CEOs of Mayo, U.S. Bank and nVent on Midwestern leadership — North Star Summit 2025

Moderating the discussion is Allison Kaplan, director of innovation and engagement for the Minnesota Star Tribune. Hello.

Glad to see everybody is still awake after lunch. Glad you're all here. So delighted to have all of you with us. We're very fortunate to have you here today. I know that work brought all of you to the Midwest, to Minnesota in particular. Gunjen, you're from New Delhi originally, right? Beth, Canada, John Rico from Malta. And of course, you've all lived other places that your careers have taken you. But I'm wondering now that you're here, what is the most Minnesota thing about you? I mean, it could be love of the Juicy Lucy. It could be that you become a Timberwolves fan. Maybe you're a little passive aggressive now. I don't know. What is the most Minnesota thing about you?

Not those three. All right, I'll go. Okay. I make a wicked hot dish. It's pretty midwestern.

Excellent.

I love it. State Fair. We'll look for you there next year.

I'm very good at pretending that minus 20 is just fine.

Okay. All very good skills to have here in Minnesota. Speaking of Minnesota, and of course you're all in very different industries, but the through line is that you lead very large global teams. 85,000 if I'm right, John Rico, for Mayo globally. Beth, you have 11,000 employees for NVent worldwide, right?

And Gunjen 70,000 I believe.

Yes. And 2,000 branches, 26 states. You're all over, but here you are headquarters in Minnesota. So what is unique or even advantageous about leading from here?

John Rico, what about for Mayo?

So Mayo was founded by two Mayo brothers and their father and then the Sisters of St. Francis. And they were very intentional when they founded it to imbue some Midwest values into Mayo Clinic that includes work ethic, that includes ingenuity, the ability to be self-reliant. And you see that then in our ability to recruit to Mayo Clinic. So in Minnesota, you mentioned we're 85,000, but just in Minnesota alone we're 51,000. So we're 40% larger than the second largest employer in Minnesota and we're growing fast. And the reason we can do that is there's alignment between values and therefore it allows us to have people come and stay. Unfortunately in healthcare, there's a fair amount of turnover. We're proud that at Mayo Clinic our turnover is one quarter the national average and we believe that's because of that alignment with the Midwest. I will say that one thing we don't talk probably enough about is the adaptability of the people who live here. I'd be proud of having adapted to live in this place in the cold. But that adaptability we saw play an incredible role in COVID where all healthcare systems came together in a way that they did not come together in every state. And for Mayo Clinic, it allowed us about seven years ago to say we're the number one healthcare system in the world and something is still not quite right. Let's change healthcare. And we developed this plan called Bold Forward. And it was the adaptability of 51,000 people that allowed us to do it such that now this Bold Forward plan and our platform is across four continents and we continue to grow. Now what this also means however is that these aren't things that are immutable and we have to protect them because if we don't protect them then the disadvantages of the Midwest will become more apparent. While on the other hand, if we continue to create these opportunities for people who want to be here, to work here, I think we have a winning track record that will continue.

Well, let's talk a little bit more since you brought it up about your Bold Forward plan. You're in the midst of a multi-billion dollar recreation of your facilities in Rochester. Talk a little bit about what that will do, what that means for the future of healthcare.

