Leadership Across Cultures with Jae Chung: Insights from a Global Citizen

Okay.

How was lunch?

Excellent.

Yeah, I didn't. I. They can't hear you back there. I know that for sure. How was lunch?

All right, so.

That was impactful. I think it was an impactful morning. The stories, the reach, the people.

We are in the process of shifting gears just a little bit, and this man is just someone who. The first day I met him, I met him at the Houston event. Jay, I think, right? Yeah, down in Houston. But he's from Wentzville, so he's local.

And he's just the warmest soul. It's a man who just looks you in the eyes when he speaks with you, and you feel it, and you'll see why. All right, so Jay Chung, he's truly a global citizen and a visionary leader.

And a gentleman on top of it. With a life marked by diverse cultures, experiences, and perspectives, Jay Chung has gained a unique wisdom that bridges worlds as the founder of Bespoke.

Okay, I practiced this word, and I know this word, but my brain, it just. It trips. Bespoke. Bespoke. Bespoke compass. There it went. It flew. It was good. Bespoke compass. Jay has been guiding individuals and organizations toward deeper understanding, more authentic leadership, and holistic growth. His journey has taken him from academic rigor to hands on leadership, allowing him to blend both theory and practice in powerful ways. Today, Jay will share lessons from his life lived across cultures, and how these experiences have shaped his approach to leadership and success. His insights will challenge you to expand your own horizons and find wisdom and diversity. Let's welcome my friend Jay Chung to the stage.

Unexpected. There are more people here, but I won't ignore you. So I'll be 60% this way. No, no, I'll look around. So what I'm about to share with you today are just three lessons, three of many lessons that I took to heart as I traveled the world. Of course, there are many, but there are some lessons in life that you just remember, and you try to live up to that and cultivate it rest of your life, apply it to, like, how you talk to your daughter, that kind of. That level. So these are very precious in my heart, and I Hope that within 20 or so minutes, I'll be able to impart some of this to you and then hopefully open up maybe five minutes for Q A.

All right.

So my life, people go, hey, tell me about your life. I have to start with movement. I moved around a lot. I was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, and When I was 11 years old, my parents said, let's go. So My younger sister and I, mom and dad moved to Hawaii. So usa, right? And first time it was, it was a neat experience going to Hawaii thinking that's all of America. It wasn't this is a little teeny, closest part to Asia kind of America. And then about a year later we moved to San Francisco Bay area. That's where I grew up. 11, 12, 13, on to college and post college years. And then my wife and I moved to New York, New Jersey area and we lived there for a while until about 15 years ago. Life would have it, I would move back to the origin, right. South Korea. Many people, after they immigrate into another country, they seldom go back and actually live there. I wasn't planning on it. It was going to be two years stint at this work and then just one more line in my resume and then come right back, right. Do my thing. But it turned out to be 10 years. And as an adult, going back to what you thought was your home country or mother country and realize that you've changed, they've changed, everything's changed. And after that experience of kind of unlikely experience of living in Korea as a South Korean descent, but not having done all the military duties, I was considered not real Korean, but then again not real American when I'm here sometimes. So I always felt like I belong in Pacific Ocean. And then now about six years ago, my wife and I, and then Grace and I and my three children who are 18, 17 and 10, so a little bit spread apart, found ourselves in Wentzville, Missouri. Very unique place compared to all the other places I lived in many, many ways. Another cultural shock. And now I'm proud to say I feel like I'm a Missourian. I feel really loved in part because of Tom Hill and all the people that I've met through this network. You really embrace me into this community as a family. So I celebrate that. So movement is a big part of my journey. And then I have to talk about being in between or bridge maker, bridge making. So when you find that there are different pockets of cultures, you either make bridges or you go, let's isolate. So I chose the way of bridge. As a 1.5 generation Korean American, I found myself speaking on behalf of first generation immigrants versus second generation immigrants, things like that. Or just imagine growing up in a world where you're not the dominant culture. You have a language spoken at home and a language and way of living in the worldview that's spoken in school, things like that. You're adjusting every day, right? Your grandpa says something My children would speak Korean. And when my mom's family speaks something, I speak in Japanese because my mom comes from Japan, which is arch enemy, right? It's like Romeo and Juliet steel. I just happen to be their child. And my dad having been the quintessential Korean who hates Japanese, my mom being from Japan and my grandma not knowing Korean language. Whenever I go to Korea or Japan, I always have to feel like, okay, let's try to. History is history. I get you 35 years of. Yeah, I know. Okay, so when they pull out history books, when they pull out. What is it? News clips. I have to go, bro, you're human, I'm your product. Let's talk about this. Things like that. In betweenness was part of my upbringing. I would say God had designed my life that way. So various language groups wearing many hats. Because at one point I wanted to be a physician. So I went to college to study cell biology, molecular cell biology. So at one time I wanted to do that. To this day, I love cell biology so much that I read my daughter's textbook.

I did some postdoctoral work in history and philosophy. I love thinking. I love thinking about the way you think. Not just think, but look at the lens through which you see the world. You see why that was dear to me? Because I see a whole group of people that I love so much think one way, whole group of people that think in whole another way. So when I arrived here, I know Mike and Jennifer. You can attest to this. I never met a single person who fits this bill, owned a bunch of guns, watches Fox News constantly voted for Trump, and kills Bambi on the weekends. I've never met someone that fits this. But now a lot of my friends are.

I almost fell in love with, you know, Trump. It's just weird. So all my UC Berkeley friends would call me nuts. You're having midlife crisis, Jen. You can't be like that. But see, what they don't realize is at the young age, as young as I was, I was always thrown about into these beautiful communities that have their own story. We're storytelling humans. Without it, we can't love, we cannot fight.

