Empowering Change: Ronaldo Hardy on Financial Education and DEI – ep.167

Join us as we sit down with Ronaldo Hardy, a transformative leader in the financial education sector. As the CEO of BALANCE, Ronaldo is at the forefront of providing essential financial wellness programs across the nation. In this episode, he shares his insights on the importance of financial literacy, the challenges and strategies for inclusive financial education, and his passionate commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Dive into a discussion that not only enlightens but also empowers individuals and communities to navigate the complexities of financial stability in today’s world. (@BALANCEFinFit)

Melyssa Barrett:  Welcome to the Jali Podcast. I’m your host, Melyssa Barrett. This podcast is for those who are interested in the conversation around equity, diversity, and inclusion. Each week I’ll be interviewing a guest who has something special to share or is actively part of building solutions in the space. Let’s get started. Ronaldo Hardy is a two-time credit union, CEO, former consulting firm owner, former CEO of a national association in the credit union industry and current CEO of balance, a national leader in financial education and counseling. He has a passion for helping leaders and organizations break free from mediocrity to create cultures of boldness, trust and innovation. Throughout his career, he’s led award-winning transformations driven, unprecedented growth, and built high performing teams that thrive on authenticity and connection. As the CEO of balance, he leads a team of passionate, purpose-driven humans delivering critical financial wellness programs to individuals and communities across the country.

Ronaldo is committed to scaling impact through innovation and partnerships, ensuring balance remains at the forefront of empowering people to take control of their financial futures. Previously, he served as the CEO of Cusso where he drove collaboration and innovation in the credit union space, helping organizations navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of financial services. Prior to that, he led Southwest Louisiana Credit Union to become a certified community development financial institution or CDFI. For those of you that know securing $950,000 federal award while building a legacy of mission-driven growth and operational excellence, he also owned and operated a high impact consulting firm where he partnered with executives to transform leadership pipelines, navigate cultural challenges, and unlock team potential. Today, Ronaldo brings his leadership expertise, real world results and dynamic speaking presence to deliver high impact keynotes and workshops that challenge leaders to rethink what’s possible. So his mission is to inspire organizations to grow boldly, innovate relentlessly and lead authentically transforming not just their business but the lives they touch.

I am so excited to have Ronaldo join me on the Jolly podcast. Always a pleasure to see you, Ronaldo Hardy, you are one of the hardest working men I meet because you are doing everything all the time. So I am just excited to have you here to kick off Financial Literacy Month. What better place to have you come on to really talk about financial education, all the things that balance is doing as well as what’s going on in the world. And so I’m just really excited to have you here and full disclosure, yes, I sit on the balance board. I take it as a point of privilege that I get to have you on my podcast talking about financial education. Welcome to the Jolly Podcast.

Ronaldo Hardy:  Thank you so much for having me. I’m glad to be here, and I just know we’re about to have a great conversation today, so I’m ready to jump in

Melyssa Barrett:  Always. I always like to start with you giving us a little bit of background about how you got to where you are today, because even in your bio we see that you’ve been a two time CEO, you’ve done all kinds of things and you are pretty young still to be a two time CEOI want to say you said the first CEO position you got, you were at age 26 or something.

Ronaldo Hardy:  27, yeah, which is crazy. So now I guess I need to do a little update. So this is the fourth opportunity I’ve had to lead an organization as CEO and I have had such an interesting journey. So one of the things that I’ve always said is I feel like when you’re on a purpose journey and you’re passionate about the work that you’re doing, the things that are supposed to be a part of that journey will find you as long as you’re aligning with what you’re supposed to be doing, those things will find you. And I have certainly found that to be the case for my whole journey. When I was coming out of high school, Melissa, I had no desire to work in financial services, but prior to,

Melyssa Barrett:  No,

Ronaldo Hardy:  Prior to that, given some background personally, and I’m so thankful for my parents who very purpose driven, decided when I was younger to leave from being full-time entrepreneurs where they were generating six figures of income. They felt very called to go into the ministry and to do that full time. So while a lot of people think, oh, the pastor’s getting all the money I know right now we got the whole thing circulating about locking the doors and all that doing offering and all kind of stuff. My journey through that is that our family did not have a lot financially as a result of that decision that was made. So while it did teach me to follow a purpose path with what I did with my career, it also meant that I had some direct experience with how difficult it is to be in a situation where your family is a bit more marginalized financially.

Our household income when I was growing up was $25,000 and my parents chose to go through that journey without the assistance of governmental assistance. So you can only imagine what we felt an impact. I still scratched my head around what they were able to do with that, but very early, I will tell you at least even though I didn’t know I was going to work in financial services, I knew that I wanted a thriving career that allowed me to provide differently for my family, and that’s been a very big driver of how I move. In addition to being purpose led, passion driven, one thing that matters a lot to me is what I’m able to provide for my family and also what I’ll be able to leave them subsequently. So I was working at McDonald’s during the senior year of my high school, and this is why it’s very important to make sure that you’re committed to excellence no matter where you are because you never know when someone else who has the power to create change or impact for you will get a chance to see you.

I was working at McDonald’s and the head teller of the local community bank came into McDonald’s one day and said, she said, every time I come in here, you are so friendly and so professional and you get my order, which is a big deal at McDonald’s, you’re frustrated if you leave there and they don’t get your order. I tell, I joke all the time, time I’m like, I could not fix the ice cream machine. So I was not capable of doing everything, but I was certainly committed to doing things right and she was like, I just love the experience that I have with you every time I’m here. And she said, you would do well on our teller line. Would you consider coming and working for us in a part-time teller position? So the last six weeks of my high school journey, I went to go work for a local community bank.

