Early on in my career, I was actually told that I didn't make enough mistakes.
The feedback was really one of challenge, to challenge the status quo and come up with
new, better ways of doing things.
Part of finding new ways involves risk, that's been a pivotal lesson in my own development
that you should embrace the risk of failure, it's a really important ingredient to innovation.
Hi, I'm Sally Patton, editor of BOSS from the Australian Financial Review.
And welcome to 15 minutes with the BOSS, a podcast about success and failure and everything
in between and along the way we're hoping to get some really great advice from our leaders.
My guest today is Renasha Mota, the outgoing chief executive of Insignia Financial.
Hi Renasha, how are you?
Good Sally, how are you?
I'm very, very well, thank you.
And thank you so much for coming into the studio today.
Now, Renato, you're the outgoing CEO of Insignia Financial, which is a wealth management company
specialising in advice, superannuation and asset management with a history that goes
back to 1846 and which used to be known as IWF.
And you are leaving the company after 20 years in February next year.
How does it feel?
It feels a little daunting.
I've got to say, Sally, I have had 20 years with the firm.
It feels like I've grown up with the firm.
I've also had the privilege of leading it for the last five through an incredible transformative
period for the industry.
So it is mixed feelings, but equally, I go with a sense of having achieved a tremendous
amount and leaving the organisation really prepared to whatever comes next.
So it feels like we've achieved a large part of our mission.
But as always, there's more to do with these jobs.
There is always more to do, isn't there?
OK, we've only got 15 minutes.
So let's start the clock right now.
My first question is about your morning routine.
What time do you get up?
What happens in the morning?
Are you one of these CEOs who does 10 to 15 minutes of mindfulness and runs half a marathon?
I do a little bit of both of those, but probably not to that extreme.
So I'd normally get up between 6.30 and 7.
But I do like to spend probably the first hour or so setting my mindset for the day
and making sure I'm really deliberate about how I show up.
Typically, that starts with the first thing I do is check my emails and check the
news for the day.
And I think part of that's actually just understanding the landscape and what I can
expect for the day.
And then normally I'll actually go for a run, maybe not half marathon, but probably
And I find that really helpful to help me prioritise what matters most.
So I'll typically find my mindset will shift quite dramatically from the start of the run
and normally a bit slow.
But by the end of it, I think I'll normally finish the run with a really strong sense
And I find it really sets me up for the rest of the day.
So do you have great ideas while you're out running?
I find some of the best problem solving that I've done has been on a run.
Now, there's some science to back that up, but inevitably I find allowing the mind to
wander, allowing the mind to maybe think a little bit more creatively and less linearly
has resulted in a series of ideas.
Not necessarily all ideas are great ideas, but certainly there have been a few that have
actually been meaningful in the business context.
And arguably, I wouldn't have come up with those had I not actually been in that state.
So you one of these runners who tracks their exercise and their sleep?
I do like my data and I track my sleep.
And in the majority of time, I'd get my eight hours sleep.
I think it's a really important part, again, of making sure I'm showing up well.
So I don't try and shortcut my sleep.
It's not not not an area where I try and cheat.
That's good. That's disciplined.
I'm a great believer in habits.
So just as I've got my morning habit, I think getting eight hours of sleep has been important
in making sure you can be effective and you can support the people that need support.
So, Renato, how do you track your sleep?
Well, I use my smartwatch, which also obviously I use for running.
But from a sleep perspective, it's actually been quite useful to not only understand how
many hours you sleep, but what stages of sleep are you in, whether it's REM, rapid eye
movement, whether it's a deep sleep, light sleep, whether you're waking up during the night.
So it's actually been a really helpful way to understand the quality of sleep and
importantly, what are the factors that impact that quality of sleep, whether it's alcohol,
whether it's the level of stress during the day.
So I found it quite helpful to help me just fine tune some of my behaviours.
Oh, that's really interesting.
I should adopt that.
Now, Renato, my next question is about a pivotal moment in your career.
Can you tell me about a time in your career that changed the trajectory of what you were
doing or changed you as a business person in some way?
I was really fortunate to begin my career in investment banking.
It was an incredible place to learn.
You're surrounded by incredibly smart people, highly motivated, working in a really
dynamic and changing work.
However, despite enjoying the work, it felt hollow.
It felt there was something missing.
And for me, that was actually a sense of purpose and connectedness to the work, which
for me led me to leaving an environment I was loving, but seeking something else.
And that actually led me to take a role inside a corporate and inside Ida Blowiff at the
time. And immediately I found that sense of connection.
So did you take the plunge and quit your job and then look for another one?
Or did you already have your job at Ida Blowiff lined up?
No, I sought a job whilst I remained in investment banking.
So it was an orderly transition, but one that I'm really grateful for.
OK, next question.
What is the best piece of career advice you've ever been given?
