Episode 3 | Simplify to Succeed

Hello and welcome to Conversations Unlocked, the Unicredit podcast and your gateway to industry insights. I am your host, Twiladoon, and together we will hear from leading experts from Unicredit and Beyond on how they navigate challenges and their tips to unlocking success. Handing us the keys this week is Ezra Popo. Ezra is part of Group Strategy Unicredit focused on simplification and business transformation. Ezra's career is impressive to say the least. Over the course of 30 years Ezra has worked in hedge funds, investment banks and law firms in Sydney and London. Her roles within business and as a COO provides unique insight and knowledge of the business life cycle. From business start-ups through growth as well as decline, transformation, innovation, governance and control frameworks as well as culture. Aside from her expertise, Ezra is known for her energetic, zealous, resilient and positive approach to her work. These characteristics, Ezra says, are much needed for driving and transforming business in ever-changing landscapes. The latest initiative on top of Ezra's agenda is simplification. Simplification initiatives are focused on clearing the clutter, tackling visible complexity head-on and striving to reinvent to create a simpler, more effective business. The question she poses and what we will be exploring in today's episode is how can you drive change today that will make your life easier and your working environment happier tomorrow? Ezra, welcome to Conversations Unlocked. So, shall we start with the basics? Yes, sure, thank you very much. And first of all, thank you very, very much for the wonderful introduction. It's an absolute pleasure and what an expert to kick us off. A real, real gift, have you here? So, what is your definition for simplification? I'd say probably just making things easier, especially at work, making your working environment more effective. Are you being able to concentrate or more value added tasks? They're fulfilling better about what you contribute. And also, just making your happier employee on a big scale, I guess it's really about the real business transformation, getting the business to a point where it has that elasticity and being able to really adapt to an ever-changing world. And it really is a foundation for a culture change, business transformation, where we operate, and ultimately getting us into a position for to be the future leading European bank. Often, I think simplification can be used as synonymous to optimisation. How do you think these two terms differ? I guess optimising means basically making the best out of things. So, it's squeezing all the benefit that you can from whatever it is that your target is. But you're right. I mean, it's unlikely that you'll have optimised something and getting the best out of things if you haven't simplified. And vice versa, there is no point simplifying if you are not going to be able to optimise. So, it kind of works hand in hand, I'd say. Why do you think we tend to complicate rather than simplify both in our own lives and also within businesses? I often thought about that myself and to be honest, I mean, there are probably many areas of reasons, but I think simplification is something that it's not seen as the thing. If you're building a business, you will be focused on creating new, addressing a new initiative, and it's very exciting, but then you don't necessarily go back and think, "Okay, what can I get rid of?" So, we tend to kind of just leave things as they are and build upon them without actually focusing on, "Okay, let me strip it down." Cutting more in is seen as you are protecting, you are being more conducive to risk, while actually it's probably the other way around, having more complexity, probably leads to kind of a more operational risk as well. Simplifying is hard, changing is hard, it's easier to build new than it is to simplify, changing itself is boring, and often people feel that no one else sees how much effort has gone into simplification. That's really interesting to think about how people tend to want to build rather than remove, and how do you move forward, but actually in that moving forward, strip back. And I know that simplification was really a key part of Andreas' strategic plan for the bank. So, why do you think at this moment in time it is so important for Unicredit that you simplify? There are so many reasons, but really just to get down to the bottom of it, it really is a question of survival. We are changing and the clients are changing, expectations are changing, we as people, you know, you don't really shop the way you used to shop, and you don't expect it to be the way it used to be. So, we really kind of need to have a business that is, as I said, resilient and agile enough that it can move with the change. It is about the culture change, transformation, foundation for digital transformation. If we want to be a digital bank, you can't do it on the complex structures and processes that we currently have. It's also about the client experience, their journey, but also very, very, very much so, and I know that Unicredit really cares for it. It is a happiness of employees and their day-to-day life and being proud of where they are at and how they operate and what they contribute. Resilience is such a core part of a business, and part of resilience is that idea of being agile, and I suppose to be agile, you have to try and remove as many parts as possible to be able to shift and turn when the opportunity arises, or when the need arises. So, do you feel like there are core principles for that stripping down, for that simplification? As I always say, simplification is not a thing, and I think sometimes it's just about also unleashing what we all, or to speak in our strategic language, unlocking it. A lot of simplification initiatives, especially top-down, really big ones, are so overwhelming and so huge and have been tried before. So, I think it can feel overwhelming to even think about taking on something massive, but I think what I do is actually breaking it down into small chunks while having the big target in mind. So, what that means is that every two weeks you deliver something, even if it's a two-page written document definition of something, because you have a feeling that you are moving, it's that delivery, delivery, delivery, delivery. If there is a regulatory requirement for something, I'm not going to take a look at the process that we currently have necessarily straight away. So, what I'm trying to do is understand what the requirement is, what the principles of whatever it is a topic is, we need to abide by. And then try and interpret it as opposed to, okay, this is what it is at the moment, because the likelihood is that me, or somebody else, not just me, will have different ideas, which