Future Trail-blazing Leaders in Payments – Julia Streets [Season 2 | Episode #30]

Podcast Intro 00:00:03 Hello. Welcome to Pit Exchange, a podcast by Currency Research. Join us as we discuss the latest in payments innovation and technology with the industry’s most innovative thought leaders. Today’s payments are changing and moving around the world faster than ever before, and Pit Exchange gives you the knowledge and insights to keep up. Sit back and relax as we join currency research the exchanging ideas with today’s special guest.

Jens Seidl 00:00:35 Hello and welcome to another episode of The Pit Exchange payments, Innovation and Technology. My name is Jens Seidl, and I’m your host for today’s episode. And we’ve got a great guest joining us today from the UK. Julia Streets. Julia, welcome.

Julia Streets 00:00:50 Hello. Hi. And how are you?

Jens Seidl 00:00:52 Hi. Good to see you. How are you?

Julia Streets 00:00:54 Really well. Really well. Thank you. Yes, yes. Busy. Very well.

Jens Seidl 00:00:59 Good. I’m very much looking forward to this conversation. We had a few chats already over the last few months because we’re working on a project. We’ll probably talk briefly about.

Jens Seidl 00:01:07 But before we jump into all of that, and before I give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about yourself and what you do, I always like to start with the three semi personal random questions or not so random. Maybe. We’ll see. so are you up for that?

Julia Streets 00:01:23 Okay, I certainly am. Sorry, I’m far away.

Jens Seidl 00:01:26 Well, I’m going to throw a softball first. tea or coffee?

Julia Streets 00:01:29 Oh, coffee before noon.

Jens Seidl 00:01:32 All right. Okay. I was going to go next to. Do you like cream tea and scones and stuff like that? But, we’ll go with coffee. That’s fine. then do you have. And again, it will become clearer in a minute. Why? I’m asking about this specifically. Do you have a favorite comedy movie or comedy show? something that you would recommend to others that they should watch?

Julia Streets 00:01:55 I’m a very big fan of Saturday Night Live. I think any SNL, any any comedian or any comedy show that can start a show with a cold open.

Julia Streets 00:02:06 It’s pretty impressive. So that has always been one of my top shoes.

Jens Seidl 00:02:10 Okay, excellent. Good one. Well, and now I will disclose why I asked about the comedy show. You are a stand up comedian, amongst other things. And, if you had a choice now, and you could completely decide whether you want to do comedy only or business related stuff only, or a bit of both, or a mixture of that, what would your ideal world look like?

Julia Streets 00:03:11 And, and I get asked this a lot, actually. Would you be a businesswoman or would you be a comedian? And the truth is, a blend works beautifully for me. I was advised when I set up my company nearly 18 years ago that I had to pick. I could be one or the other, and I have to say, I challenged that and said, what? Is there no joy to be had in this industry? Is there no fun or is humour to come through in this industry? Does it have to be so binary? So what I did was originally I kept the two worlds separate. And what I found was when I brought them together, that really interesting things happened. And that’s sort of what led us to having this conversation today.

Jens Seidl 00:03:48 All right. Great. Well, that’s a great lead into having you introduce yourself a bit more and talk about where you come from, what you’ve been doing, including the stand up episode that you had in your life, but also what you’re doing now.

Julia Streets 00:04:01 Well, let me start with what I do today and then wind it backwards. And it might sort of hopefully make a bit of sense. So. So I’m the very proud founder and CEO of a business called Streets Consulting. And we’re a business development, marketing and communications consultancy. And all we do is anchored around the only two things that keep clients awake at night today or indeed today and tomorrow, because what they think about is growth and or transformation. So people are either growing businesses because they’re landing funding. They are doing strategic deals, they’re expanding into new markets with new products, or they are also transforming as they right size their businesses and as they restructure their businesses, and particularly at this time of geopolitical change, when we think about the the advances of technology and the implications of technology, people are constantly thinking about what is the perfect size and shape. So we do three things. One is campaigns, one is content, and the third is coaching. Which leads us to this conversation today when we think about the humans in the mix.