Early on in my career, I was actually told that as part of an annual feedback session
that I didn't make enough mistakes.
I've always and had always prided myself on the quality of my work, the accuracy of
the work, and to be told that you didn't make enough mistakes, I found a bit challenging
initially. And as I unpacked that, I look back on that as actually the right feedback
for me at that point in time.
And the feedback was really one of challenge to challenge the status quo.
So in a sense, you're playing it safe then?
Absolutely. I think what that was alluding to is probably a slightly risk averse nature
in my attitude and at the time for an organisation that was wanting to grow, was wanting to
challenge the status quo and come up with new, better ways of doing things.
So for me, that that was that's been a pivotal lesson in my own development that part of
finding new ways involves risk, but you should embrace that and you should embrace the risk
of failure is a really important ingredient to innovation.
Now, Renato, stay where you are.
We're going to take a short break.
And when we come back, we're going to open the Chatterbox.
Welcome back to 15 minutes with the boss.
I'm here with Renato Mota, the chief executive of Insinia Financial.
Now, this section, Renato, is called Chatterbox.
The Chatterbox is a lovely brown cardboard box inside which are 20 questions all written on
little bits of paper all squished up.
I would normally ask you to pick out a couple of questions and hand them to me, which I
will, of course, ask you to answer.
But since we're in different cities, I'm going to do the fishing for you.
I hope you're OK with that.
I'm OK with that.
I'm sure you'll pick well, Sally.
OK, wish me luck.
Here's my first pick and your first question.
What's your pet hate in the office?
I think at the moment, post-COVID, I wouldn't call it a hate, but I certainly enjoyed the
days of having all the desks full.
And I think in a hybrid working environment, the reality is that at any given point in
time, you're going to have a large part of your workforce working from home.
And whilst I think that's a positive, I think, for society generally, I do miss the days
of having a full office where you could just walk down a corridor and have those conversations
that I think are a really important part of creativity in the office.
Yeah, that's true, because those water cooler conversations can be really important in just
triggering ideas and exchanging information with your colleagues.
Do you sort of worry that if that doesn't happen long term, there might be some negative
consequences from that?
I absolutely believe that there are consequences from or potential missed opportunities from
hybrid. So, for example, I think a lot about our younger talent who are coming into the
workforce or graduates who are still learning their craft, because I know much of my learning
was those incidental conversations or overhearing how a more senior, more experienced professional
would undertake their task.
So that's very hard to replicate in a remote operating environment.
It's not impossible, but it is much harder.
So I think we need to be really deliberate about how do we support our people in learning,
in building culture and in that creativity element that's really important to innovation.
And do you think the people who work from home too much sort of suffer from a mental
health point of view because they're just not around people and to a certain extent,
we're social beings?
I think that everyone's experience in the remote working or the isolation is going to
be different. And we've got to be careful when we generalise, but there is a real risk
around mental welfare.
And I think that risk is something that any employer needs to consider in how it sets
its staff up for success.
I know it's been a key factor in our thinking and our mandate of a minimum of two days a
week is to ensure that at least 40 percent of the time that there are those contacts
that we can touch base on people and sometimes whether it's body language or there might
be the nonverbal signals that we can make sure we're looking out for each other and
continuing to build the community that we all want to be part of.
Yeah, we just got to find the sweet spot.
Next question. Are you ready for me to fish?
As ready as I'll ever be, Sally.
OK, tell me where to stop.
Who is a leader, business or otherwise, whom you really admire and why?
I must say I have a bias for Australian leaders on the global context, irrespective of arena,
whether it's the arts, sports, business, one that would absolutely fall into that category
would be Ange-Poster Coglu, someone whose career I followed for a long time and seeing
what he's doing now in the Premier League at a global scale and arguably one of the
leading head coaches in European football, I think is very impressive.
I've always been a big admirer, not necessarily just because of the results he's achieved,
but the passion and the belief system that he's built into teams.
And I think for those that have followed Ange, it's not just about winning.
It's about playing a certain style and playing the game a certain way.
And he has a very firm belief in that, which is more than just the scoreboard.
It's more than just the results.
And he's done this despite a lot of the criticism along the way, so that the internal
belief and the passion he has for his teams and the sport generally, I think, is really
admirable. And it's been great to see that convert onto the global scale.
Is there anything about Ange-Poster Coglu that you have been able to bring back to your
business? Absolutely.
And I reflect on his passion and belief system that drives how he thinks about his
game and how he thinks about his team.
And I translate that to business in the context of purpose and having a belief system.
It's not just about delivering an outcome.
So what do you mean by a belief system?
If I think about our organisation, we are here to help Australians.
And fundamentally, we're not just here to manage money or administer superannuation.
We're actually here to help people live better lives.
I think that ethos is what gets the best out of people.
