Investing In Integrity

Hosted by Scholars of Finance

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Jul 2026

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About the show

Welcome to Investing In Integrity by Scholars of Finance. SOF is a rapidly growing organization on a mission to inspire character and integrity in the finance leaders of tomorrow. If you’re an investor, finance professional, or student aspiring to make an impact with capital, this podcast is for you. Investing In Integrity is a compilation of conversations and interviews with leading minds in finance that will help you learn how you can make finance a force for good.

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August 28, 202633 min

#100 - The Future Depends on Who Leads It (Ross Overline, CEO, Chairman, and Co-Founder at SOF)

The future depends on who leads it. For Episode 100 of Investing In Integrity, Ross steps away from the guest interviews for a solo conversation about a question he believes is becoming increasingly consequential for finance — and for society: Who is going to allocate the world's capital? Ross took inspiration from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and thought deeply about the forces reshaping our economic system. Capital is increasingly concentrated. AI is transforming the work finance professionals do and may narrow traditional entry points into the industry. The bar for getting in, staying in, and ultimately leading is rising. For Ross, that makes the character of the people who earn those seats more important, not less. In this episode, he speaks directly to senior executives already allocating capital, mid-career professionals preparing to inherit greater responsibility, young professionals and SOF alumni in a transforming industry, and students working to earn their first opportunity. His message: Be the virtuous, wise leaders that our world desperately needs. Ross also shares some of the biggest developments at Scholars of Finance over the last six months: a $1 million challenge grant, a major innovation cycle the team is calling SOF V3, deeper investment in student leadership and professional development, and a vision for building connected communities of purpose-driven leaders inside the institutions shaping our economic system. One hundred episodes in, it’s both a look at where finance is heading and a challenge to everyone in the SOF community to play their part in creating a better future.

July 16, 202649 min

#99 - 30+ Years in a $50+ Trillion Bank (Mark Keating, EVP & Global Head of Strategic Finance at State Street)

In this episode of Investing in Integrity , Ross Overline sits down with Mark Keating , EVP and Global Head of Strategic Finance at State Street — one of the largest financial institutions in the world, with roughly $50T in assets under custody and 15% of the world's daily financial transactions running through its infrastructure. Mark and Ross discuss what it means to build a career of lasting impact inside a globally systemically important bank, how AI is reshaping corporate finance, and the question Mark asks himself and his colleagues to keep them grounded: Do you like the person you've become? Meet Mark Mark Keating is EVP and Global Head of Strategic Finance at State Street, where he leads enterprise Financial Planning & Analysis, Real Estate, Procurement, and Financial Oversight and Planning for Operations & Technology, State Street Markets, Global Credit Finance, Wealth Services, and Corporate Functions. He also leads the firm's Finance Data and AI organization and Finance Transformation. He is a member of State Street's Executive Committee, the company's senior leadership team. Since joining in 1990, he has held a range of executive roles in finance, business, and strategy across the firm. He spent over a decade in Zurich, Luxembourg, and London, and served as CFO for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and as International CFO for more than 15 years. During that time, he served on the Executive Management Board of State Street Bank International in Germany and held a Senior Manager Function designation under the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority's Senior Manager Regime. In 2025, he stepped in as State Street’s interim CFO. Mark also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Cathleen Stone Island Outward Bound School and is the executive sponsor of the State Street Veterans Network (VetNet). Mark holds an undergraduate degree from the Boston College Carroll School of Management and an MBA in international finance and economics from Babson College, where he graduated summa cum laude.

June 4, 202647 min

#98 - The Lost Culture of Wall Street (John Taft, Vice Chair at Baird)