Humans are the only organism, really, that can coordinate millions of people to fight against somebody, another nation. Did you know that stories include lies, stories, ability to tell fantastic stories, embellished stories is what makes us tick. Basically, we're at the highest position in the food chain because of that AI, in part because of that bond. It is this conniving, sometimes and manipulative storytelling ability that gets us into Trouble. Hate all Japanese. If you're a Korean, you true Korean hate Japanese. I'm like, I love Japanese people. I love sushi. Hate him. And I go there in the backyard and eat sushi by myself. That's not it.

So I wore many hats. And so I'm a historian in some sense, and I'm a scientist at heart, but I'm a pastor for 20 years and executive life coach. So wearing many hats, transferable knowledge between these groups of knowledge that there's some thread that the creator kind of gave us. And for me, it's not either or, it's both ands sometimes. So I bring you these three lessons, and really these are three. Awareness and care and progress. I could have used many other words, but I decided on these Awareness, care and progress. Because when I observed whether North Korean refugees that were that I met in Vladivostok, Russia, or North Korean refugees in China and so forth, as I was working with them for years, they, whether those are the group or entertainment industry, I got to meet as a megachurch pastor. Many people who are celebrities in their own right, whether it's K pop stars like Gangnam Style or modern ones like a BTS or a Blackpink or your Hollywood star, they would frequent these churches. So I would meet them, then realize, okay, they are different, but they share this in common. So these are the three things. If you're happy and enjoying life, you have these three things in common. Whether you are a tribal leader in Senegal that I used to meet on a regular basis to build a road and hospital in that town, but he has seven wives. It's culturally very different. I always ask him, which one's your favorite? Things like that. When I get close to them, right? The Olympic athletes and political leaders that are at odds when North Korea shoots ballistic missiles across Sea of Japan, which is Sea of Korea for Koreans. And what happens?

It's an ocean. It's all connected. But anyways, it goes over there. Then a client of mine who happens to be be.

In the White House, because that's the Blue House equivalent in Korea, calls me at midnight and says, hey, can you come right away? So I would come as their coach, fly on the wall. I would sit there and go, okay, they're having discussions about things that I really don't know a lot about, but it's significant because it could lead to massive, huge war. And how do I help them to be at ease? How do I help them to be comfortable, excel in what they do, but humanize people and not just use the Metrics and all these numbers, because every number is a human life, right? And those were tension filled moments where I realized all these people may have different number in their checking account, they may have different skin color, but they share these in common when they live in purpose and meaning. And these were awareness, care and progress. So number one, I would say one of the lessons that I choose, embracing awareness is basically three folds. One is choosing to see beyond the surface. So I try to do this with my kids, with my colleagues, because when I do that, I can finally see a glimpse into their worldview. If I don't do that, I just see their surface. What gets me upset, right? But when I choose, it's an action. When you choose to see beyond the surface, then you forget to judge, dismiss, and move on. You begin to ask good questions, discover new insights, and then relate. How about that, right? Instead of judging it. See ya. You just go, hey, let me lean in, learn. So that's what I've been doing. That's what embracing awareness is for me. It works with you and others. You gotta first be aware of yourself. Know thyself, right? Know yourself a little bit more each day. Discover how you're made out uniquely. And then in as much as you love yourself, you can love others, you're more curious about others. Second part of embracing awareness, lean into curiosity. I know as we get older, some more than others, we become the skin becomes all that. You wait. But another biological thing that happens, psychological thing that happens, is that we lose curiosity. We just go, I know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or whatever. Okay, yeah, yeah, good, you're listening, but not really. You're just strategizing. So instead of that, I try to tell myself, jay, embrace awareness. Remember that the most happiest people all over the world were curious. So I lean into curiosity about myself and others. I am, believe it or not, a masterpiece in the making. If you meet me next year, I'll just turn out to be a better version of me. Okay, that's my plan. And so I want to lean into curiosity and give the benefit of the doubt to others as well, that they're just a masterpiece in the making. I'm gonna lean in and go whenever I'm really upset about him or her.

In part it's because I don't have the full story. So let me lean in and let me listen to you. It worked in my families. Every time my family fights, mom's side, dad's side, literally watching the same World cup, right? Japan versus Korea. Seriously, are we looking at the Same game. When you are both and you begin to see, oh, that's how they're messed up. Okay, that's how I could be messed up. So as an 11 year old boy in Hawaii thinking, wow, is this America? To moving back to South Korea and being told you're not real Korean, then what am I? And then tribal leader in Senegal telling me, hey, she's my favorite. And I'm like, how I know I'm not going to get in there. It was weird. The standard of beauty in his eyes was mind boggling to me. What is going on? If I had a big power anyways, moving to Wentzville, Missouri was six years ago was definitely a huge blessing for me. It really was. Because I really was curious. How do the other 50% of the voters feel about America now? I know I literally like an anthropologist, went into every meeting and everything, just leaning into curiosity, loving yourself and loving others because they have their story. And guess what? When you do, oh my God, you've seen Avatar, the movie, you become indigenized. That's what happened to me. And every time I just went to San Francisco about a month ago and everybody told me, man, you have a Midwest feel. What's going on? They're moving back. They're like, come close, I'm not gonna bite. So this is how you practice. Choose to see beyond. Okay? It's a choice you make. You either do it or you don't. Guess what? When you choose to go beyond, you'll see. You'll say stuff like, what story is this person living? What is my mom's aging now. Finally it hurts. And I feel sometimes, mom, are you sure? Are you okay? My mom's aging. I can tell. What story is she living? She's not the woman that raised me when I was 11 years old, right? So I want to relate to her in a new way. That's how I love my mom's story. Honoring her honor is a great thing. How can I come alongside of her story and fit into that story? So I'm always leaning in, right? So lean into curiosity. That's where the wonder and all of life reside. We don't want to be like, become an AI, do we? We want to use AI. So let's be curious, have awe. There's so much more mystery than you think. And, and I think we know. Can I learn from this guy? Can I learn from this person? That would be a great question. That's leaning in to curiosity or if someone says some religious view that doesn't sit well with you. Instead of saying, you're wrong, I'm right, you can do that at night, but at that moment, perhaps you can go lean in and say, how is it working out for you? How is jumping on a tightrope and singing that song working out for you as a religious ritual? I've asked them, and they told me the reason. They told me their story, and I began to humanize them. And my heart just opened up and said, you know what? Instead of judging you, I'm going to learn something from you. And she learns. She opened her heart and ears to me. So choose love. What am I missing? So I want to show you.