Sure. So there's a reality here that everybody in this room, us included, at some point will need and will want compassionate and patient care. And when that happens, you really want to be in a place that can take advantage of the digital transformation that is happening in healthcare. And I'm sure we'll talk about AI. The problem is you cannot do that in a 20th century building. And you cannot even remodel a 20th century building to provide 21st century healthcare. So we made the decision that we would invest what's now $9 billion in reimagining what a healthcare facility should look like. And so our principle was the following: what happens if we say we no longer care if it's outpatient or inpatient? Let's blur that line. And let's not make a distinction between in-person care and digital care. What would we build? So we started off with what is referred to as a universal grid. And that allows us to make sure that operating rooms or other big pieces of equipment like in radiology do not have to be on certain floors. They can be dispersed through the building. And then the second is we said we are truly even though we just started generative AI, we're probably at the last phases of generative AI and getting into reasoning AI. And as we get into reasoning AI, we're going to have reasoning robots and drones. So let's build buildings that have literally highways for robots and drones. And if you then look at it from a patient standpoint, a staff standpoint, let's create a concept which was new in healthcare, which is let's create neighborhoods where rather than go around departments, we'll just say if you are a patient with a disease, these are the things you need around you. Let's put those things around you rather than you having to go to different places. And that's what we're building. And then lastly, we said let's truly make the building a caregiver. Let's truly make the building a part of the caregiving team. And to do that, of course, you have to have all the sensors. We're working with Ecolab to do that. And when you sort of think about it that way, you open up a very different way of delivering care because you no longer need to have a lot of these transitions, but rather you create an environment that for our own staff, for patients, and importantly also for their families, they feel that they're in a warm embrace, which is what you need when you're undergoing healthcare.

Wow. Incredible. Beth, I'm going to come back to you. I'm going to jump to you Gunjen and ask you about the future of our money. Is it branches, is it all technology, is it in Minnesota, is it other new markets? Where are you growing?

Yes. And yes. And yes. So we don't make any products. So you can be everywhere. You think about money as a store of value, so this is something that you own, but also as a mechanism for payments. Those are the dual purposes of a bank: to keep the store of your wealth safe, but also allow you to transact. So we are seeing innovation on both sides. On the store of value front, it's the customer experience, it's the accessibility, and it's democratization of advice. That's the big thing we think about. The way the economics of advice work is if you are very wealthy, you can afford a financial advisor or a banker to be your own. But your kid earns their first $20; that $20 is very very important to them. So the need for advice is everywhere. And so we think a lot about how to make advice accessible in a way that builds trust. Who should deliver it, how do you get relatability with the person you're talking to or the brand promise of what you're talking to? So that's one side of what we think about. It's a very human side, but the humanity is delivered through technology and digital enablement to make it affordable. On the other side is the transaction volume. And there we are seeing faster and faster transactions. There's a lot of conversation around digital currencies, stablecoins, cryptocurrency as a way of payments. But almost everyone thinks of 24/7 payments. Cash becomes less and less prevalent. So the big issues of fraud and identity loss and loss of control over your data, your personal identity. So we put a lot of data analytics. The AI models are very sophisticated for fraudsters, so we are equally sophisticated in protecting the identity and security of your money. So those are some of the things that are very meaningful and present. And because we are a very globally interconnected industry, people travel, and these days you don't really have to think about taking currency if you have a credit card. You can sort of buy whatever you want wherever you want. So making all of that function with no hiccup ever with safety, security, confidence, trust, kindness, and then ultimately good advice that creates good outcomes for people, that's sort of our mission to make happen.

Okay. Got a lot to do. Beth, data centers were all the buzz in the green room. It's kind of a nerdy place. But we've been talking already about that now. And you opened a new data center in Blaine recently.

Okay. All right. So talk in general, and then I want to dig in a little bit about data centers. But just talk in general about growth. Is it happening mostly here in Minnesota that you see the need and opportunity to expand, or is it overseas? And how is manufacturing being affected by tariffs?

That's great. Do you find people are moving here for these jobs or is the talent pool already here?

Follow-up for you on data centers. We hear these numbers that we're going to need something like 50% more electricity to do all the things that we all are doing in the next 20 years. Is that do I have that somewhere?

Wow. I think Mayo is going to need a lot of electricity, right? Those robotic highways. So from data centers to AI, there's been a lot of talk here today about AI and all the potential and how it's going to be part of our lives and our work. I'm curious for each of you in your organizations, how is it working well now? What are some of the actual practical applications that you are seeing? We saw a video a little earlier about Mayo Clinic, but can you expand on that?

