Profiles in Leadership | Megan (Caywood) Cooper

Jim Marous (00:00):

Welcome to Banking Transformed, the top podcast in retail banking. I'm your host, Jim Marous, co-publisher of The Financial Brand and owner and CEO of the Digital Banking Report. I'm so pleased to welcome Megan Caywood, newly appointed Chief Product Officer at ClearBank to the Banking Transformed Podcast.

Jim Marous (00:30):

Boasting experience across startups, big banks, and all platforms, Megan provides unique insider lens, having helped disrupt finance firms of all sizes from the inside out.

Jim Marous (00:44):

We'll hear about her professional journey and the difference between fostering innovation and industry stalwarts versus scrappier upstarts. Megan will also share wisdom around ongoing challenges women face in finance, along with how she achieves work-life balance while raising a family.

Jim Marous (01:01):

Finally, Megan will share insider tips as to what she does to set the path for success, such as mentoring and finding mentors.

Jim Marous (01:14):

Having built resilience through raising the family, and amid professional demands. Megan Caywood has a unique perspective on the challenges of prioritizing work life integration and maintaining clarity of purpose during turbulent times. She uses her personal learnings to build better teams, create better customer solutions, and build stronger relationships across the banking ecosystem.

Jim Marous (01:40):

So, Megan, we have known each other for more than eight years. Starting when you were at Starling Bank and never losing touch as you continue to win numerous individual awards and make a dramatic impact across several different organizations. Could you share a little bit about your milestones professionally as well as personally on your path to becoming this Chief Product Officer at ClearBank?

Megan Caywood (02:04):

Yeah, absolutely. I have truly enjoyed our friendship over the years, and I am so glad that you asked me to do this because I couldn't imagine anyone better to have this podcast with.

Megan Caywood (02:14):

But yeah, I started out my career in fintech and Silicon Valley at Intuit, purely because it was recommended by mentors at undergrad as the company to work for if you wanted to become a best-in-class product manager. So, the first milestone was really just getting that job as a product manager out of university.

Megan Caywood (02:32):

The product manager jobs in San Francisco, I realized are a bit different from the UK in that they are a bit more senior, and you didn't typically have a bit of a larger scope. It's typically something that you wouldn't get straight out of university. I just kind of happened to luck into a particular program at Intuit. And so, I got very lucky with that, I think.

Megan Caywood (02:52):

Then the main focus there at the time is they were undergoing a digital transformation and focusing on mobile and global. So, I had the good fortune of working on their UK product with QuickBooks and very quickly developed a niche skillset with new regulation in the UK with real-time information for their payroll product.

Megan Caywood (03:10):

So, that is what enabled me to go to Xero, which was a smaller company at the time, relative to Intuit, and they were just really building out their San Francisco office and to come into their even larger leadership role, build out the UK product and lead that from the ground up.

Jim Marous (03:25):

And then I was able to be from there, promoted to a global role where I was effectively leading multiple regions, development mall, particularly focusing on the UK.

Megan Caywood (03:35):

And that kind of set of experiences enabled me to have a few sizable wins under my belt where I had led products from the ground up. They'd launched, they'd had good success in the market. I had a number of patents to my name. I'd done a bit of public speaking, and that laid the foundation for me to get the exceptional talent visa to move to the UK.

Megan Caywood (03:54):

So, that milestone was huge because my thinking was, I absolutely loved working on the UK, the products here, the ecosystem here, the culture around fintech was just very alluring to me. And so, I wanted to come build my own company here. And that's when I met Anne Boden, who just completely sold me on the idea of building a bank instead of building the payments platform I had kind of thought I would work on.

Megan Caywood (04:18):

And so, in joining Starling, the best way I can describe it is like being strapped to a rocket ship. It was just incredible. And Anne, as my boss, was just such a pivotal thing for my career.

Megan Caywood (04:31):

And as part of the advice I give to younger women that I mentor is a key element in a job that you can look for, is just having kind of the highest distance boss in the hierarchy as you can have. Because then as you're excelling, they see it as a positive and they can help to support you and promote you, and also mentor you from their stage in their career. It's just so useful in so many ways.

Megan Caywood (04:50):

And so, Ann was definitely that for me. But yeah, it was just great fun building a bank. Everyone was very skeptical if we could do it, if it would be successful, if customers would like it, if we would be profitable. And just doing all the things was just an amazing ride.

Megan Caywood (05:04):

And then from there, being headhunted to Barclays just felt very fitting because at Intuit they had just started the digital transformation journey when I joined. And I got to learn from their leadership who just developed the most brilliant strategy.

Megan Caywood (05:20):

And I had the good fortune of watching them from an early career perspective and then going to Xero and building up and then going to Starling and learning about banking in the UK, and kind of taking that all together into Barclays to lead their digital strategy.

Megan Caywood (05:33):

And then from there going to the chief product officer role to really execute on it. And it was a mixture of all of those different events have now led me back into ClearBank, which is a scale up bank, I guess you'd say. It's no longer a startup. It's not quite the scale of Barclays, but it's a nice in-between, of a pre-IPO large scale challenger bank in the UK. So, it's been such an amazing journey and I'm really excited for this next step.