Our first-ever podcast guest, John Taft , returns nearly 100 episodes later. John is a Vice Chair of Baird. He was previously the CEO of RBC's U.S. wealth management business through the Great Financial Crisis, overseeing nearly 7,000 employees and almost $300 billion in assets. He chaired SIFMA, the leading securities industry trade association, and testified before Congress during the post-crisis reforms. John has spent more than 40 years in finance, but he didn't start there. He set out to be a newspaper journalist. Then, on a reporting assignment in Lowell, Massachusetts, he watched community leaders use the tools of finance to rebuild a burnt-out industrial city — and realized he didn't just want to write about that work; he wanted to do it. John wrote Stewardship: Lessons Learned from the Lost Culture of Wall Street , followed by A Force for Good: How Enlightened Finance Can Restore Faith in Capitalism . Today he’s helping oversee $560B in assets, writes the blog Finance for the Greater Good, and is one of three founding members of the Scholars of Finance Advisory Board. In this episode, John returns to discuss what he's seen happen to the industry — and where it needs to go next. He and Ross dig into the financialization of the economy, the "disease of grandiosity" infecting leaders across sectors, and why financial services have grown larger than necessary to serve the real economy. They get to the productive heart of finance — what John calls "helping real people in the real world solve real problems and achieve real goals" — and the speculative noise crowding it out, from prediction markets and zero-day options to leveraged inverse ETFs and much of the digital asset ecosystem. They also explore AI's coming impact on capital allocation, the widening gap between rich and poor, and why John believes the next ten years will demand more stewardship from finance, not less. Meet John John Taft is a Vice Chair of Baird and a member of the firm's Executive Committee. Earlier in his career, he was a managing director at Piper, Jaffray & Hopwood; president and CEO of Voyageur Asset Management; president and CEO of Dougherty Summit Securities; and a consultant at Deloitte & Touche. He currently serves on the boards of Riverfront Investment Group, Octavus Group, Baird Trust, and Sagard. John holds a B.A. magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Yale University, and a master's degree in public and private management from the Yale School of Organization and Management. He serves as Vice Chair of the Minneapolis Foundation, is an active member of the Itasca Project, and is an Executive in Residence at the Wake Forest University Center for the Study of Capitalism. He credits his family — including his great-grandfather, 27th U.S. President William Howard Taft — for instilling the core values that shape his definition of business success and his belief in the importance of treating every person with dignity.

March 12, 202654 min

#97 — The $3B Giving Machine (Ben Choi, Managing Partner at Next Legacy)

Ben Choi has spent three decades across the technology ecosystem—as a product leader, founder, and venture investor—and today serves as a senior leader at Next Legacy Partners , where he helps oversee $3.5B+ invested across premier venture capital firms and early-stage startups. In this episode of Investing in Integrity, our host Ross Overline and Ben navigate the intersection of venture capital, philanthropy, and moral leadership. Ben shares how Next Legacy’s flagship model is designed to multiply capital—and then give it away. From there, the conversation goes deeper than mechanics. Ben outlines the values that shaped his leadership and why generosity is often driven not by one motivation, but by the shared joy of impact beyond yourself. Finally, Ross and Ben wrestle openly with capitalism—how it’s the best economic system ever tested at scale, it can still evolve to be even better, and what responsibility future finance leaders carry to make that a reality. Whether you’re a student trying to define success or a senior leader shaping institutions, this episode is a masterclass in using capital with clarity, humility, and purpose. Meet Ben Choi Ben Choi is a Managing Partner at Next Legacy. He manages $3.5B+ in investments with premier venture capital firms and directly into early-stage startups. His venture track record includes pre-PMF investments in Marketo (acquired for $4.75B) and CourseHero (last valued at $3.6B). He previously ran product for Adobe Creative Cloud offerings and founded CoffeeTable, raising venture financing before selling the company. Ben studied Computer Science at Harvard University and earned his MBA from Columbia Business School. He lives in Los Altos with his wife, Lydia, their three sons, and a ball python.

February 20, 20261 hr 9 min

#96 - The Discipline of Giving: Wealth, Greed, and Responsibility (David Roberts, Retired Partner at Angelo Gordon)

