The PLANADVISER Interview: Jose Minaya, CEO, Nuveen

PLANADVISER: You are going on 20 years at Nuveen and TIAA, having climbed the ranks through various asset classes. Were you always aiming for a CEO role? Can you talk about the path you took to get there?

JOSE MINAYA: For me, and for many who share a similar background and experience, it’s really my origin story that propels me, professionally and personally. I’m a first-generation American. I grew up in Washington Heights in Manhattan, the son of Dominican-born parents. The work ethic and discipline that was instilled in me from the very beginning, by my family and community alike, is at the core of who I am and how I lead. I knew from the beginning that I would meet people who were smarter and more experienced than I, but no one would ever work harder.

As I advanced in my career and built on that core, I wasn’t necessarily aiming for a specific role or title, but rather just the opportunity to rise to the occasion and meet the opportunities that came before me. The goal was to deliver beyond the expectations that people had for me and do it in a way that allowed me to remain true to myself. I think that resonated with people along the way, and it led to greater and greater opportunities to prove myself.

I also like to remain focused on the things that I can control, not the things I can’t, and blocking out the superficial or tuning out the “noise.” When I apply that principle to my approach to leadership, I try to make sure that as a firm, we remain focused on what we can control: our commitment to clients, how we engage and bring them opportunities, how we execute our strategy. We can’t control most of the external factors that generate opportunities, but we can certainly control how we prepare and how we pivot when those opportunities arise. 

PLANADVISER: Nuveen has some $1 trillion under management across an array of assets. But one key focus seems to be bringing retirement income annuities to retirement plans. Why is that such an important part of your business strategy?

JOSE MINAYA: It’s a critical part of the business, because there’s an urgent need for it. Americans are living longer than ever, and the threat of someone outliving their retirement savings is real. The Employee Benefit Research Institute estimates that 40% of U.S. households will run short of money in retirement.

Yet today, lifetime income is largely absent from corporate retirement plans, as private sector employers have shifted away from providing those traditional pension plans in favor of defined contribution plans like a 401(k). According to the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, only 12% of retirement plan participants have a defined benefit pension today, down from 70% in 1975. Collectively, we are now facing a projected $4 trillion retirement income gap, and this is where guaranteed lifetime income can make a real difference.

At Nuveen, we believe that adding a retirement income annuity account to a well-diversified qualified default investment alternative—like a target-date fund, a managed account or a model portfolio—can improve projected retirement outcomes and reduce multiple risks in retirement. It’s not one or the other. It’s both working together to ensure that people can retire in dignity, enjoy those years and not worry about running out of money.

PLANADVISER: America recently celebrated National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15), and I know your background is a big part of your story. What has your Hispanic heritage meant for you in terms of career?

JOSE MINAYA: My identity and how I was raised is closely aligned with my work ethic, and that forms the foundation of my career. The credit goes to my parents and my community. My mom was a housekeeper at the Waldorf Astoria. My dad started as a dishwasher, then became a cook, then ultimately a chef. Simply put, I learned early on and had it reinforced often that success happens when you work your butt off. And the pride that my parents and the other adults in my neighborhood took in their work always stuck with me. I’m proud of that cultural hallmark instilled in me by my family and community, that sense of pride in being Hispanic and a first-generation American.

Fast forward to now, and I come into work every day extremely appreciative of what I get to do and humbled by the opportunity to do something that makes a real difference for people. At Nuveen, we invest to create an enduring impact on our world, and because of my parents and the example that they set for me, I know where that desire to have an impact comes from. It grounds me, and it also inspires me to uplift and help create an environment where we foster opportunities for future generations to come.

PLANADVISER: From your perspective, to what extent is the retirement and the broader financial services industry meeting the needs of the Hispanic American community? If not, what is the opportunity to do so?  

JOSE MINAYA: Broadly speaking, the industry is not only failing to meet the retirement and financial needs of the Hispanic and Latino community, but also failing to properly communicate about the topic itself. As I previously noted, America is facing a retirement crisis. Too many are unprepared for retirement, and that insecurity affects families, neighbors and communities. It also threatens our national economy.

But this crisis affects Hispanic and Latino retirees more than any other minority cohort, and that makes it deeply personal to me. My parents worked hard to support our family, but there were very few financial products or resources available to them, and little-to-no education about the importance of saving for retirement. Unfortunately, this remains a reality for far too many. Research shows us that only about one in four who look like me are contributing to a retirement plan today.

When I entered the financial services industry, I started to learn about these topics. It granted me the ability to see the importance of accumulating wealth and securing a stable retirement. This is something that people just don’t talk about a lot within the Hispanic or Latino community. Many engage outside methods, almost gray markets, when they think about saving—the proverbial “money under the mattress” approach. That, to me, is a massive failure of our industry, and our education system, for putting essentially no effort into increasing financial literacy in this country.

Fortunately, we at Nuveen and TIAA have the ability to address some of that need in partnership with other firms and community organizations, and I’m proud to say that we are working on solutions. We have a Spanish-speaking sales desk available to clients, and we’re translating written materials into many different languages, including Spanish. But more importantly, we have to take the time and effort to really understand the cultural nuances and subtle differences that can either create trust with people or erode it. That trust is everything when it comes to financial services, and we’ve got a lot of work to do still to earn it.

But there are important reasons to make it work. Obviously we can’t let an entire community of people continue to fall behind like this. But as it relates to opportunity, consider the buying power of the Hispanic and Latino community on its own as a massive basket of capital. In the U.S., this group alone represents nearly $3 trillion of GDP. It’s a young population, with a median age of 30 versus a median age of 41 for non-Hispanic Americans. And it’s the fastest growing cohort of college applicants and acceptances.

There is a massive opportunity in front of us to connect with this upwardly mobile group, and the time is now. Someone is going to have a first-mover advantage here, and I would rather it be Nuveen.