so I did all my schooling here, eventually got to high school and had to make a decision on what to do next: university and thereafter. And when you're that age, you don't really know about the whole wealth of opportunities and jobs that exist.
I figured I'd choose a program that had a lot of breadth as well as depth. And at the time it was probably one of the only programs at a university in the country that offered two degrees: It was actually offered jointly by the Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo as a double degree program where you did math at one school and business at the other. The best part about it is that they had a mandatory co-op program, and I always knew I wanted to take the more practitioner route. I mean, academics were great, but, it wasn't for me. And the nice part is I got experience marketing. I thought initially that's what I wanted to do because I had a very senior example in my family.
My aunt was a big marketing executive and I thought, I really I want to be like her. But it turned out it wasn't for me. And then I tried insurance. And then eventually many, many years ago, this is before the financial crisis, I got a co-op placement, at TD Asset Management, and I always joke that fixed income.
I'm a fixed income portfolio manager. I always joke that fixed income found me not the other way around because even in high school, if you think about career path and you think of something in finance, most kids that age will think about stock picking.
INGRID MACINTOSH: Nobody wakes up and says, I wanted to be a bond geek or be a bond picker.
ALEXANDRA GOREWICZ: That's not that's not a thing, at least in the mind of a teenager. So fixed income found me because I got a job working in a portfolio analytics team. It was early days for the team at that time and they exclusively serviced, if you will, the fixed income portfolio management team. And I had great teachers, great peers on that team that helped me really build a technical toolkit.
I learned how to program. I really got to put my quantitative skills that I was learning at school to to work. And then eventually, I guess I wore them down and I got a full-time job on that team. And I mean, several years of doing development and analytics, again specifically for the fixed income portfolio management team.
I got a chance to build relationships with, with various portfolio managers and started working on some LDI accounts which, at the time was relatively new frontier. New Frontier, which you were, you were you were instrumental in, in leading us into that frontier at the time. And from there, an opportunity opened up on the passive fixed income portfolio management team. I absolutely I took it and I thought that was a great introduction into the market. Rightly understanding what is the bond market - you don't really live and breathe bonds until you're actually managing.
INGRID MACINTOSH: And when you talk to people outside of the office about them, they don't really care either. I'm going to pause you there on your journey because I think we to talk about, , the path that it ultimately took. But I want to I want to pause for a moment to go to Anna and pull the narrative together and the same story.
Let's talk about how you ended up here at TD Asset Management and your journey.
ANNA CASTRO: Some trivia for everyone listening is that Ingrid and I actually go way back to 2007. So she was one of the key decision makers in my interview a lot as I was applying for a summer internship role at TD Asset Management and the Quantitative Portfolio Management Team. In between my MBA.
INGRID MACINTOSH: Gosh I had vision!
ANNA CASTRO: So maybe it'll help, like for everyone to also like understand what I do right now. I'm in. I lead our Multi-asset portfolio management team, so we evaluate different investment strategies globally fixed income equities, derivatives and real assets, and construct portfolios with different return and risk profiles. In this role - a portfolio management role - it's includes looking into investment analysis of portfolio construction, very much technical.
The other role I have is – I lead, a team, so I am focused on coaching portfolio managers and developing them. And in this case, we have a quite a diverse team. So that's my current role. But my journey really, as I mentioned, they started out with a quantity portfolio management role. I had an engineering background before MBA. I am an immigrant. - I came to Canada in 2006. I worked in a global insurance company in Asia prior to that for six years. I've actually lived in two other countries prior to Canada - the Philippines and Japan. My journey in time was also like almost like that. So from a client perspective, I went into credit research, fundamental equities and then broadening it into different asset classes, derivative of to where I am right now.
INGRID MACINTOSH: And you, you grew up in a fairly linear path with good support and sponsorship and increasingly more senior roles, look - your path was a little bit different because you started in portfolio analytics and passive fixed income, but then you sort of – I don't want to say you topped out, but you made a decision. Tell me about that. What happened?
ALEXANDRA GOREWICZ: Although growing up, I always knew I was very good at math and the quantitative aspect of our profession. The little part comes very naturally to me. I always had a really strong, keen interest in in politics, in geopolitics and anything that had to do with, call it, social behavior. And if you think about how that plays into investment decisions tends to be more what we call top-down approach.