It altered everything I was going to school at the time where I thought, and I did start in it for computer science because that’s what they were telling everybody to do when I was graduating. All you had to do is have a little bit of intelligence and they’re like Computer science because computers are the future. Everyone needs to do it. So I’m like, Y, I’m going to do it today. In hindsight, I’m like, there’s no way that I should have been coming out in computer science talking about doing any computer programming, but I’m grateful that in this scenario my purpose found me. It started a journey for me very young, which is why I now have, oh, and I calculate, I’m on year 21 of having some attachment to the credit union movement and then 23 years in financial services, which is wild for me to say I’m at that weird age first of all, where you have to finally be like, I’m just an adult

Melyssa Barrett:  And you’ve been working more than half of your life in this,

Ronaldo Hardy:  Which is crazy to me. I still feel on most days a lot younger than my age, and I am grateful that I’m at least trying to maintain looking young, but that was a critical moment for me. I went to go work for that community bank and I’ve been attached to financial services since then. A few years later, I got a chance to work for my first credit union in 2004. Went on to do a lot of great things there. Was there for about seven and a half years, held seven positions, worked in almost every different department while I was there and a lot of my earlier career did not know that it was preparing me for what I do now, but I really, while I was there, I became good at responding to crisis. So the organization learned very early that things could be a complete chaotic mess and I could go in and lead turnarounds.

So every department that I had for the most part was a turnaround department as an employee of the organization, imagine how that’s preparing me to go and lead organizations from there. And at the age of 27, after doing, I had competed when I was 26 in what was called next Top Credit Union exec. It was the inaugural round of it I was not supposed to get as far as I did. There’s so many elements of that story of why that should not have been the case, but I won my region. There were six regions I elevated to the national round and I was the runner up of that competition and the winner that year decided to share her prize, which allowed me to go to year one of the CEO Institute at the Wharton School of Business. And it also meant that every trade publication that covered the story, they covered the complete story because it was a bigger story that she shared her prize.

So it was like I got to be the winner and so many people got to know me and here now passion and purpose starts this journey of building a personal brand that I never set out to build. I never set out to build that. From there, I ended up being selected to crash the GAC. Part of that was you had to do a project afterwards about 16 of us and we’re in this cohort that crashed the GACI chose as my project to launch the Young Professionals Network in the state of Louisiana through the Louisiana Credit Union League, which is now Illuminate. They just had their conference a week and a half ago. So it’s cool to see that continuing our Young Professionals Network was the fastest growing in the country. So I ended up advising several other states and helping them to either launch theirs or redesign theirs for growth.

Then that CUNA saw that was going on and they were like, Hey, can you help us launch our national initiative? Be the first chair did that and by the age of 27 I was asked, I competed for this role. Obviously I tell stories long, I love them. I was asked to take on my first CEO seed and I did not realize that all of those aspects of my journey, all of the things that were built in me, how I gained a level of courage and wisdom in responding to chaotic messes in organizations really suited me well because it meant that there are so many different ways to become A CEO. If you’re homegrown within the organization, it means a lot of times the organization has done a really good job with succession planning and also really loves the strategic direction. And so typically they are reaching in to keep that going.

I thrive when organizations say we’re ready for a bold change. And so every time I’ve come in to lead, the organization has been ready for a bold change and I’m really good with what it looks like and have then developed the skill sets internally to guide people through that. So I never get really overwhelmed by that. I know you’re seeing as a board member now I’m coming in, you all were hungry. You’re like, we see ourselves doing something bolder and different. And so you brought me in to lead that and I know you could see how relaxed I am at terms like I’m good.

Melyssa Barrett:  I feel like you’re one of those ducks that’s got a lot going on underneath the water.

Ronaldo Hardy:  I do. So that’s my story. From there, it’s like I’ve just had the chance to continue responding when the moment was right and so that I led that credit union for five years. I had an opportunity to lead this other organization. My story drove five hours a day to lead an organization that I felt was doing the type of work that I really loved and I wanted to take them deeper in that. And so I did that and then I owned a consulting firm with five other business partners for four years before leading the credit union industry while I was at cusso through some changes around innovation and collaboration and the acceleration of QSO and FinTech development in our space. And then purpose literally found me again and my journey of coming to balance was so mind blowing to me because it really allowed every aspect of all of what I’ve done in my journey. It aligns so much with my childhood, my adulthood, my personhood, all of the experiences I’ve had professionally, the impact that matters to me. Meeting the moment of where people are now, it was so many things that I could not deny how to me, I really felt I’m like, wait, purpose and passion intentionally found me again, and I am having the time of my life leading this organization thus far.

Melyssa Barrett:  And it’s so exciting I think to watch because you are a person of such vision, you’ve built a reputation on bold leadership and transformational change. When I see you, I think the natural conversation is like how do you, and I promise y’all we’re going to get to financial education in a minute, but it’s how do you approach stepping into that leadership role and inspiring your team from day one? Because a lot of folks, yeah, you might be, the board may be ready for change, maybe even the organization is ready for change, but employees don’t tend to change.

