Also available on Spotify
In the third episode of NOTABLE, host Adrienne Beckham (she/her) talks with Jasmin Sethi (she/her) to learn her story growing up and starting her career, and gain her perspective on the structure of board spaces, and the accessibility to different industries and leadership roles as a person with a disability.
Jasmin Sethi is a lawyer, economist, entrepreneur, and CEO of Sethi Clarity Advisors (SCA). SCA is a woman-owned and disabled-person-owned small business boutique consulting firm that helps financial firms in various capacities. Her achievements have been recognized by countless clients, including Morningstar, Capital Group, and Saifr, a compliance innovator incubated by Fidelity Labs. Jasmin also serves on the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee. Jasmin was recently named a Most Admired CEO by the Philadelphia Business Journal. Throughout her work with companies and non-profits, Jasmin also promotes the financial access, literacy, and empowerment of individual and institutional investors.
Music by Eric Stewart, “Cloud Anthem”
Pop! Pop! Pop! Records / Center For Creative Works
Thanks for support from Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Transcript
[00:00:00.21] – Adrienne Beckham
In today’s episode of Notable, I sat down to talk with Jasmin Sethi. Through her story and experiences, I learned her perspective on the structure of board spaces and the accessibility to different industries and leadership roles as a person with a disability. Come join our conversation.
[00:00:24.16] – Jasmin Sethi
My name is Jasmin Sethi. I’m a blind South Asian woman. I identify as she/her. I like to tell the story of how my family came over and just give a little quick file that explains a lot of my purpose and goals that I’ve chosen to pursue in life. My parents were immigrants from India. They came over to Canada in the ’60s and then subsequently to the US. My parents both sided, but they were second cousins, and so they carried recessive genes for a retinal condition that both my sister and I inherited, retinitis pigmentosa.
[00:01:12.10] – Jasmin Sethi
My sister is 9 years older than I am. They had already been dealing with the diagnosis and adapting by the time I was born. My parents had two very different ways of handling disability. My dad’s way was the traditional Indian view for daughters, which was that he needed to earn a lot of money and have trust funds for us and essentially give us a dowry to put it quite bluntly, by us, a husband who would take care of us, because that’s what traditionally happened.
[00:01:53.23] – Jasmin Sethi
My mother, who had come from a family where there had been several widows, also domestic abuse, she understood this notion that you can’t just depend on someone else. She was empowered with education herself. She had a master’s in mathematics, which was in great demand at the time in the US, and valued education and came from a culture of that.
[00:02:23.14] – Jasmin Sethi
She had read an article about a blind psychiatrist when my sister was young, and she took that approach to heart, that education was our freedom, our source of financial security. My father passed suddenly of a heart attack when I was five and my sister was a teenager, and he left us in debt. His trust fund dream did not come to fruition. My mother’s dream had to prevail out of necessity. She was an Asian dragon mother, and she definitely pushed us, ’95 wasn’t good enough. You had to always do better in school.
[00:03:04.12] – Jasmin Sethi
As a result of that, my sister did very well and went to University of Pennsylvania for college, right here in Philly, had a Philly connection going all the way back. Then, she went to Stanford for her PhD, and now she teaches at Columbia Business School, and she has a couple of books of her own fame and accomplishments. She’s accomplished in her own right, an author of several books.
[00:03:30.12] – Jasmin Sethi
The bar was set high. I was pushed to go further. I went to Harvard College. Harvard was deemed the only place that was going to be good enough, given that my sister went to Penn and in my family, as it were. Then, I couldn’t decide between a law degree and a PhD in economics. I had always been interested in policy and different economic and legal issues. Since I couldn’t decide and my mom wasn’t going to let me drop out either, I ended up getting both.
[00:04:03.15] – Jasmin Sethi
I always say, my mom’s desire for financial security and the Asian dragon mother that got me all that education at Harvard. I would say it’s that struggle, that thinking about financial security, the fact that my mom did struggle, but education set us free, that drove my passion for financial security. How do you improve access? How do you improve people’s ability to create more secure lives, have access to building wealth? That’s been the motivation for a lot of my work in my career and my personal pro bono type activities.
