1/28/23 - Weekend Listening from Intercontinental Exchange
Our guest this week: Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton
Who do you look to for advice and counsel?
January is National Mentoring Month. To underscore the importance of helping the next generation achieve their dreams, I had the high honor of hosting the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America to ring the Closing Bell of the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.
Since 1904, BBBSA has been matching mentors and mentees, now at the scale of 230 local agencies serving more than 5,000 communities across the United States. We regularly welcome presidents and prime ministers to our NYSE podium, but seeing that gathering of “Bigs” and “Littles” ring the bell sends a strong message, even on Wall Street, that we all need passionate people to look up to.
Often, this starts at home, even for people who end up regulating Wall Street. Jay Clayton, the former Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, relied on his grandparents to set him straight. Jay’s grandfathers, Walter Clayton and Patrick Kerwin, both children of the Great Depression, shared in the effort to set their grandson on a sound path of personal finance.
For example, Mr. Kerwin helped six-year-old Jay open a 50 cent per week “Christmas Club” account at a local bank. This allowed Jay to amass a tidy sum of $25 at the end of the year, sweetened by a “free” week bonus from the bank in December. A few years later, Jay received three shares of stock from his grandfather on the condition that he read the company’s annual shareholder letter. Jay held onto those securities for over 40 years, only selling the shares when required by law after his appointment to Chair the SEC.
For Jay Clayton, and his successor Gary Gensler, mentorship and early lessons in managing money are foundational to protecting the interests of “Mr. & Mrs. 401k” in the modern markets. Jay and I talked a lot about those profound responsibilities, and much more, in this week’s episode of “Inside the ICE House.”
The view from the Office of the Chair:
Former SEC Chair Jay Clayton Stays Focused on Protecting Mr. & Mrs. 401k Jay Clayton has built a career serving big corporations and small investors alike. Since passing the gavel to Gary Gensler, Jay has returned to the private sector, taking board seats with American Express (NYSE: AXP) and Apollo Global Management (NYSE: APO). But Jay hasn’t stayed silent on public policy, frequently picking up his pen in a series of op/eds to weigh in on regulation of crypto and digital assets. Jay stopped by the NYSE to dive deep on the intersection of law, policy, finance, and technology.
If you’re on a smart phone, all of our Inside the ICE House podcast episodes are available wherever you get your podcasts, including the Apple Podcast App, Spotify, and Stitcher, and other audio platforms. Feel free to reach out to me with any feedback about our show, or suggest any guests for future episodes.