TDAM has always been very good at the bottom-up approach. Doing the deep fundamental work, particularly on the fixed income side, and with a lot of emphasis on credit. Whereas I had a keen interest more on the sovereign side, more on governments, and again the big macro picture. I found an opportunity at another shop that employed a macro top down approach to investing.
I actually took a step back career wise because I knew I had great opportunities here, but I took a step back, I took a more junior role, and then that really propelled me through a lot of hard work, morning, day and night. But it didn't feel like work because I was getting to marry the math with the politics and the macro. And like I was just living and breathing work. And that propelled me to eventually become head of rates at another organization and, head of rates for anyone who doesn't fully understand fixed income, and that's a lot of people, rates are effectively the price at which you lend to a government to put it put it that way, especially a sovereign government. And that tends to be a niche your role. And there are many different ways that you can structure an investment management organization. The one that I happened to be in had the rates function split out from credit within the fixed income space. I ended up leading that team but made all kinds of decisions from an investment perspective across a whole suite of funds, not just fixed income ones, but asset allocation as well.
And over the years, I've kept in touch with my peers here. I love the people that I initially started working with at TDAM, and there have been a number of people like me that have left and come back. It's just because we maintained contact.
INGRID MACINTOSH: Soft skills to you. What's fascinating is you've both had two different roles and while you're away, some other things happened in your family when you left Alex and then you came back and you now you're married and two children. So a lot had happened in your few years away from it from TD. I want to talk a bit about the journey to leadership positions as women, and there are elements of that journey that you felt were different for you than perhaps for a male peer. Anna, I'll start with you.
ANNA CASTRO: And I think for me, the beginning part, obviously as an immigrant too, I also had to adjust culturally on how to best communicate my ideas and present these in the most impactful manner. And I think one of the things I am conscious of now that I lead a team is that maybe unconscious biases or perception of how the packaging is.
So in this case, one of the things that I had to address early in my career is like people may think of what assertiveness and ambition and decisiveness as different way from how it may come in different forms. That was one thing that I had to work towards being a subject matter expert and build that credibility and show that I have conviction, I am decisive, and I have the competence.
It also comes with something that I bring to the table. I am very a very focused listener, and I think about including people more than others to make sure that we consider different perspectives and get buy-in.
INGRID MACINTOSH: And I think that's it's a really important piece because it is we talk a lot about women in investment management roles. What's the different thinking that comes to the table? But also women in leadership in our leadership styles? And how are we ensuring that we're bringing all those voices together at the table, which isn't just about embracing equity, it's about getting to better decision making, which I think is an incredibly powerful narrative.
Alex, for you, is there anything different that you would have noticed about your journey? Know up the hill as you will as a woman compared to some of your male peers?
ALEXANDRA GOREWICZ: There were a couple of instances that I'd share with you from the prior organization that I worked on. That's a little bit uncomfortable to talk about these things because I don't necessarily want to badmouth people, but it does show the attitudes towards women in more senior positions or how that attitude might be different. I never felt that I was seen as a woman or in any way discriminated against as a woman until I developed the personal life and I mentioned I was working like morning, day, and night. That was partially also the expectation that was said by a boss that was a self-proclaimed workaholic, and that was a very, I'd say, typical type of approach to work in this business for many decades now, when I decided well, when I met my husband, now husband and I got engaged, I remember very vividly having doing an interview for a junior person on our team. My boss at the time invited me and one other person from our team to be part of the interview process. And it was great, a lot of great questions. And the candidate who happened to be a young male asked, Well, what would you recommend for me to be successful in this position? And, , myself and one of the other individuals, we answered work related answers.
My boss said: Well, put it this way if you're going to want to get married and have kids, you're not going to be successful in this role. And I had just gotten engaged and that was the first time I realized, well, is it because I'm a woman? Is it not because I'm a woman? It was this was the first time where I realized my personal and professional approaches might be at odds.
Eventually, though, and that wasn't the norm. Like I attributed more to him, specifically my boss at the time. No, mind you, eventually I had a child and I was away on my leave and I actually got promoted to the head of the team while I was on mat leave. So it obviously (INGRID MACINTOSH: You didn't lose our brainpower) . Oh, that's crazy. Right?
