Revolutionizing Financial Health: Expert Insights with Andre Iervolino

Humanizing Technology: A Conversation with Banking and Tech Leader Andre Iervolino

In this episode of The Human Code, host Don Finley converses with Andre Iervolino, a senior executive with over 20 years of experience, generating significant revenue and cost savings. Andre shares his vision of integrating human-centric approaches into banking and technology, the importance of STEM skills across all job types, and practical insights on adopting Agile methodologies in regulated industries. The conversation explores Andre's background, philosophies, and the holistic Financial Health Indicator, emphasizing the balance between technological advancement and human compassion.

00:00 Introduction to The Human Code 

00:49 Meet Andre Iervolino: A Visionary Leader 

02:53 Andre's Journey: From Brazil to the USA 

03:26 Human-Centric Approach in Banking 

08:31 Financial Health Indicator: A New Credit Score 

11:16 STEMinization of Talent: The Future Workforce 

19:38 Agile Methodologies in Regulated Industries 

26:04 The Importance of Heart and Soul in Technology 

28:24 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to The Human Code, the podcast where technology meets humanity, and the future is shaped by the leaders and innovators of today. I'm your host, Don Finley, inviting you on a journey through the fascinating world of tech, leadership, and personal growth. Here, we delve into the stories of visionary minds, Who are not only driving technological advancement, but also embodying the personal journeys and insights that inspire us all. Each episode, we explore the intersections where human ingenuity meets the cutting edge of technology, unpacking the experiences, challenges, and triumphs that define our era. So, whether you are a tech enthusiast, an inspiring entrepreneur, or simply curious about the human narratives behind the digital revolution, you're in the right place. Welcome to The Human Code. In this episode, we're excited to welcome Andre air Valino. A senior executive with over 20 years of experience in leadership roles generating over 130 million in net revenue and cost savings. Andre has a remarkable track record of building inspiring teams, driving business growth, through technology, data analytics, and innovative strategies. He's also an author public speaker and a proud family man. Today, Andre, and I will share his vision for integrating a human centric approach into banking and technology, including the development of more holistic financial health indicator. The concept of stem and ization of talent and how incorporating stem skills across all job types is essential for the future workforce. Plus practical insights on adopting agile methodologies and highly regulated industries and how to incorporate compliance and risk management into agile processes. Join us as we dive into these thought provoking topics with Andre Iervolino. This episode is packed with valuable insights that will inspire you to rethink how technology human centric approaches and agile. methodologies can transform your business and personal life. You won't want to miss it.

Don Finley: 2:04

welcome back to another episode of the human code. I'm here with Andre Airvalino. Andre, I'm so pleased to be here with you today. And in fact, we just had a good 20 minute conversation about all the things in our life ranging from, books that Andre is writing to careers and to the, how we're helping companies. make this transition into this new digital revolution that we're seeing today. And so I'm really excited to be here with you. And my first question is really what got you here today? what is that thing that led you to be on this show, but at the same time, where's your passion in that connection between humanity and technology?

Andre lervolino: 2:45

first of all, thank you so much for having me. I think you're doing a tremendous service, to our community with your podcast. I love it. And, to answer your question, I was born and raised in Brazil. I know my family is from Italy and, uh, from that culture, And migrating to the United States, it's a big difference, It requires a lot of acculturation, and, the people from South America and from Italy, we're very, I'm not saying that Americans are not human that is not true. we're very warm. We look at people, with a different energy. So that is already built in me, to start. Then when you, add. the industries that I've worked in the past, that in fact can lack humanity, uh, can lack, the human centric approach to business such as banking, it's a cold industry. it's all about money. It's all about transactions and things like that. The same with food manufacturing. Nobody likes to kill animals, It's not a very, conceptually, A really, human centric thing. me, those two industries were really interesting to get into, uh, with that human approach to the business model. And my passion for technology, and using technology in strategic planning and operational planning to transform the organization from the bottom up and from up down. So in a nutshell, that is why I got into those two industries.

