Rob Sharps: I think I’ve said this now maybe the third time. Our approach here is to have a balanced — a balance between driving efficiency overall, and that’s throughout the organization, making sure that we’re getting value out of all of our roles, making sure that we are a company that is dynamic and, in the long term, has growth opportunity in a way that will allow us to sustain our culture and have the resources to compensate and attract top diverse talent throughout the organization, but particularly in investments. Look, our retention is very strong. I think we have a very strong culture. Our compensation is based on all of the market data that we have, very competitive, if not compelling. I expect it will remain the case.
The vast majority of the headcount initiatives did not impact investments. So, it seems to be something that is very much top of mind for a handful of you all, but it’s not something that I particularly am overly concerned with. It’s something that we’re always very, very focused on. But there’s no question in my mind that we have the capacity and intent to make sure that our compensation practices are very competitive and that we have appropriate incentives in place for people throughout the organization. Again, the proof is in the pudding there, if you look at our investment professional retention, I think it’s excellent. Our retention throughout the organization is quite strong. What we’re doing, I think, is very consistent with what you’ve seen throughout the organization in almost every one of our peers.
So, in that way, I would say I do not think that we are an outlier. Jen, I don’t know if you’d have anything to add.
Jen Dardis: Yes, I think it’s also important to put it in context. If we look at the last five years, we were coming off a period of very rapid investment in the business. We’ve added a number of capabilities across investments, distribution, technology, operations and globalization of the business over the — again, over the past five-plus years, to the tune of increasing operating expenses over $1 billion in run rate during that timeframe. So these adjustments, I think these are nice moments in time to be able to take a look, make sure that we’re doing things as efficiently as we can. And if we look at the — particularly on the role side of things, there were three things we were trying to do. One was increasing efficiency in the way we work.
So trying to look at processes, rebalancing work, making sure that we have — we’re doing things in the right ways with the most beneficial technology that we can. The second is just looking at a need for changing skill sets. As we look at places that Rob mentioned, new vehicles, making sure that we have our skills decked against the places where the business is going. And then the last thing is about pivoting and reprioritizing resources against these strategic priorities that we’ve been talking about. So, some of this is about expense reduction. Some of this is about expense reallocation. And to help put it into context, for next year, as we started the baseline work, our expense growth next year would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 basis points to 400 basis points higher from an expense growth perspective, if we were just investing in all new things in the business.
So, we view this, again, not only as an expense-cutting exercise, but also as a reallocation to make sure we’re investing in the right spot.