Jim Marous (05:58):

Well, it's funny because when we meet each other, it always seems like you're in a pointed transition, either at the beginning of it or it just happened or about to happen. But it's interesting because your journey has not been from a resume standpoint, linear.

Jim Marous (06:12):

I mean, you've done the fintech space, you've done the big fintech, if I call it Intuit, a big fintech.

Megan Caywood (06:17):

Yeah, yeah.

Jim Marous (06:17):

You've done the smaller fintech, a startup. You've done the bigger legacy, now you're getting back to a big fintech.

Megan Caywood (06:24):

Oh, yeah.

Jim Marous (06:25):

What are you looking for in those steps? Does it change because of where you are in your life or where these companies are and what role you can play in those? It's not a clear definition as to why you do it. But I'm sure there's a rationale behind what interests you at different times.

Megan Caywood (06:42):

Yeah. Actually, I'd like to say it was all me, but part of it is I read Marc Andreessen's blog that he compiled into a PDF that you can download for free as like an eBook. But when he gives career advice, he says, to be a successful entrepreneur, one thing that helps is if you go into a very large company that you can learn from really best-in-class people, then go into a smaller startup company. But that's kind of a mid-size scale.

Megan Caywood (07:07):

And then from there you can take that kind of combination of experience and then raise around and start your own company. And so, originally, I just thought I was on an entrepreneur's path, but what I've realized is actually for me, oscillating between big to small, big to small works really well because you go somewhere big, you learn a lot of skills, you really develop your resume.

Megan Caywood (07:26):

I think particularly early career people don't know you and they don't know what you're capable of. And so, they use heuristics like who you worked for, what university you went to. And so, trying to have a recognizable university, a recognizable company where you're having your achievements just helps to shortcut your next opportunities to ensure that you're getting the kind of opportunities that you want throughout your career.

Megan Caywood (07:50):

And then going somewhere small or to a startup, taking a risk is something you can do after you've been at a big company. You've saved up, you kind of have your emergency fund, worst case scenario, this doesn't pan out. You can take a bit more risk.

Megan Caywood (08:03):

And that if you're successful at it then lends to other big opportunities. So, going from Starling to then Barclays, Barclays being much more recognizable when you do things at scale, everyone knows who Barclays is. So, it's just, you can learn a different set of skills.

Megan Caywood (08:18):

But now going back into ClearBank, I see that again as a really exciting opportunity to take the combination of things I've learned along the way to go back into somewhere at an earlier stage and drive it from a different angle. But I think that makes a big/small, big/small, it is actually very useful in a number of ways.

Jim Marous (08:36):

It's interesting, we could get into it really deep if we talked about the inside personality traits that are there, because you're basically saying is you continually strive for something that's different. That's not familiar.

Jim Marous (08:48):

And then when you learn it, you want to say, "Okay, I want to deploy it in a different field, a different way." I remember everybody was wondering, "What is Megan going to do now that she's leaving Starling?" Because my gosh, that was a great gig.

Jim Marous (09:03):

I mean, as you said, it was an innovative gig. It was with a great boss. You had major name recognition. In fact, you still have name recognition associated with Starling. And then at Barclays you go, "Jeez, she can be happy there." But if you set your own pace with the confidence you build, having done it allows you to expand again.

Jim Marous (09:22):

And the back and forth is kind of interesting. But again, for me to do that or to say, people fear that change so much that they don't take that step, you actually seem to strive for that step, for that challenge, for that unknown.

Jim Marous (09:38):

And as you said it just in the last answer, the lack of fear of being wrong goes away. I mean, I use it. It's not my saying, but I say, it's not going to kill me. If I had to reset, I've had a lot of things where I said, "What's the worst that can happen?" And it actually did.

Jim Marous (09:56):

And you go, "Okay, it wasn't ... in many of these cases we go, would we do it again knowing what we know now? Yeah, because it helps a lot.

Megan Caywood (10:03):

Yeah, absolutely.

Jim Marous (10:04):

So, one thing's different, major difference between you and I besides the most obvious thing is that you're a woman and being a trailblazer as a woman rising to a c-suite level, that's challenging. What persistent opticals do women in financial services still commonly face? And how are these challenges different between smaller and larger organizations?

Megan Caywood (10:30):

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think you hit the nail on the head because when I went from Intuit to Xero, I really was thinking, at Intuit I'd been standing on the shoulder of giants. If I failed or hit significant obstacles, there were others in the company who were also experts that I could just defer to. There was kind of like an easy safety net.

Megan Caywood (10:47):

Whereas at Xero for the product I was building, there was no one else. There is me and as the expert on that particular product who understands the requirements. And you build a team of engineers who can build anything, but they don't know about RTI and the different tax system and all of the different elements that you would have to understand as a product person that you don't have the safety net for. It's a key thing though to be able to build up expertise and then execute it in a single individual way.

Megan Caywood (11:11):

But I think at any of these companies, the obstacles are consistent in that when your early career, you really have to prove yourself. You have to work hard, you have to gain the experience, you have a lot to learn. And when you first go into a job, a key bit of advice I had is you want to really try to build trust within the first 90 days. Figure out something tactical strategic, find your unique skillset and figure out how to wedge it in to build trust with the team as quickly as you can.

Megan Caywood (11:41):

So, on one of my teams we were hiring a designer, but we had a bit of a gap and we needed to start doing prototype testing with customers while we were still hiring and building the team concurrently. And because I'd been the editor of my school newspaper prior, I knew how to use Adobe InDesign.