Sure. I'm glad you phrased the question the way you phrased it, which is how it's working well now. Because I am absolutely convinced, and I've been on record saying it, that I would feel not as good as I could feel if I was being treated for certain diseases without AI. I think that is a massive change. A nurse plus AI is better than a nurse. A doctor plus AI is better than a doctor. And there is good proof for that. So then the question is how do you get the right type of AI in front of a patient, make sure it's safe, and make sure it's patient-centered? I want to make it real for the group here because this is an area that Mayo has invested heavily in. But it's not because of that. It's because we truly believe that if we believe that the needs of the patient come first, we have to safely adopt AI. And we have to make it such that as a nation, we've got to find new ways of making sure that healthcare systems that are not Mayo Clinic can also adopt AI, including in rural United States, certainly here in the Midwest. So our nurses carry with them in their cell phone an app which is a nurse virtual assistant. It's AI-driven. It helps with documentation but also carries every policy, everything that Mayo has that pertains to the nurse. And she or he, mostly she, can answer any questions either she has or the patient has directly there. We have a program called Cedar that runs with a patient's permission. In the rooms that our patients are in, there are microphones, there are cameras. And when there is a prediction that there's going to be deterioration, we have a center that is staffed by human beings, intensivists and nurse intensivists, that can get into the room, ask questions to the patient, change things, speak to the nurse. And we just showed that we reduced substantially the number of transfers from the floor, the normal room, to intensive care unit. And we reduced the average length of stay. Interestingly, when we asked our nurses, 47% of them reported an increase in job satisfaction and 61% of them said they had more time to speak to their colleagues. So this is where we should try and sort of peel away the fact it's not an antagonistic relationship with AI. This is a synergistic relationship with AI in healthcare and in clinical practice itself. Most of you have had an electrocardiogram. We've been able now to show that we can use AI on that electrocardiogram and accurately predict your biological age, predict within three or four years if you're going to have issues with your heart, but also with your liver and with blood disorders. And we've just launched something called Stage Viewer that can take images of the brain and can tell us as physicians, and then they tell our patients, if this is going to be something that is going to be related to developing dementia or not, and give people either security or an early entrance into clinical trials. We've created a platform that last year touched 53 million lives. We could have never done that without AI. That platform now, as I said, is in four continents. But most importantly, it's for the first time ever allowing good healthcare to scale at very little cost because incremental cost after a substantial cost of development becomes very small. So one of these heart algorithms we put in a stethoscope and gave it to nurses in Nigeria, and they were able to show a 30% reduction in maternal mortality during childbirth because they could detect that. And then a pediatrician happened to see it and said give it to me, I'll take it to Machu Picchu in Peru. And they're using it to diagnose congenital heart disease in kids. So that's the power. Now what we have to do as a nation is understand that this is going to require significant investment. We as a nation have to understand in the Midwest that unless we create pathways for most healthcare systems to safely adopt AI, the digital divide will not shrink, it will actually grow. And so one of Mayo Clinic's missions is to make sure that we can contribute by not only showing what we're doing, but being able to share it as widely as possible because we firmly believe that this is a one in three generations opportunity to truly change healthcare for the better.

Incredible. Wow. Sorry that you have to follow that, but I'm sure you're doing amazing things at NVent, Beth. Tell us about how AI is helping.

Okay. Gunjen, what about at the bank?