Julia Streets 00:05:04 So I’m looking forward to to getting into that conversation. And this came from a former job, which was I sat on the executive committee of the technology business of the New York Stock Exchange. So Atos Euronext Market Solutions, where I was global head of communications and really thought about the dynamics of exchange technology and the ecosystems, both pre trade at trade, post trade, right the way across all the different asset classes right around the world. So so welcome, welcome to my life. And then prior to that I was at a global brokerage firm. And then before that I was head of e-commerce during the.com boom. Now to bring the comedy into it, when I left the stock exchange, which was one of those jobs, I think many of our listeners would have, would have had a gig like this where it was two days a week in London, two days a week in New York, two days a week in Paris, two days a week in an aeroplane, two days a week. You seem like that.

Julia Streets 00:05:57 My kind of life was constantly on the road. When I came out of that job, I was sitting in a comedy club. Actually, it was a cabaret club, listening to a friend of mine who was a cabaret singer, and I had this bolt of lightning moment which was thinking, I need to do stand up comedy. I’ve always wanted to be a stand up comedian, but it wasn’t really a career choice when I was growing up, and if I don’t do it now, I’d always regret it. So the very next morning, having never done a word of stand up, I’d never even done a comedy night in a bar or anything. I booked a show at the biggest comedy festival in Europe, the Edinburgh Fringe, and I basically spent the next six months planning to take a show to Edinburgh. And that was the beginning of the comedy career, which I then sort of took into different iterations and different shapes, and at the same time, my business picked up because somebody called me and said, would you like to do some freelance work launching the first ever multilateral Lateral trading facility in Europe.

Julia Streets 00:06:54 A business called kayaks. And we started doing that. And then that basically was the start of streets consulting. And as I was saying minutes ago, I kept those two words separate. What was interesting when I brought together, people started saying to me, well, actually, first of all, with your business development, marketing, comms experience, can you help us across different segments of fintechs? So that’s taken us into the world of, well, let’s start with payments, but it’s also taken us into tech. It’s taken us into investments, technology. It’s taken us into to digital assets and and cryptocurrencies and tokenization. So you can see how that’s extended. But also we have an event coming up. Could you come to our stage and chair a discussion. Could you come and host our awards. Could you come and help us shape a program. And so therefore the comedy is very much kind of come into it, because so much of what we’re doing is about how do we make it compelling for the audience?

Jens Seidl 00:07:49 Yes.

Julia Streets 00:07:49 So you can see where some of that, that kind of crafty. I wouldn’t call it witchcraft, but some of that crafty tree has come into the business life as well.

Jens Seidl 00:07:59 Absolutely. I think we could easily do a whole podcast episode just on that stand up experience that you had. Unfortunately, today is not that day. But let me just ask one more question on that. Did you ever bomb as well? Did you have one of those horrible nights where no one would laugh and you just.

Julia Streets 00:08:17 Oh my goodness.

Speaker 4 00:08:18 Did you die?

Julia Streets 00:08:19 Did I? Yeah. Let me tell you my very first experience at Edinburgh. So I took a show to Edinburgh and my first ever review at Edinburgh was streets is too nervy to hold a stage. And what’s fascinating is that actually when we think about leadership and the dynamics of leadership, is that when you get a review like that, your spiral goes ever downwards because people particularly then you have to encourage people to go and queue wasn’t so much on apps, but you queue.

Julia Streets 00:08:49 so therefore people were looking at do we come to your show? So your audience numbers begin to fall. And what was really fascinating about that is thinking through not only in that, with that backdrop, how to improve immediately, that sort of short iteration cycles of improving your material so people would walk out saying, actually, I did enjoy it, ignore the reviews. It was really good, but also just simply the resilience of you pick yourself up, you get out there, you flyer to get people in your show, and then you deliver a great performance. So that whole resilience that comes through which which you can see how some that flows into the leadership conversation.

Jens Seidl 00:09:29 Absolutely. Oh that’s fascinating. Again, hopefully we’ll get a chance to do another podcast episode to talk more about, the stand up side of things. But let’s let’s jump into the the more business related side. Now, I think that the workplace is changing a lot at the moment. Right. Everybody’s talking about AI, how AI is impacting People’s workplace.

Jens Seidl 00:09:50 But there’s also other things like we’re living in a completely different environment now where social media is influencing a lot of the content that’s out there and so on and so on. So where do you see the big game changers in the current workplace? What are these things that really impact the way that people have to look at how they do their job, basically how they succeed in their job?