Megan Caywood (11:56):

So, I just took all of our assets generally for the company, customized it and localized it to the UK and did all the designs myself. And created this clickable prototype to use in testing. And it just made everything so much easier and faster. And it was just an easy way to drive value very quickly on a team who needed a gap filled. And you can just kind of anoint yourself to do the job. So, being a bit of an entrepreneur, if there's a problem and you can solve it, solve it, even if it's not really within the job spec.

Megan Caywood (12:23):

But then the thing I didn't foresee that happens is, so let's say you come in and you're successful at that goal. You build trust, you're successful within the first 90 days. You're doing really well with your team. You're getting good recognition from peers.

Megan Caywood (12:36):

Then what you have — or you're getting good recognition from leaders is peers tend to get threatened by that. And you get a bit of tall poppy syndrome and there's a competitive nature that can start to manifest, that's interesting.

Megan Caywood (12:50):

So, that's why one of the key things I really liked when I went to Xero and then when I went to Starling in particular, is I kept trying to kind of heighten the distance between me and my boss. because you can get kind of promoted up under your boss.

Megan Caywood (13:02):

And so, your boss typically won't promote you above them. It's kind of harder to move as quickly if you have to kind of go in different directions around the company to get promoted. But if your boss is significantly advanced from you, they see your work. It reflects well on them. They like it, they can promote you up. It's just a faster kind of method to do it. And so, that's one way to shortcut competitiveness and tall poppy syndrome from peers.

Megan Caywood (13:26):

The other obstacles I've found, to be honest, is as a female, I've never felt ... well, early in my career, I'd never really felt any gender specific challenges, to be honest. At Intuit, they were just very supportive of women. At Xero, I don't know, it's just like, if I was ever treated differently, it was completely lost on me. I couldn't see it. It didn't feel like it. And obviously it's Starling, it didn't feel like it.

Megan Caywood (13:50):

At Barclays there was a bit only because there's some older male bankers. It was only a few key examples really. But I remember I went into one meeting and a guy thought I was there to take notes.

Megan Caywood (14:01):

I'm like, “I'm not here to take notes. I'm a peer executive.” Oh God. But for the most part, I've actually had other women being more antagonistic across the board. I don't know what that pattern's about other than just being my reality.

Megan Caywood (14:17):

But the key way that I overcome these obstacles of just the various challenges that can come up more with how you just kind of navigating, moving, and gaining, to be honest, it's very simple for me and straightforward, which is I just try to ignore it.

Megan Caywood (14:31):

I just try to keep focusing, keep aiming, keep working hard, keep doing my thing, and very much focus on being clear on my particular goals, really just trying to work hard to figure out how to navigate that. And when you get a setback, which inevitably happens, there's just a mindset of grit and resilience that you have to have.

Megan Caywood (14:51):

And Ben Horowitz has this great book called The Hard Thing About Hard Things. And he weaves in a lot of rap music. So honestly, I find different ways to just listen to music that's motivational, to be really focused and resilient.

Megan Caywood (15:02):

If someone is really conniving and undercutting, I have a key methodology of just being kind and ignoring it. And because the industry is so small, I've made it — I don't even know if this strategic, Jim, it's just what I do, but I just turn the other cheek and I'm just friendly and I pretend like it didn't happen.

Megan Caywood (15:21):

And then we're off working at other companies. If I see them, I'm always relentlessly friendly. I speak positively about them, or I don't say anything at all. And that's just a key method I've had. So, I think, yeah, the reality is there's just so many challenges that you can have that will come up.

Megan Caywood (15:36):

And so, just finding ways to be gritty and resilient and to keep growing despite setbacks is just the most fundamental thing. There's actually a positive (I don't know what you'd call it), like soundtrack on SoundCloud called Why We Fall Motivational Sounds. I'll send it to you.

Megan Caywood (15:53):

It's a compilation of the most motivational speeches. I listen to it multiple times a year or month, depending on how it's going. But it has quotes from Rocky in it. I've never actually seen Rocky, but it's like you know that quote, it's like, "It doesn't matter how hard you can hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done."

Megan Caywood (16:15):

Then there's this other quote that's excellent, that's like … how does it go? Actually, I wrote it down earlier because I was thinking of it and it's so good. It's in this — let me see here. How does it go? It's also in Rocky. I have not seen Rocky. So, for any Rocky fans listening to this, they'll know it way better than me.

Megan Caywood (16:33):

But it says, "Now, if you know what you're worth and go out and get what you're worth, but you've got to be willing to take the hits and not point the finger saying you aren't where you want to be because of him or her, anybody. Cowards do that. And that ain't you. You're better than that."

Megan Caywood (16:44):

And I just love it because I feel like at any point in any career, whether you're a female or whatever your particular thing is, that makes ... everyone has their own set of challenges in life. There's going to be so many reasons at any given point why a certain path won't work out, why certain goals won't work, why things will be challenging and difficult. You just have to figure out how to make it work anyway. And so, I really like those quotes for it.

Jim Marous (17:07):

Okay. So, do you have brothers and sisters?

Megan Caywood (17:10):

I do. I have an older brother. Yeah.

Jim Marous (17:12):

So, you're a second child?