in time always improve. And also challenge the status quo, challenge what you are told, but equally respect other people perspectives, and it's very, very important, because if I'm coming from race core compliance, I think one way, and that's all valid, if you're coming from the business or from, you know, those people who actually do a day today, equally important. So, that feeling of, you know, putting yourself in other people's shoes, and understanding where they're coming from, and then coming to a common agreement is the key. So, that's really interesting that you should say that, because I come from a military background, and the core approach to any plan, and putting that plan in place is to red team it, and that idea of really being objective when coming to your plan, and really trying to get everybody's opinion on something, and challenging those core principles that you have in order to be able to make sure that against anything that plan is resilient. That is core to this process. Yeah, great, absolutely. And so, I suppose you come from two different backgrounds, both in the banking sector and also then within law. Do you feel like simplification is different in those two sectors, or do you think that the core principles fundamentally remain the same, and they can be applied wherever you are? Look, it is different for financial services as an industry. It is slightly more difficult, because you are facing a lot of regulation that you have to address, and it's rightfully so. But the point is that, first of all, every financial services organization deals with exactly the same legal legal requirements regulation, so we're not alone. It is how we interpret that internally, that is the key. Now, when you talk about principles, to be honest, and we discussed this before, is that I look at it almost like a tidying up house. You can have a clear out every now and then, but if you don't do it consistently and continuously at every step of the world. way, your clear out is going to be a lot harder. And that's the important part. A lot of things are in our control. It is about having the confidence to change it and then making sure that it really is robust and resilient. It addresses all of the risks and regulatory requirements, but allows us the freedom to operate in a much more nimble and resilient way. So, you know, to me, that's that's the core principles are generally the same really. Visualisation of core principles are really important to me and I think analogy of clearing up your house. When you said that to me earlier, it really made me identify before you had nobody likes it. Nobody likes it, but that's the way it is, yeah. Yeah, it's so true. And I think very much so we're talking on a macro level, but on an individual level, that is even more important to be able to really truly understand what it is that you mean. So, on an individual level, four members of the Unicredit Bank who are listening to this, what would you say they can do to simplify their work on a day-to-day basis? If I remove myself and I think about it the way the structure of the moment and what we're trying to do, certainly there are a number of, you know, geck sponsored initiatives. And there are lots of these initiatives that are going on. It's just that it's impossible to know them all. So, to that extent, you know, we're kind of building the intranet where we articulate what geck or top sponsored initiatives we have, so that top-down approach. And to that extent, by all means, please have, if you have ideas come to us, speak to us. If you want to get involved, please speak to us. As I said, there is no school for simplification, there is no right or wrong. You know, Andrea talked about it recently. Is it really is a job for all of us? This cannot, there is no sort of magic simplification army to do things for you, me, or anybody else in the firm. So, we really kind of need to, people need to think about what they, what bothers them and what they want to improve, whether that's for themselves, their team, their customers, their colleagues, whatever there is the case. Now, it's not necessarily just about the laundry list of issues and you need to think about, I guess, what will bring the best value, and that brings us back to that kind of optimizing versus simplifying as well. And there are many examples, many, many examples across the firm, where people have been taking things on their own. And it's been giving us great benefits across. Could you talk through some of those examples? We have kicked off something that is called UCX, and a lot of people will hear about it or know about it, or be part of it more importantly, which is basically the first unique credit customer experience in digital product development factory. And the way it came about is that group of us went to the, to the GAC and proposed the initiative, they sponsored it, and off we went. It focused on optimizing, simplifying, end-to-end design of mortgages, consumer finance, onboarding, and small business instant lending. So for example, consumer finance on Omni channel, now instead of 41 fields that were required to be completed by the client, we now have four. From seven digital signatures, we came down to two. So, you know, and the stories go on. I mean, there are so many examples, and we will bring them all up on the internet. But equally, we will only know about them if people tell us. So that engagement, accountability, ownership, being part of it all is absolutely the key. The UCX example is a really key one for showing that ownership, which is so key to the culture and the value set that Uniqred is, is creating. And for individuals to come forward with their own initiatives, but also then be supported by their seniors, their line managers. And that's really, I suppose, how you simplify is from the support of your network and the people around you. What, therefore, challenges do you see that people might come up against when trying to simplify and trying to implement these key themes? There won't be a list of challenges that they come up as you go. And again, it's again about being resilient, being able to address them back, you know, one by one. And again, I go back to, you go back to the principle that you're trying to address. Because, you know, as soon as people drag you into that, you know, detail, you kind of need to pull yourself back in and look at it again. People are kind of fearful of failure. People will tell you what's been done before, people have tried before and therefore, and failed. And therefore, what's the point of doing it? I mean, you know, do not let anybody define you. What do you want to do, obviously? So, you know, at least retest why. And with the new frame of mind, I mean, said Sydney, you know, do try again. Calling out for help as well, you know, don't sit there and kind