Don Finley: 4:22

It's fantastic to hear you talk about your history and the cultures that you came from, because I've had some experience being able to travel the world, both professionally and personally, as well as having teams around the world. And. The two cultures that you mentioned of Brazilian and Italian both really showcase a heart centered approach to life is really how I've come to know it. And that ability to see like where humanity lies from that direction, and that really the work that we're doing to know it, I hear you from like an American culture. Like we're very much in our minds and that aligns very well with the banking industry. Like I need to make a decision and that decision can be put onto a spreadsheet and I can showcase like exactly how that is. but then at a local level in a branch or, at your personal interaction with the bank. Yeah. It needs to have that kind of understanding because there is a compassion necessary to building a new home, to buying a new home, to, starting a college fund for your child, they're very human, personal relationships that drive these decisions. And I think it's really exceptional that you've given yourself to these causes to help, escalate and raise up what people are doing. How do you go about, ensuring that there is that balance between the mind and the heart in the endeavors that you're talking about, when it comes to food processing and banking?

Andre lervolino: 5:53

That's an absolutely very key question that you just asked. The very first, not to be too wishy washy, but the very first thing that I tried to adopt, which one of my life coaches, kind of call me on it. She's the one who said that actually was not me. So it's her words, which I thought was amazing. I've been using since. She said, Andre, you have the mind, Of the CEO of a strategist, but the heart and soul of a pastor. Okay. I'm not talking about religion more spirituality, but yeah. So that is the, how I see the world, how I try to see people, when my family have two teenagers, we discuss things that are very, complicated, what career they want to, explore. And I use my mind as a strategist, but always at the heart of a pastor, With compassion, with grace, uh, with, thinking about what good they can do in the world, and things like that. So going back to your question about banking specifically. It's very interesting because you have multiple categories of banking, Institutions usually they fall into either retail banking and that includes a commercial arm or credit unions or community banks, you look at my professional background, I chose credit unions out of those three categories. The reason I chose credit unions is for those who are not familiar with credit unions, okay? Credit unions are supposed to be, their motto, all of them, supposed to be people helping people. Over the years, that, credit unions don't have, stockholders, they have stakeholders. the first credit union ever created was in Germany, with people, 10 in their pockets, They came in, they used that as a deposit. And then, that deposit is used to lend money to the other members. And you have a margin of interest and that's how we make your money. it's not a non profit. But it's a not for profit, but over the years, credit unions have changed. They evolved to act more like retail community banks. So they're not really leaving their mission statements, people helping people. When you look at their portfolio, the majority of the risk that they have very little. And so they're not lending to those who really need it. People who mismanage their finances, people who, are considered to be low income designation areas and all of that, So it's nice when you make 300, 000 a year. As an executive, you can get, even if you have bad credit, you can get, a loan anywhere to buy beautiful homes and cars and finance your lifestyle, and things like that. But, people, they're more unfortunate, don't have that option. So there was something called the FICO score. If you've heard of the credit score, FICO score is one of the most, famous or popular types of scores, credit scores. this credit score is extremely cold. The credit score was designed to look at people's behavior and likelihood of paying the financial institution back, pay their debt back. That's really what that measures. It doesn't look at anything more than history. So what I'm trying to do is launch a different type of score that I call, called the Financial Health Indicator, which is one, it's on the article that we discussed right before the start of the podcast. basically this score, Some kind of humanity or human centric approach to lending money for banks instead of using, likelihood or raw data that says they paid the bill. is that a collection, the accounts have been to collection. Instead, you're looking at. 8 to 10 different factors such as, current life stage, current life event, You might be wealthy today, but your father has a heart attack. Let's say the insurance doesn't cover certain things. He has to have a heart transplant, cost 2 million to do that. What are you going to do as a son to your father? How are you going to help your father? And suddenly you see yourself leveraging, being over leveraged with that. And what do you do? does that mean that your credit score is much lower because. You you are in more debt, but it's because you're irresponsible. That's not what it means. So this, health indicator, financial health indicator score brings the human element that look, hold on. Let's look at the overall, psychographic segment of the household, why they behave the way they do, what is their current life stage. what current life events have impacted their financial behavior. And then you can look at other things as well, such as credit score, occupation, median value, income, and all of that. So that's one example, that we can use technology in banking, which includes AI to come up with the score and calculate it properly, to bring humanity, to banking services.