Ronaldo Hardy:  Absolutely. Yeah. So I’ll say a couple of things. So one, before I’m going into an organization, I’m doing a lot of work to understand that organization from the outside looking in, I know you could see when I came to talk with you and the board, I had done a lot of research to understand a lot about the story. I’m digging everywhere. Let me see the story. Let me not assume that I know it or that I know what it needs without first understanding a lot of the foundation. So that’s a big part of what I do. Let me analyze this first and then I try to do a really good job because when you are leading, especially when you’re a novice as a CEO, your early days of c eing is, I have this great vision and it should just look this way because I think it should look this way.

And this is really cool. And as you mature as a CEO, you don’t put that down because that part of the vision and the development of it comes from a very authentic place within that leader. But the best plans have integrated an understanding of the foundational story with talent that exists within that leader to align maybe this aspiration around this understanding that’s already anchored in a certain truth and then building a vision that merges the two together so it’s right for the organization. I watch a lot of CEOs who I can tell when this is your plan, it’s going to make you feel good and better about yourself, but this is not going to advance the organization in the way that it needs to grow. So that’s the first part, Melissa is really adequately assessing the organization to ascertain what the true scenario is and what the vision should look like.

And then I’m also an artist, so almost every art form I attached to in some way. And so then to me, a strategic plan that’s art in business for me, it’s like stepping back and even before I’m hired, I envision myself being the CEO and what is that looking and where are we heading? What’s the journey? How do we get there? That’s the plan that you then see as the vision. And for me then one of the things, one of my mentors, he introduced me to this book, Raymond Jetson introduced me, you would love him by the way. You should be a future podcast guest. He has a really amazing initiative he’s leading now called Aging While Black. And prior to that, he started an organization metamorphosis that helps communities transform from the inside out. Former state representative, former councilman, former pastor, formerly in the administration of Governor Blanco, like this man is serious business.

And so I was in his cohort for the Urban Leadership Development Institute and he introduced me to this book called, it’s a Harvard Business Review book, but it’s called The Practice of Adaptive Leadership. And that book really helped me to understand so much around what it truly takes to move people through change. And one of the things that it says is that people view change through the lens of loss. So their first thing is to perceive what is it that I am losing? And so I try to answer that in my mind, what will the stakeholders view as a loss and what will be the grief around that? And then what’s the offsetting joy? I believe that there then needs to be an offsetting joy to grief. So an acknowledgement of, Hey, I recognize that things look this way and they may have felt this way because you are accustomed to that, but here’s also the offsetting joy.

And then for me, in going in, it’s about communicating vision. So being able to help people see where we’re heading, acknowledging where we need to be urgent. So I’m very good at creating a sense of urgency within the organization. And to me, when you’re navigating change and change is necessary, one of the things that’s important is to help people to see what things look like if they remain the same. And typically when we know that change is needed, it’s us responding to the fact that if we remain the same, we are at the beginning of our potential death as an organization or something is going to begin to diminish over time. And with that, and then I’ll shut up. It’s important to me to bring everyone on that journey. And so I’ll take time. I literally just wrapped up meeting with every single employee and we have 70, no matter what they said in the organization, they got time to speak directly to me, to be acknowledged, to be considered, to provide input.

They were all asked a question, if we were to make balance better and you had the power to change anything, what would that be? All of those things suggest to people that they do matter in the story. And then utilizing language that also reflects that. So like I told the board, I told the same thing to the leadership and the staff, Hey, any role that we’re paying for here, we’re acknowledging that it’s important. If it were not important to us, we wouldn’t have put budget to it. And if we put budget to it, then it should have dignity around it. And part of making sure dignity is around the role is making sure everyone know that they can contribute. And aside from that, we land that with accountability to say, Hey, once we decide that this direction we’re going in, we’re moving in that direction. And those that then become detractors, we try to develop them and help them. And if that doesn’t work well, we invite them to their next season.

Melyssa Barrett:  Thank you. Yes. I love that we invite them to their next season. I’m going to just emphasize that. I love that.

Ronaldo Hardy:  Yeah.

Melyssa Barrett:  Oh my gosh. So now that we’re talking about financial literacy month, and I was going to go off based on what you said and talk a little bit about our country and the leadership and all of that, but I’m going to save that for another time. I’ll just say it this, we know that financial wellness is more critical than ever. We also know that with our markets do not like uncertainty. And so when you think about where we are and what some of our biggest challenges and opportunities are in the financial education space today, what do you think some of those are from your perspective? And I know you’re passionate about making financial services more inclusive, so can you speak to that where we are as people, where we’re headed? I dunno, give us your perspective.

Ronaldo Hardy:  Yeah, so I think two things. One, it’s a necessary evolution that most financial wellness and education providers are having to undergo to make sure that now from a messaging and content perspective that we’re building in a way that younger generations will respond to. So we can have the greatest information, but if it’s not packaged the right way, delivered in the right channels, then we have these audiences that we’re missing. So right now, we are in that space that the country’s having to accept. Millennials are not kids, so we can’t have that kid conversation around millennials anymore. We’re like in prime adult years. I’m a millennial. I’m 41. I was going to say we,

Melyssa Barrett:  I said we. It’s not

Ronaldo Hardy:  A we. So it’s a, yeah, I’m like, I’m not a kid. And there’s still some language around millennials that suggest that people almost look at us as permanent children. And it’s like this as a generation, we’ve grown. We have families. I have a daughter who’s going to graduate from high school next year. So knowing that generation, our generations and generation we’re in a prime years. So evolving around us is no longer, yeah, we got to take care of those. And knowing little kids know we have to respond to who’s at the peak or prime of their adult years right now. And then Gen Z being, depending on where they sit in the story of Gen Z, they’re those young professionals, but they are also aging. They’re very critical audience. And then there’s an emerging audience in the alpha generation. So I first do see a challenge around as the information packaged the right way, will it reach the generations we want it to reach with its current design?