[00:04:50.09] – Adrienne Beckham
I feel a bit of a kinship for your story because I also was an economics major. Every time I had the passion for policy and interest in that, I always relate to, because it’s also the thing that I grappled with in my own career path and being like, “Do I want to go down that road?” I appreciate you for sharing all of that with me. Just the drive for success that can come from being a person of color in this world. I think, I don’t know, sometimes there’s that push from the generation before to strive for better. All of that just resonates in parts of my own story as well. I appreciate you for sharing all of that. I am curious now, as you have joined the Board for Grounds For Sculpture, where does art fit into your story and sculpture, and what started that interest?
[00:06:36.11] – Jasmin Sethi
Art is another one, and I think your organization has talked about this, that there are differences in access based on wealth and, of course, being fully able-bodied versus having a disability. Grounds For Sculpture impressed me because it is the most accessible art venue I have ever been to. I came across them through a few friends and professional contacts. I think it was just earlier last year that I first experienced them on a few different occasions.
[00:07:21.13] – Jasmin Sethi
It was just very welcoming the idea that you were able to touch so much of the art, most of it can be. It is permitted, particularly for people with disabilities. A lot of it was designed with that touching, the wear and tear that might come with that, which hopefully is not much. Because it’s all outside, it is designed with some wear and tear in mind.
[00:07:59.19] – Jasmin Sethi
I really appreciated that. I thought it was this idea of universal access, this notion that you don’t have to have this hierarchical access for some who can access everything and others who can access very limited amount. I think for me, art is a form of wealth. It fits into this theme of access to opportunities that I don’t believe should be limited to just a subset of the population.
[00:08:36.03] – Adrienne Beckham
Art is a form of wealth. I love that phrase because it’s so true. It’s very much written to the ethos of art reach. That’s absolutely spot-on. I’m curious, outside of Grounds For Sculpture and that particular art space, more broadly, growing up through your life, how have other art spaces made you feel?
[00:09:15.00] – Jasmin Sethi
I think that when I was visiting in Europe, I felt it’s more inclusive on average than in the US. Not every venue, but I would say on average. The big difference that I often comment on is that when you go to Grounds For Sculpture or you go to a museum in Europe, you can touch things on the spot. You can talk to someone and be cleared to touch things at certain venues. You can get a list of things you can touch at certain museums, and they’ll give you gloves, for instance, some of the European museums.
[00:09:58.00] – Jasmin Sethi
Here in the US, in a lot of museums, you have to pre-arrange. The pre-arranging can be rather bureaucratic. It can take a while, and you may or may not be able to have it arranged for when you visit. It’s great that there are these tour guides who will explain the art, but if you do happen to pop in without that arrangement, you can’t touch things. I think it’s definitely an inclusivity versus a feeling left out. I guess FOMO might be the opposite it feeling. I would say in some cases there’s a FOMO when you’re with people, and then you get, I might be with friends who give me different reactions, which is interesting that I can’t measure it against any experience of my own.
[00:10:45.01] – Jasmin Sethi
Whereas if there is an audio tour available, at least, or a touch experience, I have something of my own reference point, at least for anything with tactile, for feeling it. Then, the audios can help to get a neutral description.
[00:11:05.20] – Adrienne Beckham
Has your relationship to art changed as you’ve grown up?
[00:11:09.04] – Jasmin Sethi
I guess as we all grow older, we tend to just learn. I think I just have a little more exposure. I don’t know that my relationship has changed, but I’ve gotten a little more exposure to different types of art. I’m no way an expert. I’m one of the non-art expert advisors on the Grands Mature Sculpture Board. I was brought in for financial expertise and other things. I appreciate the art, but I’m definitely not. I don’t have expertise to offer.
[00:11:37.10] – Adrienne Beckham
Transitioning into some of our more board and leadership-focused questions, I’d love to know how you view yourself as a leader. What qualities do you lean on and rely on to be a leader, both within your service on the Grounds For Sculpture Board but just also in your other professional experience as well?
[00:12:09.15] – Jasmin Sethi
My business is a consulting business that I’ve had for the last 6 years, and I consult for various financial organizations. I would say a lot of what I do there and in my board service is having to be organized and proactive. I think those are my strengths. I’m very organized. I’m very obsessed with being organized. I’m very list-oriented. I don’t like to wait around for directions.
