Perspectives from the Top

Defeating the Personal Debt Trap (ft. Asesh Sarkar)

Episode Summary

Asesh Sarkar is helping transform the way people control their personal finances, at a time when this kind of service has never been more important. Discover key insights from Asesh relating to leadership, financial responsibility, and inclusive capitalism.

Episode Notes

Defeating the Personal Debt Trap (ft. Asesh Sarkar)

Asesh Sarkar is changing the way employers and employees handle salary

OPENING QUOTE:

Just like when I joined the workforce as a grad and I had a great experience, making sure that people who join us have a great experience, as well. So yeah, it's quite the journey, and then one we're very much still on and learning every day.

—Asesh Sarkar

GUEST BIO:

Asesh Sarkar is the Global CEO and Co-founder of Salary Finance. Salary Finance is a fast-growing FinTech company which enables employees to receive wage advances to help them pay off their debts faster and save towards their financial goals, operating in both the UK and US. It's been featured twice by Forbes as one of the leading socially responsible startups and as one of the five fast-growing businesses to watch. It's also already become a Harvard case study. Across the UK and US, Salary Finance is used by 500 top employers and available to around 4 million people.

CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:

[4:38] -Four Things Great Leaders & Bosses Do

Lessons from Asesh’s first great mentor

Asesh recounts the boss who played the role of a coach in his early career, providing him with four key gifts— autonomy, a listening ear, the feeling of being valued, and flexibility. With these four tools, a coach gives a person much more than any domineering, hard-charging boss could ever provide. 

[17:42] - The Model of Reciprocation

You don’t have to be an extrovert to thrive

If you genuinely go out and show other people that you are interested in helping them, you don't have to be an extrovert to thrive in business. If somebody reaches out to help you, and you are happy to help them, it’s often as simple as that. Build authentic trust-based relationships where people know that you are not just in it for a transactional benefit, and your reputation will reflect that. Meanwhile, people that have a history of transactional-based interactions get a reputation for having transactional-based interactions. The number of people who genuinely want to work with them declines over time.

[28:31] - Combining Social Intent with Business Acumen

Asesh’s formula for impact

Asesh shares his vision for an organization with the greatest positive role in the world: the best talent working on problems which can make a real impact in society, combined with a commercial model which means it is commercially scalable and can raise capital to do it at a big, big scale. This idea of business with social purpose is what inspired him to go all-in on Salary Finance.

[50:12] - Asesh’s Message to Leaders

Learning to cut the line

There’s always more work than there is time in the day. It’s rarely a bad decision to cut the line and stop work time a bit further, then use that extra time to spend with colleagues and form human relationships. It makes you better, it makes them better, and everyone performs better as a result. Focus on relationships and watch performance soar.

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Episode Transcription

Asesh Sarkar:

And just like when I joined the workforce as a grad and I had a great experience, making sure that people who join us have a great experience, as well. So yeah, it's quite the journey, and then one we're very much still on and learning every day.

Chris Roebuck:

Welcome to Perspectives from the Top. I'm Chris Roebuck, global keynote speaker with unique leadership experience from military, business, and government, bestselling author, and your guide to greater success. Together, we'll discover powerful insights from the world's leading thinkers, doers, and trailblazers, the must know trends, thought provoking revelations, and practical actions you can use immediately. This is your exclusive and personal shop of insight and inspiration to help you get to the top.

Chris Roebuck:

Welcome to you and all of our Perspectives from the Top community around the world. It's great to share the insights of such successful people with you to help you get to where you want to be. Our guest today is Asesh Sarkar, Global CEO and Co-founder of Salary Finance. Now, Salary Finance is fast growing FinTech which enables employees to receive wage advances to help them pay off their debts faster and save towards their financial goals operating in both UK and US. It's been featured twice by Forbes as one of the leading socially responsible startups and as one of the five fast growing businesses to watch. It's also already become a Harvard case study. And Salary Finance's offering is especially important now when it's a challenging time for people financially. Across the UK and US, it's used by 500 top employers and available to around 4 million people. And Asesh also chairs the trustees of the financial education charity, MyBnk. Ashe started his career in consulting with PA and later on became a partner before starting Salary Finance.

Chris Roebuck:

Asesh, welcome to Perspectives from the Top. Just to start off, one of the things that our listeners love to hear is about what was the catalyst that started you on this great journey that you've been on? Is it a friend for some people, a mentor for others, a family member, an ex-boss? Who, perhaps, was it who started you on this great journey?

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah, sure. So I would say it was actually probably my first boss, where I was born relatively inner city, fortunately went to a good university at Warwick, which introduced me to a different set of people and experiences. And then I joined a consultancy in the city, and it was incredibly new to me. So going from being born inner city through to the actual city. And I guess I went in, I looked quite different, I spoke very different, and not really thinking I would fit in, and thinking I would start right at the bottom and have to really work my way up.