Did you find the clicker?

I only have three slides. Looking at this beautiful painting by Raphael, it really shows me that there is a power in embracing. Because if you see closely in the middle, there is Socrates, Plato, and all the major thinkers that were around that time and 100 years before and 100 years after. What this painting shows me is that you can have different perspective. Aristotle differed from Plato. They were not the same. But are we like that in political realm today? In our lives? The difference means I hate you. Differences then meant we can make something beautiful out of this harmony. They actually saw very differently. Their worldview was so different that every man in there felt very differently about politics and. And everything under the sun, except they actually embraced each other much more and said, let's make the harmony together much more than it is now. So over hundreds of years, we've developed many technological improvements, but I think we lost a little bit of humanity that God has given us. There is a humility to say, hey, I don't know everything, so can you teach me? So embrace embracing. Embrace awareness. Second lesson that I've learned is cultivate care. And I use cultivate very strategically because care is not just a feeling. It has to be an action like love, right? So I define care this way. Paying attention to something you choose to value and cultivating a relationship with it. So it is not just a feeling, but action. It's a very powerful word. Many teenagers go through identity crisis in the I don't care. I don't give up. Boom, right? And I go, yeah, give us a few years. Life is to care. To live is to care. I care, therefore I am, right? It's not what you think, what you do. It's the heart that's in action, love in action. So for me, cultivating care is like gardening. So that's an analogy I use in my brain. I go, I'm gonna. I've seen some Successful people all over the world, they cultivate care. How do they do that? In three ways. It's like gardening. You have to nurture and care, water and shade it. Otherwise if you just let it be, what your heart, what you care about, it's just going to stagnate and it's going to go away. I don't care if you cared about that issue two years ago. If you don't cultivate it, it's gone. Even though I was a pastor for 20 years of my life, over 20 years, sometimes I didn't really care about my parishioners. I didn't. I just did it without much care. I thought that it was automatic. Later I found out it's actually it needs to be nurtured. Even the best side of you needs to be nurtured. So take care of it. So cultivate that care. The second thing is it's a paradox. But when you have little, you care more. That's why I think in a Western society or developed world, we have too much to care. We have too much, so we don't care. You see what I'm saying? Having a dinner in small village in Southeast Asia, it will never be something that I would forget because the menu wasn't great. The facility was horrible. Actually. There were pigs eating poop just a few feet away from the dinner table. So that's not a very good restaurant. But as I was eating there, I saw extreme amount of cultivated care out of the family that was hosting me. I saw in their eyes that they actually give about the moment. It wasn't some missionary that goes, hey, my church paid me, let me do this. Hey, let me preach because I'm a pastor, let me do this because I'm this. It's not obligation, it's not who you are on a platform. It was like, oof. It was cultivated care. The lack in that small village in East Asia, East Southeast Asia, the lack of food, the scarcity of resources created, heightens sense of preciousness, urgency and meaning. That's why I'm like the Stoics of the West. I meditate on death a lot. And my wife doesn't like it, my kids certainly don't like it. But now, in secret, I still contemplate death because death to me gives me a hyper focus on this moment, how precious it is. That's why I like Hourglass, because once it falls, it doesn't go back up those little granules. And so for me, scarcity, that I only get one chance at this life this side of heaven gives Me, a sense of urgency, meaning, and reason why I should say I love you to Grace before I sleep. I was touching her like this last night just as she was falling asleep, because I realized this may be the last time I get to sleep right next to her. There's no guarantee I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning. So I did that. I celebrated that. Now, I'm not asking you to contemplate that. All I'm saying is sometimes scarcity, the recognition of it, creates urgency and meaning. And conversely, when I look at some of the New Yorkers I met, they're living in a penthouse. They're living in a beautiful home, surrounded by people, and yet they're lonely, surrounded by food. But they're not really enjoying any food, really. They're just stuffing it down their throat. Buffet doesn't mean nutritious. More is better. Super sized meat is a western myth that we have to rethink because the longest living people are in this little village in south side of Japan. These grandma, grandpas, they live till they're like, are you 110? Cool, I'm gonna get there. Five years.

We just accept that we consume, enjoy that die a sudden death.

Surrounded by food.

Enveloped by screens, and lose the true taste of food and entertainment. We lose value when we have too much. So sometimes it's good to limit while you can, lest the life will limit it for you because you're bedridden.