And are we reaching into the right channels for these audiences? Because when you consider a lot of them, you never get to talk to ’em, they’re going to TikTok and they are following the advice of influencers. So repositioning I think is vital right now. But then also in addition to having that issue of that as it relates to financial education, I also think there are groups that are being left behind because so many in the financial wellness space only considers what we consider to be marginalized audiences as the only who have need of this. And that’s not the case. There are so many different people who need access to this information. I was at the GACA few weeks ago and I was talking to a gentleman who he leads or he was running a cusso and he was sharing with me a story that he was like, another thing that I do, he said, I’m a recovering alcoholic.

And he said, I’ve been running this. I don’t want basically a business of sorts or a program, if you will, where he is helped people, high income earners to get the resources they need when they’re dealing with those addictions. So he was telling me a story of a couple where the husband earns $350,000 a year and the wife earns $150,000 a year. So together we could do the math, they earn a half a million dollars a year for the program for the help that he needed. They needed to generate $3,000 and could not. And there are so many people that would never consider a couple earning a half a million dollars a year as someone who needs access to financial education. And that is not the case. I think that we need to broaden our perspective. I believe about 90% of Americans in some way need this.

And it is not something that, to me, it crosses over generational barriers, racial barriers, socioeconomic barriers. There’s not a specific class that’s impacted. I think what happens is shame increases the more people’s finances grow and they don’t know what they’re doing. So I think that we need to one, remove that stigma, this being a shameful conversation. We also need to expand the audience and say, we recognize that you may be growing financially but not growing in financial wellness and repositioning how we have that conversation. And then also understand that there are people like me who are first generation in certain levels of growth. And I’m be honest with you, Melissa, even with me working in financial services, there are times that I’ve reached a new place that I’m like, I don’t totally know what to do and there’s nobody that’s in my bloodline that I could call and say, what would you do? So now I’m having to reach out in different ways and trust who I’m getting information from for specific areas of my own growth as I am growing. And so in knowing that, I try to also analyze that and say, okay, there are so many more people who need access to different types of financial education.

Melyssa Barrett:  Well, and that’s such a key point because I think there are so many people that will ask their friend or their parent or whatever who aren’t experiencing the same things at all. And we think asking, oh, they’re my mentor, so they must know or whatever. But there’s so many people that don’t. And especially in the black community, we were taught you don’t talk about money, you don’t know how much I make and I’m not telling you. So there is a whole, you called a component of it. Shame. I think in a lot of cases we don’t trust people. There’s a lot of challenges with respect to the fact that we don’t get taught financial education in school, right?

Ronaldo Hardy:  Yes.

Melyssa Barrett:  So you have to go other places for people to help you understand it in a lot of cases. So with all the new technology, digital tools, ai, innovation coming, I think a lot of people will look to ai. I’ll just ask chat GPT what I should do. So what do you think? How do you take individuals, families, even businesses, and engage with financial education? Let’s pause for a moment. We’ll be right back.

Ronaldo Hardy:  I think that’s really good and those tools are great, but even on our own journey, we got phase one by the way of our integrated financial wellness tool launched on yesterday. And so we’re undergoing this journey of redoing our websites, introducing the app that we feel will be better for consumers. There’s some light opportunities right now for AI coach built within which we’ll go deeper. So I think that there has to be this both and approach. And I think sometimes that people take an either or kind of stance and it’s, oh no, we get all this technology, then it’s going to remove the human touch then. So there are those that are like no to that. We want the human touch. And then there are those that go to, all we need is the technology and we don’t need the humans. We can just drive this forward.

And no, it has to be a bit of a both. And I think that what we’re trying to do is leverage what’s happening with the evolution of technology with this understanding that the humor centered and more connected approach will make sure that as we build, we don’t leave people behind. So I think that the right approach right now is more both. And here’s what I see. The technology tools are great because they give us the right now access to information we need. But where the human touch goes further is taking that explanation a lot deeper, being able to align with your individual circumstance, bringing experience to the table too, because my great friend Chad, not going to have a lot of experience behind that. So hey, this is what I can give you actual factual data or information, but I cannot say, Hey, I’ve worked with 25 other people who have found this as the most effective way to do this or someone who can have the heart investment in your story.

So I think that right now we are in a period that you cannot deny technology. I was talking to our team and saying flipping upside down how we view ourselves. We are a nonprofit that focuses on financial wellness and utilizes technology as a channel. And I was like, the way of the world today reverses that. So almost every organization has to think of themselves as a technology organization first. So I was like, what does it look like for us to think about ourselves as a technology organization that delivers financial wellness through the infrastructure of a nonprofit, a completely different perspective, which helps us to build with a lot of intentionality to respond to where consumers are. It is so crazy to me when we are consumers, so we know our own behaviors and we know exactly what we do, and then we come into organizations and we ask, oh, I’m going to totally forget that I am a human and I typically want X, Y, Z in how I build. And we all appreciate technology. We all appreciate right now the power of behavioral economics that will allow all of our experiences to tailor themselves to what it learns about our behaviors the same as exist and how we build around financial education and wellness too.