Asesh Sarkar:

And I guess my first boss was someone who really gave me a lot of autonomy, a lot of responsibility early, and actually [inaudible 00:03:34] listened to me. I wasn't really expecting to come into the workforce to really know anything useful, but actually, a lot of things in business are quite intuitive, there's creativity plays a part. And so he really, really built my confidence that, actually, he included me in things, he valued my opinion, he allowed me to get involved in different things. And then I quickly realized that actually, yes, there is value in experience, but there's also a lot of value in just acumen, looking at problems in a different way. And so really from the get go, I was given the opportunity to be quite authentic and logical rather than just following a bottom up path.

Asesh Sarkar:

So yeah, I have a lot of appreciation for my first boss, both the opportunities he gave me, and he also turned out to be, and still today, a very good friend and also just helping me customize to life in the real city, as well.

Chris Roebuck:

That's interesting. So to some degree, he wasn't just a boss. He was a coach.

Asesh Sarkar:

Yep. Absolutely.

Chris Roebuck:

Probably more than anything else. And I love... I mean, let's face it. We are only one minute and 55 seconds into your interview, and you have already given our listeners four things that a good boss should be doing about providing autonomy, about actually listening to you. Even though [inaudible 00:04:58] ... from a cursory level, you would assume that the boss might know everything you know because you've only just arrived. But of course, you have ideas and different perspectives, as well, the fact that you were valued, and the fact that you were given flexibility. So that's quite amazing, because having that so early on in your career must have given you that boost of both self-confidence and, actually, a professional insight that then made everything else easier.

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah, very much so. For probably six months into my working life, maybe 12, it dawned onto me. Most things in business are not rocket science. And actually, you could logically work things through, you could look at things in a different way, you could contribute to the debate, you could help move things forward. And that was transformational for me, because then I actually realized actually I was someone with reasonably good business judgment, I was quite logical, I was hard working, I was good at working within a team, and so those core skills could then shine through, as opposed to if I was kept like a new graduate in the back room, just processing data. So yeah, that definitely fast tracked, yeah, my confidence, learning, ability to question things. And that core skillset, which is it's not like a parent child, you tell me and I will do, but it's a more... Of course, there's respect and other things that you would have that are common to other forms of relationships. But that, yeah, the ability to be treated as someone that can add value very early on was very formative, for sure.

Chris Roebuck:

That's really interesting, because one of the things that always comes out when I ask leaders what bear best bosses, already the things you've previously said, but also that comment you made about even though you're more junior, you are treated with respect as a person and as a professional. And for all listeners, particularly those in C-suite, what you've just said is an absolutely brilliant example of what C-suite should be getting all their line managers to do with all their people. Because what it does is it starts building up talent from the first day they arrive in the organization, and that is the way to be successful, to unleash everybody's potential, no matter how junior they are, no matter how inexperienced they are. It's not just senior leaders who have great ideas.

Asesh Sarkar:

Yep. Yeah, very much. And I think particularly, the world is changing very fast, and there are very interesting perspectives young people bring. And yeah, and in big companies, quite often, your customers are young people. And so yeah, I think there's a lot they can bring, and there's a lot they can bring to the table.

Chris Roebuck:

Yeah. So you're in PA, you then went out for a little while into Deloitte, you went back to PA as a partner. And what is interesting is I think one of the really interesting indicators is what I call the rehire rate. The people who start in one place, enjoy it so much, go outside to develop greater capability, but then go back because they love that place so much, which is what you do. And you became a partner, you're on the management board, and you were focused on transformation within the financial sector, which, for our listeners, is not just the normal organizational complexity that you get juggling organizations. But because it's financial sector, you've got regulators getting involved and all the rest of that. So there's not only a high degree of internal scrutiny, but a high degree of external scrutiny.

Chris Roebuck:

But because it's a consultancy, and many of our listeners who haven't been involved in consultancy won't quite understand how it works, it's not that you, as an individual, are working for one boss all the time doing one thing. Because the consultancy gets different assignments and different people are assigned to different projects, which effectively means that you or other people could be working for a different boss at different times over a period, which then means that you're effectively being appraised by three different people. It's a truly matrix, flexible structure.

Chris Roebuck:

But inherently, therefore that creates significant issues about how you lead people, just on a project basis and then they go off and do something else, and how you genuinely try and develop them if they're only working for you for a limited amount of time. So give us some insight into those challenges that many of our readers, sorry, listeners, who haven't been in that world, [inaudible 00:10:15] ... give them an insight on the challenges of that.

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah, absolutely. So I'll give you from both sides, I guess one being a member of the team, and then the other leading teams. And so I think, yeah, successful consultants tend to be those that are very good at managing their own careers because you are sometimes on more than one project at a time, which has a different reporting structure, sometimes you're doing internal things as well. And you don't just want to get pulled from one project to another. You also want to be developing, and that requires quite a lot of influencing to get onto the interesting projects, learn new things, and so on. So it definitely takes a certain type of person to succeed who is quite autonomous and who is quite able to navigate their career as opposed to being in something that's quite rigid. You do this now, you do this after.

Chris Roebuck:

It's interesting. A friend of mine in one of the major consultants says basically, to some degree, it's like you're running your own little business.

Asesh Sarkar:

Very much so. Yeah, very much so. Very much so. Very much so.