Julia Streets 00:10:17 Well, yes. And it is a very exciting time. You know, I would say there’s never a dull day. That’s kind of almost my hashtag.

Speaker 4 00:10:25 In life.

Julia Streets 00:10:25 In so many ways. And I think it’s really, really fascinating because if we anchor our conversation around the coaching, part of what I describe that we do, I’m a senior executive coach. I work with C-suite leaders, and also leaders are about to take that step into the C-suite. And what’s really fascinating to me is that right now, everybody is having to make it up. Now, I say that with a degree of a pinch of salt because of course, we’ve woken up very highly regulated industry where we have very clear parameters and guide rails and, and guidance, what we can or cannot do.

Julia Streets 00:11:03 But the dynamics of how we do business are changing so much. You know, we think obviously the obvious thing to say is, you know, life post-pandemic and now we’re hybrid. How do you manage teams when some are present and some are not? Do that on an international scale or a local scale. The dynamics of what your five generations of workforce need from you as a leader and also from from each other in order to be high performing. There’s so much there that is changing. Throw into the mix artificial intelligence where everybody is having to completely reimagine. I was hosting a panel at cyber recently, and the head of technology of BNI was one of my guests. I had five brilliant panelists, but just if I particularly hone in on something she said, which is AI is for everyone, everywhere. So everybody is reimagining and reconsidering how they do business. So to be able to lead a team where all the component parts that must come together are all shifting and turning constantly at the same time, human beings are questioning, well, where do I fit into this mix? You know, actually, what’s my legitimacy today and tomorrow? And therefore, how do I prove my value? So all of these kind of cogs are turning and all the dynamics are changing.

Julia Streets 00:12:17 So therefore how we think about what we need from the workforce and what the workforce needs from us as leaders is also changing. And I’ve got some wonderful statistics, or I’m happy to go into a few now or, or as we go through the conversation. Sure. That the World Economic Forum or the LinkedIn jobs reports are and McKinsey actually have come up with some brilliant research about some of the, the human dynamics that need to come into play.

Jens Seidl 00:12:45 Okay. Well, shall we just stay on that topic? And do you want to go into some detail of of what you have seen there?

Julia Streets 00:12:53 Yeah, happily. I mean, I’m a big fan of leaning on great research. That sort.

Speaker 4 00:12:57 Of.

Julia Streets 00:12:59 Puts everything into sharp relief. And so if you if we start with let’s start with our friends at McKinsey. So, so they will first of all say that by 2030, as many as 375 million workers need reskilling. So that’s within the next five years, 375 million are going to need to think about how they reskill.

Julia Streets 00:13:17 So when we think about the conversation about leadership is how do we figure out what it is that they need and therefore how best to create leadership and training and skilling models, but also how to stay current. And I think this is a really fascinating part of the discussion. LinkedIn came out in a piece of research that they brought out say that 92% of human capabilities will look, as much as soft skills as they were as the hard technical skills. So 92% of respondents said that they’re really looking at, the soft skills in the mix of their employees. And then also the World Economic Forum came out with their Future of Jobs report published earlier this year in 2025. And they said, 63% of employers see the skills gap as being one of the biggest barriers for transformation. Now, the reason I lean on those three is one, we’ve got a massive reskilling opportunity. Let’s look at it that way. others are looking at actually the relationship between the technical and the human. And then the third piece really looks at the journey of transformation.

Julia Streets 00:14:30 And what we’re hearing loudly and clearly, and that research is about how we need the right type of skills. And I think mindset really comes into that very, very clearly in terms of being able to drive successful transformation. So let’s not forget we’re transforming at pace and also at scale. So. So we can see that humans very much are valid in that. But as leaders we have to think about how how do we do that.

Jens Seidl 00:14:53 Well there’s quite a lot to unpack there. And maybe let’s start with the first one, the McKinsey statistic. Do you think it’s fair to say that included in that number is a large number of leaders as well, that actually need to upskill themselves first, because there’s so much happening. It’s really if you’re a really busy leader, it’s not easy to stay on top of all of these developments in the first place. So do you need to upskill yourself first before you can actually even consider what that means for your whole organization?

Julia Streets 00:15:23 Well, one comment I make a lot, and I do a lot of bootcamps and workshops and, and, and all sorts of different models of, of teaching and learning around this, whether it’s 1 to 1, one to few, one to many.