Melyssa Barrett:  And so if I just look around to what’s going on today, and we’ve seen a bunch of layoffs continue to occur both in the federal government as well as other places. And I guess one of the things that I want to ask is, I know you have people that are contacting you guys all the time with, okay, now I got laid off, or maybe I just can’t make ends meet. What is the first thing that you tell people to do? I think especially in you might be making a really good salary and then all of a sudden something changes and people get your whole point about grief and loss is, okay, I’ve lost a job. I’m losing income. How do I replace and get to the place of if I can’t even make my ends meet?

Ronaldo Hardy:  Absolutely. So I think the first thing is okay, we got to adequately assess the situation. And so many times when it comes to financial matters, people are like, I just ain’t going to look at it. That’s really not going to change it. So you really do need to assess the situation and I think an adequate evaluation of these are my expenses every month and categorizing them, what do I need to survive? And by survive, I mean exist, live. We need to eat, we need to have somewhere to live. Those are the essentials. But the assessment helps to know what are we actually dealing with? And then I think a lot of times people under communicate in crisis when it’s better financially to over communicate. So engaging creditors early actually gets you more favorable outcomes. So being able to say almost immediately, this is the situation I’m in.

I lost my job. And the most creditors are going to understand that they know that you did not get this loan under the pretense that I’m not going to be able to pay you. So they’ll work with you extensions and things like that to give you time so that you can address the situation. I think after that it’s really understanding what am I going to need in order to be successful? And then thinking about from an income perspective, how are you going to generate that? So today you’re going for another job. What types of roles do you need to be considering? Is it entrepreneurship? How do you go about it? But having a plan, when I see people fail, Melissa, they literally, they get so stuck that the thing happened and they check out. And so I’ll tell a story. There was only one time in my life and I was 19.

I got let go from a job at 19. Oh, it did something. It really, I think fueled even much more of my success just because I had the leader handled it at the time, and I can remember at 19 that knocked the wind out of me. It took me a little bit of time. It did so much to me. It’s like all of a sudden I lost my income. I needed it at the time because I had started amassing my own debt that I needed to pay for car, things like that, stupid decisions. But because I didn’t have growing up as soon as I was of age to go get, I was like, I’ll go to work and I don’t get it. And now I’m stuck in that predicament. And I saw what that felt like to be so overwhelmed by it that I was stuck for a minute.

It took me a couple of weeks before I was ready to apply for jobs and to confront. I was nervous at that time to call the bank and say, I’m not going to be able to make that payment this month. I didn’t have a savings at that time. I wasn’t prepared. So as I’ve grown financially and in my career, one of the things that’s helped me is to never forget my own experiences. And I knew what it felt like to just feel like I don’t totally know what to do with it, so I’m not going to do anything. I know so much more Now, if I knew all that back then, I would’ve immediately started working in the same way that I’m telling you. But there are some people that really get overwhelmed by that adjustment, so overwhelmed that they think the answer is to do nothing. And that’s the worst thing that you can possibly

Melyssa Barrett:  Do. Yeah. Wow, that’s powerful. I think you’re right in terms of under-communicating, it’s much easier to go sit in the corner and try to, it’s like you think you’re trying to figure it out, but really you’re just in a corner and creating that energy for yourself so that you can shift into a joy. I always talk about it where I feel like sometimes God is playing chess and moving a piece over here and a piece over there because he is opening this pathway for me to, but I don’t know what he’s doing. And then you find yourself in a different position than you have been. And it’s not that it’s bad, it’s just different. It’s a new,

Ronaldo Hardy:  Right. Yes. And you got to look at it differently. I had a conversation with my daughter recently. I have a daughter in the third grade. She tested for gifted, and when she tested for gifted, she found out that her reading comprehension in the third grade was on the freshman collegiate level. And her math comprehension was that up an 11th grader. She was so happy to find that out at the time. But I’ve seen since then it created this pressure around performance. I’ve watched her over time kind of cave in moments of pressure, and I’m going somewhere when I say this. I was talking to her recently, and I think this is just a reframing a pressure for everyone because a scenario like what we’re speaking of, that’s a high pressure moment. But I told her, I said, I want you to start reframing pressure. I said, let’s now look at pressure as opportunity.

I was like, because we run towards opportunities, we run away a lot of times from pressure, so we reframe pressure. Every time that you are under pressure, you’re in the middle of an opportunity and if you see it differently, your response will look differently and your outcome can too. So in the middle of what feels chaotic, a disruption in your work and your money as a result, that’s pressure. But if you see the opportunity, maybe it’s the opportunity for the pivot that people wanted. There are some people that you didn’t like that job anyway. This is unfortunate that this happened, but the opportunity here is to go into a career path that’s more fulfilling. Or maybe you’ve known for a while that you should be an entrepreneur because the one thing you can’t do is change what happens. So if you have no power to go back and restart that job tomorrow, you have only really one thing you can do, and that’s to consider what you’re about to do now. So reframing it as opportunity to me adjust the actions that one will take.

Melyssa Barrett:  I love it. I love it. I am not going to let you go without talking a little bit about DEI, because I know everybody now is talking about DEI. This whole podcast started because I wanted to understand what people were doing with respect to DEI and now when people are nervous about using the words and everybody’s eliminating stuff, DEI, and then we have companies that are truly doubling down. It’s like DEI is a wise decision and this is how we run our business as opposed to having a program per se. And so I’m interested in hearing from you about your thoughts about diversity, equity and inclusion, both as a CEO, as well as a person of color. You’re young, you have probably some very different ideas than some other people when it comes to diversity as a millennial. So can you talk a little bit about your thoughts about diversity, equity, and inclusion?