You know, it's a very exciting and scary vision of society with AI being incorporated among us as colleagues of ours, thinking workforce members of our lives. So I'll describe our journey, which is not that long because it is evolving very very quickly. So it started just by the tools doing what we were already doing just faster and cheaper. So you could see a call center agent would ask you to wait for a few minutes to look up some policies, and now it's a little bit like your nurse where our AI agent is listening to the customer while our agent is listening. And before they have finished, all of the answers are already there. So I would say speed and accuracy improvements over what we were already doing. Then you realize that the applications can do things that humans can't do in real time. So there you see the possibility of detecting patterns in real time that tell you something is odd which otherwise would take 45 days. So someone's using their credit card, they're charging a big amount, paying it off, a big amount, paying it off, their line of credit keeps increasing, and at some point they disappear. So that's a very common pattern of fraud. Very hard to detect because there's a pattern building. Now AI can see through that very quickly. So you see, okay, now I can do things that would be quite difficult to do. Now you fast forward it and the conversation is could an AI agent be a colleague of ours? So they're not helping a colleague, but they are Gunjen Keria working in the accounting department. And that is creating a very different level of conversation because you can create very micro-specialization which you don't really get in humans because you have to cover the hours. They don't complain about return to office. They are working 24/7 in micro-specialization and you create scores of teams. So that's sort of the dialogue around how fast it could go around jobs that don't require physical work. And then you start thinking about the combination of the two being very powerful because there is a humanity to the work we do. There is a sort of judgment to the work we do. So this is creating a very real sense of anticipation and anxiety in the workforce. I would say there are young computer science engineers who are being told they'll never have a job again because the AI can code that much faster than an individual. But I'll tell you, I heard the story when the internet first came out. Before that, the PC first came out. When we became banks and we first had ATMs, the headlines said it's the death of the branch banker. And that just does not happen because what really happens is the technology creates a level of convenience and outcomes and privilege and value for humanity that we can't even imagine today. And the rest of us who are human beings will then move on to do things that we are not imagining today. So at least that's what we try to tell our people. The world has a shrinking labor problem globally. If you look at India and China, their populations fueled labor markets for the last 30, 40 years and those populations are declining. We are an aging society. The birth rates are low. So we are in a labor-constrained world. And AI might be the way we will sustain our lifestyle. And so this is sort of the global view to say let's lean into it for its benefits responsibly.

And I just want to be clear, you're not cloning yourself, right?

I am.

We have the real deal right here. Okay. Thank you. Let's go over that. Well, interesting that as we talk about this and will AI replace jobs, and we know that attracting top talent to the Midwest can be a challenge. And yet it seems Mayo Clinic has no problem getting people from all around the world to move not just to Minnesota but to Rochester. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Well, first of all, I resent the implication. It's a beautiful city.

It is.

But what's the secret? People will move for a compelling reason. Now that doesn't mean to say it is not harder than it used to be, but people move for a compelling reason. And I think for physicians, it's very easy for us to recruit. You would want to work at Mayo Clinic. It's just the way it is. So that's not a problem. For scientists, yes, a little harder. So we have to adjust. And we have sites in Arizona and in Florida as well. We have a great... I think it's 29,000 nurses just in Minnesota. We have great medical schools there. We can recruit. But there are some areas it is getting harder. And what we are doing is going back and looking at the value creation. What is it that we offer? And what we're offering at the moment is saying we promise you a fulfilling long-term career at Mayo Clinic and here's what we'll do. And that means that we no longer can do what we used to do, which is provide a shorter career ladder. We need longer career ladders that allow you to have the training to see that you can come in one place but you'll end up in 10 years in a very different place. For the very technical jobs, it has actually, as I said, gotten much easier. So overall, you're right, but it needs work. And I think that's the part that I will keep re-emphasizing: it's not static. We leaders in the Midwest, all of us, have to keep reinvesting in education of the workforce and reinvest in very different ways. Our educational system, and I'm not making a judgment here, I'm saying our education system when it comes to healthcare is way behind the times. It still takes 18 months to train an MRI technician. With AI, you could do it in nine months, but now your accrediting agents have to also give you permission to do that. So we have to work with them to do that. And we think we can even get it much shorter. And when you do that, then you can create these career ladders that really make it relatively easy to recruit to come to work in the Midwest and come to work at Mayo Clinic.

Okay. I'm curious, Beth and Gunjen, what is your experience for NVent and US Bank? Do you find that it is difficult to attract the talent that you need and how do you do it? How do you go about telling people to come? I heard you trying to recruit a company here in the green room earlier. Come to Minnesota. I love that. But what is the experience as far as getting the talent that you need here for your headquarters?

