President, Chief Executive Officer & Director, DONNELLEY FINANCIAL SOLTNS
DFIN Transformation, Innovation & Outlook with Dan Leib, DFIN’s President and CEO
It's an exciting time at DFIN. We're well into our client-focused transformation journey. Join host Dana Barrett as she talks with ...
About Daniel Leib
In a January 2025 interview, Daniel Leib, President and CEO of Donnelley Financial Solutions (DFIN), described the company as being in the "middle innings" of a client-focused transformation. He stated that the company has a strong business, client relationships, and market position, and that the transformation has been "planful and thoughtful" with the goal of becoming "institutionalized and self-sustaining." Leib said the transformation has involved changes across every function and business within the company, including a shift toward a more software-centric offering, and that the company has invested in product development and new talent. He noted that transparency has been key in helping employees adapt, including reskilling and helping displaced employees find new jobs. Leib also discussed the company's approach to partnerships, stating that they need to be "bilateral and mutually beneficial" and that DFIN has done this "very well." He said the company has become more "quantified and metrics-based" in measuring success across employees, clients, and shareholders, citing winning workplace awards and delivering above-peer returns. When asked about the end of the transformation, Leib said he hopes "the end is never here," adding that the opportunities ahead exceed what has already been achieved and that the company will continue to look forward to a "much brighter future."
Transcript (19 segments)
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Dana Barrett0:16
Welcome to The Insider by DeFi. I'm Dana Barrett, and sitting down with me right now is Dan Lee, DeFi's CEO. How are you, Dan?
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Daniel Leib0:24
I'm well, how are you?
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Dana Barrett0:25
Good, thank you. So much for taking a couple minutes to chat. I want to jump right in. You led DeFi through a successful and pretty major transformation. So talk to me about how it was so successful right out of the gate.
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Daniel Leib0:39
Yeah, you know, we think about the transformation, and I would say we're in the middle innings. So we've had great success thus far. And you know, I hearken back to a quote that I really like, which is, someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree 10 years ago. And I think being very planful and thoughtful about what needed to occur, we did an assessment and saw that we have a really strong business, we have great client relationships, we have great market position. And so we have a lot of time to do a transformation that becomes institutionalized and really self-sustaining. And so that's really been at the forefront, and it's been a transformation that's focused to the benefit of employees, clients, and shareholders.
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Dana Barrett1:33
Well, that's a great segue to how this transformation has impacted your customers. What's the process been like for them?
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Daniel Leib1:40
I hope everyone would say it's positive. We feel like we've led with a very client-centric, very market-based view of how do we best serve our clients, recognizing that while we may have been thought of as the printer in the past, we always had a great reputation and continue to enjoy that on the service side, and had a nice growing yet small software offering. And so we've really invested heavily both in product and also in people to change the way we serve clients and the way that clients want to be served.
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Dana Barrett2:22
And how have the employees aligned with and gotten through this? Are you doing something special to make them feel a part of it?
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Daniel Leib2:29
Transparency has been key. We've really, I think, been thoughtful upfront and having a plan and then being able to articulate it broadly to all constituents has really helped folks come along with us on the journey. Employees are an important part of that. We have done reskilling in places. We've also, in places where we couldn't do reskilling, we've helped displaced employees find new locations or new jobs outside of the company. And then we brought in a lot of very good talent. It's just recognizing that in order to be that company requires different skill sets at times.
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Dana Barrett3:12
Yeah, and absolutely required you to think not only about the product transformation but the employee side. Absolutely. So talk about partnerships, collaborations. Have you used those tools to enhance the offering across several dimensions?
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Daniel Leib3:27
As we think about your comment of being broader than just the product side, developing excellent product is necessary but not sufficient. We've also changed a ton of our inner workings of the company. So from every single function in the company, every business within the company has undergone and continues to undergo a lot of change. And the bar continues to rise. So what was good enough and got us to this point will continue to be challenged and improved upon into the future. And that includes partnerships. So we always embark upon how do we best serve markets, and some of that is internally developed software and things that we own, and some of that is partnerships. One of the places where I think we've made great progress on the partnerships is we've really taken the view of it needs to be a bilateral and mutually beneficial partnership for both parties. Partnerships are hard and difficult because it has to be the win-win for both parties, and I think that's one of the things that we've done very well.
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Dana Barrett4:31
Yeah, I love that you do have to look at both sides of that partnership. For sure. How are you measuring the success of this transformation?
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Daniel Leib4:40
A lot of different measures. One of the things that we did change in the transformation is to be much more quantified and much more measurements and metrics based. And so across the three constituents, we're looking at various measures. You start with employees. We've won a number of Best Workplaces in the US awards. Testament to we have made a lot of change in the employee base, but testament to changing that employee value proposition, improving benefits, improving opportunities, articulating the career roadmap. All of those things have gone a long way for employees. Similarly for clients, sharing the direction and the path that we're on. And the same thing for shareholders. We've had above-peer returns, and we've been able to tell shareholders where we're going and what's the right way to think about the company and how to best measure our success.
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Dana Barrett5:41
Anything on the product evolution side as part of this transformation going forward?
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Daniel Leib5:47
Absolutely, yeah, been a very important part of it. Particularly as we move towards a much more software-centric offering within our broader solutions, it has been to invest heavily on the product side. And as I mentioned, it's not just building great product, it's bringing in great people to envision great product, building that great product, and then making sure that we've got all the motions of service, sales, finance, pricing. There's no one function that can do this alone. Every function needs to be working together.
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Dana Barrett6:24
Dan, before I let you go, you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation being in the middle stages of the transformation. How do you get to the end? What is the end? What does the end look like?
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Daniel Leib6:35
I hope the end is never here, right? What I mean by that is the things that we see today in front of us, we weren't envisioning back five, six years ago. And the opportunities that we have in front of us exceed what we've already achieved. And I hope that at every point in time we continue to look forward and see a much brighter future than any success that we've had in the past.
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Dana Barrett7:00
I love that. So always evolving and transforming, that's the goal. That's perfect. I love it. Dan, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to chat. I really appreciate it.
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Daniel Leib7:07
A pleasure.
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Dana Barrett7:08
Yeah, thank you. This has been The Insider by DeFi. We'll see you next time.