Asesh Sarkar:

And then on the flip side, as you are managing teams, yeah, the dominant becomes the project, and so you're managing it, a team. Quite often when you're managing a team, you have different skill sets coming together. So if it's a big transformation program, you might have some project management experts, some tech experts, some strategy people, some organizational design people. So you're bringing a whole set of experts together from across the firm to deliver something for your clients. And for consultants, they tend to have this system where you should really be out with clients about 80% of the time as a consultant. And so most of your time is spent on these projects. And, really, you live or die by client feedback. If your clients love you, then they keep you, they say great things, it grows account for the company, you progress within that. And so really the dominant forces are people that succeed the most are the ones where their clients really love them.

Asesh Sarkar:

But then you also have this internal element, and you quite often have a different internal line manager, where, which often is actually more of a coach than a manager, and so they're giving you an outside perspective, helping you connect into other opportunities within the firm. And so, yeah, you really are managing two careers, one within your client and your project, which sometimes can be multi-year, and another one within your own firm [inaudible 00:12:47] ... trying to progress and make sure you have the right relationships. And as you get more senior, you specialize, and then absolutely, you're then building your mini business, really. And then so when you become a partner, you basically say, "Look, this is my area expertise. This is a type of business I believe I can build, what clients will choose me for." And then also you have an internal network of consultants that want to work for you by that point, as well, because you have a good reputation as a lead.

Asesh Sarkar:

But yeah, it's a very project-based world, which is good for people that like change because you don't know what's going to happen one project to the other. You can come in on a Monday morning with no project, and Tuesday, you can be anywhere in the country or, indeed, anywhere in the world. Sometimes, it could be something you're comfortable with. Other times, it could be something it's literally the first time you have done kind of done before.

Asesh Sarkar:

And so fortunately for me, I was fortunate to find a profession. Because at university, at school, I was always very good at project-based work. You would have coursework, and I'd always be extremely good at coursework, exams would be a lot more difficult for me, but the two balance. And so in many ways, it was the thing I was good at, which is actually project based activity, which was very suited to the things I like doing and was good at doing as well.

Chris Roebuck:

So that's really interesting, in that one of the key elements that you have to manage in that environment is not only being great at the logical project stuff, but it's also, perhaps more than a lot of places, the ability to manage relationships, relationships within the organization, and relationships in particular with clients. Because getting a client project to work is not only about having that great plan, it's about enabling them to make it happen. So in that sense, it's about how you build positive trust-based relationships and inspiring people around you. How did you achieve that in terms of influencing people in a positive way? Because that must have been the start of a journey of your capability to get stuff done.

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah, very, very much so. And it's actually quite the journey. Like I said, when I came into the working world, it was a very different environment in terms of the one in which I grew up in. And then [inaudible 00:15:15] ... course, I'm naturally an introvert, as well. And so I got into the working world thinking, "Okay. Wow," somewhat anxious, somewhat nervous. And like you said, actually, a lot of things are about influencing people. And so what I quickly worked out is that I wasn't going to be the person who was going to be the loudest in the room, or I wasn't going to be the person that won loads of new business because I had a brilliant network, or went to an amazing school where people have to do really well. I wasn't going to be the one on the golf course every weekend.

Asesh Sarkar:

But what is quite fortunate is that I had a way of thinking, and a way of articulating things, and an operating style which was very much welcomed, and so I guess people liked what I had to say, they liked the way I said it, and I was not... Quite often, careers people can be quite pointed, whereas actually, I was always quite collaborative. I didn't really have a desire to progress by seeing others not progress. And so I quickly realized actually, I could influence as an introvert. I could do my work, let my work do the talking, but also, go out of my comfort zone a little bit in terms of forming relationships on a more authentic basis as opposed to forming it for the sake of it.

Asesh Sarkar:

And certainly as a partner, when you become a partner, it's a vote. And then I remember being, okay, this is quite daunting because I'd spent most of my time in clients, which is why I've been so, yeah, successful as a consultant. And clients will say amazing things for me, will quite often offer me senior jobs in the organizations. But now, I've got to come internally, and I need a majority of partners to vote me into the partnership. A lot of these people I've actually never, not really spent much time with. And so, yeah, then there's a process you go through to, again, build confidence, trust, and help them appreciate that you'll be additive to the partnership.

Asesh Sarkar:

But the thing for me is I've always been fortunate to do that in a very authentic way and be comfortable, rather than being an introvert trying to be an extrovert and not being happy with that. And so I've been always very fortunate that, although I do it differently to a lot of people, it's something that's quite authentic as well is then well-received on the other side.

Chris Roebuck:

But that's been brought up by any number of our other guests, and particularly Marshall Goldsmith talking about, and it's a well-known psychological model of reciprocation. Excuse me. If you genuinely go out and show other people that you are interested in helping them, you don't have to be an extrovert. The natural response to that is if somebody reaches out to help you, you are happy to help them, as well. And I think your point about you going out to build authentic trust-based relationships where people know that you are not just in it for a transactional benefit is, one, very productive for that person you are working with. But also, from what I've seen in organizations, people that have a history of transactional-based interactions get a reputation for having transactional-based interactions. And then the number of people who generally want to work with them declines over time. Is that a fair judgment?