of think, oh, this doesn't work, and I'm not going to but knowing that and feeling that is really important to you and your people. Yeah. So, it's so much about refinement as well, isn't it? Simplification seems to be very much refining something in order to make it. It's most lean, I suppose, form moving forward. Yeah. And, you know, like it's one thing is to have a defined project, you know, and then you have your sponsorship and then you have, you know, you know, what you're trying to do, you have your team properly engaged and stuff like that. It's a different thing when you say to yourself, well, and this is kind of the, you know, the clearing out and moving the house versus tidying up as you go. So, practically, if you are drafting a document, think about the readers, think about using a simple language, do not copy paste large chunks of legislation. Nobody's going to read that and unlikely people will even understand it. If your document is longer than 10 pages likelihood, that is, is that you will lose people after that. So, the point is, is to make sure that it kind of makes sense to them. You know, if you are working on a regulatory project or big initiative that especially has resources and an IT funding, then do turn your mind to simplification. What is it that you can do to simplify, not just to draft the regulatory demand or regulatory requirement, but actually simplify as you go along. If you have a control that is a four eye control and I won't bore you what that means if you don't know. But, you know, if it doesn't work, okay, we'll introduce the six eye control. Well, unlikely, two people weren't able to pick up something. Unlikely, the third person is going to be picked up. Therefore, the four eye control in itself doesn't work. So, please go back and look at it. It's structurally wide, doesn't work, and you'll find out that not only that you will stop wasting time of two but three people, and you will actually address the risk. So, by adding, it doesn't mean that you're actually addressing the risk or operational risk or compliance or whatever the risk is. So, you know, it's really kind of thinking about simplification, kind of as a culture, constantly thinking about it, is there a better way of doing it? Yeah. A previous organisation that I used to work with used to say, I have a phrase that they said, it's easier to complicate than simplify, and it's so true. It's such a, it's so true. But one thing that I've always tried to take on from a piece of advice is if you have a slide and you want to convey a message, know the three key words that you would be able to convey that message with, and I think if you have any more information than those three key words, then. It's superfluous. Yeah, exactly. The other thing is that, you know, I keep thinking about it, is that, you know, unfortunately, simplification generally means that something is wrong or it's not liked or it doesn't work. So, you kind of starting with a negative emotion to begin with. I don't have people lining up and saying, I want to have, I want to be part of simplification and do it because it's hard. And, you know, it's, it's negative, as I said, you know, you start with like, oh god, this doesn't work. And I have to convince people that we need to do something else to work when we've been doing it for 10 years, and that's one of my pet hates. We've been doing it for 10 years, and therefore, you know, that's the way it should be. Quite the contrary, we probably then need to change it. It's that, you know, you need to have a real energy to it, you need to have the desire to just keep going at it, find the way to have fun in the process as well. Otherwise, it just becomes even more difficult, I guess. What would you say by next year you would like to see, or in five years, you'd like to see it being achieved within unique credit because of simplification. I think in five years time, oh, you know, I have all sorts of ideas and dreams for whilst being, you know, the top digital bank, you know, more being almost like a technology company providing financial services than the other way around, but you can't even think about digital transformation without simplifying it, because you first need to have something simple and adaptable, resilient, and nibble in order to put technology over it, I guess. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I think there are huge amounts of lessons that we can take away from that, and this whole idea of being resilient and agile, this way of simplifying your existing structures, whether that be your personal structures in your day-to-day tidying. Yes, exactly. Or within your work. So thank you so much. I really, really appreciate that. Next, I'm going to go on to the quick fire round just briefly where we find out what makes you tick and you give us an insight into your day-to-day life as a unique credit leader. So please just answer the first thing that you come straight to you. Sure, great. Breakfast lunch. Breakfast. Excel or PowerPoint. Neither really. I'm a bit of a word person. I need a word document and I need thinking. I'm a kind of a lawyer and negotiator at heart. Great. Sydney or London. All London. For any time. Virtual or in person. Oh, in person. Coffee or tea. Coffee. Snow or sun. O sun. Zoom or phone call. Phone call. Sitting or standing desk. Standing. Simplifier complicate. Come on. Come on. Thank you so much. So we know that Unicredits mission is to win the right way together. We want to ask all our guests their top tip for winning. So we can start sharing in each other's success and unlocking our true potential. So, Azra, in the words of Unicredits, simplification ninja. Whoa, God. What is your key to winning? Positive attitude believing that it's possible. Great and resilience. And you know, just I just love people have really do. I just enjoy immensely working with a fantastic group of people of all, I guess walks of life. All levels of seniority coming from any parts of the organization. I like a bit of, you know, a bit of challenge, a bit of negotiating and then, you know, going out for coffee with people and, you know, coming down to earth and, you know, getting along with them and, and yeah, just just love, love what I do, I guess. So finding the human and everyone. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And learning from everybody, you know, like I've learned so much in just the last few months that I've been here from all, all types of people, junior, senior, side, whatever. By all means, I really am here for anybody who wants to talk and discuss simplification, how to approach it if I can help. So the more people that come to me and want to raise and discuss and the better. Thank you so much for joining us. And this has been conversations unlocked with Azra. Thank you. Thanks very much. Thank you.