David Roberts spent nearly four decades in finance—starting on Wall Street in 1983 and joining Angelo Gordon in 1993, when the firm was a 15-person shop managing about $300M. By the time he left, the firm managed roughly $50B in assets, and David contributed to that growth by helping build and launch several of the firm’s businesses. After retiring, he created Sparks From Culture , a widely read Substack, which provides its nearly 9,000 readers with “weekly personal essays on wealth, status, and family from someone with generational wealth, writing with transparency.” Our host, Ross Overline , is one of David’s readers. In this conversation, David and Ross explore the hardest questions finance leaders rarely discuss publicly: How do you know when you have “enough”? Why does comparison keep resetting our definition of success? What are the risks of wealth concentration? They discuss inequality, philanthropy, competing views of capitalism’s current state, and how greed often shows up as self-justification. David makes the case for generosity as a stabilizing force in society—and shares how he’s translated these beliefs into real, high-impact giving. The episode closes with a simple but unforgettable principle: the butterfly effect—small acts of generosity can change a life more than you’ll ever know. Meet David David Roberts is a retired Partner of Angelo Gordon, where he joined in 1993, helping build and scale investment platforms across real estate, structured credit, and net lease. After retiring in 2022, he briefly served in public service as Senior Advisor to Maryland’s Secretary of Commerce. In recent years, David has become a thoughtful public voice through his Substack newsletter Sparks From Culture (no payment necessary). All proceeds from paid subscriptions are donated to the Robin Hood Foundation, reflecting David and his wife Debbie’s long-standing commitment to impact-driven giving. He holds a B.S. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

January 29, 202649 min

#95 - Driving Growth Through Change (Stephen Philipson, Vice Chair and Head of WCIB at U.S. Bank)

In this episode of the Investing in Integrity podcast, Ross Overline , CEO and Co-founder of Scholars of Finance , welcomes Stephen Philipson , Vice Chair and Head of Wealth, Corporate, Commercial, and Institutional Banking at U.S. Bank , America’s fifth-largest bank, to unpack how principled leadership shapes modern finance. Stephen shares how embracing calculated risk, most notably during the 2009 crisis, can accelerate long-term growth when paired with disciplined downside assessment. He explains U.S. Bank’s interconnected approach to banking, where unified business lines strengthen client relationships and operational resilience. The conversation also explores why authenticity, transparency, and ethical clarity remain essential traits for leaders navigating rapid technological change. From AI’s role in enhancing, not replacing, client service to impact finance opportunities, Stephen offers a blueprint for building durable institutions grounded in purpose and integrity. Meet Stephen Philipson Stephen Philipson is a vice chair and head of Wealth, Corporate, Commercial and Institutional Banking (WCIB). He has been with the organization since 2009. WCIB comprises several businesses, including Asset Management and Institutional Services, Commercial Real Estate, Equipment Finance, Global Capital Markets, Global Corporate Trust, Global Fund Services, Institutional Client Group, U.S. Bancorp Impact Finance, and Wealth Management. Prior to becoming head of WCIB in 2024 and adding oversight of U.S. Bancorp Impact Finance to his responsibilities in 2025, Philipson led the Global Markets and Specialized Finance group within WCIB. Philipson has more than 20 years of financial services experience. His past roles include working at Morgan Stanley in Global Capital Markets and then Fixed Income Trading, and at Wachovia, where he was director of the Financial Institutions Syndicate. Philipson chairs the board of governors of Isidore Newman School and serves on the boards of directors of the Foundation for the Charlotte Jewish Community. He serves on the board of directors of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA). He earned a bachelor’s degree with a double major in economics and East Asian studies from Washington and Lee University Episode Timeline • 00:00 Intro • 04:40 From New Orleans to Wall Street: Stephen's Early Finance Journey • 15:51 Joining US Bank During the 2009 Financial Crisis • 18:26 Building a $670B Balance Sheet: Growth Strategies Across Diverse Businesses • 22:24 Leading 16 Leaders: Management Committee Dynamics at US Bank • 25:53 Innovation Without Recklessness: Balancing Safety and Evolution • 28:21 AI as a Productivity Multiplier, Not a Job Eliminator • 34:21 Impact Finance: Profitability and Purpose Working Together • 37:08 Leadership Through Authenticity and Radical Transparency • 39:12 Creating Unified Culture Across Capital Markets, Trust, and Real Estate • 41:41 The Three Non-Negotiables for Next-Generation Finance Leaders • 44:08 Rapidfire Round

