Guy Chiarello - 2018 Grand Marshal

Thank you. Thank you, wow. Thank you very much, thank you. Both of those, all three of those are so tough to follow. I mean really, I want to spend some time and talk about education and what you heard from those two beautiful ladies. You know, Joe, I've worked with Joe for a long time, and Frank. And you know, that's the most calm I've ever seen him. I mean, he can really light up a crowd. But you know, Joe, you almost had me crying there for a second. I was feeling very, very emotional during that. And I'm so blessed to have my family and my mom here today. You know, I thought the video was more about her than anything else. But she is the chairman of the Chiarello Corporation, so she does deserve that. Mom.

You know, before I start, Maria said something earlier, and I want to make sure that the room feels great about all the things they heard tonight. I want to thank Maria Bartiromo. I want to thank Marion. I really want to say congratulations to Donna, Matilda, Margaret. The two ladies, we are surrounded tonight, or Angelo and I are surrounded tonight on this dais, by very successful women with poise, and it's great to see. Congratulations.

You know, Joe was a very good mentor, and he taught me a number of different things. But most importantly, he taught me to talk from the heart. And if I could tonight, I'd like you to know who I am very briefly. Tonight is not about me, but it is about why I'm here, and it is about why I support this organization. And I think if I could spend a few minutes and just give you a sense of purpose and where I've come from and why this is so important to me, I think it'll become equally important to you, and maybe we do something special here before the end of the night.

I was one of those children. I wanted to go to school. I wanted to be the first graduate from college of my generation. I wanted to go to the best school possible. But at the same time, my family needed me, and my parents only had so much. And I didn't have a place to go to get that funding, like this great organization. And instead, I found something that I was going to be the best in the world at, so that somebody would want to give me that education. And baseball happened to be my outlet. For others, it's different things. In Joe's book, The Power of Being Yourself, he says something very profound in there. He says, 'Everyone has the same plumbing.' Obvious, everyone has the same plumbing. And when my dad read that book, he said, 'What are you going to do with your plumbing? How are you going to put that to work? You've done a great job already, son. What else can you do? You've achieved a lot. How are you going to give back?' And one of the reasons we're here tonight is for that purpose.

This is a record night so far, or it will be before we're done. We've raised a lot of money. Over 45 companies that Frank and I asked to be in the room tonight, many of you for the first time, have done an exceptional job. Tom Miklich on my team has been exceptional, worked every detail, as Frank would often say, made hard plays look easy, like my Yankees tonight so far.

But you know, I thought maybe instead of reading something, I could just take a step back, and I won't be long. I thought I'd talk to four or five pictures, because that might give you a perspective. First and foremost, the Columbus Foundation and this drive for education is just one of the things in my mind. I have tried to find all the organizations, certainly around New York City and nationwide, that really do amazing things for kids. Frank started me with NPower early in my career at JPMorgan, and accelerated to six or seven different organizations.

You know, there's a few things that you can't buy. Certainly, your health is one of them. But another one is a visit to the Pope. This is not a picture of me bragging in any way about getting to see Pope Francis. It was a result of a great man in this room, Gabrielle, and a friend, Tim, who helped raise a lot of money for an organization that was very special to the Pope. He invited us to visit Rome a couple months ago. Very special group of people there, 13 university presidents from around the world, talking about Catholic education in the Vatican with Italian, very prominent. We spent a lot of time that day. But for many of you, as it would be for Denise and I, in this picture, what you can see is humility and humbleness on our part. And what the Pope said to me that day, with once with Cardinal Giuseppe in the background, is, 'Thank you for what you have done. Please continue. It's a very important mission. You're on the right track. Please pray for me.' That never left my mind or my heart from that day. And I will continue with many of you in the room on that mission and quest to help with kids who want to succeed, who want to reach their maximum potential, and do it through education.

Another picture really begins to talk about, in a lot of ways, where I came from. My parents, my family. Marching in that parade as an honoree behind the grand marshal was an unbelievable feeling. Unbelievable. If you're Italian, you're walking down Fifth Avenue in New York City in front of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people, waving that flag, you think, you really think about who you are and where you came from. And I love where I came from. I love it.

My parents, on this next slide. My dad, he worked for the same company for 40 years, fought in the Korean War, worked his tail off his whole life so that we could have whatever we needed. My mother, 88 years old, 88 years old, still works five days a week in that family business. That's an interesting accomplishment. But think about if you're in the grandstand watching that. If you had employees that worked that hard, if you had leaders that worked that hard, employees, they would want to run through the wall for you. They would want to work the same way. That's this family right here. That's what they did for us. They figured out how to instill culture, work ethic, community, faith in our family. And the respect that we gave back to them, and the respect that we all give to each other every day, is something that's embedded in that Chiarello name.

In this next slide, see the entire family. When you put your name on a business, 30 years, 20 before that with our uncle, when you put your name on a business, boy, you better be good. You better be really good. You better make sure that every day you live up to the full expectations. You better make sure the quality that you deliver every day is good. Because if you don't, that name doesn't mean the same thing anymore. And that's why Mom is in that building five days a week. That's why my brothers treat every single person that walks in the room like their family. Every one of these kids, nieces and nephews, have found their way somehow through this business before they went to college. While I was a first college graduate for my generation, that next generation is in college in every way, shape, or form, in all series of curriculums, and they are doing a great job because they care and they want to reach the same potential. 3.93 GPA. Joe and I were joking, we didn't even know it went that high. We didn't even know. I thought 3.3, 3.4 was like as good as it gets. Summa cum laude, you know, back then I didn't even know what that meant. I took four years of Latin, I still didn't know what that meant.

