Fix and Grow:
Thriving in Tough Economic Times — in conversation with Lisa Pollina
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Throughout its history, the U.S. has navigated economic turbulence, most recently, during and after the COVID-19 outbreak and through Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Now, with inflation the highest it has been since the 1970s, many are bracing for a recession. How can business leaders shore up their strategies and strengthen their growth trajectories in an uncertain market?
We’re in conversation with Lisa Pollina, a global business leader who has weathered a variety of economic storms, to glean her insights on thriving through challenging conditions.
Lisa, you said you’ve followed a “Fix and Grow” perspective throughout your career in finance. Talk to us about how that strategy has steered you down the path of growing businesses — regardless of the financial weather report.
“Fix and Grow” has been a hallmark of my career and has led me in piloting enterprises of all sizes, domestically and worldwide. Often, fixing has meant helping companies recover from disruptive external events, such as the first dot-com boom, while growing through such strategies as expansion into multinational markets.
For example, leading up to and through the Global Financial Crisis, I served in a global leadership role with Bank of America managing a team that spanned the US, Canada, EMEA Europe-Middle East-Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and also provided advisory services through a series of acquisitions and reorganizations.
With the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) where I served in senior advisory and vice chair capacities, I was named RBC’s shareholder designee to a custody joint venture. Our partner, the Belgian bank RBC Dexia, had succumbed to Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. My role was to work on behalf of RBC’s Shareholders, helping to ensure we retained all clients, and working hands-on with asset managers and financial sponsors on how to continue to prosper, even as the economy declined. At Bank of America and RBC, ‘fixing and growing’ troubled assets and divisions — and helping key clients fix the same with our help — was the raison d’etre for my roles.
Today, as an investment advisor for the private equity firm Ares Management, my role is helping the firm identify companies to invest in and grow, through operational improvements or investment devices, to deliver value to the companies and simultaneously to investors, whether through an initial public offering or through a sale to another private equity firm or strategic investor. This has never been an easy sail, but as the saying goes, ‘a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.’
From your perspective, are we at the beginning of an economic downturn?
Clearly, we’re heading into murkier and more turbulent waters, where the ability to fix and transform companies will be tested by economic and geopolitical headwinds. Yet it’s a prime time to read the forecast, address the challenges and opportunities the changing currents bring, and build new capabilities for resilience in any economy — in other words, to ruthlessly prioritize the “fix” approach to strengthen the prospects for growth in the years ahead.
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Lisa Pollina is a business executive who has negotiated over $50 billion in corporate development deals throughout her career. She provides private equity investment advisory services for alternative asset manager Ares Management (NYSE: ARES) on both Growth and Special Opportunities portfolio investments globally and also serves on the Board of Directors for Munich RE representing the Americas and the ESG water technology firm Energy Recovery. Named one of the Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance by American Banker magazine, Lisa has been a seven-year appointee to the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States’ Working Group on Global Markets, providing perspectives on macro trends worldwide.