Julia Streets 00:15:36 what the first thing I always say to people is leadership comes from anywhere in the organization. So it’s not simply those who have the title and the corner office, figuratively or literally. but so really thinking about how do you as an individual give yourself the, the, the, the remit and the authority to be able to contribute? So we think about leadership through those five generations. And as everybody will know, particularly as we’re going through this huge AI transformation, the digital natives in our organizations will have many of the greatest answers. So they too could be leading initiatives from from anywhere in the company. But if we anchor our conversation, particularly around senior leadership and those stepping into that senior leadership position, I think that’s a really important point, which is to be able to carve out time in your working week, month, quarter to upskill yourself and to train and lean in on training part of that be given to you, but part of that also almost become a daily practice. and to make sure that in your working day, you are feeding yourself with knowledge that comes from a multitude of different sources.

Julia Streets 00:16:51 So some of those will be from some of the biggest, leadership schools, business schools. Some of it could come from the wisdom of social media. And I’m talking to a lot of people at the moment about how do you change the algorithms in your social media feeds to be feeding you and serving up to you all sorts of models and sources of wisdom. The key is to go into that with a very much a growth mindset, but also a curious mindset and a mindset that goes, I’m just going to double check on that. I’m just going to validate what is being served up to me. So so that’s one of the things I talked a lot to leaders about, which is to make sure this is daily, weekly, quarterly practice and then also how to instill those behaviors down through your organization into your next levels of leadership teams. And you know, some of that. So much of that is the open mindset, the relentless curiosity, but also to be a critical thinker. Think clearly and also apply some judgment and curiosity to just double checking.

Julia Streets 00:17:55 And that is why, in the mix of everything that we do, the human in the loop, the human in the mix really matters. Because while we’re being served up, a lot of things actually. Are we curious enough and clear enough about double checking and making sure that that’s true, right. And appropriate?

Jens Seidl 00:18:15 Absolutely. And it’s interesting what you’re saying about how you can learn to make the algorithm actually work for you, because especially in a time now where there’s more and more AI generated slop being flooded into these social media systems to if you can figure out how to make that work in your advantage, and that you really get the interesting and relevant content rather than all of this nonsense. That alone is such a great technical skill to have. Makes a big difference, doesn’t it?

Julia Streets 00:18:46 Well, the fascinating thing is it doesn’t take very long if you follow as a leader, if you follow Harvard, MIT, Psychology Today, at any leadership. Forum that you respect before too long, it’s just going to the algorithms will serve up.

Julia Streets 00:19:02 The longer you spend on those types of posts, funny enough will get served to you. It really doesn’t take very long at all. It’s about being very conscious and very mindful of it. but also the other thing I would say is, and I was having a discussion on stage, at a big conference recently about this, which is we’re slightly at risk in AI that a lot of the, I’ll just put it this way and hopefully you’ll take this with the grace with which it’s intended. A lot of the educated, a lot of the wise in the industry are becoming a bit, concerned about, about social media and therefore leaving platforms. And arguably it’s the data of the platforms that is going to feed the next generation, the next iteration. So if we leave all of these platforms to the doomsayers and perhaps those who have got particular political tendencies, then actually we’re at a risk of a feat of creating data and doubling down and continue to reiterate data that isn’t going to fuel our future very well. So I wonder whether there’s an argument for all of us optimists and and the educated leaders in businesses to go, I’m going to make a conscious effort to go into the social media and post nothing but positive, informative and well structured arguments that that could keep keep the balance over time.

Jens Seidl 00:20:28 Yes.

Julia Streets 00:20:29 Something to think.

Speaker 4 00:20:29 About.

Jens Seidl 00:20:30 Absolutely. And it would definitely make a positive difference. I mean, how could it not? Right. So I’m with you on that. But let’s let’s maybe talk about the next point that you mentioned there, the LinkedIn, research, really emphasizing the importance of soft skills. And I think that’s nothing new. Right. Soft skills have always been important in leadership. But again, do you see different requirements now? Do you see that people find it harder to acquire certain soft skills? What’s different now from what it might have been for my generation or earlier generations?