Ronaldo Hardy:  Absolutely. So one, it’s certainly something I am passionate about and to me, I just don’t really see it truly going away. I know that there are a lot of, there’s a lot of misinformation about what it is. And so you have audiences of people who are afraid of what it means because of not necessarily knowing what it is. And I like to give this analogy first to understand what it is. Alright, so of course we know DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. The true stair step to that in terms of how that looks within the organizations in doing it right is diversity, inclusion and equity. And so I’m from Louisiana and I always joke, I’m like, look, we may not do everything well, but we can cook better than to me, everyone in the world. That’s my personal opinion. And so one of our signature Louisiana dishes happens to be gumbo.

And the way I’ve helped people to understand DEI utilizing gumbo is diversity simply is the representation of difference. Come on, make this gumbo with me, right? If we are making the gumbo, diversity simply means I have gotten all of the ingredients that I need. Now I’ve done nothing with them, but I have them, they’re on my countertop. And I’ve done this journey of helping people understand because some people celebrate that they’ve gotten diversity done and they think they’ve done all three of them. No, you haven’t actually. You just have diversity. All the ingredients are here, but we’ve done nothing with it. Inclusion is the next step. It says, I’m going to intentionally engage difference. So diversity, the difference is here, inclusion. I’m engaging the difference. So I’m not going to let it be here. I’m going to do something with it. So now inclusion is I’m taking the ingredients off the countertop for the gumbo and I’m putting them in the pot. And the reason why I’m putting all of the ingredients in the pot because for anyone who cooks, and if you don’t cook anyone who just loves to eat, one thing is when an ingredient is missing from the dish. So it does mean no good to have all of these ingredients to make this gumbo and to get this flavor that I’m desiring. If they stay on the countertop inclusion, that means I included them in the pot or I’m intentionally engaging the difference. Now, I don’t know if you like chicken and sausage combo or seafood.

Melyssa Barrett:  Oh, I’m a seafood. I like all that.

Ronaldo Hardy:  I like all that. Give me all of it. Give me the chicken and sausage and the seafood. But let’s say we’re doing chicken and sausage gum equity says I’m going to make sure that there is the right distribution or equal even distribution of the representation. So if it’s chicken and sausage, I’m not going to tell you it’s chicken and sausage gumbo and all you got is chicken in your bowl

Or I’m not going to tell you that it’s chicken and sausage gumbo, one and one little piece of sausage, or you got just sausage in your bowl. The equity piece says, I’m going to make sure they’re both adequately represented. It’s the seat at the table. And so when you think of it that way, nobody would want to be a part of anything that didn’t consider them. You’re not going to find any audience that would tell me, for example, I make the joke, I’m like, it’s women walking in and it’s a table full of men saying, we know exactly what you want and we got all the decisions right for you. Women are looking like you don’t barely know yourself. How you going to make all the decisions for us? And vice versa, even when men see scenarios where it’s all women and we know what to do, we’re looking like, nah, it’s a lot that we hadn’t even told you.

And I use that example to help people understand without the representation of difference at the table, what’s designed is going to leave somebody out. I got into DEI work, there are two things. I have a master’s degree in human resource education, concentrating HR and leadership development. So in my studies I study organizational development and this is a part of that study. So I have the educational attainment and then I became a practitioner of it as well. In my second CEO seat, I was 32 at the time, and I remember having a moment where I was doing so much impactful work in my local community. I also pastor church in 2016, we had Alton Sterling murdered in our community. We subsequently had somebody come from the outside and then murder police in our community and we had this flood. So we had a weird dynamic protest.

We were a national news media story multiple times and I was leading a lot of that change and one of the good voices that existed in my community aligning multiple sides. So I’ve never delineated my message, but I have a way of making it digestible. So all groups were coming to listen to me, but I realized professionally that I had grown so much through assimilation that I’m sitting at the top seats at this point. My personal brand is growing. I’m known all around the nation in my industry and I’m realizing I’m sitting in this office from assimilation and code switching and things that I didn’t feel proud of. And so at the age of 32, I decided that if I was going to continue on a trajectory, it was going to have to be authentic. And that meant that I woke up, I wake up every single day as a black man.

There is no day that I’m going to wake up and be anything other than that reality, which means there are certain lived experiences that I cannot ignore. There are cultural differences, uniqueness. I even realized that so much of the conversation around professional and unprofessional was done with the omission of cultural traditions. And so I remember I was working for, it was Hibernia Bank at the time in the early two thousands, it’s now Capital One bought them. That’s how Capital One got into banking. And in 2002, they were introducing a policy because the wave of black women at the time wearing their hair natural had accelerated so much that they introduced a policy that suggested that was unprofessional. And so as I looked at what needed to be done to bring greater exposure to difference one and two, what type of leader I wanted to be, what I wanted my legacy to be and how I wanted to feel in spaces that I led, I got to the point then where I said, if it’s not designed with me being authentic at the table, it’s not the right atmosphere for me.