Don Finley: 10:51

I do like the approach of a more holistic, credit scoring system, Where it is looking at like you as a person, not you as a number, And,

Andre lervolino: 11:00

exactly.

Don Finley: 11:02

I think that's a really positive space. Now, when you're talking about, banking and the financial scores or credit scores that go about, it's going to require a new workforce in order to implement this. And I know in your article, you talk about the steminization of talent. could you describe where you're going with that idea and what it means to you?

Andre lervolino: 11:25

Yes, absolutely. it's very interesting because since the industrial revolution in this country, You have had the separation of labor between blue collar, they call the pink, red collar, like nurses, retail staff, And then you have white collar, people who work in corporate offices and things like that. What I see is that there are a few SKU sets that are branching out through all those, types of labor categories. Which is technology. The use of technology and the use of analytics in your job. So technology and the use of analytics. It doesn't matter if you're a nurse. If you're a plumber, if you are a DevOps engineer, full stack develop engineer, if you're a CTO, it doesn't matter in the industry. A plumber today knows how to use the iPhone, knows how to use Square because that's how they get paid, the house they're working at. They know how to look at their website. They know how to look at the web analytics, the Google analytics around their business. What is working advertising wise or not. those are things that we're not part of the blue collar, right type of job. Absolutely not. But today it is. So I see all of them merging and the pattern that I see in that is. People need to understand data, need to be more analytical, need to use technology platforms and tools to succeed in any type of job. So the stigmatization of talent is basically, it starts with, using of course, science, technology, mathematics and engineering as the foundation of the business model. When I say business model is the foundation of the talent management model. Of an organization and you viewed everything from there. And, and I say this because. When you look at the people who are in DevOps or DataOps, those types of business units within the organization, if you really leverage their talent, they are able to optimize and automate most of the processes that other people are responsible for executing, When you look at HR, for example, look at how cumbersome the business unit is. All this paperwork, the application, And the application process from candidates, the analysis of the candidate profile, all of that can be, optimized with DevOps, some kind of technology. and then of course, the one on one interview to see culture fits. Then you do that with the decision maker, Maybe recruiters will hate me for saying this, but it is true. The same, for example, when you look at sales, do you really need, through this process, a one on one, touch point to start, in the second step of sales and the funnel and all of that? you're marketing more than I am, probably more than I do in this area. You don't this day and age. You don't, everything is digital mostly. with that in mind, when you look at the organization structure that we have today, and that is exactly, I can't believe it took so long for all the technology companies like Apple, Meta, Tesla to do that. They're not getting rid of the blue collar workers. Because that job has not been automated yet completely with robots, they are replacing the DevOps engineers that make 200k a year, 180k a year, with what? With process automation, So when you look at the organizational structure, the way that I see is you have the board, They're responsible for governance. Then you have the csuite. They're responsible for vision, mission, developing strategies, operationalization of the strategies and talent, Retaining, acquiring, developing, and KPIs, Tracking performance. And then, course correcting if the KPI is not being met. And then you have everybody else. When I say everybody else is you're cutting all these middle management leaders, vice presidencies, AVPs, directors, managers. It doesn't make sense to have them. So I was a CTO right before this job that I have. And my connection, which goes to Agile, which is a startup model is. When it comes to development of products and platforms and process automation, things that impacted the member experience, the employee engagement, I had me and my team, the ones that executed individual contributors. So that way, that process, I cut the speed of decision making, the speed of development, by 80%. it requires more work from me as a C suite executive, but that's okay. That's why we get paid for it, And that's what I've been seeing as a trend in technology companies, and that is probably is going to bleed into more conservative industries or more bureaucratic industries. And hopefully, that's You'll hit the government, Because talking about being effective and efficient, the government is the worst.