And is that something that you have seen Ange-Poster Coglu do with football teams?
Absolutely. He believes in a very attacking, creative form of the game that's actually
beautiful to watch, that's great to watch.
So for him, it's actually as much as it's about winning football, it's actually creating
a spectacle that their supporters can be really proud of and that the supporters want
to be part of. It's actually about the communities around the game.
And as I said, I think the same can apply in business.
We should all keep that in mind. It's more than just about the game.
Absolutely. OK, next question.
What do you think of chat GPT and what do you think it means for your business?
Well, it's a great question, Sally.
I might broaden it out a little bit and talk about generative AI generally.
I think it's going to change not just our industry, but the world equally in our
industry. I think Waikolo roles, advisory roles.
And so I'm thinking about financial advice here, for example.
I think it will absolutely change the nature of what can be automated, what can be
leveraged through technology and the role the human plays.
So the financial advisor in this case.
And in fact, I think the real benefit here is that it will allow advisors to do more
of what only they can do.
And that is actually engaging on the behavioural side, the emotional side of
relationships and automating a lot of the more administrative, technical,
algorithmic sort of aspects of the business.
Have you got a team specifically working on generative AI?
Yes, at a couple of different levels.
So we have our technology architecture team looking at some of the governance
issues relating to generative AI.
And we've just kicked off some pilots and very small pilots to assist with customer
service in those areas in a controlled environment.
But as I said, I think the most important part for us at the moment is the governance
of it and ensuring that we have the right parameters around the technology to avoid
unintended consequences.
And have you thought about what they could be, those unintended consequences?
So there's always the issue of ensuring people are really clear on what is what
interaction is a human, what interaction is a generative artificial intelligence.
So that's part of that.
And I think I'd imagine in the future, there was going to be some need to have
some disclosures around that.
But more importantly, given that the generative AI engine is generating its own
insights, it's not simply a linear equation, ensuring that there aren't false
positives, if you like, in that generation is of critical importance.
Yeah, I can imagine, especially in the financial advice industry.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that is the end of the Chatterbox session.
There is one question that we normally ask every CEO who comes onto the show.
And that is if you had a year off unencumbered, what would you do?
But since in your case, you're about to have lots of time off.
I'd like to ask you, Renato, when you leave Insignia Financial at the end of
February, what are your plans?
Are you going to take a long break?
And if you're going to take a long break, what are you going to do with it?
It is something I've thought about and it is an opportunity to take a break.
Having spent 20 years committed to a single purpose for two reasons.
One is to really reflect and reset for the next journey.
But importantly, also to take the time to do some things with a family that maybe
whilst you've got these sorts of jobs, you don't have the luxury of doing.
And in my case, certainly in our family's case, it's to do some travel.
And the best kind of travel for me is the one without an itinerary, without
structure, which is very different to my life and my role as a CEO, which
is highly structured.
So we will spend some time traveling through Europe.
We have a starting point and an end point, but no real structure or itinerary
So I'm looking forward to doing that and creating some experiences with the family.
So just on the family front, do you find that because as a CEO, you're just so
busy and there are so many demands on your time, that trading off company time
with family time is something that you just have to accept and perhaps you don't
get as much family time as you would like.
And that's just a bit of a sacrifice of the job.
I think it's one of the realities of the role.
I know in my case, we certainly made that decision quite consciously as a family.
And that's something we spoke about because these roles, whilst there is someone
in the headlines and seen as the CEO, there is a big support crew that allows a
CEO to be effective and fortunate to have a really supportive family and friends.
So for me, this might be a little bit of a payback and an opportunity to give back
and do some things where in the past we've had to sacrifice certain aspects of
our family life to give me the opportunity to lead Insignia the best way we possibly
And one last question.
What will you miss most about Insignia?
I've had time to think about that question as well, Sally.
And when you sit back and you think about the impact you've had, it's less about
the business achievements or the financials or the commercial outcomes.
For me, it's always been about the purpose of the organisation, which was there
before I arrived, but then actually manifesting that through its people,
through its culture and through the relationships and friendships that you
form along the way.
So it is about the people.
And that's certainly something that I'll miss from the organisation.
And that's our 15 minutes up.
Renato, thank you so much for allowing us to spend 15 minutes with the boss.
I love the way that you run in the morning and the way that that gives you
clarity for the rest of your day.
And indeed, it gives you room and time to problem solve.
I love the advice that you were given that you don't make enough mistakes.
It sounds counterintuitive, but it's so true.
I agree with you on the importance of water cooler conversations.
And most of all, I hope you have a wonderful next chapter in your life.
And thank you to everyone for listening.
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This podcast was hosted by me, Sally Patton, produced and edited by LapFan.
Our theme is by Alex Gow and our executive producer is Fiona Buffini.
The Australian Financial Review.