Seven months back in the thick of things, John G. Taft was doing what executives often do: taking a taxi cab from a speaking engagement in a big city to an airport for the trip back home. Taft, vice chairman of Baird, lasted 18 months in an early retirement – he is now 63 – before calling it quits and going back to work last January. He retired as CEO of RBC Wealth Management in 2016.
But why work?
“I just wasn’t done! I feel like I have a calling which is talking about how finance can be a force for social good. That is still needed, and I am passionate about doing it. I am delighted to be back to work and to have a platform to do that advocating,” Taft said from his cellphone on the way to LaGuardia Airport. As a spokesman for Baird, an international employee-owned wealth, asset management and private equity firm, Taft attended a recent meeting in New York of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.
Among topics discussed was how to attain constructive regulation of the financial industry. Taft has been thinking about regulation in earnest since the Great Recession of 2008-2009. In 2015, he edited, and wrote a preface and introductions for “A Force For Good,” a collection of 20 essays by financial industry heavyweights in response to the financial collapse.
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which placed regulation of the financial industry in the hands of the government, was a response to the crisis.
Introducing “A Force For Good,” Taft wrote, “The central idea of this book is that the financial services system has an opportunity to move past the damage of the past several years and become, in fact, an agent of positive change.”
What has changed in the 10 years since the Great Recession? “Let me start by saying that there is a big idea in all of this: before finance can do its job, society needs to conceptually figure out what it wants,” said Taft. “The big thing that happened between 2015 and today: is that for now, at least, the (presidential) election of 2016 sent a loud and resounding message about what society wants, and it said we want growth now!
“And guess what? It is getting it! The annualized growth in GDP could exceed 4 percent in the second quarter. Secretary (Steven) Mnuchin threw out that number after the election and a lot of people, including me, were skeptical that it could be achieved. At least in the near term and for the short term, it looks like we might have achieved it.’’
While society voted its wants and needs in the 2016 election, what has the financial industry done to repair the damage of 10 years ago?
Taft has been urging the financial industry to “stop contributing to the extreme volatility in markets that periodically destabilizes the world economy.’’