Julia Streets 00:21:07 Well, it is probably one of the most frequently discussed topics that certainly I’m having at the moment, where a lot of people are saying, actually, so what I do 1 to 1 work with CEOs because I wish that my team would, be slightly better at maybe some of the social skills. We talk about motivation, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, all of these topics come up, you know, self-awareness, self-mastery.

Julia Streets 00:21:32 And I wish you all of my team would,

Speaker 4 00:21:36 I.

Julia Streets 00:21:36 Would kind of invest for themselves in these areas, and I wonder whether some of that is coming through the post pandemic. I don’t want to call out a particular generation because I think every generation needs to think about this. I wonder whether over time, with or particularly with the impact of technology is people are shifting, understandably a focus towards the the technical naturally. and maybe some of that has gone by the wayside a little over time. And also, I think there’s almost a bit of a trend. This again, this is just the opinion of Julia Streets is that people have said, well, when I get sent on a training course, I’ll learn how to do those things. And my argument to everybody is self train, self invest. And now it’s so easy to do that that actually there’s a there are a lot of great training courses out there that you can you can follow and, and the wisdom of various people who are now posting that actually there’s nothing to stop you, there’s nothing to stop you.

Julia Streets 00:22:36 So if you’re getting this feedback through performance review appraisals, then actually there are very, very easy ways to lean in and really skill up.

Jens Seidl 00:22:45 Okay. and well, maybe let’s talk a little bit about what we are planning to do together in Istanbul at our central Bank payment conference. We’re really thrilled that we got you to help us with putting together this first, Next Generation Leader program, which we call the Payments Edge, to help people that are at that stage that you just described before that next step into a very senior leadership role in the payment space. So what in that payment space, what what is, different here to other industries? What what makes the payment space special when it comes to both? I guess not so much the technical skills because if you’re in payments, you know about that, right? But also on the soft skill side and how you, you, interact in the payment space with other people, with your teams, with your peers, with other companies. But what makes the payment space special and different from the rest of the world?

Julia Streets 00:23:45 Well, the the theme that drives through all of it, while I hear you answer that asks the question, let me just go back again because I stumbled a little.

Julia Streets 00:23:55 So the theme that drives through all of it, as I as I hear you ask the question, really is collaboration. And whether we’re talking at one end about, you know, innovating, coming together, creating new products and services and technology platforms and API driven economies and open banking and open finance, the ability to collaborate with your peers within your organization, with your customers a that actually the dynamics of every single customer is going to be different, but the ability and the appetite to come together to find the most efficient way is, is really, really powerful. And then, of course, there’s another element in play which is thinking about financial crime, fraud. And one thing I do know to be true from chairing many payments conferences around the world, is that the undeniable truth is that we are having to stay ahead in a race that we arguably are not able to win because of the the bad actors out there who are relentless in their daily appetite to defraud customers and to basically take people’s money.

Julia Streets 00:25:23 Knowingly, unknowingly, wittingly, unwittingly and therefore. The best solution to this is a federated Approach where we all have to come together. And of course, a lot of this is borderless. A lot of this is 24 over seven 365. So actually how we do that together. So the leadership requirements, in being able to think very clearly, be able to come together, to be able to collaborate, but also to understand the relentless motivation that we need to apply to tackle this relentless reality, requires resilience. It requires agility. It requires the ability to communicate very clearly and to be able to galvanize people, to be able to power ever forwards, in, in certain environments, which necessarily could be exhausting. And I think that’s self-care. We don’t talk nearly enough. We talk a lot, by the way, about the mental health of teams. We don’t talk nearly enough about the mental health of leaders.

Jens Seidl 00:26:27 Okay. Well, let’s let’s park that mental health aspect for a moment because I’d like to come back to that.

Jens Seidl 00:26:32 But before we do. I think what you just said there really resonates with me. But I was also wondering, is there also now an increasing aspect around political awareness, at least when it comes to payments? Because my impression is that payments for the most time was not really a political topic, right? Payments just needed to be there. They needed to keep the the wheels greased to make sure that that the economy works. But now there’s a lot of debate around central bank issued digital currencies, for instance, whether they’re an instrument to control people and all of these more politically and sometimes even emotionally charged discussions that also new skill that people have to acquire now leaders have to acquire in the payments world.