The third thing about cultivating care is not only intentional gardening. Not only appreciating the little scarcity, but being selective like a true gardener. Like, my dad's a gardener. He doesn't go out there just because he's gardener and plant every tree under the sun. You can't. You are selective about what plants will grow in my yard and you take care of it. So I'm not saying you should cultivate care for others to the maximum. You have to limit it. Because saying yes to everything, you're saying no to almost everything. Burnout, exhaustion. Burnout and exhaustion is what got me to St. Louis. It was just too much for me, just chasing. I was just internalizing all the competition in my heart. Even as a mega church pastor, is that even possibility? I'm supposed to be like, Christ, I couldn't do it. So burnout was a real thing. Like a gardener. Like a gardener that respects the earth. Not consuming, not wanting to garden so that I can put some zeros on my checking account. But gardening, because the flowers are beautiful and trees are amazing. And you're saying yes, Intentional, yes. To that. So how do you practice this? I would be a little more intentional and pay attention to certain things. I wasn't going to share this. I'm going to share this because I love this singer in Korea. Her name is iu. She's much younger than me. About her voices, just so beautiful. So sometimes I just. When I'm tired, I just listen to her. And the other day I was just telling her she wasn't. I don't know her and certainly she doesn't know me. But what I said was, this is what I wrote. I said, thank you for being born in the same era as I've been born so that I may enjoy your music. And on and on. I was just writing that in my journal. That's crazy, right? Anyways, I did that because there were so many moments in my life I felt like her music, her soothing voice, she writes all her music like the other lady here, right? But it just is so beautiful. It soothes me. And so I just want to take intentional time and care and say thank you. One day I'm going to reach out to her and say thank you. Have meaningful conversations with your children or your loved one. Because sometimes life happens and we're not intentional about sitting down, having conversations and hey, have you eaten? Hey, are you going to do that? Homework isn't the meaningful conversation. I have a lot of words with my kids, but now I'm trying to be consistent with it and have a more meaningful conversation time. So this one is cultivating care for me. I love this art because it's not flashy. It's just two couples just going, hey, we're praying before the day's over and we're going to work. As the angelist church bell rings, they're just saying a simple prayer. I just feel like it shows the intentionality, the meaning that sometimes most meaningful moments in lives are not flashy. It's not in your Instagram wheel. It's just right there. It's just right there every day. So discover it. So I'm going to move on to the next one, Pursue progress, and I'm going to show you this one. Progress to me is not about perfection, but about moving forward with purpose and value so that you can create meaning. I feel like meaning is something that you create. It's not something you discover under. Under. Under some stone over there. So pursuing progress, to me is aligning with your value and purpose. I've seen people do this. People who are happiest or doing this right, align it. So keep checking it. Secondly, it's not destination necessarily, but journey. I think we western educated people tend to be all about destination because that's what the Academy Awards is about, right? That's what hall of Fame is about. But guess what? We're all going to have so much to do list the moment we die. And I think if we don't appreciate the journey, what's the point? The pursuit of excellence and attempting to do the right thing matters, not just getting the right result. And Olympic athletes at the highest level has told me this. She said, I actually enjoy the. The process and not the final outcome, but the training and the effort that I put in. So I think I take that to heart. Thirdly, it's really. Progress is not linear. It's not linear. It's one step backwards, two step backwards, and then one step forward a lot of times. And it's like this. And you know what? The progress you make is actually not visible necessarily. It's under the radar and it's seldom recognized and therefore seldom celebrated. So don't worry, you are okay and you're progressing. Even if you can't tell and your parents can't tell, your kids can't tell. And so have faith in practice. I try not to win every battle that I get myself into. Life is weird. You can win every battle and still lose the war. But said another way, you can actually lose many battles and still win the war. That's what Americans did to England. So what about your life? If you're all about progress, then you might actually lose the war at the end of your life. What do you want to be known as? The one who won every argument or the one who. Man, I was so lucky to be married to him. Whenever I think about my wife, whom I have certainly hurt many times, whom I have learned to love and nurturing my care for her. If my wife was sitting here, she'll tell you he's a work in progress, but he's going the right direction. That's all that matters to me. I want to be that samurai guy on a black horse. And in the movie Last Samurai. Have you seen that movie? And you just go to war? For me, I would have gone the other way because I want to live a few more years. But he just went. And Sakura, the tree was just falling. Its leaves and beautiful petals were just flowing. And he had hundred different arrows through his body. And what did he say? The lasting closing statement in his life, he said beautiful.

He was a warrior. He wanted to die for what he believed, value, purpose. He's Going the right direction, even though 100 arrows are going the other direction. And he just said, that's called martyrdom in Christianity. And I feel, in some sense, I want to go win the war, not the battles. I don't want to be discouraged because. Because what little progress I make towards becoming a better husband, it counts in eternity. And I want to celebrate small wins and closing. Just look at this. I mean, it's a painting that reminds me that each person has a different story and they're making different. That guy right there, he's just chilling in the front.

And every person is doing. It's like a plain.

Scenery, and yet everybody has a different story. Making different progresses. And together we make an art. And this point, using the point and layer system, is an amazing allegory for us to all see that our lives are but little moments added together. So let's just go to the right direction. Let's make progress instead of accomplishment and trophies and stuff like that. Seriously, we're too old for that. That's it. I took a little more time than I should have. I just want to have a couple of questions. Is that okay? Yeah, I'll just open up for questions. Anything interesting you want to ask me? Yes.

Back to your point of having more.

Yeah.

Could cause somebody to not have the.

Ability to carry much. Yeah.

And I assume that doing more is the same.

Wow. I felt like I just learned.

Right.

He's just saying, hey, having more, sometimes you appreciate it less. Doing more, you appreciate this. That's why people who can keep their mouth shut, sometimes they. They are heard loudest because they said least and they did least. But anyways.

Yeah.

I would concur. I think there's a huge insight to that. Yeah. Yes, sir.

As you talk, I feel like you have an inner joy about you.

Yeah. Have you always been, like, the right answer would be, yes, I'm blessed.

No.

But the truth of the matter is I growing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the real. Go ahead.

I think that could be a long story. So just making it one thing would be because I hit the rock bottom. I think once I lost a lot of stuff that are valuable to me, and I. I was at the end of my ropes. That's when I realized there's nothing really to lose. God loved me. I was in a basement crying. And you might not be religious, so you may not be able to correlate this really well, but for me, I was just crying out and saying, oh, God, I lost everything. I don't know what to do. Who am I? You know? For two, three months in a basement that I was renting this house from. And I felt like in my heart, God was the creator was saying, jerry, nothing you do impresses me. Nothing you do would take away the amount of love I have for you. So you're fine. So I just felt like the joy crept in when I realized, oh, I can't really mess this up.

Okay?

I can't mess this up. As long as I'm open handed and learning progressing, I'm going to be okay. So I think Joey became a reality for me when I realized death is going to be meeting me soon. I think as a pastor, I've held over 100 people in my arms as they took the last breath. And that's a unique occupation to be in. So death to me is not a theory. Things that we Westerners keep away at distance. It's something that's right around the corner. And I say hello to it all the time. Anyways, one more question. Yes, sir.

So I've got so many questions.