Labor mobility is going down all over the country. So that's just something that we have to think about as leaders. It's not just people don't want to move into Minnesota. They don't want to move out of Minnesota. You also don't want to move in and out of Iowa. So wherever you grew up, when I was growing up, people moved a lot. You had lots of careers. In my generation, people worked in multiple parts of the country and you just see less of that today. The more specialized the job is where they're coming for the destination, the easier it is. When you start at the sort of entry-level role, they have very specific preferences for the type of city they want to live in. So what Beth said about the dual career is important, but it's also the Twin Cities is a very culturally accepting and open society. So the food and music and art scene is very important. It's not well known. So if you are trying to recruit someone from outside, you have to make sure that they understand what the city really has to offer and learn to look forward to things that might be unexpected. So we invest a lot in getting people into the city just so that they can physically see the river, they can see the nature, they can see the lakes, they can feel the people. So there's a little bit of knowledge building that helps the case. I would agree with you. We do not find it challenging to attract people to Minneapolis. And the cold in a weird way is a little bit of a badge of honor. So you have to play up to it.

But I'm curious, we have so many big companies here. We have so much innovation. Do you see opportunities to do more things together? What is Minnesota going to lead the way in? What is the next generation of what we stand for here in the Midwest, in Minnesota? John Rico, you mentioned working with Ecolab earlier. What are some of the partnerships or where do you just see opportunities to collaborate?

I'm hesitating a little bit. I'm not sure how much to say about it.

Oh, say it all.

No, no, it's not that it's a secret. It's just it's not mine. MedTech 3.0 is a successful metaphor. It brought people together in ways that hadn't brought them together and will launch many of these collaborations. I think we've got to get over a little bit the fact that if you're doing something and we're doing something similar, that we cannot work together. And in fact, some of the greatest partnerships happen when there is significant overlap. So Mayo is working with most of the large companies in Minnesota. We see that as a positive. We work with our colleagues in healthcare. Where do I see it going? Where I see it going is creating all these agents that you spoke about that will be able to talk to each other and talk company to company. That then will allow us to create more of these nonlinear jumps forward in what we're doing. So for healthcare, it's all about living healthier lives. And in order to do that, we're going to have to bring in a lot of biotech, a lot of therapeutics, devices. All of them require math and engineering. And therefore those are the partners that we're looking more and more into. And then we try and bring the larger companies, the Microsofts, the Googles, to also set up shop. And we've been successful in that. In Rochester, in the BioBusiness Center, we'll be able to attract a lot of them to set up shop. And once they set up shop, as you said, they tend to stay and like it.

Great. I'll amplify both points. They're very good points. We're very grateful to the business community because we bank most of them. So it creates a base of business for us. And I suspect we touch all of you. If we don't bank you, you've probably seen a Vikings game in our stadium or you see our name. So there's a level of solidarity with each other. One thing I would like to talk about that's becoming very important is the public-private partnership. Because so much of what needs to be done is at the intersection of monetary support, which we all need to step up and do, but public policy. And if you go back in history and see what creates acceleration or deceleration of once great cities, it's almost always the public-private partnership that didn't really hold up. So whether it's taxes or regulation or public safety or school systems or healthcare accessibility, affordability, homelessness support, there are a set of societal issues that need to be a combined problem. So that public-private partnership being healthy is another important factor.

Okay. That's probably a good call to action to end on. Thank you all so much for all of your insights. Incredible. Really appreciate it. Before we get up, I just want to say if you enjoyed this conversation, we've got more coming. You're the first to hear that the Star Tribune is going to be launching a newsletter called Northstar Insider. There's a QR code. You can sign up. We're going to have conversations, insights about leadership, and ways that we drive decisions and build community here in Minnesota. So I'm hoping you'll all be part of it. Please sign up and spread the word. That's coming soon. I see everybody snapping. That's great. Thank you. Thank you all so much.