Every leader's journey is shaped by a handful of defining decisions. Those moments of risk, doubt, and conviction that influence their lives and careers. In this podcast, we get to hear the stories behind those choices. Welcome to Executive Decisions with me, Steve Sedgwick. In this episode, I speak to the CEO of Franklin Templeton, Jenny Johnson.
My father told me, 'Look, you're a family member. You need to work really, really hard because other people are going to say, "Well, if she only works that hard, I don't have to work even quite that hard." So, you need to set that example.'
As the granddaughter of Franklin founder Rupert H. Johnson, Senior, Jenny has spent her career under the microscope of legacy. It's a weight she navigated with pragmatism and self-belief.
If somebody ever says, 'Listen, it's really just too complicated for you.' It's because they don't know how to describe it.
As a mother of five running a $1.5 trillion asset manager, Jenny chooses how to spend her time using one ruthless metric, its long-term value.
I try to think to myself 5 years from now, which of these things is going to be more important? And actually, if you did that, often there became clarity about where to spend that time.
These are Jenny Johnson's Executive Decisions.
I think most young people need to try lots of different things in their life before they settle on what they want to be. Looking at your history, it seems from a very young age, I've got 14 written down here as well, you knew what you wanted to do and that was to join the family company.
You know, it's funny because the company was very small. I mean, I was in college when we hit the first billion dollars in assets. So, it had been around since 1947. So, this was in the 1980s, and there was only one little period where I actually thought about doing something else. And it's not on my CV, but I was a double major in economics and physical education because I actually thought maybe I'd want to do coaching, but then I kind of decided I could volunteer for that and actually make a living and stick to the family business. So, I did.
Obvious question, why did you want to join from a young age the family business? I mean, it's an illustrious business. Your grandfather Rupert H. Johnson, your father, Charles B. Johnson, they set up a fantastic business and grew a fantastic business. But why did you want to be in it?
I think it was kind of the purpose of it, right? I actually think my dad did a pretty good job of explaining that what we do is help people to achieve whatever their personal goals were. And I just thought that was, I'm very close to my father. He just celebrated his 93rd birthday, and it resonated with me, and I think I also loved the idea of working with my father. So that was probably part of it too.
It's a very interesting evolution. And going back to the founder, your grandfather as well, Rupert H. Johnson. The reason why the Franklin name is there because of Benjamin Franklin who espoused frugality and prudence in saving and investment. Is that kind of part of the ethic that you liked about it then or you like about it now or that you try to espouse now to the current set of employees and clients?
You know, it's funny. So, my grandfather was a huge fan of Benjamin Franklin. My father paid anybody who would read his autobiography $25. That was like the deal. You know, he wanted all this because he espoused such great lessons. But I love to say like who would Ben Franklin be today? I mean, if you think about it, he of our founding fathers, he was an entrepreneur, he was a philanthropist, he was a politician. I mean, he really covered the whole, he was a scientist. And so I think today, like, you know, he'd be one of these people that would be leading the AI or climate transformation or whatever, because that's just the kind of guy he was. And so, it's actually a brand and a person that I think transcends time.
Yeah. And those qualities across say politics, entrepreneurism, philanthropy as well. Who do you think would be the modern day Ben Franklin? I've got all these names in my head and no one ticks all the boxes.
You're exactly right. I used to kind of say Elon Musk because he's got the sort of science and innovation side, but he doesn't really have the political side. He doesn't have the philanthropy side. You know, it's kind of hard to point to anybody. I mean, he was really a unique man.
So going back to your youth as well, easy to see these amazing figures in your life, but I want to throw one more out there as well. Anne Johnson, your mother, oh my goodness me. And I was preparing my notes with my wife and she was looking at it. She was saying, 'Wow, she is phenomenal. Forget about the men. This woman was a physician. She graduated Stanford University School of Medicine. She brought up seven great kids.' I mean, that is the role model, isn't it?
Oh, for sure. I mean, she had seven children and somewhere along the way, she went back to college. She got married at 19. They had their first child at 21. She had seven kids within 10 years. Somewhere along the way, she said to my dad, 'I really want to go back to school.' And that meant with all these kids, you both had to really help out. And then she wanted to go on to medical school. She did her residency at San Francisco General Hospital, which is not located in the best neighborhood. And my father would be nervous about her getting off shift at 2 a.m. So, he'd drive up and pick her up there instead of having her walk through the parking lot. So, the two of them had to help each other out. She sewed the curtains for the first Franklin building, the first office.
They strike me as a really modern couple, way ahead of their time because I know what my father was like. I know what most men of that generation were like as well. It was about their career, they were the breadwinner and the wife was supposed to bring up the family. That was their role. What your family went through was very 21st century.