Your meaning of life right now. What you mean of life? Right, yeah. Thank you for asking that because that's like a perfect way to summarize this for me. Meaning of life I call living fully, mindfully, healthfully and meaningfully. But it correlates with what I just talked about. Mindfully, meaningfully, healthfully, healthily and meaningfully. Three things. Embrace more awareness each day. Aware of who I am, who God is, who others are leaning in, and then cultivating deeper care. I want to healthily care for me and other people like my mom and my dad, my clients. And then really, I want to focus on little small wins as I progress. The meaning, meaning making happens for me when I focus not on the result as much, but the journey and the progress. Three things I talked about awareness and care and progress. It really fits in with I have it in my car. I didn't want to be like show and tell, so I didn't bring it. But it says, day by day, grace upon grace, better than before. See progress better than before. That's hanging on every room in my house and my church office. It's just right there. So thank you so much. Oversteps in time, but.

That's Korean.

Hey, this is iu. This is the lady I listen to every day.

Okay.

Our next speaker is another brilliant guy introduced to me by my brother Chris. Imagine that he's someone who has dedicated his career, career to making a difference through impact investing. Matt Marsh is a partner and advisor with Summit Trail where he specializes in guiding high net worth individuals, families and institutions through the complexities of wealth management. His focus on sustain, sustainable and responsible investing has positioned him as a leader in the movement to align financial growth with positive social and environmental impact. The With a background in senior advisory roles at institutions like BMO Private bank and Dynasty Financial Partners, Matt brings a wealth of knowledge on how to invest with intention while still achieving remarkable returns. His deep commitment to faith driven and sustainable investing is transforming the way that we think about wealth and legacy. Today, Matt will walk us through the importance of investing with impact and how thoughtful financial strategies can create lasting change for future generations. Please help me welcome Matt Marsh.

Thanks everybody. It's good to be here. As I was walking up to the stage, I now realize that I will be unfortunately the guy who followed Jay. So please don't ask me about inner joy or any of those things. I'm definitely not here to talk about that. But anyway I am here to talk about investing with impact and understanding the importance of a sustainable investing framework. And so I will start very quickly with a shameless introduction. Two quick minutes on Summit Trail As Sandy indicated. My name is Matt Marsh. I'm a partner and advisor at Summit Trail. We're a national registered investment advisory firm. We have 105 employees. We were founded in 2015, 100% employee owned. I'm based in Denver. The majority of the rest of my colleagues are out of our larger offices in New York, San Francisco and Chicago. We manage just shy of 19 billion on behalf of 520 ish individuals and families.

A lot of my time is spent advising and and providing guidance to our families across all of the different functional areas of wealth management. I'll point out a couple on this slide. We do a lot of really good work in terms of consolidated reporting and administration. We utilize what I think is the industry leading performance reporting system called Addepar. So it gives us the capabilities to report to clients not only on what we manage internally at Summit Trail but also all of the different accounts and entities that our clients have with providers who don't custody with us. And so that is very important to clients of significant wealth in terms of understanding really everything that they have, where performance is coming from and those types of things. Insurance. Insurance is a big part of what we do. Risk mitigation, families of wealth, as you all know, capital preservation is extremely important to them. So we, we provide a lot of advice and guidance in terms of insurance and mitigating risk trust and estate planning. We've got a team of 10 people back in New York who all they do all day, every day, is spend time advising our clients in terms of what specific entities or strategies they should utilize to mitigate estate and taxes. Philanthropy and next gen philanthropy is a big part of what the majority of our clients want to be involved with, not only during life, but at death. And so we'll talk to them a lot about what specific vehicles to use that are most advantageous to them. It could be a donor advised fund, it could be a family foundation or other vehicles. Next gen, there's a considerable amount of wealth obviously that's going to be passed down to Gen 2 and Gen 3. And so we provide a lot of guidance and consultation and education in terms of getting that next generation generation prepared for the wealth that they're going to inherit and then how to be good stewards of that. But what I'm here to talk about today is really where I spend most of my time is really important to me. And I said, I think that's great. Obviously she had a considerable, and still does have a considerable amount of assets at the firm. And so we highlighted one account because typically as our clients come to us and they want to take the first step in terms of implementing that type of approach, we start to start slow and we take a very measured approach to it. So we circled one large family trust account. There were only 11 stocks in it. These stocks had been held for probably 30 or 40 years. And so I said, why don't you give me three or four days to do the due diligence and the research from our side. Prepare for us going through security by security to determine what you want to hold or what do we need to get rid of and account. So she came back on a Friday, we sat down, we start to make our way through the list and ultimately we get to the second to the last security, which was a company named Altria, is named Altria. So Altria is formally known as Philip Morris. Philip Morris had been in the portfolio for almost 35 years and there was reason for it being in the portfolio. Philip Morris, many of you might remember, was probably one of the most popular stocks of the 80s and 90s, right? A consistent grower, threw off really significant dividends and was widely held across most clients portfolios. And she said, this probably won't take long because this is a security that I've never been really comfortable holding in the account, aside from all of the health impacts. I've never been comfortable with the way that this company and other companies kind of market utilizing tobacco to the user or to the youth. And now with the kind of the evolution of E Cigarettes, I just want to get rid of it. I said, that's great. So we were able. I said, tomorrow I'll come in, we'll sell that and we'll find a comparable security to replace it. And then ultimately we got to the last security in the portfolio and it was a company called Disney. And she said this again, should be very easy and shouldn't take long. We've owned Disney in the account for 30, 35 years. And I'm a huge believer in Disney as that. Right. I took my kids growing up to the theme parks. Now I take their grandkids. It's a great company, wholesome approach. We watch all the movies, right? There are really good messages that come about from the movies. And she proceeded to go on and on and rave about Disney. And I let her finish and I said, that's great. I said, let me ask you a question, Meredith. And I said, if I were to tell you that Disney generates 27% of their profits in their cruise lines from the sale of alcohol and tobacco, would that mean anything to you? And so there's this blank sphere. And I tell you all that. And I'm not going to tell you what decision she made, but I tell you all that because data is extremely important when you're implementing a sustainable investing approach. Because typically the data is not going to be found in traditional financial statements, right? It's going to be in disclosures, it's going to be in public commentaries that the executives of those companies make, right? But you have to have access to the data and you have to have the ability to really review that data. What is sustainable investing? Sustainable investing is an investment strategy that considers environmental, social and governance factors to help improve long term performance or to improve client outcomes with their portfolio. Esg. There's been a lot of talk about esg, sustainable investing, socially responsible investing. There are a lot of words out there for trying to have an impact in your portfolio. But ESG itself is simply an acronym for three categories of data that investors can use to make investment decisions. ESG is not an investment strategy, it's not an investment philosophy. But again, we think if you utilize an ESG framework and put a lens on ESG, and then if you couple that with really deep, important traditional financial analysis, then that can help us determine long term winners in your portfolio and not only help identify those securities, but more importantly help steer clear of securities that are heavily exposed to other areas. So sustainable investing at Summit Trail we rolled out this platform four to five years ago. We continue to tighten the screws on it. But to us, sustainable investing means building a platform of investment strategies who utilize that ESG data to hopefully improve client goals and to hit those goals. Why invest sustainably? I think I pointed out number one, which is again, we think implementing sustainable investing framework. And if you couple that with traditional financial analysis, it's going to to lead to better returns in your portfolios. So improving returns, mitigating risk, those are the two things we're trying to achieve through the implementation of SI frameworks. Second would be more of a socioeconomic rationale, which is economies endure when they're sustainable. If you think about economies that are sustainable, resources are being replenished, capital's flowing into those economies, there's positive demographics, and in general, there's improving quality of life.