And I was willing to take a risk. I elevated a conversation in our industry around this. It could have been career suicide at the time, but because it was purposeful and passion led, I went with it and it turned into a broad and bold conversation. Grew and grew. It meant that I took four years working on it, consulting in that space directly. Man, hey, in a couple of months I would be one of six leaders in our industry being honored with the DEI leadership award for championing that work. So it’s shown up in how I lead organizations because it is important for me to make sure that I have diverse representation at the table with me. And so that’s, whether that’s in race, gender, generation, all of that, I talk a lot of times about how new CEOs come in and they decide to dismiss everybody.

I’m like, how are you protecting the history of the organization if everybody gone? But then also those that are scared to bring new people in. It was like, how are you managing towards new and bold progression if we don’t bring any new thought that is diversity in action. So I lead in that way. I am going to show up. I have this thing I call audacious authenticity. I’m going to show up authentic in the most audacious way and then build an organizational culture around that empowers everyone to do the same. I love it. At this point, I’m so settled in that I land in the right places every time. And when you all met me as a board, I came in there as Ronaldo Hardy. I did not take any of that away and said to y’all, I’m like, I’m going to just tell you, well, here’s what you get. So if you like this, there won’t be no more, no less. This is what you’re getting. I’m going to be authentic. And to me, at the root and at the core of if we’re doing DEI work well, we graduate to this other one, we know be belonging and we’ve created the space where organizations can thrive in productivity and efficiency and employee satisfaction and engagement. All of that becomes a byproduct of saying, you’re free to be who you are here.

That’s where DEI is at the core of me.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yeah, and let me just congratulate you on your award because

I think you’re one of those people that don’t necessarily do things for awards, but it is nice to be acknowledged the work that you do in the world, and I’m all about celebrating the work that people are doing in the world. So I just think it is phenomenal. I’m excited for you and the other honorees. There are some great honorees in there with you. So congratulations all of the work that you’re doing there. And I know I’m excited as balance as we go into new places and new phases of our organization. So I think we’re all really excited. I know the employees and the board are as excited to get started. And I think you’ve been in what, not even a hundred days yet, right? It’s only been,

Ronaldo Hardy:  I think I’m about 60 in now are closing in on it. Not even quite 60, but closing in on the first 60 days. And it’s been energetic. It’s been very good.

Melyssa Barrett:  It’s

Ronaldo Hardy:  Actually probably one of my favorite starts so far. So I have a lot of excitement about where we’re going.

Melyssa Barrett:  Okay, awesome. And I know, so let’s talk about what, maybe talk a little bit about some positive change that you see when we talk about if you want to talk about your advice when you’re creating lasting and positive change in organizations and communities, what are some of the components there that you’re focusing on?

Ronaldo Hardy:  Absolutely. So I think that great and the longest lasting change is done from an intentional culture. So it’s like designing culture within the organization to make that impact and then considering who are the beneficiaries of the impact work you’re doing. So when I was leading a credit union and that credit union was in the Lake Charles community, but did not matter if Renado Hardy wanted to do something, if it did not align with one division, which our vision was to eliminate poverty in our community with a mission of financial empowerment for all. Much of our work at that point wrapped around the unique needs of the community. I think sometimes we can be almost arrogant organizationally to be like, you’re going to love what I did because I think it’s cool. The greatest impact is I saw where you have need and we responded to it.

And so that’s a big part. Again, building the right organizational culture is important. I look back at Southwest Louisiana Credit Union. I love that credit union. I look back at them, I’m going to see them actually in a couple of weeks. I love them. And when I see them, they are still operating within this dynamic culture that we created that I’ve now been gone five and a half years and they still have that same culture. They’re still impacting the community. The same, my successor who I got a chance to work with leading them very boldly. And I get to see what it looks like to see that impact continue. But that wasn’t done. It removed. Personal preference, did I enjoy the atmosphere? So it responded to an environment that I would want to be in. But to me, the greatest legacies happen as a result of removing personal preference and designing along side of the great leadership in a way that you consider those who are being impacted and are you responding to them?

You know what I mean? And if you do that, look, if I brought this to church, I put my other hat on. If I brought it to church, if Jesus would show up in communities to meet needs and he looked at what need existed there at the time, one of my greatest favorite stories with the two fish and five loaves, the disciples, by the way, they were all tired over there and they’re like, we don’t feel like doing no more work. And they done in Jesus whatever we about to go and feed these people. He didn’t leave them hungry. Think about what their response was after that a need was met. So when you think about building something lasting and something that builds legacy, people will build that for you when you build with them in mind. And I think that’s internally and externally in every organization that I’ve led. And I’m doing that now with balance. I’ve built with the people in mind building right now with employees in mind and how things are designed in terms of their day-to-day working experience and building with those who will be impacted by what we have to offer in mind as well to make sure that we bring the tools to them that they need and that we deliver them to them where they are.

Melyssa Barrett:  Which just emphasizes again how important it is that you have representation. Just to add that in, again, I think what you’re saying is so meaningful, and I hope we get some people who maybe will get their perspective shift a little bit because I think there are lots of people that don’t necessarily understand and maybe they want to understand or maybe they just haven’t been intentional about trying to understand. But we need to continue to have these conversations and talk about it so that people can understand. I’ll go Mike to my, I have two other things I want to ask you, one of which is are there any particular trends that you’re seeing that you’re paying close attention to that really impact how individuals and communities achieve financial stability? Are there things that you’re looking at now with so much going on in the world that you’re tracking to be able to say what can impact how individuals and communities achieve that? And I know you talked a little bit about eliminating poverty, which is a monumental task, especially when we start talking about generational wealth and generational poverty. So can you talk a little bit about what you’re paying close attention to? And then I want to ask you something that we’ll leave with.