[00:12:39.14] – Jasmin Sethi
What I like about working for myself is not being told what to do, but the way you avoid that as you get ahead of what your clients need, and you think about as much as you can, what it is they’re going to need you to do and propose it yourself. This is what I think would be helpful for this project, and then they can react to that. That gives you a lot more control over the nature of the work, the timing of the work, proactive rather than reactive. I think that’s key for me.
[00:13:18.24] – Jasmin Sethi
Then I think with those being proactive and organized, it comes other things, collaborating and being collaborative, getting people’s input, all the other things that we think of as necessary in leading in any organization.
[00:13:31.17] – Adrienne Beckham
How much board experience specifically have you had? Is Grounds For Sculpture one of many boards that you’re on currently, or is this your first foray into board service?
[00:13:46.19] – Jasmin Sethi
It is not my first. I think now I’m on technically three nonprofit boards and then two government advisory committees, which function similarly to boards. I’m on Grounds For Sculpture, Pension Action Center, which deals with retirement accounts. There’s a Harvard Club of Philadelphia. Those are the three nonprofit boards. Then I sit on two advisory Committees, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Small Business Advisory Committee. I used to work at the SECC a long time ago. Also for FINRA, the Market Regulation Committee.
[00:14:28.01] – Adrienne Beckham
You’re no stranger to this work. I’d love to know if you can think back to the first time you sat in a board meeting in your life. Do you remember how it felt, and maybe what surprised you about board service and what it means to be on a board of directors?
[00:14:54.21] – Jasmin Sethi
I think for the first, my first one was probably the Pension Action Center, but I would say every first meeting for a new board is similar, where there’s definitely a feeling of, what am I doing here? Does everybody else know what they’re doing? What am I supposed to be doing? Understanding the materials, understanding the history of the institution, the reports. There is a general feeling of almost like an imposter syndrome, like how can I benefit this organization that I’m just coming into, and it’s been around for however long.
[00:15:32.12] – Jasmin Sethi
There’s definitely that, but there’s also a certain freshness of curiosity, I think, when you look at it, which is what they’re looking for. There’s a certain, okay, why? Why are things this way? Why haven’t you done them this other way? There may be perfectly good reasons that can’t be changed, but sometimes there are reasons that just need a fresh perspective. I think that’s important for people to remember.
[00:16:01.19] – Adrienne Beckham
The concept of innovation and board service, I don’t know if on a personal note, I don’t know if I associate those two things very often, but that’s coming from somebody who has never served on a board before. I’m curious how you go about maybe advocating for innovation. What’s your tactic to get a board moving in a maybe more new or different way?
[00:16:46.24] – Jasmin Sethi
How do you look at something in a new or different way?
[00:16:49.03] – Adrienne Beckham
Maybe how you also encourage other fellow board members to engage in a new or different way.
[00:16:59.21] – Jasmin Sethi
The second is hard. I’m not going to lie. I’ve been most likely to look at this with investments, for instance. I drafted. I was one of the key drafters for the investment policy for the Harvard Club of Philadelphia, which previously did not have one. There was no real investment. It was just cash. That was a success. It was a subset of the board that was supportive of taking a new approach. I think that was key. There were people on the board who didn’t necessarily want to change how things were being done.
[00:17:39.04] – Jasmin Sethi
I think part of how you take a fresh look is you do need to look at what is the current situation, what are the needs and goals. Then you do have to get some supporters before you even go to the whole board with some concrete proposal.
[00:18:04.16] – Adrienne Beckham
Going a little bit now into your experience as a person with a disability joining a board, I’m curious to know about how you advocate for maybe some of your accessibility needs in that space and what that experience has been like in your various board service experiences.
[00:18:39.19] – Jasmin Sethi
I’ve learned through working on board what I need. There are some times when I do take in a member of my team into meetings, not for all board meetings, but for some of them, depending also if it’s in-person or virtual. I have brought that up early on. I haven’t found resistance in general. I think it’s mostly just figuring out what I need and speaking up to ask for it. I think boards are fairly responsive at that level to needs.