Companies and municipalities and even governments that develop solutions and adapt to the challenges of a sustainable future will thrive. And we point that out through that virtuous circle on the right. Conversely, when economies are not sustainable, that's when they really face inherent risks, right? In an unsustainable economy, resources being diminished, capital outflows, right. Profits going down, deteriorating demographics. Right. And in general, lower quality of life. And conversely, again, companies and municipalities and governments that don't develop effective risk management to identify and manage these will likely fail. And we think climate change is really the most notable of these challenges and risks. So again, we're going to use the SI framework to help us determine or essentially have radar in terms of navigating some of those grenades that are out there that are really that the general investing public is not aware of.

So what are examples of esg? Again, I think everybody in this room has heard esg, or the truth term esg, again, at a very high level. It stands for environmental, social, governance. Right. There are hundreds and hundreds of different ESG data points. What we've tried to do here is just really at a very high level. Boil it down to five in each category. So environmental data could include clean air, clean water, energy efficiency, the transition to ev. And typically when clients come to me and they say, we're ready to take the first step in terms of having more impact with at least a portion of our investments. 70% of the portfolios that we're building today typically revolve around one or two aspects within that E, or the environmental. It's stuff that we experience every day, and the younger generation specifically, this is a big area of interest in terms of what they're trying to express in their portfolio. So Those would be some of the examples of the E or the environmental. If we move to S, the social data could include. The biggest would be dei, right? Diversity, equity, inclusion. It could be other measurables like employee compensation or benefits, safety practices, gender equality. All of those things, which is a growing component of what we're starting to implement in the portfolios, would be captured within the social data. And then finally, governance, right? Governance is probably represents maybe less than 5% in terms of expressing those values in a portfolio for our clients. But it is growing in importance, right, because it deals with board independence, board attendance, director, executive compensation, board composition. Right. So if you looked at boards five, 10 years ago, it used to look like pretty much me and five of my clones. Luckily, today that's not the case. Right. So you see this increase in the percentage of females versus males that are sitting on boards. And then you see a really diverse representation of individuals that come from different walks of life who have different opinions, different insights and can really tackle the challenges of solving really difficult problems for those companies. Just as there are many different styles of investing that we know, traditional investing, right. You've got your growth people, you've got value, deep value, momentum. There are many different ways to use ESG data to build an investment process.

What's most important though, is getting the clients to recognize what's really important to them. And this is where we spend a lot of time at Snow Trail is advising clients, not telling them what should be important to them, but sitting back and listening to what is important to them. Right. And then us solving that by creating brick, bright brick, a portfolio to demonstrate their.