But then I came back and I faced other kinds of discrimination where I realized, like, okay, maybe my interpretation originally about his comment about, , me being like, especially like being a woman and having a personal life was perhaps a bit of an issue when I took on the head of the team, came back from my leave and the marketing coordinator at our organization was a male of similar age to me.
No offense to people that have been in this industry for decades, but I was really surprised when he started excluding me from various marketing events that would happen after work hours or after 5:30 or after 6:00 p.m.. And he would always say like, Oh, , I know you probably want to go home and spend time with your baby.
And I would say, well, that that's not for you to manage. That's my decision. I have a husband who knows what I do for a living, knows how passionate I am about it, and he's very supportive of me, and that's for us to figure out. I shouldn't have to explain my personal life as long as my personal life is not coming into conflict.
I know what I'm signing up for our clients and trust us with their life savings and they depend on us to make sure that they can still meet their financial goals or whatever life goals they have that require pretty much everything requires money, right? So we know what we're signing up for and we want to do good by our clients.
And if that means we have to go talk to them and meet with them, great. I'm going to do that. (INGRID MACINTOSH: That's the gig). That's the gig. I know what I'm signing up for. So I feel like eventually, , it didn't stop me from succeeding as a woman, but eventually there were a lot of conflicts I found myself having to manage by being a woman in this business.
INGRID MACINTOSH: That was an internal battle, too. I take your point. I was a bond trader when I got pregnant with my first son. And when I told my manager, they literally didn't know what to do. Like, what do we do? I think we've and I've talked about this before in this industry, it felt early on like the industry was accommodating to allow women at the table versus really embracing the gifts that we bring that really differentiate the process that put you in and what felt different for your journey into a leadership position.
And was it any of that related, do you think, to your gender?
ANNA CASTRO: So for me, what I focused on in the beginning is that I had strong technical skills. So that's helpful in this industry, having a background in science, technology, engineering and math. So that's key. The second part is I think as I progressed into a portfolio manager role that actually leads to not just leads a business but needs to connect with clients.
One of the key things I had to address is that because I may not be the traditional portfolio manager, is that I can connect with connect with clients in the sense that, okay, I did not grow up here. I may not have the history of all of the experiences growing up. I may not be I may not play hockey, but I can actually connect with people in different ways, not just in sports.
And so, and I think as time goes on, I had to come up with my own style, especially when I'm speaking and meeting clients or sales team. What stand stood out for them is that I genuinely cared about making a difference as a fiduciary which is in charge of people, money and their hopes and dreams. And so, in my different way, people build that trust and connection, even if I may not be, , as knowledgeable on sports or as athletic. I do like ziplining and scuba diving, but maybe I'm not a skier or a hockey player and I know. And so, as time went on, because I am a big traveler at something my husband and I do, and, , I find different things to talk about. Interesting places and, , just to break the ice.
And I think that's the thing, like when you think about human connection, how is that defined?
INGRID MACINTOSH: I think and you're really hitting on a note and this is why the TD Wealth for Women program is so important. It's estimated that over the next few years women will actually be the holders of the majority of wealth in Canada. So as an organization representing women, understanding women, understanding their needs, etc. I think is so incredibly important.
And as we try to attract more women into our industry, seeing great role models is critically important. And I'll ask you about that sort of question. What does it mean? Or I'll ask you first, Alex, what does it mean to embrace equity? What does that feel like for you?
ALEXANDRA GOREWICZ: I feel like historically a lot of emphasis has been put on what I call equal opportunity or not, what I call what is known as equal opportunity in my life. That is important. I think a lot about, equal treatment or fairness in treatment. And to me, that has multiple implications. It means, , when we're part of if we're making decisions as a team, for example, I might have a different communication style and I often will not just because I'm a woman, because I'm an individual with my own life path and my own experiences.
But oftentimes, when women talk, they tend to be … that they complain or that they have a certain style of communication, but.
INGRID MACINTOSH: Just as aggressive.
ALEXANDRA GOREWICZ: Yeah, that's right. And that same type of behavior or that same type of approach might be perceived slightly different if it came from it from a guy. So really listening to what I'm saying, my thinking of the content, the value of what I'm talking about, not necessarily how I'm saying it. And that's one that's the treatment side.