But this family, right? This family, it's who I am. It's why I'm here. It's why I want to represent what goes on here. You know, the next slide is a little bit more intimate. This is my beautiful wife of 35 years. I met her when I was in high school. Who would have thought? Who would have thought? Three great kids, four grandchildren, great partners. Like, this is, we spent, you know, you saw that video. You know, that table where everybody was, 'Hey, cheers!' Thank God the camera was there, because like, when it's not there, it's crazy. It's bedlam. And you gotta love it. You really have to love it. We sit around the table and we do the things that a normal company's supposed to do. And if there's a problem in a family and you're that close, you can't hide it. You need to ask for help, or you'll get help. My mother used to say, 'If you don't behave when your father comes home, he's going to talk to you.' After the first talk, I didn't want to talk anymore. I didn't want to talk. That was a bad talk. So now we sit around a table and we solve the problems a lot sooner.

You know, this next picture is really about my career, which I don't want to talk about because it doesn't matter. It's not how I measure myself. It's not what I think about. It's part of me. I've worked hard. It's been successful. It's been profitable. But I never checked my wallet to see how I feel. But there are some very pivotal moments here which I think are important for any young person in the room. I worked at a college at the Division of Treasury for the State of New Jersey. I was there for about 18 months, and it just didn't let me grow. I wanted to win. I wanted to be in New York City. I wanted to play with the best. I wanted to win. And it was about pride, not about money. And my wife was five months pregnant. I came home and I said, 'I'm going to take a job in New York City with Morgan Stanley. It's a consulting job. It's only good for 30 days. After 30 days, they can send me home.' Five months pregnant. I can't tell if she said, 'Are you crazy?' first or cried. I'm not sure which it was. But true story, right? And she said, 'Follow your heart. You're a winner.' I did that.

I was at Morgan Stanley for 23 years. I then met this interesting guy, Frank Bisignano. Frank's a very persuasive guy, right? Frank. Frank said, first of all, he met me for lunch at the Ritz-Carlton in Battery Park. I thought we were going to Il Molino. We had the Ritz-Carlton in Battery Park. And he said, 'I would love for you to join JPMorgan with me and turn this company into something that's even greater than what it looks like today.' And we did that. We did that for seven years together. He taught me how to pay it forward. We were very successful. And he decided to move on to this company, First Data. Here we go. Another conversation with Denise. You know, after working for a great company like JPMorgan, First Data was a little bit tougher. It was tougher. It was losing a couple billion dollars a year. Clients weren't sure it was going to succeed. Investors weren't sure if it was going to succeed. Frank said, 'How'd you like to come and join me and turn this company around? I know you'd be leaving one of the best jobs in the industry in your career for this.' I don't know, Frank, would it take 30 seconds? I said, 'I'm in.' This time Denise said, 'Great decision. 100 percent. Go after it.' And what you saw was true. Every employee in this company has gotten stock. Three grand marshals, I can count myself as a grand marshal now. Three grand marshals: Plumeri, Bisignano, Chiarello, and a great team of First Data leaders in this room today raised three and a half billion dollars in 40 days, took the company public in October 2015, and today a very, very successful company on a track to not only recovery but transforming itself and helping all of its employees to better wealth.

You know what that's about? It's about pride. And that's kind of where I want to finish. It's about pride. It's not about any of those other things. And I know you might think I'm using that as a cliche. If you know me, you know that's the case. And the Italian Americans have pride and have honor, and their culture matters. They care about their children, their family, their employees, just as if they're their own. And we, as Joe said, want to look forward at this point in time, and we want to figure out how to give this next generation, people like you just saw, people who don't have the same advantages, people who suffered hardships, we want to give them the same opportunities that we have today. And the people in this room have the means to do it, and it's our job, and it's our passion.

So what I'd like you to do, and we haven't done this before, we had people talk to you about what the foundation is really about at its core. Really about at its core, giving kids opportunity, celebrating Italian-American culture, marching in a parade. I promise you, I will march in that parade on Monday for you, confident with your flag, for this foundation, for our culture. I promise that will happen. But if before we leave tonight, we can find it in our hearts to do just a little bit more. A little bit more. It's that pride again. We're almost at a record evening tonight. With 50, it takes about ten thousand dollars to start a scholarship. Ten thousand dollars to start a scholarship for one of these kids. I'd like to see if we could find it in our hearts to get 50 more scholarships. That would put us almost at 300 for the night. 300 for the night. After we're done, and I've asked a friend, CK, to come up and help us. But before I do, I really wanted to say thank you for this opportunity. I appreciate all that the foundation does. Marion, Angelo, my CCF fellow members. But most importantly, I appreciate what all of you did tonight, coming here on a Saturday night, giving up your time, your money, and your heart to celebrate with all of us. Thank you very much.