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah, very much so. It's very self-fulfilling, as well, which is many of my closest friends are people I've worked with over the years, whether on a project at a client in the consulting firm in terms of what I do now. And yeah, it's very fulfilling. And so quite often for me, I don't see work and personal life being separate. I've always tried to do things I enjoy in a quantity which I, to a level I enjoy. And so yeah, yeah, it's very self-fulfilling, I think, treating people as humans, being interested in them, like I said, making it a two-way relationship rather than one way. So yeah, it sets you up. A is you progress in a way which is good, but equally, you form bonds and friendships along the way. And I always say life is short, and so if you can enjoy it along the way, so much the better.

Chris Roebuck:

Well, certainly. My experience from being in senior HR roles in a number of financial institutions and elsewhere is that on the journey to senior leadership level, if people are consistently operating on a transactional basis, in terms of they're using people to get to where they want to be, not to help those other people as well, what happens is that people work it out after an amount of time. And then in the end, the chances are those people, by not being authentic, by not helping other people, by being self focused, get themselves into a position, even if it's not in a partnership where there's votes, where people know that that's the way they behave, and it then becomes obvious that they might get to a certain point, but they'll never get to the top. And I think that's a lesson for everybody listening, in that if you're going to get to the top, you do it with other people. You can't do it by yourself.

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah, very much so, very much so. And it is amazing how just small the working world is within anyone's particular sphere. And to progress, yes, it's what does it say on your CV? But actually, a lot of it is inevitably, people ask other people, and they don't really care what your reference is because obviously you've given a good reference, but the degrees of separation are no longer very far. And so yeah, today, I feel comfortable that I've been in my authentic self. I think people, that generally resonates. Sometimes, it doesn't. That's okay, as well. But I feel good, I've been myself, and so I would have no issue with anyone doing a reference check with anyone. And but I think, like I say, if your career is built by being quite transactional and one sided, then I think as you progress into more senior roles, that becomes more of a challenge.

Chris Roebuck:

Yes. Yes, I think so. Which is interesting because, well, the question that I was leading onto was about what you have seen. Because by that point in time, you become a partner in PA, you'd been involved in significant transformations in the financial services world. So you'd not only seen what was going on in PA, but obviously, every project you did, you were able to observe leadership in other organizations, be that highly successful leadership or less successful leadership depending how good the leader was. So therefore, you must have also developed your perspective from your own experience and what you saw into what you thought good leaders should be doing every day. Give our listeners insight into what conclusions you've drawn by that point in your career.

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah. So I think there are a few different approaches to leadership and leaders, and different approaches could work. And so there's definitely one style of leader that works really well, which is really, fully about investing in their people, coaching, helping them grow, giving them opportunities, and that really carries you through. So there's a training program I went on called Legitimate Leadership, and it's very much about, a lot of it is not what your reportees can do for you. It's what you can do for them. And the more you can do for them, the more everything works. And so I think that's one side of leader, which is very strong on leadership, but less potentially strong on business acumen. But that can work because you're getting the best out of your collective people and that can help deliver. The other style of leader is not necessarily as good in terms of their leadership qualities, but they are just an exceptional visionary business person through which extraordinary opportunity is created, which inevitably lifts people up. This is always really interesting things to work on.

Asesh Sarkar:

And then over the years, I guess what I've concluded, either can work, but there are minimum of floors. And so you have to have some minimum leadership standards. You can't just be a visionary leader. Equally, I think good leaders have to have good business acumen. Because quite often, you have to take decisions where you can't just arbitrage everyone's ideas and find a middle. You have to have conviction and opinion, an ability to analyze and make good decisions. Some are popular, some are not. And so I've worked. You could be one of these two styles of leaders, really strong as a people manager, as a leader with okay business acumen, or the other way around. But you have to have floors in [inaudible 00:24:44] ... It never tends to work where you're really over indexed on one, but very, very low on the other. You need a floor in one, and then quite often, you can't be amazing at both, and then you have to really know what you're good at on the other.

Asesh Sarkar:

And so for me, it's always been very much the I have the floor on leadership, and coaching, and people enjoying being around me, and so on. But what I'm really have proven to be good at is the visionary leadership, creating amazing opportunities, allowing the people that, as a result, are in my team to experience an acceleration on their career through opportunities that creates for them as well.

Chris Roebuck:

Yeah. And you're effectively saying that clearly, a leader in business has to have some element of business understanding to recognize what's going on, to see opportunities. But also, to realize those opportunities, they have to get their people behind them, and it's a balance of those. And different people by virtue of their different experiences will be better at one, better at the other by virtue of their character.

Chris Roebuck:

And it's also about, I think the degree to which the leader is able to leverage the capability of their people. Because obviously, the leader doesn't know everything. And within teams, you have experts who are advising the leader. And from my experience as an ex-military guy, your comment about getting the best from people and enabling them to do their job, The motto of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst is serve to lead. And it's about, in my job that I had there, it was about utilizing my technical experts to give me the advice I needed for me to make the decision based on their advice and my insight.