Megan Caywood (17:13):

Yeah, I am. Yeah, yeah.

Jim Marous (17:15):

So, and the only reason I ask is you haven't — and it is one of these things I've known about you, and I didn't really sense it until I heard you speak with that, you have an inner confidence that is not a pushy confidence. You don't have to be the smartest person in the room. You'd rather make others smarter because you'll still absorb the same thing. It's just with less threat.

Megan Caywood (17:36):

Yeah.

Jim Marous (17:36):

Where did you first sense that you had this inner confidence? I mean, your education, obviously, it's nice to have an educational background that includes Stanford, because it doesn't matter if you're male or female, that kind of speaks for itself in a way.

Jim Marous (17:51):

But did it come before that? Because you seem to have ... because of that confidence, and it's usually internal or external, more than internal, because of that confidence, you don't seem to have to rely on worrying about failure. You just go, “Eh, it's going to happen. I'm good, I'm good.” So, when did that confidence, that inner confidence show up in your mind?

Megan Caywood (18:14):

It was very, certainly from my grandmother. So, my grandmother had the most resilient, strong mindset. I can't do it justice with a description, but I remember when I was younger, she was my best friend. We were so close. If there's this thing of like, soulmates and someone could be part of your same soul, it's definitely my grandma. We were very close.

Megan Caywood (18:34):

And she was so strong that I think before I had that own mental soundtrack in my mind of how you're tough, how you're resilient, how you kind of process challenges and respond to it in a positive way. I think she was so strong, and she was such a supporter and we were so close. I think growing up from a young age, I was just very fortunate to have that.

Megan Caywood (18:54):

And then going through life events, to be honest, I had a series of life events where I think things wouldn't necessarily work out the way I wanted them to initially. And then you just stay, and you keep pushing and then you figure it out and then it works out even better than you'd imagined.

Megan Caywood (19:09):

For example, I'll just give you a very specific example. And it just reinforces the confidence is why I say that. Because at first in life, you don't have the experience. So, it's like through experience, you kind of gain it. But when I was applying to undergraduate, the only university I wanted to go to was Pepperdine, where I got my bachelor's degree.

Megan Caywood (19:28):

And so, I was thankfully in the University of Oklahoma where I grew up doing that concurrently with high school. because you can start doing university courses in high school if you tested, which is great because I did the summer school at Pepperdine. I had a professor there recommending. I had a good GPA in test course. I thought I would get in. I only applied to Pepperdine, and I got waitlisted, and I didn't get off the wait list.

Megan Caywood (19:48):

And so, I was devastated. And so, then my professor, he was like, “I highly recommend you reapply.” So, I did this whole reapplying. I got in, I even ended up meeting someone else there who had ended up putting another reference in for me. And I got accepted.

Megan Caywood (20:04):

But then I ended up not getting scholarship. But I remember when I didn't get scholarship at first, they were like, “Are you going to accept our offer?” The director of admission called me personally. I'm like, "Well, I'm waiting to hear about scholarships." And he is like, "Well, you're not getting any." And I was like, "Oh my God." In hindsight it's quite-

Jim Marous (20:20):

I haven't figured that one out.

Megan Caywood (20:22):

I thought it was quite cocky in hindsight, but I had scholarship to OU. I'd done very well academically. I was like, naturally I will.

Megan Caywood (20:27):

So anyways, I had called the president back who had been one of my referrals who had met in the interim. I was like, "Thank you so much for recommending me. I'm going to decline and stay at OU where I have scholarship, because financially it makes more sense." Because Pepperdine's wonderful, but very, very expensive.

Megan Caywood (20:42):

And so, he's like, "Well, let me make some calls, see what we can make happen." And I ended up getting scholarship to go. And then after I joined Pepperdine, after that call, I ended up joining the speech and debate team and getting scholarship for that. And I ended up doing the research that led me to Stanford getting more scholarships for that.

Megan Caywood (20:57):

And all in all, I ended up by the end of that having a full scholarship, and all this compilation of scholarships I had. So, I think that whole narrative for me of being waitlisted to being accepted, to getting a scholarship and then getting more scholarships and turning it into such a success story ended up being so useful and reaffirming that it helped.

Jim Marous (21:16):

It's a great story because if you hadn't been rejected, you would've never made that call to the president. And just in your story, you take steps that are outside the norm, what we'll see norm overall. You don't get fear of change. You keep on going, I'm going to plot through this.

Jim Marous (21:35):

But you do it in a very — I mean, again, I've known you for eight years, you seem to do it in a very nice way. I don't know how else to put it.

Megan Caywood (21:43):

Thank you.

Jim Marous (21:44):

You're not like, I'm going to bust through the wall. It's kind of I'm going to find out where the weaknesses in the wall are and I'm going to find the way to get in, which is a whole different mindset. And it's interesting because you talk about your grandmother being a mentor, and it's amazing when you get older how often you refer to those first mentors.

Jim Marous (22:02):

I had an uncle that was certainly my mentor in the business world as my dad was. But my uncle had another level that he'd always looked to me and pick up the phone call and go, "So how you doing moose?" And he was so successful.