Value. We take a very measured approach. Right. It becomes very overwhelming to a lot of people in terms of how do I get started and do I do everything at once? Again, we don't advise that we take baby steps with our clients in terms of. Let's just figure out one or two factors that are important to you that we can start to implement in your portfolio. Right. Get your legs under you see if you're happy with that portfolio and if it is achieving what you're trying to achieve, and we'll do that for you. So we'll create the portfolio, we'll determine again what the underlying stocks or bonds are in that portfolio and we will actively manage it to make sure that the underlying companies are doing what they say they were going to do in terms of progressing on those ESG related factors. So how do you define ESG and related terms? Again, we've went through the fact that ESG is Just an acronym, right? That stands for three different categories of data. Environmental, social and governance. What's more important is ESG integration. And that's the way investors use ESG data in the investment process to actually make the buying decisions that will hopefully generate outperformance or mitigate risk. So we take the entire environment of available securities. So we're looking at not only the public markets, we're looking at the private markets, we're looking at individual equities, we're looking at muni bonds, we're looking at taxable bonds. Really whatever the entire universe is of available investments. That is our hunting ground. And we believe that ESG data informs if the securities are priced properly or if they again, look attractive. And if they look attractive, we're going to do a deeper dive on those securities and we're going to put money to work in those names in the anticipation that the general market will also at some point start to become attracted to these exact same securities based upon the advantages that they have either in their traditional business or with some of the ESG metrics that they've expressed publicly. How do we define ESG performance? Again, anything that has underlying data can be measured and companies and municipalities can be evaluated on their ESG performance using whatever factor we're looking at. In a very simple term or in a very simple example, I've tried to outline that if we had a company and that company's carbon footprint is improving, then their E, the environmental score is going to be improving as well. Workforce safety and diversity, if we can measure that's improving quarter to quarter or year over year, then its s performance is going to be improved. And then finally, board independence or composition of women represented on the board, if that's getting stronger over the past one to three to five years, again that means their G performance is going to be improving. But again, anything that we set about in terms of identifying those securities out of the outset, we will measure those to determine how well those companies are actually progressing towards achieving their goals. And we'll give a score on that. So why should investment managers and folks like you and I, maybe you all are managing your own investments. Why should you care about ESG data? Well, again, we believe ESG data captures information that's not typically available on triple financial statements. So you're not going to see a lot of ESG related metrics in a cash flow statement or a balance sheet or any of the other traditional financial statements. And if you do use ESG data and sustainable investment techniques, then you're going to be able to fill in some of the gaps that are left by having just solely a focus lens on traditional analysis. Taking a deeper dive on climate change. So climate change is one of the biggest risks that investors need to consider that's not captured by traditional financial analysis. And we're going to get into what that looks like. So take the concept of property. If you own property or if there's a community or a municipality, let's just take Tampa, that just got hit very hard by the hurricane. If you own property in an area like that, and every year the property starts to go down in value because of increased climate risk based upon either the number of hurricanes that are happening due to climate change or the severity of those hurricanes, you run the risk that the value of that property is going to go down. And if that property is the collateral for loans, then those loans at a certain point run the risk of becoming impaired. Right. And ultimately it's going to be the owners of those loans could be banks, financial services companies, could be investors like all of us that are going to assume that risk. So let's take a look at stocks in terms of climate change impact across the assets. 12% of the S&P 500 today is in financials. So almost one out of every eight stocks is either a bank or a financial services company that again has some sort of exposure to climate change. 2.5% of the S&P 500 is tied directly to the real estate sector. So they've got direct impact. 60% of companies in the S&P 540% of companies in the Global 1200 also are at high risk of physical climate change impacting certain facilities. Think about distribution facilities that companies have in the Gulf. Think about manufacturing facilities that are on the coast. Think about distribution facilities that are in Central California that are now in fire zones. So all of these global companies hold assets that either now or at some point we think will be exposed to climate change and its impacts. And the Fed itself extremely worried about these risks as well, because it's really not being talked about. Taxable bonds. Moving on from stocks to taxable bonds, the investment grade bond market is composed of 25% mortgage pass through securities. So for those of us in the audience that have an allocation to fixed income, typically you're going to own Treasuries and other securities, but you might also own these mortgage backed securities which are basically pools of mortgages. So again, if you own a pool of mortgages that's specifically concentrated in a geographic area that is prone to climate Change the value of those bonds are going to start to go down. And we want to have radar in terms of what's happening in those communities. And more importantly, we want to steer our clients clear of owning taxable bonds, mortgage backed, secured in specific areas. So we'll steer away from that of owning taxable bonds, mortgage backed securities in specific areas. So we'll steer away from them. And then let's talk about muni bonds. So over 6% of the muni bond market is backed by revenues, not income taxes. And we all know that property taxes are a very important source of revenue for municipalities. So there are a lot of municipalities out there right now where the value of homes in those communities are going down. And if that's happening, lower property taxes are being paid to the municipality. So it's putting strains on those municipalities budgets in terms of how they run their communities. And so if property values are impaired, property tax revenues are going to be impaired. And this goes to speak as well to any of the infrastructure based within that community. And private markets are no different. Right. So we did a lot of just talk right there about individual securities, taxable bonds, muni bonds, the private markets are exposed to the exact same risks as well. So whether it's private equity, private real estate, private credit, everyone is prone towards the impact of clients change.

For our sustainable investing platform, again, we're going to either look for individual securities or we're going to look for managers that integrate ESG data into their investment process. And what's important to us is the recognition that really the only way to do that for individual investors is to build really specific, highly customized portfolios. Right. Because there are a lot of mutual funds, there are a lot of Egypt ETFs out there right now that a lot of investors are invested in. But again, if what's important to me may not be important to the next investor who's in that exact same mutual fund who's trying to solve for 30 different factors. Right. So ultimately we think you should use a bottom up approach in terms of determining what's important to you, what are the factors that are important to you and then going about building that portfolio to actually have those reflected. Typically, as I said, clients have a really difficult time. Everybody knows they want to have more meaning in their portfolio and to have that expressed through what they own. But it's really, really difficult for any individual to actually get started. What we utilize is basically The United Nations, 17 different sustainable development goals. So we give this as homework to somebody who raises their hand and says you know what I'm saying? Ready to have some sort of sustainable investment portfolio or an account tied to that. And we say take this back, figure out what's really important to you from a very high level and then we can go more granular on it. So it could be clean air, it could be no poverty ending hunger, climate change, whatever. It is the 17 different metrics of sustainable investing that the United nations has pointed out, it serves as a good starting ground to help clients determine really what's important to them. So let's take a look at the ESG industry outlook. Obviously, Meredith came to me at the beginning of 2020 in terms of wanting to have more of a meaningful approach with her investments. The trends in terms of ESG being implemented in client portfolios really took off at the beginning of COVID Unfortunately what happened is Wall street recognized that there was this really important trend out there and there was this mad rush to create hundreds and hundreds of mutual funds and or ETFs so that they could attract assets and generate fees. Right? That's what Wall street does very, very well. And there were tons of funds out there that were simply just screening out or including various securities in their portfolios and calling themselves an impact fund. And the industry is itself became very, very watered down. And there was this big distaste in clients minds in terms of I own this fund, but it really doesn't speak to me personally. And if you look at what's happening recently over the past two years is the number of funds being launched has significantly decreased. And a lot of the funds that were rolled out at the beginning of 2020 are no longer here. The big are getting bigger, new ones are being created. But ultimately, again, again, we think this shakeout will lead to a better opportunity for firms like us who are actively building highly customized portfolios on behalf of their clients globally. It's important to point out that the biggest asset owners are still very much behind the ESG socially responsible investing movement, right? So you've got the big, big asset owners, sovereign wealth funds, pensions, foundations, endowments, still believing that sustainable investing is an important approach and they want to have that expressed through their portfolios as well. And if you look at those organizations investment policy statements, you'll see that environment, net zero emissions and other causes are of significance importance to them. And so we have to keep an eye in terms of where these large asset owners are moving because if we don't, then we're going to lose the opportunity to really evaluate whether the prices of securities are accurately reflected or not.