Julia Streets 00:27:22 Well, it is it fascinating because, you know, I sit here in the UK while we’re talking about digital identity, and there’s a very strong, very strong opinions about whether we want to have some sort of national digital identity or not. And yet, those of us in the world of fraud know only too well, actually, the world of payments know only too well.

Julia Streets 00:27:42 But actually, when you have some identity, identity will will empower the innovation that will help us. So it’s a very interesting discussion at the moment. And I think the power of communication, the power of being able to present a compelling argument for why and to be able to communicate that in a way, and it’s storytelling, ultimately, it’s storytelling and explaining to people about the benefits and also but to go into it with a very, very clear, open mind about why people have concerns, why people have a resistance to getting on board with what you’re asking people to do for the benefit of the many, not just a few. I think that’s an incredibly important skill to be able to have, particularly right now.

Jens Seidl 00:28:28 Yes. Okay, great. Well, let’s come back to mental health. And if I may. And I’m. I’m stereo. I’m giving a stereotype now, and I don’t like those myself, but maybe it will help this this question. Maybe not. I’m Gen X, and I think Gen X was not very good at talking about mental health, right? It was always, oh no, we are strong.

Jens Seidl 00:28:50 We’re going to labor through this. It’s not the thing. While when you look at the the younger generations now, they’re actually very emotionally intelligent to talk about mental health and make it much more of a topic that needs to be addressed. And don’t just tough it up. is that something that you think is going to add to the the future leadership generations is going to make them stronger as leaders? Is that also something where we need to maybe build some bridges between different generations? How do you look at that?

Julia Streets 00:29:22 it’s a really interesting topic. So I, I think of all my kind of senior executive coaching clients. I’m coaching a number of people who have either burnt out or are worried about burnout, and I burnt out in my 20s, by the way. So I like you, Gen X I went through the 1990s where we worked hard and we played hard, and basically it resulted in me being signed off for work for a year because I didn’t take care of my mental and physical health in that journey where all I say to everybody were wiser today than we were yesterday.

Julia Streets 00:29:55 What have I learned through that is which is how to how to, make sure that I am resilient. And resilience comes from a number of different elements. I mean, let me just pick at 2 or 3. It’s a complex area, but it’s a it’s a very, very important area. So part of that comes from which also flows into, emotional intelligence, which is self-awareness. If you understand who you are and what you need. And we go down into the psychology of actually what we need in order to be to perform well, to show up Well, by having that deep sense of understanding, it means that we can feed our mind, body and soul in order to remain straight. And what I say that what I mean is we show up well every single day. We understand that when we’re not having a great day, how to bounce back. And that whole thing about agility and also resilience is often about bounce back. We’re all going to make mistakes, but it’s how we recover and how we learn and we recognize how much wiser we are.

Julia Streets 00:30:56 The second thing is also just self-care. You know, we I sought all my coaching clients. I say you have to make daily exercise non-negotiable. But you know, at the weekend I go to the gym that is never going to serve us enough. It’s never going to be service enough. So so thinking about how do you build that in into your day as a non-negotiable really matters, and also the role modeling that you are showing your teams Issues about how much this matters. Will will be incredibly powerful as you show up as a as a really strong leader. And why this all matters is we also talk about authentic leadership. Who am I? And if you really understand who you are and you show up well for yourself, that will flow through into your leadership style. Whether you are a servant leader or authentic leader, adaptable leader. And there are many different kind of types of leadership. this really, really matters. And then when you talk about that to your point, which I think is really well made, which is going through all those generations of connecting with the generations, is when you want to connect with your Gen Z, particularly generation.

Julia Streets 00:32:04 But also I don’t want to just put it down into that level, because actually, I think millennials as well is, they’re very much thinking about we’ve seen the older generations and how they work. We don’t know whether we want to be exactly like them. So to be able to create those strong connections matter because they are your leaders of tomorrow and your leaders of tomorrow could come quickly, or they could come in the next 10 to 15 years. But also going back to my earlier comment about we can lead from anywhere in an organization, but some of the wisdom about how we do this could come from some of the younger generations and also some of the returning generations. So let’s not forget, for example, there is a wonderful, there’s a wonderful group within our in our organizations of returning parents who’ve come back from maternity leave and paternity leave to who they are, thinking about how they’re going to create good balance. There’s no work life perfection, everybody, I’m sorry to break that news to you, but actually creating those balance and actually the wisdom will come from within the organization.

