NicsaTalk - CEO of ALFI, Serge Weyland

The Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry’s new CEO Serge Weyland shares some of the challenges he overcame and lessons he learned along the way. Recorded on-site at Nicsa’s Strategic Leadership Forum 2024.

For more, visit http://nicsa.org/podcasts

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;24;17
Speaker 1
Something new is coming to Boston. Nicsa's fall event is now the Asset and Wealth Management Summit set for October 29th and 30th, 2024. This year's theme, Reshaping the Industry with AI and Alternative Investments. Don't miss the networking and learning opportunities with top industry leaders. Register at Nixa Dawgs Summit now I want to show.

00;00;24;19 - 00;00;45;02
Speaker 2
Hello and welcome to Nicsa Talk, the podcast where people from the asset and wealth management community share their stories, expertise, and lessons they learned along the way. Nixa is a not for profit trade association connecting all facets of the asset and wealth management industry. I'm Justine Phoenix and we are recording live from the strategic leadership Forum in Orlando.

00;00;45;04 - 00;01;01;10
Speaker 2
And today I'm excited to introduce Serge Weyland, CEO of ALFI. Welcome, Serge. Hello. Thank you for joining us today. So today we're going to start out with our ten second challenge. Describe what you love about this industry in 10s or less.

00;01;01;12 - 00;01;12;02
Speaker 3
What I love about the industry is there is a diversity in that complexity in a way. and it's ever evolving. So, you know, you have to adjust and continue learning constantly.

00;01;12;05 - 00;01;21;28
Speaker 2
Constantly evolving. Constantly learning. So. So how did you wind up in the industry? Are there ways that your background differs from what you would think would be a traditional career path?

00;01;22;01 - 00;01;44;11
Speaker 3
I started my career as a management consultant, so got my hands dirty in systems implementation for wealth manager for private banks, and then ended up in that and the asset servicing industry first. and then, you know, through a various roles, moved into the asset management business, before joining Alpheus, the industry association.

00;01;44;15 - 00;01;46;04
Speaker 2
Okay. How long have you been with LFI?

00;01;46;06 - 00;01;49;05
Speaker 3
I joined 1st of January this year, so it's very cool.

00;01;49;07 - 00;01;57;28
Speaker 2
Okay. All right. Okay. Well, tell us about a defining moment that helped shape your career or launched your leadership skills.

00;01;58;00 - 00;02;24;14
Speaker 3
I guess the beginning of my career was, was really important. I mean, I was working for Andersen Consulting Camp, Accenture back in the days there. It was really about, you know, learning how to grow your teams, the leadership skills you had to pick up quite, quite early. And then I think, you know, later on, it was really when I was working as, head of operations for a German bank back, back in the days.

00;02;24;14 - 00;02;52;13
Speaker 3
And my boss there, he was, the CEO. He was amazing. He would be able to talk at a very high level, but at the same time, on specific issues. Really deep dive. And that, for me, was always, you know, a model that, you know, it's, it's some something, someone who's who's really greatly inspired me to try to combine, you know, being able to to look at things from, from a very different perspective.

00;02;52;15 - 00;03;10;14
Speaker 3
Talk to people in different, levels of the, of an organization, and at the same time being, knowledgeable about, about the business and trying to understand also the, the ins and outs and the, the things that really, make a difference in this industry.

00;03;10;17 - 00;03;26;13
Speaker 2
It's interesting how someone, early on in your career became sort of a role model, and now you've sort of taken that same practice, right? And, and included that in your own, your own leadership skills. You've sort of embedded that new leadership skills from early, early on.

00;03;26;16 - 00;03;50;26
Speaker 3
Yeah. It's true. I think you you know along the way you pick up on leaders that inspire you and you try to build, you know what your perfect leader is in a, in a way. And it's through these, those characteristics of, you know, being able to also look at the broader picture, but at the same time not lose you sight of, of, you know, the technicality.

00;03;50;27 - 00;04;09;07
Speaker 3
Right. And being made to speak, you know, or to, you know, that specific expert and give, give people also the feeling that they're, they're being understood and that their issues are being understood also by management, I think is also very important for credibility to be credible leader.

00;04;09;13 - 00;04;25;09
Speaker 2
Absolutely. So we talked about a defining moment. But I also ask on and this is always so critical in your career is if there was a a challenging time in your career or in the industry in general and how you navigated that.

00;04;25;12 - 00;04;55;24
Speaker 3
I, I think if, when I look back at my career, my various positions was where we typically between 4 and 6 years. and, what I really like in the job I've done in the past is actually transformational work that says, always, what attracted me to a specific project or to a specific company, even though, you know, transformation is is not easy, can be really hard.