Don Finley: 16:30

you look like you said, you've been in Denver for the last 20 years. I've been in Philly for almost 20 years as well myself, getting the chance to travel around, I run into Estonia and that they have the digital passport program. They have digital nomad engagements. You file your taxes. And less than 10 minutes, because it's not this hide and seek game that we play in the United States of Hey, I got to submit my paperwork and hopefully it's all good or else the government's going to come back and tell me that it's not. No, it's they share the resource. They're like, Hey, these are your taxes. Is this right? Yeah. Okay. Click submit. And you can do this all on your phone, like perspective. I would love to see that, but going back to your idea though, the steminization of this is the. The idea that building business is a collection of processes and systems that allow you to accomplish something for the customer and having, people that are both adept at utilizing technology, but also in implementing it across your organization can really showcase the benefits of what can be done today. And it wasn't until. Two, three years ago now that I personally came to the understanding that yeah, We're gonna be automating the white collar jobs A lot faster than we're going to be automating the blue collar ones. I know that Amazon has been trying for years to get a robot to grab things like a human can. Apparently our hands are like one of the Best design things of nature. and then additionally, you look at Tesla and, the Optimus robot, as well, like that is something that is trying to get in there. But additionally, like manufacturing has, robotics that need to be, programmed to get to the work that they're doing to scale. But that also means that any change needs to be programmed as well. So the adaptability of some of these systems leads to the necessity of having humans involved in the process today. I think it's fascinating to see how this all comes about, but really going into what you were saying. think we need to see that workforce adopting this systematic thinking that enables them to be creating those solutions because there's nothing. I, and I can say this for my own organization, when our marketing team creates their automation, it works a lot better the first time through than when our development team does it for our marketing team, the skillset.

Andre lervolino: 19:13

believe that.

Don Finley: 19:15

a, like software development is an art of translation, Like you're translating an idea into a language that ends up getting executed. And so if there's, a misconception between two people's understandings of how they're communicating, then it drops. You talked about Agile and that being a space that you're keenly interested in as well. what insights can you provide us on the adoption of Agile into organizations that are also managing regulatory compliance?

Andre lervolino: 19:47

Before I say that, I just want to make a comment about what you said. That is great. when you're talking about overall digital and data transformation organizations, the banking industry, for example, you're looking at two dimensions only. You're looking mostly at software. You said it, which is the white collar, When you're looking at it, that's it. It's interesting because one of the reasons I transitioned from, I'm going back to financial services. However, the reason I transitioned from financial services to manufacturing is because it requires a third component of digital data transformation, which is hardware, it's machinery, equipment, robotics, right? Cameras. it is absolutely insane. We can discuss that a little bit further, but you're absolutely right. It's much harder. Robotics, to me, I think hardware development is much harder than software and data. it has been my experience.

Don Finley: 20:39

can definitely share that with you. Like I've done hardware as well and we've also implemented agile in hardware development teams, which requires a lot of modification from software because A, your lead times are a lot different as far as like how you're actually going about things. you're ordering hardware for let's say a hundred thousand units. You want to get that right. Okay. You don't have the opportunity that you have in software to like patch release, especially when it's a physical good type of thing. That is absolutely, a really good point to be bringing up. Thank you.

Andre lervolino: 21:15

Yeah, absolutely. So going back to your question about, regulation, and how do you use Agile with, regulation compliance perhaps, slowing us down. the way that I'm trying to do this, and I try to do, this, the financial services, and now food manufacturing, because those are very highly regulated industries, I mean, food manufacturing, you're looking at, they have an, the plants for the organization, the manufacturing plants, the processed food. They have USDA auditors in house as employees, basically, like 24 7 there, to inspect and, food quality and things like that. Banking, they get audited all the time on a quarterly basis. Sometimes, if the organization has a bad financial performance, they're there forever. Definitely. and also when you look at data, especially in banking, it's all about data, Banks are, they don't produce anything. They don't exist, Everything's digital. That's what they are. they're not like a piece of physical thing, in terms of compliance and security, cybersecurity, those things are huge. Now, when you look at Agile, Agile to most people, I think is defined as. A methodology of project management, For execution and operationalization. That's right. When you mention Agile to a lot of people, that's how they see it. And I'm like, that is not what we're meaning here with Agile,

Don Finley: 22:35

management methodology. Agile is the umbrella that has both scrum and let's say behavior

Andre lervolino: 22:42

Waterfall. And yeah, yeah,

Don Finley: 22:44

It can fit in, there's a number of, both ethereal type of ideas that go along with it, but technical practices as well to making Agile, functional, but you're hitting on the point of why people don't like Agile, as well.

