Just Five Questions: Kelley Holland '86
Five questions posed to leaders in business and society.
Kelley Holland '86 is an author, journalist and the founder of Own Your Destiny. She is an expert in financial inclusion and financial empowerment and has held a range of leadership roles as an editor and columnist for news organizations that include The New York Times, CNBC, and BusinessWeek. She is Co-Chair of Impact100 Essex, a giving circle for women, and also serves on the Board of Trustees for Montclair Local Nonprofit News and the YaleWomen Governing Council.
1. What’s a global trend you are following where you see an opportunity or bright spot in this challenging macro environment?
I am intrigued by the nascent interest in stakeholder capitalism in C-suites globally. In a 2022 survey of 200 C-suite executives, 90 percent said stakeholder capitalism is building, with boards considering how their organizations’ practices are affecting their employees and communities – in addition to shareholders. Some 80 percent said stakeholder capitalism is affecting their organizations.
Admittedly, we have seen corporate contrition before, often in the wake of a disaster like the 2008 financial crisis. But this time feels like it could be different, not least because institutional investors are pressing for shareholder proposals related to environmental and social goals.
A narrow focus on shareholder value – which was not always the way companies set their priorities - has contributed to economic inequality and, arguably, problems like corporate over-leveraging, with all its attendant risks. I believe we will all benefit if corporations return to a broader sense of their responsibilities.
2. What’s an example of how SOM’s mission informed your professional path?
My professional path has been full of zigs and zags, from Wall Street to journalism to entrepreneurship and authorship, but I always had the through-line of searching for ways to have a positive impact on the world. That through-line is something I found in the air at SOM, and it reinforced the core values I already had.
SOM’s emphasis on group dynamics and organizational behavior has also proven helpful many, many times, whether I was managing a team of New York Times reporters or developing corporate programs on financial wellness.
More broadly, learning to lead and manage in any sector enabled me to comfortably jump from profession to profession and even start a business, charting my own (admittedly unusual) career path.
3. What’s an SOM experience that helped shape the way you understand business and society?
There are so many! Here is one.
When I applied to SOM, my goal was to become a leader in the nonprofit sector. My view was that careers in the nonprofit world or the public sector were the ways to have a positive social impact. But after I audited an investment management class in my first year, I began to shift my thinking. I really liked investment management, and I realized that there were ways a career involving finance and financial management could also make the world a better place. Foundations and universities need investment management – and as we are seeing today, ESG-focused investors can press for changes in corporate practices.
Eventually, my interest in finance and financial management with a focus on social good set me on my career path, albeit in professions (journalism and writing) that are not typical for SOM alums. And now that I am downshifting professionally, I am finally becoming more involved in nonprofit board work and leadership.
4. What’s a favorite SOM memory, faculty member, mentor or class?
Roger Altman’s Industrial Policy class. We had great discussions about the perils and potential of industrial policy against the backdrop of the struggles of the auto and steel industries. In addition, Altman’s own career, shifting between Wall Street to Washington, reinforced for me the idea that one really could build an exciting nonlinear career.
Today, it is fascinating to see the ideas we discussed in the 1980s come back around again with initiatives like the CHIPS Act, funding semiconductor research and manufacturing in the United States.
5. What are you excited about for the year ahead?
Having spent the later years of my career focused on women’s financial empowerment, I am guardedly excited about the healthy financial behaviors younger women in particular are adopting. For the past two years, Gen Z women have been more willing than older women to talk about their finances, and they are evincing more interest in investing.
There is a LOT that still needs to change in terms of women’s finances – not least the gender wealth gap, particularly for Black and Hispanic women. But if this openness to talk and learn continues, it can have a major positive impact on women’s future security and well-being.
Just Five Questions is an initiative led by the Yale SOM Alumni Advisory Board. Want to learn more? Contact Lee Race ’93 with feedback, thoughts, and/or questions.