Ronaldo Hardy:  Absolutely. So I think I’m looking at what’s happening with the workforce and unemployment because something that we have to measure to see how many people are being disrupted every day, looking at what’s happening with the stock market because that is challenging. People are literally seeing the eroding of things that they’ve amassed for their wealth retirement. I’m thinking back to 2008, people got delayed for years in their retirement because of that. So I’m looking at that and I’m really paying attention to what’s happening with affordable housing. I think that is an indicator of the success that consumers will experience. So I think that’s three key categories. A fourth one would be what’s happening with student loan debt, because that’s impacting younger generations. And so I think that these are the conversation starters that we will have to have with a lot of people. It’s great that we are aligned from an education perspective, information perspective to drive solutions. There. We are having to repackage and redesign that to make sure it can fit where people are right now. But to me, those are some very key categories. And if I think of where everyone, and inflation’s another one. So when I think of where everyone’s stress right now, those are the areas that’s causing the stress. Again, things that will have to change to bring them out of it, but we will be ready to respond and guide people through this. So yes.

Melyssa Barrett:  And maybe you want to talk a little bit about what you all do when it comes to housing counseling and those, what does balance do? Maybe? Let’s make sure people

Ronaldo Hardy:  Are, we do a lot. So whether it’s housing, counseling and coaching, preparing people to either get the house they desire or remain in the house that they’ve already acquired. We have tools and solutions on both sides. We help with them with every day consumer finance, whether it’s debt management, we can do that. We coach as it relates to that. We help those who are dealing with student loan debt issues. We’re coaching through that. We even help those who are trying to plan for their, so they’re wanting the wealth bill. We have that as well. And so there are many lanes we’re in. What I love is that we’re about to be able to go much deeper. I think entrepreneurs need something from us that’s different. I was talking to our team about the newer divergent community who needs something different. So understanding that there are also pockets of people that need us to respond to their unique needs. But yeah, we already have solutions in consumer finance, debt management, student loan counseling, housing coaching and counseling. We really can help people wherever they are on their journey and we will love to and we’re going to be able to do even more of that over the next few years.

Melyssa Barrett: And I’m so grateful that the team was able to even go down and help out with the California fires. And there’s so many emergencies and emerging things that you all do that are just amazing. As somebody that’s been committed to financial education, I think since I was in my twenties, it’s just been a place of resonance for me where I want to make sure that as many people as possible have the tools that they need to really empower themselves to do what? To lead the life they want to live. That’s the bottom line. So I’m going to end on a totally different note. You probably don’t even see this coming, but I really do want to hear you talk a little bit about your mom and the influence she has had on you. I don’t want to leave here. Speak her name, let us know who she is. I think it’s so important for people to understand what the impact of a person can have on you. It may not always be your mom, but I know in your case, she holds a very special place.

Ronaldo Hardy:  So my mom was the game changer me. And so this Sunday will be five years since I lost her to Covid. And I look at my mom as the reason for much of who I’ve become. So a lot of people don’t know. In the earlier days of my journey, I had some insecurities, some self-esteem issues, how I viewed myself. I’m talking like seven or eight. And my mom recognized that, but also recognized that she had this son that had been doing a lot of these things early, whether it was being able to read the newspaper at three or writing in cursive at five or skipping the first grade. Things that she was like, you’re dealing with this and you have all of that in you. And she really cultivated my creativity. She started cultivating my confidence and my leadership and she was so intentional about everything she did to make sure that I would be prepared to go out into the world.

She also didn’t put limitations on me and didn’t allow others to as well. So she was like, you don’t have to be one dimensional. Some people are like, you got to get in one lane and just do that lane and that’s the only way to succeed. And she was like, no, you don’t. You can absolutely be all of these different aspects of who you are and you don’t have to mute any of them. And so because of her, it really helped me. Not that I never have moments that I’m like, well, what about, but for the most part, she really cultivated this audaciously authentic person who’s like, well, I’m going to be unique. I’m going to be different. And she celebrated that. And it’s meant a lot to how I parent my kids as well because I learned or I got to see directly how much impact the parental relationship can have on the future of a child. And then my mom, Robin, is my mom’s name, Robin, she had that impact on me. So thank you for asking.

Melyssa Barrett:  Thank you, Robin. We love it. And we are so appreciative of you spending your time with me. I love our conversations are always engaging and passionate and energetic. You have the amount of energy of one of those little bunnies I saw when I was growing up, but it’s such a pleasure to see you and I love seeing people thrive. So I’m excited to see where balance goes and you’re invited back anytime we can spend time talking more about, I mean, I’m sure I could talk to you for a week straight, but

Ronaldo Hardy:  Thank you. So glad to be here.

Melyssa Barrett:  Yes, we are so excited. And for the folks that aren’t looking at the video, I just want you to know that Ronaldo has a quote up on his screen that says, change the world by building the people who will change the world. So your personal mission, which is so awesome. So I just thank you for all you’re doing in the world and celebrating you, brother. So keep

Ronaldo Hardy:  Having me. I was so glad to be here and look forward to coming back to

Melyssa Barrett:  Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much, much. Thanks for joining me on the Jali Podcast. Please subscribe so you won’t miss an episode. See you next week.