Andre lervolino: 23:02

So Agile to me, in my mind is about acceleration of the execution of the strategy. That's how I translate the Agile approach to business. So what I try to do is in anything that we do that I lead my teams to do, I incorporate the compliance, and the risk management, ERM and things like that. Into that process ahead of time. So that way, you don't need to, really worry about and stop with the process altogether. When somebody writing risks says, Hey, you guys, you're missing this, or you need to look at that. So what I try to do is I try to incorporate all of the policies and procedures into our processes. And I try to be as fast as possible, in going through those steps in their processes. And of course, that requires, again, the systemization of talent where you have C suite making the decisions quickly, connected, communicating directly with the people who are on the floor executing. That's part of being agile. In addition to that, of course, having tools. I don't think we need to meet often. I think that the tool is implemented and adopted for the very reason to streamline the process. You meetings, So people, organizations have Slack, built into Jira, The PMO tool, and they still have meetings. I'm like, what's the point? The point of the tool is to eliminate timing meetings. those are a few things that I try to do and lead my teams to do to incorporate the Agile. into the company.

Don Finley: 24:40

I just love the way that you speak about this. I've been an Agile convert for longer than I knew about Agile. But, basically since 2004 is when I found out about Agile. And the way that you talk about it is, Embodies that continuous improvement of basically trying to get into the idea of Hey, why are we doing this? And what value is this serving? we have scrum talks about daily standup meetings. do we need to be having them if we have all this data? what is the actual purpose of us getting together? And you've outlined that in a very well way. in our organization, we do, Slack standups because the team is, located across probably six or seven different time zones. Finding one time that works for everybody is really just going to break somebody's day. And so let's actually utilize tools that for the purpose of, us getting the work done over that. All right. Now we've talked about the transformation. We've talked about agile. We've talked about the people that are required. And additionally, we've touched on the differences between being heart based leaders as well as mind based too. Am I missing anything that you wanted to share today? Cause I feel like there might be one or two more things that we can touch on quickly.

Andre lervolino: 26:04

I think, when we talk about talent, it has, it's so funny because I cannot help myself and think of what Elon Musk said during an interview, I don't know where the interview was, but he said something that I've lived personally. I'm a witness of what he said. A lot of the times, we tend to hire people based on their technical pronouns, The technical ability to do things. And we forgot about the heart and the soul and the beliefs and their values. we kinda, passed that by. and even in interviews, I've been part of multiple interviews, To jobs for my career. And I noticed that the component of the human heart Beliefs, values, attitudes, they're someone not really paid attention, when you look at talent acquisition, and that needs to change, especially in the area of technology, because when you look at, for example, what OpenAI is doing in the marketplace, With ethics, around AI and how they can, that can be misused. I really think the bottom line is somebody's heart, soul, and spirit that will drive those amazing technologies and their development. So we need to pay attention to that component as well of this whole thing, and that's a very important point. Another point that I wanted to make is the fact that, Again, it's a repetition of the point you made before based on what we shared here. I think white collar jobs would be replaced in a much faster pace than blue collar jobs. So if you have children, it's something to think about, Because I have two children, and bringing the element, My, my daughter wants to be a CFO. She wants to do finance accounting and things like that. And my son, he's more hands on things. He wants to be an engineer. They both have a place in the marketplace, Labor wise. But I keep thinking, okay, what can they do to keep themselves relevant? Uh, not just with education, but form of thinking and overall line of work and things like that. So that's something that I would like to leave your audience with.

Don Finley: 28:09

I think that's absolutely fantastic and along the lines of what you can do to help your family figure out like their next steps. And thank you for sharing that as well as the idea that really this is like what we're looking at for the next generation, as well. So Andre, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. really enjoyed the dialogue and like everything that we've come to share. And so thank you once again for making your time today to, to talk to us.

Andre lervolino: 28:37

Thank you for having me done, and, I wish you the best for all your companies and your podcast.

Don Finley: 28:42

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