Chris Roebuck:

And interestingly, that was exactly the same point that Justin Wellby, the Archbishop of Canterbury mentioned in his interview when he was group treasurer at Elf Oil, and he was talking about the chairman of the company encouraging everybody around the table to debate, and then he would make the decision, and that would be the plan. And you've just laid that out perfectly.

Chris Roebuck:

So you then moved on, and in 2015, you started Salary Finance. And there's an interesting story to that start. So maybe tell us the story, but also tell us what Salary Finance is about, and why it is so important in particular in the world.

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah, sure, yeah. So I started my career as a management consultant, and I did that for 13, 14 years. And then I was fortunate that it fit into my school so well when I became a young partner in the firm. During that journey, I guess I'd always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I was like a mini entrepreneur within the consulting firm, set up a new area within it and grown it.

Asesh Sarkar:

And then in 2000, and I always was growing this view of what I wanted to be was not just an entrepreneur, but a social entrepreneur. And I had come to this conclusion that, quite often, the best talent goes into a common set of professions [inaudible 00:28:08] ... You know? Law, accounting, investment banking, consulting, and so on. But the primary purposes of those objective isn't necessarily to solve big challenges in the world or do good, not to say that they're intending to do bad. But ultimately, they're typically there to create a return for their shareholders.

Asesh Sarkar:

And then I had some experience with charities as well. My conclusion with charities was, quite often, really well-intentioned and good people, but not necessarily set up to deliver impact at massive scale. And then I've always had this view around what if you could bring the two together, the best talent working on problems which can make a real impact in society, and have a commercial model which meant it was commercially scalable and you could raise capital to then do it at a big, big scale? So it was this idea of business with social purpose. And actually, at the time, today, that's commonly known as ESG. It wasn't really a thing at the time. And actually, the only person talking about it in the UK at the time was Nigel Wilson, the CEO of LNG, which I'm going to come onto.

Asesh Sarkar:

And so it's in 2015, I become a partner, and I thought, okay, I should either do one of two things. I should really invest in this partnership, because you only really start to earn significant rewards as a partner over many years, or I should use this as an opportunity to follow this dream I have, which is to be a social entrepreneur. And then I thought, okay, what is the idea I have to be able to do that? And so I became really interested in consumer finance, because I knew it for my time as a consultant in financial services, as part of that, part of the 13 years, I actually did four years in the regulator itself. So I got a lot of the information around how regulators think about financial services, and I worked with most of the big banks, and so I had interesting insights.

Asesh Sarkar:

And my general conclusion was I didn't see many bad actors in finance. But the outputs of finance is actually quite regressive. And so it's this real dichotomy I was seeing. Well, why is there so much inequality in finance, yet there aren't, certainly from my experience, bad actors trying to say, "Look, how do we screw over, yeah, society to get the most."

Asesh Sarkar:

And so and I a coupled that with [inaudible 00:30:35]-

Chris Roebuck:

Sorry. So basically, so what you're saying is that by the way it's evolved, the financial services system is populated by, to some degree, good, well-meaning people who are doing their jobs, but the way it has evolved is that in certain circumstances, its impact on some people in society can be negative.

Asesh Sarkar:

Yes, yes. To an extent where unintended consequences at a systemic level. And basically, if I then come onto the story about, which really resonated with me, that I worked in the city, as you know. I was a high earner. My wife's a surgeon, and we have two children, and then we have a nanny which helps with our children. And our children's nanny would always have problem with her finances. And actually, one day, I asked her, "Why is it you have issues with your finances? Is it that we're not paying you enough because we pay you the national average." [inaudible 00:31:36] ... and you say, "Well, actually what happens is you pay me, but I have lots of debt, so credit cards, payday loans, and I just didn't pay the interest on those debts, and then there's not left much for me." And then I get into the cycle and say, "Okay. Well, that doesn't make sense. Why don't you just go to a bank and apply for a high interest loan?" And then she told me what I knew, which is actually, "I will just get declined, or I have been declined by banks, and so I only have this option for my time in banks." I'm aware that two in three people in the UK are declined by banks who are lack of credit score.

Asesh Sarkar:

Okay. So I thought this makes no sense. I work really hard, you work even harder, and all of our money is going to high interest rate lenders. That doesn't seem to make sense. And so what I did for her is I said, "Okay. Look, I will pay off your debts for you. I will give you an employee loan. I will collect repayments from your payroll. You don't have to pay any interest. And as a result, you can keep more of your income and you can pay this [inaudible 00:32:31] ... debt off sooner."

Asesh Sarkar:

The moment I had done that, the next day, I basically saw a different person in front of me. Her eyes were lit up. She was less stressed. She was better at looking after our children. She was grateful to my wife and I. We felt good about ourselves for doing something very, very simple. And so then I thought, okay, why is this situation? I felt really guilty about it. I felt why do I pay 5% on my interest on my loans, and why does my nanny, and my wife works in NHS, and thousands and thousands and millions like her pay 40, 50% on their credit cards, a hundred percent? Like this just isn't right. And then [inaudible 00:33:11]-

Chris Roebuck:

Sorry, actually, sorry, I'll just quickly dive in-

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah.