Jim Marous (22:19):

But what I admired about him was if you saw him on the street, you'd never know how important in the ecosystem of finance he was. Because he didn't wear it as a badge. He simply did it. And you learn these things. And again, so many people, we talked before the podcast about things you've done on a personal basis that you said, why don't people pick up hobbies? Why don't people do something different that nobody has to know you if you've failed or succeeded. But it's outside your comfort zone.

Jim Marous (22:48):

And that, honestly, I started with The Financial Brand out of the mindset that said … and it started with actually building a blog out of the mindset that I was 55-years-old. And I said, "I don't want to ever be viewed as irrelevant. I've got to keep on learning." And that's a big element of that. If you keep on learning, you always find a way or you have that mindset.

Megan Caywood (23:09):

Yeah. Absolutely.

Jim Marous (23:11):

On a personal level, outside of the professional skills, what inner traits or behaviors or mindsets do you credit the most to your success for navigating in what is a male dominated industry, but one which you really negated in some ways the elephant in the room by just showing up in a different way than people may expect?

Megan Caywood (23:33):

Well, the first one is actually one of the things that drew me to Stanford, which was Growth Mindset by Carol Dweck. They have this fascinating research that shows that effectively there's neuroplasticity. So, let's say you're bad at something, but that's a baseline. The idea is that if you exercise your brain like a muscle, you can build skill and you can build capacity where it didn't exist before through effort.

Megan Caywood (23:58):

And so, the idea is if you have a fixed mindset and you go into something and you're afraid to fail, failure's not a sign that you're bad at it under growth mindset. It's just that you haven't done it before. So, you just have to keep working and improving. And through effort you can improve and become strong at something you're not.

Megan Caywood (24:13):

So, I think on the one hand, having that view of not being afraid to be bad at something, because worst case scenario, even if you're not a natural, you can develop the skill through effort.

Megan Caywood (24:23):

And then secondarily, there's another researcher, I don't know where she's from. She has a TED Talk whose name I don't even remember either now that I think about it, but it's all about grit. But I remember watching it and thinking that describes so well I think my entire mentality on everything, which is you just got to be gritty, you just have to keep going.

Megan Caywood (24:40):

And then I listen to like a million things, so I'll just keep quoting them. But another one is The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. It's phenomenal. I think he was at Carnegie Mellon. They had a series called The Last Lecture by the professors. He ended up being given a very short timeline for the amount of time he had left to live with a particular type of cancer he had. So, he really gave a last lecture. And it is so moving.

Megan Caywood (25:01):

But one of the quotes he has are, "The walls aren't there to keep you out. They're there to keep the other people out. They're there for reasons to show how much you want something." And so, I've always internalized a mixture of I can do it growth mindset, stay really gritty with it and just be aware that anything that worth having, there's probably going to be a wall or a challenge with it. Also, The Dip by Seth Godin, he writes about-

Jim Marous (25:26):

Oh yeah.

Megan Caywood (25:26):

Have you read this?

Jim Marous (25:27):

Seth Godin, yeah.

Megan Caywood (25:28):

He's so good. The book is actually quite small. So, if you ever just have half an hour to read a motivational book-

Jim Marous (25:33):

All his book, he deceives you because there is so much in these very small books that he has. Yeah.

Megan Caywood (25:39):

That's so good. And yeah, he just very eloquently describes, and he references into it and I read it right when I was joining into it. But he is like, “If you're trying to achieve something really notable, like the bigger the thing you're trying to achieve, the bigger the dip.”

Megan Caywood (25:50):

So, the more challenges you're going to have. So, at the beginning, you're going to be excited, but then you're going to start hitting all the challenges that come with achieving this big thing. So, let's say you want the next big QuickBooks in the U.S. well, they are so entrenched, the dip is going to be massive. So, you're going to have so many challenges to achieve that goal.

Megan Caywood (26:06):

And so, it's just around creating that mindset of challenges don't mean you shouldn't be doing what you're doing, just means you have to lean into it and really work hard to achieve it. So, I think a mixture of those mindsets in terms of going into a very male dominated industry, going in somewhere where I'm really young.

Jim Marous (26:21):

I think one thing I had going for me is in tech being young and dressing casually was very trendy. Everyone's wearing their company branded T-shirts and being very relaxed. So, it was even more, I think of a challenge going into a Barclays where I'm trying to really have an impact, but come from that industry, which was quite different. But I think embracing those mindsets continually really helps it kind of no matter the situation.

Jim Marous (26:46):

The only thing I can add to your book list is I love Atomic Habits by James Clear. Because it talks about the little things you can do every day to get to your bigger goal. So, it's the way of breaking down habits.

Jim Marous (26:57):

And it was interesting because when I heard it for the first time and heard it for the second time, I always put it in context of how could companies do that? How could companies take these big, huge initiatives and break them down. And it was at the very beginning of the popularity of the concept of composable solutions, which is exactly that. It's kind of going, you don't have to do a complete back-office transformation. But you got to move forward. You can't wait because you'll never get there.

Megan Caywood (27:24):

Yeah. I love that. Yeah. I just started reading it. It's so good.

Jim Marous (27:28):

You're going to love it. You're going to love it. I was going to actually end the last section and go have you read Green Eggs and Ham? Because it's one of my favorites.

Megan Caywood (27:36):

Such a good one.

Jim Marous (27:38):

I'm going, I’m going to have to listen to this podcast four or five times or the transcript and go, okay, so I got to read all this stuff.

