Leadership Tips from the CEO

After six weeks of interning with New York Life Investments, I now have a greater understanding of how the company is organized and the dynamic between the leadership and the followers. I was fortunate enough to meet the CEO of NYLIM, Yie-Hsin Hung, and have her answer questions about her leadership style and how COVID has impacted the company, and her ability to lead. She emphasized the importance of resilience in the workplace during this COVID pandemic. Mindsets had to be transformed to reflect what was possible in terms of NYLIM’s business during this unprecedented time. I love that Yie-Hsin moved forward with humanity and understanding instead of forcing employees to continue with business as usual. This attitude perfectly reflects the culture found at NYLIM and the focus on people before work. Yie-Hsin wants the personal aspect, which came to the forefront during the pandemic, to continue when people return to the office because, for 16 months, coworkers have gotten a glimpse into each others’ homes. 

As a leader, she said you must be a risk-taker, open-minded, and learning-oriented. The attributes absolutely influence the rest of the organization as employees are both required and encouraged to learn new things. The learning exchange, a digital learning platform for the entire company has hundreds of modules and tutorials employees can select from to continue their education. Yie-Hsin also emphasized the message: one team, one purpose. She views the entire company as a team, collaborating, and working together to achieve a common goal. The company is structured by departments and within those departments are teams. As a marketing intern, I am more familiar with the structure of the marketing department. It is made up of 40+ employees. Within the marketing department, there is a product marketing team, a digital marketing team, operations, and a segment marketing team. All of these teams have a leader and that leader answers to Ian Forrest, the Chief Marketing Officer. Ian’s boss is the Chief Operations Officer, who’s boss is Yie-Hsin, the CEO. Work is directed from the ground up. For instance, Susie So has to prepare a yearly plan at the beginning of the year with the proposed campaigns and strategies that she thinks will be executed in the next year. She presents this plan to Tara, her team leader, and to Ian. The plan is obviously flexible because she cannot perfectly predict what will happen during the year, but it is helpful to have an outline for the year.