Chris Roebuck:

... for our non-UK listeners. NHS is the UK National Health Service. So as you said, your wife is a surgeon. But across the NHS, 1.4 million people, say you have porters, and nurses, junior doctors who are virtually in the sights of the credit card companies at the highest interest rates, yeah?

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah, that's exactly [inaudible 00:33:39] ... And yeah, it struck me. This is really unfair. Like basically, the wealthier you are and, generally, the older you are, the better credit score you have and the lower interest rate you pay, and the younger you are and the lower income, sorry, the younger you are, the lower income you are, the higher interest rate you pay. And [inaudible 00:33:59] ... yeah, I thought, okay, well, this dynamic doesn't exist anyway. It's like a sandwich, and the rich older person paying one pound, the younger poorer person playing 10 pounds. Like it just would not be accepted anywhere other than in finance where it's normalized. And it's normalized because essentially what the banks do is they calculate risk, they price it in, and they pass it onto the consumer, because what they're really doing about thinking about the margin. But then you have this negative cycle whereby if a middle to low income person doesn't have much disposable income, if they're paying a higher interest rate, that makes have less money, less likely to pay. They [inaudible 00:34:40] ... pay proves the bank model correct, and then they continue this continuous cycle.

Asesh Sarkar:

So I thought, okay, I've helped my children's nanny get out of this situation by giving her a very simple employee loan with the repayments collected from payroll, so I had cut the risk rather than having to price in the risk. What if big employers could do this on a much bigger, bigger scale? And so I raised 2 million pounds in venture capital from a company called Blair Shouart. We then tested this with some big employers, where we said to employers, "Well, look, you have a real issue in your company, like every company. If you're the executive, you get a really low rate interest loan. If you are on the shop floor, then you pay extortioner rates. It's not fair. We can help your employees by giving them an employee loan to pay off their debts [inaudible 00:35:28] at a lower interest rate. We can do that by offering it as a benefit and collecting repayments from payroll. And then we think it can level the playing field." And so that was five years ago, and the model has basically taken off in quite a big way since.

Chris Roebuck:

Yeah, exactly. So I think it's taken off. But the phrase it's taken off in quite a big way is a little bit of an underestimate, I would say. Because you've now spread over into US. You are also the subject of a Harvard Business School case study, which, to be blunt, isn't bad going for the first few years of an organization. And you are helping millions of people, both in US and UK. So that scaling process has happened pretty far.

Chris Roebuck:

So now, I think, first of all, give us a picture of where you are now in terms of scale and how you help people. And also, what were the challenges that you had in scaling into, I suppose, a concept that not many employers or organizations had ever encountered before?

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah, very much so, yeah. So today, we have 650 clients. They employ 4.5 million people across the UK and 50 states of the US, everyone from Tesco in the UK to Tesla in the US. And so our clients are 20% of the [inaudible 00:36:54] 100, one in four hospitals, eight of the big 10 supermarkets, also lots of banks, very [inaudible 00:37:02] bank employees, and ironically consulting firms as well. So yeah, community of 650 clients, 4.5 million employees in two countries. We have lent close to a billion dollars to employees. We've saved them close to 200 billion in interest. We started with just payroll-linked loans. We now offer three types of savings products linked to payroll, on-demand access to pay, insurance, financial education. We've raised a hundred million pounds in equity to get us to where we are.

Asesh Sarkar:

I mentioned Nigel Wilson at Legal and General previously. And so as a business for social purpose, big passion of his, they call it inclusive capitalism. They're one of our large investors, alongside Goldman Sachs, Experian, Royal London, and [inaudible 00:37:52] Chalcot. We have a team of about 350 people. And then last year we were number 19 in the fastest growing companies in the UK in Deloitte's League Table, which is based upon three years of audited accounts. And then we're number 44 fastest growing tech company in Europe based on three years of audited accounts in the Financial Times, and in the Financial Times League Table across Europe as well.

Asesh Sarkar:

So yeah, lots of good growth in that time, equally lots more to go. And I would say one of the foundations of that growth has really been able to tell the story of what we're about and why, which is we always say finance is a byproduct of what we do. We didn't come into this thinking the world is short of another finance company. We came into this in thinking that there are millions and millions of employees who are financially stressed. It impacts them at work. It's not fair that they don't get access to as good finance [inaudible 00:38:56] as perhaps their bosses do. And that through the structural advantages of workload benefits, we can make a real change.

Asesh Sarkar:

And so and then we always work on models which are win-win. So it's a win for the employee, it's a win for the employer, and it's a win for us because we make a commercial return as well. And that philosophy has really helped us scale. And so yeah, from a commercial [inaudible 00:39:21] perspective, really being very human and really focusing on the benefits and the win-win, and really being able to focus on solving this bigger societal problem rather than building another finance company just for the sake of it.