Megan Caywood (27:45):

Yeah. Actually, on Atomic Habits, it's funny because on my gardening leave, one of my hobbies I've also taken up is designing a planner/journal. And because I'm just now reading Atomic Habits, he has this whole thing that your goal is only part of the challenge. Everyone in the Olympics, he says, wants to win a gold medal. It doesn't mean they do, it's how good their systems and processes are.

Megan Caywood (28:04):

And he recommends for goal setting, you start with identity. So, you have these narratives you say about yourself. Like, "I'm not a morning person." He's like, change that to, "I'm the type of person who works out every day." And that requires me-

Jim Marous (28:16):

I'm not a marathon runner.

Megan Caywood (28:18):

Yeah, exactly. He's like, "You have to figure out what those stories are and then write your identity goals," and then you have outcome goals. And then that kind of just feeds into the results. But I think you're right, it's very applicable to the corporate world as well kind of conversely.

[Music Playing]

Jim Marous (28:31):

Let's take a short break here and recognize the sponsor of this podcast.

Jim Marous (28:38):

Welcome back to Banking Transformed. So, today I'm joined by Megan Caywood Cooper, group Chief Product Officer at ClearBank. We've been exploring the amazing path to success across various financial services firms Megan has taken to get where she is today.

Jim Marous (28:54):

So, there's no shortage of recognition of your accomplishments. From the Forbes 30 under 30 to being a trailblazing woman, recognized in numerous influencer and leadership lists. What still drives you and motivates you after so many achievements?

Megan Caywood (29:10):

Yeah, I think the industry that I work in being finance is that you could have so much positive impact on consumers' lives. I think it's really exciting. And I think in this sector in particular, there's still so much opportunity for digital transformation and that I find really, really exciting and compelling.

Megan Caywood (29:30):

I think to your point, honestly, after getting Forbes 30 under 30 from an awards point of view, that was kind of like the peak in terms of awards. I mean, Forbes does have other ones, like 100 most powerful people, I guess, at some point. And maybe some of those awards I think would be nice in terms of accolades.

Megan Caywood (29:48):

But I think purely in terms of the thing that I get excited about is how we can continue to transform financial services. And going to ClearBank is really exciting because unlike some of the other places I've gone, they're really focusing on the infrastructure.

Megan Caywood (30:03):

And it's something that I'm very passionate about, about the backend. Because for a long time in banking, you'll remember this actually, when we first met, I remember we bumped into each other, I think at an EFMA conference. I remember we had known each other and spoken so much over the community of Twitter. I was still quite starstruck seeing you actually in person.

Megan Caywood (30:21):

But I remember at the time there were so many people who were innovating on the front end. They had some nice apps, but really the backend innovation was still catching up. It wasn't being really prioritized or understood yet by all the firms across the ecosystem. So, Starling, were really trying to champion full stack banking.

Megan Caywood (30:38):

But I'm really excited about ClearBank now because that is their key focus areas on the infrastructure, on the back end, really focusing on how it is that we can transform banking from that kind of central position in the industry. So, I find it really exciting to work on.

Jim Marous (30:53):

It's interesting, Megan, my wife was a ... still is a superstar in the retail industry in garments and accessories and all kinds of other things. She started a company that's very familiar to those in the U.S. and I always held her a much higher esteem than what she held herself to.

Jim Marous (31:12):

But one thing that kind of gave her a major hiccup in her career, and that's not really good to call it that, but was starting a family, not just getting married, but more importantly, having a child. It throws you off your game because all of a sudden, you're getting into something that you're not born with any skills to. Everybody gives you suggestions, which makes you even more uncomfortable about what you don't know.

Jim Marous (31:35):

And you got married and started a family during midpoint of your highest point of your career in many ways. How did that change your work-life balance, and what were you able to apply from what you did professionally to what you do as a mom?

Megan Caywood (31:54):

Yeah, I think it's such a good question because I've read some really fascinating research and data about how there's, I think they call it the marriage penalty or not the marriage, the motherhood penalty. So yeah, the marriage penalty, similar. I didn't need it. No. The mother-

Jim Marous (32:14):

Maybe they're connected. Maybe they're connected.

Megan Caywood (32:16):

Maybe. Oh gosh. Yeah. So basically, this idea that like you could be going and going and going and building in your career, but when you become a mom, all of a sudden, the promotions and the pay rises and everything career wise just slows down.

Megan Caywood (32:30):

And so, that's where you see kind of women's earnings stop and men keep going. And so, you see this big differentiation in pay, particularly at that point in women's careers. And so, for me, I was just very determined going into it that I'm like, I want to be a mom and I want to be a full-on mom. I want to be a good mom.

Megan Caywood (32:48):

I don't want to half do it and half career. I want to figure out how to do both, just go full tilt at both. I want to be full professional and full mom. And I wanted to figure out how to nail that so that I could try to set an example to not necessarily be like the Sheryl Sandbergs and the Marissa Mayers who take two weeks of maternity leave and then have a nursery in their office.

Megan Caywood (33:08):

I love that for them. But most people can't build a nursery in their corporate office. It's not very feasible. I did get lucky with the pandemic though, because now working from home was a thing. So, I think I didn't expect that to be quite so useful.