Julia Streets 00:33:10 What matters is senior leaders is that we show that it matters, because that is also what’s going to create high performing teams, but also on a sustainable basis. And that’s why all of this matters.

Jens Seidl 00:33:23 Excellent. Now, I completely agree with you and I again, I’m also an optimist, just like yourself. And I think there’s great opportunities in tapping into these different, outlook on life. And I think we can really all learn from each other. And it’s I’m sometimes disappointed when people are not willing to do that. And there’s this either. Well bashing both ways. Right. It’s either oh, your Boomer or our Gen Z. You’re all soft and you’re all snowflakes. I think was the term for a while. Yeah. I think we need to really get together and learn from each other, because there’s a lot to learn from each other.

Julia Streets 00:34:01 There is, there is. But, you know, one thing I was doing, so it was about collaboration. So I do a number of collaborations with other people, particularly to explore content.

Julia Streets 00:34:10 So I for example, last year I was doing a wonderful collaboration with an organization, organizational psychologist, Doctor Antoinette Raymond, who is just amazing. And we looked at ripping up the rulebook for women over 50. Because when you look at that generation of wisdom, but also if you want to explore that in some way, shape or form about the knowledge of having been through a career and then really stepping into the spotlight is very fascinating. Before that, I did a collaboration around the metaverse, so show with Doctor Katrina Wallace, based down in Sydney, who is, she was the founder of the Responsible Metaverse Alliance. And we met in the metaverse by putting on Oculus headsets. Okay. Once a month and we explore the dynamics. It’s available on YouTube. It’s worth a look. One of the things I learned from that is actually fitness in the metaverse, and I in the winter are we’re recording this at the time where the clocks have just changed. So in the winter I quite often will put on my Oculus and I will go and box at the beach.

Julia Streets 00:35:12 And this is the wisdom that I’ve learned from a generation that goes, oh yeah, well, you know, that’s how we game. So imagine if we all began to lean in and got really curious about new technologies that would help us, and for me particularly, that helps me through the winter with my mental health. But also I’m exercising in quite a fun way. So yeah, let’s be really open to that.

Jens Seidl 00:35:35 Oh that’s fascinating. All right. I’m definitely going to look up that YouTube video.

Julia Streets 00:35:39 Well, the next podcast we’ll do in the rest of us, we’ll put our Oculus.

Jens Seidl 00:35:45 I’m conscious of time. So, I wanted to, to ask you whether you have, say, top three or your top five tips for that next generation of future leaders, what they should focus on. I think you probably mentioned some of them already, but let’s see what what you prioritize there as well. What are these top 3 to 5 things they should really focus on to be successful in their future leadership role?

Julia Streets 00:36:13 Well, I sort of anchor them around having open mindsets.

Julia Streets 00:36:16 There’s a wonderful work by, doctor Carol Dweck, work, who did a great work, particularly looking at children actually, and their success over their careers and their lifespans, as well as in education. And a lot of this, you know, still applies today, still applies today. So so number one is the best way to build an open mindset is curiosity. So being relentlessly we’ve talked about it in our discussion about being relentlessly curious about what can we do better. How can we, how can we develop reflection, the power of reflection? What can we learn every single day that will power us forward? I think I think the second is really becoming great at becoming a clear thinker. And I pause on that very deliberately. We live in a time where information is relentless, the pressure is relentless, the dynamics of change are relentless. So be able to not only stand up straight as a human being, but also to be able to think very, very clearly, which will also when we think about mental health, which is what should I focus on? What should I not focus on? What is the cognitive load that I have to carry and what matters? And how do I get crystal clear on that, both in terms of setting goals, achieving goals, but also looking ahead, looking up and looking out, as well as looking in and looking down and seeing how we’re performing both as individuals and as teams as well.

Julia Streets 00:37:43 And then the next one I would say is, is well, but the third one is really taking care of yourself, actually.

Jens Seidl 00:37:51 Okay.

Julia Streets 00:37:52 And investing in that consciously, mindfully on a daily practice. But then the fourth one, if I could throw a cheeky thought on in, is, be willing to change your mind.

Jens Seidl 00:38:02 Okay.