Asesh Sarkar:

And then, yeah, going from just me to a team of 320 in three countries now, and whilst I manage teams in a consulting firm as we discussed, that's a very different job to being a founder and a CEO of a fast growing company. And that through that, you go through multiple, multiple stages, as well. From the startup team, where you're not quite sure what you have and if you're going to survive, through to the raising the funding rounds, through to the a lot of your ideas have now come through and your operating gap mega scale, hundreds of millions of pounds being processed, and you have institutional backers that need robust processes and auditing, through to as a big employer and just like when I joined the workforce as a grad and I had a great experience, making sure that people who join us have a great experience as well. So yeah, it's quite the journey, and then one we're, yeah, very much still on and learning every day.

Chris Roebuck:

Well, you've beautifully answered actually two questions there. Because I was going to ask you about the journey, and the difference between the world of, perhaps, corporate leadership that you were in in the consultancy world, albeit slightly different from the traditional organization, and then suddenly finding yourself building a startup from nothing, scaling the startup, and trying to learn the lessons or avoid the mistakes, or however you describe it, from what you had seen through your career to make an organization as successful as you have. And as you say, your expansion has been phenomenal.

Chris Roebuck:

But I think that to some degree, that also links to one of the things I've seen over my career, which is where the organization has a purpose, where it makes a difference to a group of people, a group of customers, a group of clients, or whatever, the belief of the people in the organization in what they're doing drives a level of, I think, extra performance. And with your wife as a surgeon in the NHS, it's the same thing that workers in the NHS, despite the fact that sometimes, the NHS doesn't work terribly well, but everybody still believes. And it must be with your people, a similar thing that, perhaps, people believe so much in what you do that you've developed a very, very special culture.

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah, very, very much so. And like I say, the purpose at business is quite, in a good way, mainstream. Certainly when we started out, no one was really talking about it. When I came to our investors and said, "For me, this is about business for social purpose," they were like, "Come again? Is this a charity, or is it [inaudible 00:42:41] ... is this a combination of two?" I don't think you have to sacrifice one side or the other. And that really resonated. We're very much the pioneers in this area, and as a result, we have always hired phenomenal people because, yeah, it is not just... Even when we weren't [inaudible 00:42:59] as well-known, couldn't offer as much money, that mission really, really resonates.

Asesh Sarkar:

And so [inaudible 00:43:06] ... corporates I would consult in to, there's a real celebration when there's a lot of midyear results being announced now. We made extra margin, or we made extra profit. That's pretty much what people talk about. And then you'd always feel a little bit like, okay. I'd be in these organizations and say, "Okay, yeah, let's give ourselves a pat on the back. We made some more money." Well, most of the people here aren't going to see that in terms of the ground floor workers, shareholders. Well, it seemed like everyone got really happy to make this notion of money which went to very few people. And so I was [inaudible 00:43:40] ... actually within Salary Finance, when we are celebrating, we're celebrating because we've helped the millionth person, or we've done. And money is, of course, a part of that, getting to profitability, sustainability is important and doing other things. But the first thing we don't say is, "We've made this much revenue this month." That's the third thing we say. The first thing we say is how much we've saved consumers. The second is how much we've broadened our reach and how much we can help people. The third people of the thing is, yeah, we've grown revenue, which allows us to increase our impact.

Asesh Sarkar:

But yeah, that really, really drives culture. And even today, whilst I think the corporate world has changed, it is always, always a very funny thing, which is the first thing you hear about is revenue growth, and it's or whatever the financial metric might be, whereas, I think there is still opportunity to make it a lot more balanced.

Chris Roebuck:

Which is a really, really important point for everybody amongst our listeners, particularly people who own businesses or C-suite, which is the fact that, life isn't just about making money. It is actually about contributing to wider society and enabling people to live good lives. And it's true. I mean, my experience of, as you know, having worked in major financial services organizations is what matters is the quarterly figures. And it's but that in itself, as you have seen, can also be counterproductive, not only in terms of what the organization announces, but the thinking pattern in the organization in terms of pushing short term profitability and its impact on everybody in terms of all the stakeholders, from customers through to employees. Because if we take the case of employees, well, you get appraised on whether you have met your objectives for this quarter in case the institution needs to make its objectives for this quarter, and actually your long term development isn't our greatest priority.

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah, very much so. [inaudible 00:45:58] ... similar to my view on how loans was very regressive, and it made no sense that different people would pay different prices. Yeah, I think this whole nature of quarterly earnings and short term is another fundamentally dysfunctional systemic issue. I absolutely agree with you. It doesn't drive good long term outcomes for anyone.

Chris Roebuck:

You've got to where you are. Also now, as well as doing Salary Finance. You're also chairman of the trustees of MyBnk. Give us a little bit of an insight into what MyBnk does, because that's a complimentary element that links to the whole principle and purpose behind Salary Finance.