Here'S a chart of ESG flows. And this is interesting because a lot of us in this group, we're the typical American that thinks any big global trend that's pushing positive good throughout the world, it's probably going to be started and America is going to be a leader and we're going to be leading the charge. And that's really not the case from an ESG standpoint. So here you can see that flows in the US have actually been negative the past couple years, but positive in the rest of the world. And if you move towards actual investments being implemented in impact strategies, this also shows that AUM in the US Is actually flat but growing elsewhere. Right. So it's really the rest of the world that's pushing the charge in terms of impact investing. And why is that? There are a lot of arguments in terms of why is that. It's clear that the US Is doing its part, but again, it's really Europe and some of the other areas globally that are leading the charge. And I think that we believe that, again, if you're waking up in Eastern Europe and you're surrounded by really outdated infrastructure and you grow up and you grow up next to a smokestack or some sort of power facility, and if you haven't really had any access to really clean air or clean water, or if you have a family of daughters and there's this glass ceiling that they've all experienced in terms of moving up in the business world, you're going to be more inclined to get behind those causes and put your money down behind it. And so we think that's definitely taking place globally in terms of why the rest of the world is really outpacing what we in the US Are doing. So, as I said, you've got to ignore these trends at your own risk. Right? You've got to look at where the large asset owners are moving money. Because ultimately, what we want to do is identify securities that we think are really good companies, but also have a focus and a keen eye on ESG metrics. And we want to get in those companies and own those early so that when the rest of the market.

Recognizes, by the way, that's a really good company and they're doing really good things, not only traditional, but on the ESG side as well, we want to own that. So we want to be in front of those big asset flows so that the securities that our clients own obviously will get the benefit of that.

So the political background is complicated matters, right? Because now, I don't know. I Think everybody probably saw the debate that happened. Both candidates were asked about what's your views on fracking? Are you pro fossil fuel, anti fossil fuel? These matters, these factors that are important to all of us, unfortunately they're becoming really highly politicized and different states that are aligned, red versus Blue, start to take action in terms of some of the things that they're doing with their own state funds. And that's really discouraging to a lot of clients because it just adds confusion and uncertainty and disbelief in terms of should I really be worried about that if I'm Republican or if I'm Democrat? I have that in my portfolio. So there's a lot, there's this big air of confusion and a lot of it's being enhanced unfortunately by the political environment. I'll point to an example here. This is South Carolina, I'm obviously South Carolina, red state, South Carolina. Their treasurer lot just recently went to BlackRock. BlackRock's the biggest global asset manager. They felt like BlackRock was really overstepping their bounds in terms of becoming very heavily politicized, having some sort of left wing political agenda. And so they said, listen, we're going to basically pull the last 200 million, which at one time was a $2 billion major mandate from BlackRock, because we're going to again move those assets to somebody else that better aligns with our values.

Conversely, if you look at Chicago, Illinois, Blue State, they have a massive pension fund, 11.5 billion dollar pension fund, about 400 million of that is in fossil fuel related stocks. So they have gone out to every single one of those companies and they said, listen, we want to see a transition plan to get you out of fossil fuels by the end of 2027. And if you don't, or if you even don't start to make progress towards that, we're going to sell every single one of your securities. And then obviously you'll have to explain to the public why the state of Illinois is getting out of your respective organization or your company. So lots of different things going on. Again, the political environment doesn't help things. I think we're all very much ready for these elections to be over. It certainly impacted clients who with us were at the five yard line in terms of them taking a pause to determine really when and if they're going to execute these portfolios. Just because again, there's just a lot of question around should I be more concerned about something else or am I capturing everything that should be important to me, et cetera, implementing ESG into Your portfolio, obviously, I think there's gonna be a day where most of us will have at least a portion of our assets allocated towards causes that are meaningful to each of us. And what we do is spend a lot of time with our clients and prospective clients in helping them determine what's really important to you. Right. And then once we hear what's important to them, we start to build that portfolio brick by brick and we monitor that portfolio. If, for instance, an individual company is in there that is no longer achieving the goals that they stated on an ESG standpoint, we'll at that point determine whether they should continue to be held in the portfolio or replaced. And we do a lot of quantitative and qualitative analysis. Right. So we'll sit down with a client after the first quarter or the first year, and we'll help them determine how their portfolio is doing and how each one of their stock is doing relative to their peers in their industry or their peers from an index standpoint. And we also do a lot of qualitative work as well, where our investment team, which is about 12 folks back in New York, will call on those companies or call on those fund managers to make sure we'll give them surveys again, we'll want to just make sure that ESG continues to be a focus and that they're marching towards making progress with those sustainable frameworks.

Five years ago, the pundits or the haters out there, you used to get a lot of grief if you were public in terms of, oh, you know what? I do have an account where I made the choice to have a meaningful approach with the investments in that. And they would say, I think that's great that you're trying to change the world, but ultimately that's going to come at the cost of underperformance in your portfolio. So good for you. But you're not going to make as much money today. I can tell you that's not the case. Right. And if hopefully you understand what I outlined, which is, again, the coupling of an ESG framework with really good work on the traditional financial analysis side, we think combining those will lead to really good outcomes for clients. So if I were to leave you with one comment, it would be the phrase, you can do well by doing good. Thank you.

All right, let's take a five, seven minute break and stretch, move, shake it out. And then we're going to come back and talk about AI.