00;04;55;26 - 00;05;25;14
Speaker 3
Now, before joining Alfi, I took over as the CEO of an entity that needed profound transformation because that had been a major change in the operating model, with outsourcing. Yeah, being carried out. So you had to look at, you know, all the competence, and the skill set of your, your management team skill set of the, the, you know, the middle managers, underneath that, that was not an easy challenge.

00;05;25;21 - 00;05;37;01
Speaker 3
and that is perhaps one, challenge for me. That was a little. What? Perhaps I had been overly optimistic on the turnaround time.

00;05;37;04 - 00;05;40;21
Speaker 2
Okay, okay. Part of that was part of the challenge.

00;05;40;23 - 00;06;06;03
Speaker 3
Actually, again. So, I think that that was a big lesson learned was, you know, manage expectations and be humble. When you look at maybe the first conclusion, that you're making within a few months are not the right ones. Yeah. You need you need some more time to step back and, you know, be more humble about your ability to turn things around and the time it might take.

00;06;06;03 - 00;06;07;01
Speaker 3
So.

00;06;07;03 - 00;06;22;14
Speaker 2
Yeah, challenging times can really make really define your leadership skills. Right. So yeah, I look I like be humbling that that sounds great. So let's talk a little bit about sort of predictive, looking at the, you know, the future where do you see the industry going in the next 5 to 10 years?

00;06;22;17 - 00;06;43;15
Speaker 3
Well, I think we we are probably at, a little bit of a tipping point of acceleration of change for this industry. I think we've been talking about this for the past, what, ten years or so? Okay. you know, technology would profoundly change, the, you know, the change generations or profoundly changed the way people consume investment products, etc..

00;06;43;17 - 00;07;11;21
Speaker 3
I think now the change is really coming, and it is accelerating. so I find this, this really exciting and I, I strongly believe, when I look at the dynamics of, you know, distribution, how when I look at my kids. So my, my eldest daughter, she's now, 25, the way she looks at investing and, she, she will, you know, she will not do it the way we used to do it.

00;07;11;23 - 00;07;36;14
Speaker 3
And and I think we have not yet completely realized what that means for our industry and for the way, the whole industry is, is actually built in terms of intermediation. Yeah. And and technology, I think is only starting to, to really emerge, the way it reshapes distribution, for example, and may cut out some of the intermediaries.

00;07;36;16 - 00;07;45;20
Speaker 3
And so it's, it's, I think, truly transformational. and that is, I think for all of us, you know, big opportunity and challenge at the same time. Yeah.

00;07;45;21 - 00;08;02;10
Speaker 2
It sounds like, you know, from, from your perspective, too, that, the technology is, you know, it's accelerating, but it's also our, our, our clients and our, you know, our emerging clients. And that the way they look at things is very different. And we have to we have to we have to meet them at their, you know, where they are.

00;08;02;12 - 00;08;11;05
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. No. Absolutely. And I think the change will be driven by them that. Yeah. Yeah. Perhaps more than than ever than ever before.

00;08;11;06 - 00;08;15;06
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. The technology's in their hands right. Yeah. Where it wasn't before. Yeah.

00;08;15;06 - 00;08;29;10
Speaker 3
Because I think you know previously would look at transformation more from you know how can we become more efficient. Yeah. Yeah. And by the industry itself. Yeah. No, it's really strongly driven, I think, by demand and by customer demand.

00;08;29;12 - 00;08;41;05
Speaker 2
that's great. Okay. So you've had a very successful career, and I'm sure as we opened our remarks, we said, learn lessons learned along the way. If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would that be?

00;08;41;07 - 00;09;03;15
Speaker 3
I think for me, learning was always the, the motivation. So, you know, waking up in the morning or going to work was always for me about, you know, what can I do and what more can I learn. And this also combined with, you know, try to be humble about what you know and realizing and all the things that you don't know.

00;09;03;17 - 00;09;30;25
Speaker 3
So I think that really helped me also move up, listening to people, you know, from all backgrounds, from all ages, at all levels, I think is is extremely important. And, you know, keep keep your eyes and ears open. And especially, I think in today's environment where there's, you know, growing complexity and the pace of change being, what it is, it's, it's it's increasingly important.

00;09;31;02 - 00;09;31;25
Speaker 2
So keep learning.

00;09;32;02 - 00;09;32;11
Speaker 3
Keep.

00;09;32;11 - 00;09;50;28
Speaker 2
Learning, keep learning. But thank you so much. We appreciate your time today. Congratulations on your new role at Alfea. And we appreciate your partnership with Nick as well. Frank, thank you for spending time with us today. Thank you. Thank you. Our listeners can connect with me and the rest of the Nixa team by searching for Nixa on LinkedIn.

00;09;51;01 - 00;10;10;14
Speaker 2
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