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah, absolutely. So with Salary Finance, like I say, we work with a community of 4.5 million employees in the UK, US, quite often middle to low income. And I know that community quite well now, and the reality is as generations have gone by, financial education is at an incredible, credible low. And so a lot of people are considered to be a bad risk. That's simply because generational norms around good money practice just don't exist. So before people would spend, would save first and spend later. Now, people spend first, and if there's anything left, they'll save, but there's so many things to buy there's nothing there's nothing left. Or obviously, costs of living and associated challenges. And so I can reach this conclusion that unless there is more financial education in schools, of which there is very little, that this systemic challenge in society just go to continue, and it's very unlikely that the current working people are going to be able to train their children given their own challenges.

Asesh Sarkar:

So then I became close an organization called MyBnk, which is the UK's largest charity for delivering financial education to young and vulnerable people, and then I became its chair. And they did two real, two two things. One is we partner with a thousand schools, and deliver financial education in an engaging way to schools to teach them things like delayed gratification, importance of saving, budgeting, a lot of the basics. But then also really importantly, we work with vulnerable young children, just like vulnerable young people, young adults who basically cannot afford to make a mistake, because if they make a mistake, that is really hard for them to ever recover. So if you get a bad credit score, it's really hard. You just don't have the comfort of wealthy parents to bail you out and all of those things.

Asesh Sarkar:

And so for example, with those coming out of the care home, we take them into a five day house. We teach them about money, reading the meter, building a credit score, budgeting, so on. And then we work with councils, and we can show if you come onto our program, instead of being a 60% likelihood to be evicted from your first council property, you go down to a 0.2% level of being evicted. And then a lot of that 60% then become homeless. And when you become homeless, you can imagine it takes you a lot of years, if ever, to recover that position. And so yeah, alongside Salary Finance, which is helping working people in work become financially healthier and happier, I do a lot with young people, particularly vulnerable young people where there's no opportunity for them to make a mistake.

Chris Roebuck:

That's an amazing compliment to Salary Finance, and you're helping people get to the position where, to some degree, hopefully, they won't actually need Salary Finance.

Chris Roebuck:

So then how can people learn more about what you do in Salary Finance?

Asesh Sarkar:

Yeah, sorry. Yes, so I am on LinkedIn, and very happy to connect with people interested. And then also, SalaryFinance.com or looking at Salary Finance on LinkedIn, as well.

Chris Roebuck:

Brilliant.

Chris Roebuck:

And finally, one thing that you would say to every leader that they should think about doing more of to be a good leader. Or maybe if they're not a leader, something they should do to be just a better colleague.

Asesh Sarkar:

Yep. So I would say, say in most jobs, there is always more work than there is time in the day, and so you always have to cut the line somewhere. I think it's rarely a bad decision to cut that line a little bit further and use that extra time to spend with colleagues, your line reports, others to form just very human relationships. Makes you feel better, it makes them feel better, everyone does better as a result. So yeah, it's there's always that dichotomy of time and how much you have on. You have to cut to somewhere. But yeah, recommendation to cut it a little bit further and use that extra time to focus on relationships.

Chris Roebuck:

Which is a brilliant point to finish on, thank you so much. The point that if you spend time on people, going back to your previous point, if you have that authentic interaction with people, then people will work with you better. And if they work with you better, you're going to be more successful and so are they. So brilliant. Thank you so much for your amazing input. That's really kind of you. Thank you, Asesh.

Asesh Sarkar:

Thank you, Chris. Much appreciated.

Chris Roebuck:

Well, listeners, there certainly is a lot there to reflect on, and that you can potentially do something about from tomorrow.

Chris Roebuck:

I suppose one of the first things to say is that if you are an introvert, that from everything Asesh said, it's not going to stop you being successful in achieving what you want to achieve if you reach out and build trust-based relationships with other people. All the way through our interview, Asesh stressed the importance of this, plus, of course, developing an entrepreneurial business-focused mindset to create a great vision and strategy for inspired people to implement. And I think linked to vision, all of you listening could really pick up the passion that Asesh has for his vision of being able to add significant benefit to society, but also to produce a commercial return and do something special that makes a real difference to people.

Chris Roebuck:

But perhaps, that leaves us with two questions for you. Are you proactively reaching out to create trust-based relationships with those you need to help you achieve? And also, are you working with purpose and passion in what you do? Now, maybe if you're early on in your career or, depending on your circumstances, you may not currently be doing what makes you passionate or what gives you real purpose. But even if you're not doing it now, you should decide what that end destination is for you that inspires you and how to get there. So over the next few weeks, maybe try reaching out to more people, and try and identify your passion and purpose in your working life if you haven't done so already. So use these and Asesh's other ideas to help you get to where you want to be. And don't forget that in a week, I will give you my in more depth view of the key takeaways from Asesh, my insights and ideas for action in reflections on the top.

Chris Roebuck:

And if you've used any of the insights you've got from previous Perspectives from the Top guests and they've helped you, send me your success stories. I'd love to hear them.

Chris Roebuck:

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Chris Roebuck:

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Chris Roebuck:

Perspectives from the Top is produced in collaboration with Detroit Podcast Studios. So have a successful week, use today's new learnings and actions. And remember, it's onwards and upwards. See you next time on Perspectives from the Top.