But then also thinking about how you set the bar, going back to some of my earlier examples about how shocked I was about the level of accommodation that was given to me when I had a young kid in my handicap. That's right. It's not a handicap. We all have we all have kids, not all of us, but like a lot of us do.
And the one thing I thought was frustrating was, don't change the bar, don't raise the bar and don't lower the bar. As to what success means for the role that I have in terms of determining whether, , I should be given more opportunities or whether I should be given more responsibilities, judge me by the same metrics that you would judge anybody, men, women or they in the same position.
INGRID MACINTOSH: And that's a that's a great ask. What does it mean for you?
ANNA CASTRO: The term equity really poses us to reflect on the new ones, on how each individual could have different circumstances and needs but deserved to achieve a similar outcome with the next person. We considering that that's something I think about in my team because I hire coach, develop portfolio managers and it's so important for us to have diversity in thought and intellectual curiosity because it helps us come up with better decisions, evaluating risk and opportunity.
So that means that as I get to know them and assess what they bring to the table is considering that that one approach or one communication style or one type of skill set is the right one to bring to the table. So that's one aspect. And the second aspect that I think about embrace equity is now that I'm more client facing and I meet our clients, part of I evaluate how successful my message is and how it was received by that particular person.
In that case, you are more reflective as to what the circumstance would be or the situation would be of that person and make sure that at the end of the day, they are also focused on building wealth for financial freedom and their needs. And the way they communicate that or think of that might be different, but they deserve the same achievement of goals.
INGRID MACINTOSH: I don't think women have the market cornered on empathy, but I think that when it comes to our clients or our peers or members of our teams, I think we feel it more deeply. And I think, , COVID was a real period where women and women in leadership roles especially really felt the weight of carrying our teams through those moments.
So there's so many different things that we bring to the table. I know we've been talking for a while, so I want to sort of start to wrap it up, but before we end, I want to ask you for your last thoughts in terms of what do you wish people understood about your journey or what , is there any sort of biases or assumptions that you wish people would just get rid of about women in leadership positions, particularly in investment management?
Alex Oh, we've talked about as a woman investment manager right now, an investment manager.
ALEXANDRA GOREWICZ: And an investment manager, that that happens to be a woman. I, I don't, , I don't, I don't really know to me, like, and this is very personal. The experience is just this notion that I shouldn't be, treated any differently now that I have call it responsibilities at home. But I, I think that also depends on the individuals, to be honest.
Something that I was commenting actually with my manager at a fixed income, Scott Colburn, I said, , it's I really appreciate when you talk about the challenges that you've faced in juggling, like your work life balance and your three kids, and they're grown up now. But I also hear like Augustine that a fixed income or do sex ratio talk about the challenges of child rearing.
And it's great when you hear that particularly from more senior men in the organization, because it reminds everyone that, hey, parenting is, , it's a team sport. That's right. They had an equal contribution to it. And it helps me to know that if I say, my kids threw up in daycare today, I have to leave that it won't be held against me or we can't rely on her.
We can't give her more respect for having a woman in a PM role.
ALEXANDRA GOREWICZ: Yeah, that's right. The fact that they normalize the discussion around parenting like that to me is is super helpful. It doesn't necessarily apply everywhere. And certainly my experience here at TDAM has not been an unpleasant one, despite some of the issues I've faced in prior roles. But I just want people to know that the way that a man can have a family and a career, a woman can do the same.
INGRID MACINTOSH: Whether it's childcare, elder care, any of it, right? We all have responsibilities to who we are outside the organization. And as more women are taking leadership roles in organizations, that has to become more balanced outside as well.
ANNA CASTRO: Totally agree and great because when we think of people we meet each one is fighting a battle that you don't know how to see. And as individuals. Right now, we could be senior portfolio manager or people manager, but we have many roles and hats that we play with different parts of the day. And I think once that one of the things you told me very early on is that, I mean, we juggle different types of balls in the air and it's important for us to know what a given point in time which ones are made of glass and which ones are rubber.
For me, as I think about my journey, one of the things I think about is while we're comfortable as women, as we build our career, whether it's a linear path or non-linear path, it's to be comfortable being work in progress, but also know that you evolve your skill set and the type of relationships you have. And sometimes you also have to think about your own board of directors and whether it's, , now they have different terms, allies or sponsors or whatever.