Megan Caywood (33:20):

But I very much went into it wanting to very much embrace being a mom and being a professional. And I had this moment early when I was in university or college as we say in the U.S., where I had nominated one of my professors for these women, I think it was a woman leadership award, like Female of the Year or something. And she won.

Megan Caywood (33:43):

And so, we were at this big banquet dinner and the president was a female president of somewhere called Comerica Bank in the U.S. If you know it.

Jim Marous (33:49):

Gosh, yes. In Detroit. Yep.

Jim Marous (33:50):

Yeah. And she got-

Jim Marous (33:52):

One of my clients. Yep.

Megan Caywood (33:53):

She was fantastic. She was like, "You know what, I'm a mom and I'm the CEO of a bank and everyone on my team knows that my first priority is my family. If I'm in an EXCO meeting and my children call, everyone knows I'm going to prioritize that phone call. I will get up; I'll walk out of the meeting and I will take the call because they're my first priority."

Megan Caywood (34:08):

And I remember she was like, "I'm not gray about it. I'm black and white. This is my priority, but I can be really effective as an executive while also prioritizing my family. And that's what I'm going to do." And I remember when I became a mom, I'm like, "I'm going to try my best to do — I mean, I'm going to be honest, I don't do exactly that. I put on my phone a bit on airplane mode, quite a bit in EXCO meetings, but ...

Megan Caywood (34:31):

But I try to lean into that idea that you can be a mom and you can be a professional, but it's hard advice to follow. I think I was quite fortunate in how my career kind of panned out. But if you can push it to get as high as you can, as fast as you can before you become a mom, it's good because naturally you do slow down because when you're on maternity leave, the nature of it is you aren't working, so you're not going to be moving as quickly. But if you're-

Jim Marous (35:01):

It's not your time. It's not your time. You don't have nearly the structure you did in the business world because you could be sitting there and you have something you're getting that and all of a sudden nature calls, baby calls, whatever. Yeah.

Megan Caywood (35:13):

But if you're already at a high level, it's great because you're at a high level before maternity leave, you come back and you're still at a high level. And even if you didn't get promoted, it's fine. You're in the c-suite, it's great. You know what I mean? You just keep going in the c-suite.

Megan Caywood (35:23):

So, you're already like at a place where when you step back in, you step into a place of strength I found. And for me, with being a mother, to be honest, there's so many different resources you can tap into in terms of childcare. We don't have family close by, so that's not really an option for us. And our daughter was also diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes but thank the lord for good private school. So, got to utilize that for like healthcare type stuff.

Megan Caywood (35:52):

But between being able to work from home more post pandemic, being able to utilize local childcare, then you just prioritize being able to spend time to do bath time with kids after school. And then most companies in my industry work flexibly.

Megan Caywood (36:06):

So, if you kind of have to take some time, but you still need to catch up on stuff later in the evening, then that works out as well. So, you just figure out how to manage your time really effectively, try to align yourself with companies who support being a parent. And also, being a professional.

Megan Caywood (36:24):

I think one of the things I love about ClearBank is when I joined, my future boss, he was telling me, he's like, "Just so you know, we really support parents. Males and females in the company are parents. They both parent, and so we'll occasionally have responsibilities. The kid's sick and they have to go get them. And that's very supported."

Megan Caywood (36:42):

Similarly, even at Barclays, there's a point where Jes Staley was asked in one of our leadership meetings about attracting, retaining talent, like some of the key elements. And one of the things he mentioned was fully supporting people, not only in terms of being their whole selves at work and supporting diversity in every sense.

Megan Caywood (37:00):

But also, he gave the example of if you're a single mom and you have kids football game, you have to go to it at 2:00 PM on a Thursday. If there's some random thing like that that you need, then you know, we support you and you come back, and we know you'll do your work and you'll get things completed on your own time. But life, there's other things than just work and life, and we support that.

Megan Caywood (37:18):

So, I think aligning yourself to companies that support it. I will say one thing that also was key probably in hindsight is early on when I was interviewing at Barclays, I proactively told them I wanted to start a family in the near future. I was like, just as a heads up, that's the timeline because I knew and at Starling would support it.

Megan Caywood (37:36):

So, I'm like, my career is rather safe at Starling with this female CEO who supports me, who won't mind if I have kids. But banks, I don't know, have the same reputation. And they're like, "That's fantastic. That's great. More harmony at home is more harmony at work. We really support it."

Megan Caywood (37:52):

So, I think it's not the traditional advice to kind of go in with that, but I figured I had told them early enough in the process that they could just find someone better qualified if they saw it as a negative. And I kind of wanted that because I didn't want to go somewhere that wouldn't support me on that journey, I suppose.

Jim Marous (38:09):

Well, it's interesting is there's nothing more insecure than raising a child because there's no real guidebook. And every child's different, every inner relationship between parent and child and parent and parent when there's a child and all those elements are so different.

Jim Marous (38:26):

But there's also ... I'm on, I wouldn't say the tail end of my fatherhood, but the reality is my son's on his own and the pride and the reward that comes with that. There's nothing in the corporate world that comes close to that.

Jim Marous (38:38):

I mean, today was a great example. He is at our house for a couple weeks for the holidays and he got an unexpected call from his boss. His boss said, you have about 10 minutes to get together with myself and your boss's boss and we have to have a discussion with you.

