Is there room in corporate banking for innovation? For positive psychology? For a llama? If you ask Kelly Fredrickson, an SVP of Creative at Bank of America, the answer is a major yes! In the latest iteration of The Resonance Test, Fredrickson and our Lee Moreau dig deep into the creative side of corporate banking. Give us 34 minutes or so, and you’ll get some great remarks from Fredrickson, including these:
• “I actually hate when people say they’re not creative, because I think any problem-solution thought process is actually someone being creative.”
• “The mobile app, which is a really great way to access all that the bank has to offer, is very different than telling somebody: Here’s how you can build a budget. Or Let’s talk about retirement. Let’s talk about planning for your future. The llama fit the mobile app differently.”
• “In a team, if everybody is bringing their authentic self, it raises the opportunity for innovation.”
• On data and permission: “If it feels creepy, then you’ve failed.”
• “We are a giant corporation. But we’re a giant corporation made up of people.”
• “I see people call me, and then hang up. And then call back. They don't think they got me, and then they realize that it’s the llama so they call back to listen to the whole thing.”
Host: Pete Chapin
Editor: Kyp Pilalas
Producer: Ken Gordon
About the Author
Lee MoreauPrincipalLee Moreau is a Principal at Continuum, a global design and innovation consultancy. An architect and strategist, Lee combines a unique capacity for complex-systems thinking with a deeply empathic perspective, which he uses to critically engage and re-imagine the contemporary world.
Through research, analysis, and imagination, Lee helps Continuum’s clients understand their entanglement within their own complex set of cultural, material, and economic circumstances. Lee has led service design projects for a diverse group of clients that blur the boundaries between content and experience.
Ken GordonChief Communications SpecialistKen makes EPAM Continuum’s work visible to the necessary people. He creates superlative content, works with colleagues to do the same, and employs social networks to share it widely.
A card-carrying humanist, Ken co-founded QuickMuse, the improvisational writing website, and JEDLAB, the Jewish education community. He has written for TheAtlantic.com, the New York Times, and many other pubs.
Ken has an English degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an MA in English from the State University of New York at Albany. He framed both diplomas long ago, but can’t seem to find them now—a fact he considers all-too-human.
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