So - a board of directors in your own career that you trust and think about as you make decisions in your journey. Because in my opinion, like what's been helpful for me in the more recent, let's say, five years, it's different from when I started. I have gotten to work with people, with people, executives who are not afraid to sponsor or be allies with of someone who may not be what would be considered mainstream or traditional if say yes or no.
And because in this case that there are different who are willing to actually pause and reflect. Was there an unintended bias in certain moments? Because what has been helpful for me that also helps me become a good leader and decision maker. Is that now in this environment we have is that you are supported and heard and seen because that leads to you being valued. And the moment you do that, I think people who are reflective of this journey bring other people up as well.
INGRID MACINTOSH: And you said such both of you said such a remarkable role model for the young women that we have coming up through the organization today. And this is going to be my last question for each of you, and I'll start with you. And because we're on a roll, what would you say to the knowing what now?
What would you say to that, Ana, who is interviewing all those years ago to start their journey?
ANNA CASTRO: It is clearly a diamond in the rough. So I would say to myself then to remain resilient through time and be very open minded. And one of the things that has helped me that I wish I knew earlier on is really work on communication skills, because no matter how great your ideas and values are, it's all about how you communicate depending on your audience.
INGRID MACINTOSH: Wonderful. Same question for you, Alex. What would you tell that co-op student who first came through the doors here at TD Asset Management all those years ago?
ALEXANDRA GOREWICZ: It's something that I had heard from multiple people, men and women that were in senior positions in multiple organizations in this industry. Right. And when I say right, it touches on the communication aspect or working on the communication aspect that I mentioned. I found personal benefits for me. And to be honest, I didn't start actively writing and I was putting my ideas down on paper and then eventually blasting that out to people, anyone and everyone who would be willing to listen.
But what I found, even for me personally, in terms of benefits of how it made me a better portfolio manager, maybe this advice is very specific to the investment management role. So when you put your thoughts down on paper, it's almost like a baseline from which you can forecast. And a good forecast or a good prediction doesn't swing from the fences.
It doesn't change from I think the outcome probability is 20% today and tomorrow. I think it's 80%. No good predictions. Good forecasts are about incremental changes and it's about understanding. Here's my framework. Here's what I'm expecting to happen, and then you build on top of that. So when you write down and put your ideas down on paper, and then if you have the courage to blast that out to other people, what you find is, let's say you send it out to 100 people, even if one person replies and gives you one additional data point and gives you one additional food for thought, you can continue to build on your idea.
And what you find is a couple of things. One, you obviously have a much more comprehensive framework, decision making framework with which to actually take bets, assuming you're an active PM. But then on top of that, you keep yourself honest and you have the ability to go back and say, hey, I was right and I was right for the right reasons.
And that's that, that builds a lot of confidence. I was right for the wrong reasons, or, I was wrong, and for a number of reasons, but at least it gives you an ability to keep yourself honest. And then, if you happen to be right a number of times, other people can also see that if it's already been put out there and it's so it's a great way of collaborating but also is self- reflecting in some ways about what you're expecting to happen and helping, you develop as a portfolio manager.
INGRID MACINTOSH: I think as you're saying that I know that you were expressing a narrative around building your confidence in your investment decision making. But I kept thinking about the parallel of writing a career development plan, like literally writing a narrative about where you think you might want to go and sharing that with other people and sharing it with colleagues and mentors and sponsors and getting the feedback on that and then growing and getting the conviction.
So I could stay here for hours with both of you and we could continue this conversation. Maybe we'll go after. But we do need to wrap up. I want to thank you so much for joining me. And on this day on International Women's Day - it's such a huge passion for me and I thank you for being such incredible role models for the women at TD Asset Management that actually anything is possible and there's no there's no stopping us.
So, thank you so much, Alex. Thank you so much, Anna.
ANNA CASTRO: Thank you.
ALEXANDRA GOREWICZ: Thank you, Ingrid.
INGRID MACINTOSH: And to all of our listeners, thank you again for joining us on our first Women at TD Podcast. We're going to reconnect shortly as we have lots of strong women and lots of amazing stories to tell. So we will be back, as always, to receive the latest expertise and updates from TD Asset Management. You can follow us on Twitter at @TDAM_Canada and on LinkedIn at TD Asset Management.
Thanks, and happy International Women's Day.
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