Julia Streets 00:38:03 And this is fascinating because we think that every leader has to have the answer. Every leader has got certain goals they have to achieve. They have certain objectives set upon them. You know, whether that’s running a PNL or in the world of innovation and driving change. Explore exploration. Innovation. But it’s it’s that they all sort of come together thinking through how do I actually get clear about what we’re going to achieve? But, you know, I don’t have to have all the answers. And I if I do think that I am right all the time, I’m probably going to be wrong.

Jens Seidl 00:38:39 Yes.

Julia Streets 00:38:40 So we have this wonderful five generations at our fingertips. So let’s think about actually listening to our organizations and being willing to be curious, but willing to change our minds and find smarter ways.

Julia Streets 00:38:52 Which is very exciting, actually.

Jens Seidl 00:38:55 It is. And I think it’s a really strong message as well, because I think many leaders feel that they would be showing weakness if they admit that they got it wrong. I personally think it’s the exact opposite that shows strengths. It’s that ability to admit, yeah, I’ve got it wrong. I’ve made a mistake and be willing to share that and make sure everybody can learn from that as well.

Julia Streets 00:39:20 Well, in innovation, this is the pit. The innovation piece is we. We fail fast. We fail forward. Exactly. And it’s absolutely true. But also the other thing is it’s not necessarily seeing it as failure. It sees as growth.

Jens Seidl 00:39:32 Yes.

Julia Streets 00:39:33 And having the wisdom to reflect, to iterate and to see what we could have done better, and then to take those active steps and, and to be able to do that together, I think is really powerful.

Jens Seidl 00:39:44 Absolutely great. Well, we need to wrap up soon, but I just wanted to quickly come back to what we touched on very briefly.

Jens Seidl 00:39:53 you’re going to be with us in Istanbul in March next year, and you’re going to run a full day of, leadership. I think training doesn’t do it justice. I’ll let you explain, maybe just briefly, what you’re planning to do with us at that conference in Istanbul next year.

Julia Streets 00:40:11 Well, first of all, I can’t tell you how excited I am, and it is going to be, obviously I would say this because I think hopefully listeners got a sense of my energy, but it is going to be a phenomenal day. And oh my goodness, we are going to cover a lot. So a lot of the things we’ve been talking about. So there’s leadership, behaviors, those leadership characteristics. Also we’re going to be doing some work into understanding ourselves and understanding those human needs that we talked about. We’re going to be talking about the power of collaboration and emotional intelligence and how to to work on those skills. Then we’re going to welcome in other leaders who are going to give them a little mini masterclasses to get everybody up to a really consistent level of knowledge, and particularly when we think about innovation and what are those dynamics at play, something we’ve talked about in the conversation today, but also thinking through what might be coming tomorrow.

Julia Streets 00:41:02 And then we’re going to hear from the wisdom of great leaders. So we’re going to be welcoming others into the discussion. And it’s within one day not only a blend of teaching. So I’ve got lots of frameworks I’m going to be sharing, teaching, but also coaching exploration. Being able to help people think through some of these challenges, and harnessing the wisdom of the shoulders upon which we stand. Those who have gone before and the experts are in play at the moment, but also are really importantly, is building a network. We know that our networks are one of our greatest assets in leadership. So therefore, by coming together, this cohort of rising and accelerating leaders is going to create a merry band of brilliance. That’s that’s how I see it. And that’s really why I’m so excited for the day, because we’ve got to cover a huge amount.

Jens Seidl 00:41:53 Excellent. Well, we share that excitement. This is the the first time we’re doing that. And I’m so excited because your energy is really it’s transmitting even through the the internet that works.

Jens Seidl 00:42:07 And I’m sure it’s going to be even more energizing when we’re all in the room together. Next year in March. I’ll really look forward to that.

Julia Streets 00:42:15 Yeah, I can’t wait, I can’t wait.

Jens Seidl 00:42:17 Excellent. Well, Julia, I think we’re out of time. I need to wrap up for today. Thank you so much for joining us in this podcast. Really appreciate that. Thank you.

Julia Streets 00:42:26 Yeah. And it’s been such a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. I’ve really, really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you.

Jens Seidl 00:42:31 My pleasure. All right. Thank you. And that concludes another episode of The Pit Exchange. Please do follow. Like do what you need to do on your podcast listening device to make sure you don’t miss any future episodes. This is the end from Currency Research. Have a good one.

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