[00:19:23.23] – Adrienne Beckham
That’s good. We do love to hear that. It’s easy to be accessible. If you have the right spirit and mindset behind it, it can be very simple. I appreciate that spaces are able to do that when they are. I am curious to know about your most recent experience joining Grounds For Sculpture.
[00:20:04.02] – Audience
What was the onboarding process for joining a board is, and how did that felt for you?
[00:20:12.09] – Jasmin Sethi
Grounds For Sculpture, I think, has evolved their process over time. I got assigned a mentor, which was nice. I don’t think they always did that. That’s, I think, relatively new. Yes, that was great because you have someone you ask questions, too. They’re also trying to make more information, digital, different events, our profile. I think they’ve been getting more organized. I think that’s been easier than some of the other boards. I would say some of my others before that were a bit less structured.
[00:21:01.24] – Jasmin Sethi
Also, one of them has only been virtual for a long time, and we’re finally meeting in person later this year. That isn’t as great for building rapport with the board members. I feel less connected to that board because of that. I do think having that in person, at least for me, has mattered.
[00:21:25.12] – Adrienne Beckham
In the board experiences that you’ve had, does your organization have rules, whether they’re explicit rules or implicit rules, around the appearance or etiquette of their board members? How have you learned about those rules, and how has your experience been navigating those rules?
[00:21:57.05] – Jasmin Sethi
For any of the boards that I’m on, you’re saying, do they have any such rules?
[00:22:01.05] – Adrienne Beckham
Yes.
[00:22:02.20] – Jasmin Sethi
Not so much that’s been talked about. I guess people haven’t done anything to warrant it. The most rules are around the government ones, but that’s mostly just to make sure that there’s no appearance of conflict. No one’s bribing us to try to influence the government, things like that. I would say the nonprofit boards have not had so much of that, but I think it’s because there hasn’t been a need.
[00:22:30.08] – Adrienne Beckham
When you think about presenting yourself, how do you like to present yourself? What do you want people to notice when they first meet you?
[00:22:40.14] – Jasmin Sethi
I am very proud of my education. That does often come up either in my bio or when I do speak to people, what I speak about. I think I perceive myself as being articulate, having well-thought-out opinions. That is something that I do try to present and hope that people will appreciate. I think just being generally well put together. Try not to be somebody who’s both appearance-wise and just generally demeanor-wise being, how do you put it, scattered or whatever. I try to be well put together, or if I think it fits with the organized theme. Organized in appearance, organized in thought, organized in speech. I think that would be my motto.
[00:23:39.17] – Adrienne Beckham
When you approach a board meeting, how do you prepare yourself to enter that space?
[00:23:50.18] – Jasmin Sethi
I do look at the materials, and this is something I’ve worked on. I think in the beginning, I didn’t necessarily know how to prepare for board meetings, but as I’ve been doing more meetings, I’ve learned that when you’re going through the materials, really noting down what questions I have, particularly in areas where I might be able to offer a suggestion or input. I do tend to focus on financial materials for several of my boards because I have knowledge regarding investments and investment strategy, things like that.
[00:24:22.13] – Jasmin Sethi
Also even other things that I’ve gotten experience, I’ve done some event planning for the Harvard Club board. Even for Grounds For Sculpture, I may have thoughts around events and promotions. I tend to focus more on the areas where I can give potential input and make sure I understand the various issues.
[00:24:41.18] – Adrienne Beckham
What is your experience with board policy creation? How active are you in creating the policies that govern the board that you’re on?
[00:24:53.24] – Jasmin Sethi
The investment policy is what I worked on with the Harvard Club of Philadelphia, and I am on the committee, the investment committee for the Grounds For Sculpture, so if we do decide to make any changes, I would be involved with that. Right now, we haven’t. I don’t think I’ve made other governance policies there. I think for the other advisory committees and boards I’m on, pretty much the policies are already well-established.
[00:25:29.06] – Adrienne Beckham
Thank you again so much for all of your time, your energy, your thoughtful answers to the questions.
[00:25:39.11] – Jasmin Sethi
Thank you so much.
[00:25:41.15] – Adrienne Beckham
Thank you so much, Jasmin. I will talk to you again soon.
[00:25:45.15] – Jasmin Sethi
Bye-bye.
[00:25:46.24] – Adrienne Beckham
Bye.