Jim Marous (38:52):

Well, he's very confident that, okay, it's not going to be bad news. That's pretty good. And he got a significant raise. But it was what was said with that about the kind of person they view him as that as a parent, you go, oh, that is a mic drop moment.

Jim Marous (39:07):

But it's something you're going to see along the way that you've gone through a lot of the insecure moments that you challenge yourself, "Geez, am I doing right as mom? Is this right? Should I do this?" There is no guidebook.

Jim Marous (39:19):

You have the people that say, have the kids sleep with you, have the kid not sleep with you. Have the kid travel, have them not travel. Go out on dates. Do not go out. I mean, you're going to find a counter to every idea you come up with, but it's very interesting.

Jim Marous (39:30):

So, as we wrap this up, what one piece of advice would you give to young women aspiring to be in leadership roles, but I'm also say young men because I don't see anything that you did in your path that you did differently if you were the other gender. The same path would've played out either way.

Megan Caywood (39:51):

Yeah. My main advice would be, well, gosh, it is hard to sum it up in a short sentence, but effectively, step one is to be very clear on what your goal is. Sometimes I mentor people and they have a vague idea of what they want, but the clearer you can get on like, I want to achieve this. I want this specific position at this company or this type of company in this industry. Even if you have to refresh your goals on a quarterly basis, set very clear goals, be very clear about what you want to achieve.

Megan Caywood (40:20):

Also, one of my early mentors in university had me do this exercise of vision boarding with her. And I swear by it because if you bring it into that level of consciousness very specifically, and you put a visual with it, with what you want to achieve, it just helps you find more opportunities to seek out that experience and to achieve it. So, that's step one.

Megan Caywood (40:39):

The other thing is find really good mentors. Just whoever you are working with, or you see in your company that you want to aspire to be like, meet with them. Ask them if you can buy them a cup of coffee and tell them your specific goals.

Megan Caywood (40:52):

A lot of times people will be very happy to share advice, even if there's no more they can give you, but it can be critical and so helpful. And the mentors that I've had have been so useful in that experience.

Megan Caywood (41:04):

And then my other piece of advice is just to remember that the industry is really small. And so, to continue to be kind and to be hardworking, to really just stay focused on what you want to do. If you have challenges or setbacks, if you end up in one of those kind of political competitive environments, just don't worry about it, be aware of it. Just keep moving forward. And in worst case scenarios, you can still figure it out. But just to stay kind, stay hardworking, keep focused and keep aiming.

Jim Marous (41:31):

I'm glad you ended with that because I was going to end this conversation with a perspective on you that I've seen over the years. And a couple of weeks ago, we were in an event together, an award ceremony, and you were like honey to bears, wherever you are, you draw a crowd around you because people want to be around you. And it's for exactly the same reason you just brought up.

Jim Marous (41:53):

Number one, you're extraordinarily kind, over and above everything else, number one. Number two is you don't put on air. So, no matter where you are in the industry, you got to draw it out of you where you are right now. In fact, I found out about that, I found about the ClearBank thing because I was persistent. I said, “Well, you're not going to stop. So what?” "Okay, it's not officially yet, but this is what I'm going to be doing."

Jim Marous (42:17):

And then more importantly, you're wicked smart.

Megan Caywood (42:20):

Thank you.

[Music Playing]

Jim Marous (42:21):

And so, you're always going to bring something to a conversation as you've done today that is going to expand the world around you and expand what I know as a person who's talking to you. And I just want to say thank you so much for letting me be a friend, for you being my friend.

Jim Marous (42:37):

And just as importantly, for every single conversation I see that I've either had with you or that others have had with you that I've watched, Ali Patterson a great example. It not only is fun, but it's extraordinarily enlightening.

Megan Caywood (42:53):

Thank you.

Jim Marous (42:53):

So, you bring a lot to the world, and you really do set a path that more people should follow because they won't question whether or not you were the top woman in this or top woman, no, you're a leadership. That Forbes 30 at 30 or whatever it was, again, it's not gender related. It has to do with how strong you are as a person.

Jim Marous (43:15):

So again, thank you very much for being on the show. You bring a lot, not only to the industry, but to the world. And it is a joy to know you.

Megan Caywood (43:24):

Well, thank you so much for having me, Jim. And equally, I have been such a big fan of yours over the years, so it's such a privilege to be on the show. So, thank you again for the invite and having me today.

Jim Marous (43:33):

Thanks for listening to Banking Transformed, the top podcast in retail banking and the winner of three international awards for podcast excellence. We appreciate the support we have received to make this endeavor a success. If you enjoy what we're doing, please take some time to show some love in the form of a review.

Jim Marous (43:50):

Finally, be sure to catch my articles on The Financial Brand and check out the research that we're doing for the Digital Banking Report.

Jim Marous (43:57):

This has been a production of Evergreen Podcasts. A special thank you to our senior producer, Leah Haslage, audio engineer Chris Fafalios and video producer Will Pritts.

Jim Marous (44:07):

If you've not already done so, remember to subscribe to Banking Transformed on your favorite podcast app and on YouTube for more thought-provoking discussions on the intersection of finance, technology, and leadership.

Jim Marous (44:20):

Thanks for joining us today. And until next time, keep innovating and transforming.

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