Yeah. No, my dad also hired the first female general counsel in the industry. We had before we did all these acquisitions, we had about almost a third of our investment people were female, which was like unheard of. You're talking 70s, 80s, 90s. Now we've done a lot of acquisitions and those companies didn't have the same percentage. So, we're back to kind of more market neutral, but I think my dad was always very progressive that way. And you know, my mom, they both saw it as got to keep each other happy.
What did they think about their daughter wanting to go in the family business?
Well, I think they love the fact that I'm in the family business.
You were the only one of the siblings who wanted to originally. Is that right?
Originally, yeah. But everybody did at some point. You needed a job. Everybody went to work for the family business at some point.
But they were really supportive.
How do you feel about working for the family business? There is always that accusation when you get a child of a very successful person or going into the family business that there's the whole nepo conversation as well. That's something you've addressed as well. Just tell us about how you feel about that.
Look, I mean there's always going to be people's view on however you got the job, right? And so, you know, that's kind of noise that I think you can't spend a lot of time worrying about what other people think about it. To me, you know, my father told me, 'Look, you're a family member. You need to work really, really hard because other people are going to say, "Well, if she only works that hard, I don't have to work even quite that hard." So, you need to set that example.' And that was told to all of us when we came and started working in the company. And then it's really about a responsibility. My father always said, 'Take care of the client and the business takes care of itself.' He said, 'I never really looked at the stock price. I don't worry about that. That'll take care of itself over the long run. What you need to do is make sure you focus on the clients.' And so I think there were good lessons in there. I think he's proud that he has a child in the business. There are four grandchildren who work for the company now and we'll see whether any of them ever aspire to be the CEO or not.
Look, you can get through the door from family links. You know, I got through the first investment banking job I got in 1988 because the guy knew my school and he went to a rival school. It happens. That's how it is. But to keep that job, you've got to work probably twice as hard as anyone else in order to prove that you aren't just there because of your family.
For sure. I think people have a bias and think, 'Oh, it must have been easy for you.' You know, and to be honest, the board really put me through the ringer. I felt like it when they decided that I would become CEO, they put me through this whole Spencer Stuart CEO evaluation and how would you compare to other potential candidates of CEO? Because it's an independent board. We're a public company. The family still has significant interest, but we're a public company and so not only for the record, but I think for them to make the right decision, they felt like, okay, it'd be great to have an internal candidate, but we got to make sure that she's up for the job.
Jenny, it clearly worked out okay. You've done incredibly well. You're an amazingly successful business woman as well. But that first decision post university to go into business rather than go into sport. Do you regret that decision at all? Because inside so many of us and so many CEOs as well, there's so many frustrated sportsmen amongst you lot.
So the funny thing is I actually coached all of my kids soccer teams and I coached high school volleyball, I volunteered to do high school basketball. So, I got kind of that out in that way. And then I was actually, my family has an interest in a US baseball team called the San Francisco Giants. And I was on the board of the Giants. And then my brother when he retired as CEO at Franklin, he went and he's now the control person and kind of runs the team. And I always say he's a far better steward of that asset than I was. So, I think he's happy and loves it and I love what I'm doing here.
I know you love your company and you're great at what you do, but would you have preferred to have been involved in sport than finance?
No, I love what I do. I love this job.
So, first of all, I genuinely believe that and I don't think we do as an industry a great job of describing what we do, but we carry this responsibility of people's dreams, right? I mean, I tell the story about so I have five kids and I was saying, 'Are any of you going to follow me into the business?' And my daughter says, 'Ah, mom, I want to do something that helps people.' I'm like, 'Are you kidding me? This is exactly the business that helps people.' And so to me, I felt ashamed that I wasn't better at describing what it was that I did to my kids, but getting up and being motivated. And I think that the people at Franklin Templeton think about that. You carry a responsibility because if you put someone in the wrong type of product because either you haven't described the risk profile of it and it's not appropriate for that person, it can really destroy somebody's life. You know, they don't have enough to they think they're invested a certain way and it's way too risky. As private markets are becoming much more popular among individual investors and the traditional retail channel, you really got to be careful about putting people in the wrong profile product. And when you hear people tell stories about you helped me save for my retirement, I invested in that product when I was in my 20s and that has been so good for me, thank you for doing that, thank you for having that, so I just think it's a great business to be in.
What's the best decision you've ever made in your career?
Well, I got to tell you, I really love being CEO. That might be the best decision.
No. No. To be honest, I was the younger sibling. I was number six of seven. I was staying in my lane. I didn't really aspire to be CEO because I felt like if I were going after the CEO job, it meant that either something happened to my sibling that was in there or it was going to be a battle and you hear about these family businesses where that happened.
We've all seen succession.
Yeah. Exactly. People say, 'Is that your family?' I go, 'No, no, no. I promise you it's not.'
Yeah. I know. I promise you it's not.