January 19, 202614 min

#94 - CEO Letter 2026: Adaptive Excellence & Generosity

In this episode, our host and CEO, Ross Overline, reflects on what Scholars of Finance built in 2025—and what 2026 demands from finance leaders in a rapidly changing world. Released on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, this episode starts with a question that sits at the heart of SOF’s mission: What kind of society are we trying to build—and what responsibility does capital carry in it? From there, Ross shares a clear look back at SOF’s growth in 2025—tripling leadership development for students and serving 4,000+ future finance leaders—before laying out SOF’s 2026 theme: Adaptive Excellence. Episode Segments: • Growth in 2025: A behind-the-scenes look at how SOF strengthened student formation, expanded chapter presence, and grew the community supporting principled finance leadership. • 2026: Adaptive Excellence in the Age of AI: A candid assessment of what’s changing in finance—AI, automation, and rising competition—and what it means to stay both excellent and values-grounded. Ross shares how SOF will evolve curriculum, coaching, partnerships, and alumni support to keep members on the leading edge. • Generosity as a Moral Requirement of Capitalism: Zooming out, Ross reflects on a fractured society and the growing tension between individualism and collectivism—drawing on MLK and Adam Smith to make a case for generosity as a form of moral leadership. The episode closes with a simple challenge: if excellence is rising, generosity must rise with it. Whether you’re a student entering the industry, an alum navigating early career, or a senior leader shaping institutions, this episode is designed to re-anchor your year in character—and to raise the bar for what leadership in finance can look like.

January 9, 20261 hr 1 min

#93 - Best of Integrity 2: Top Episodes of 2025 (and 2024)

In this second Best Of compilation, our team distilled the most powerful insights from 2025, and some from 2024—of Investing in Integrity. Spanning leadership, culture, and purpose-driven finance and investing, this special edition brings together defining moments from more than 40 conversations with some of the world’s most thoughtful executives, investors, and builders. Rather than a simple highlight reel, this episode revisits key voices across multiple dimensions of leadership — reflecting how the same principles show up differently in how we lead, how we build culture, and how we deploy capital. Selecting these moments was no easy task, but each was chosen for its ability to inspire us to think more deeply our lives and our work. It’s divided into three sections: Leadership That Transforms: We begin with reflections on leadership at its core — how leaders think, grow, and show up when stakes are high. Featuring Howard Marks, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Oaktree Capital Management; Bill George, former Board Director at Goldman Sachs, Executive Education Fellow at Harvard Business School, and author of True North; Doug Kimmelman, Senior Partner at ECP; and Steve Ellis, Co-Managing Partner of The Rise Fund at TPG, this section explores humility, self-awareness, conviction, and the evolving nature of values. Together, these insights illuminate what it truly means to lead with character in complex environments. Culture, Purpose & Integrity: We shift into the essential work of shaping organizational culture through the experiences of Bei Ling, CHRO at Wells Fargo; Pamela Alexander, Head of Corporate Citizenship at KKR; and Howard Marks (returning), this section reveals how trust is built, how purpose is operationalized, and how integrity becomes a guiding force inside the world’s most influential institutions. Finance as a Force for Good: Finally, we explore how leadership and culture translate into action — particularly in the world of finance. Featuring Steve Ellis (returning), Trae Stephens, General Partner at Founders Fund, and Greg Shell, Partner at Goldman Sachs, this closing section demonstrates how capital, when aligned with long-term thinking and human impact, can be a powerful force for good. These voices challenge us to move beyond profit alone toward outcomes that expand opportunity and strengthen communities. In closing, Howard Marks shares a final reflection on generosity, underscoring the importance of giving back as a cornerstone of purposeful leadership. Whether you're leading a team, shaping culture, entering finance, or striving to grow personally and professionally, this episode is designed to accelerate your development and deepen your sense of purpose. This compilation isn’t just a highlight reel — it’s a blueprint. A blueprint for leadership anchored in character. A blueprint for careers aligned with purpose. A blueprint for a financial system that lifts society up. We’ve curated this episode to equip you with actionable insights you can carry into your work, your relationships, and your life.

December 18, 202554 min

#92 - The Four Eyes in the Room: Building Institutional Trust at Scale (Jennifer James, MD, COO, and Head of Investor Relations and Marketing at Thoma Bravo)

In this episode of the Investing in Integrity podcast, Ross Overline , CEO and co-founder of Scholars of Finance , welcomes Jennifer James, Managing Director, Chief Operating Officer and Head of Investor Relations & Marketing at Thoma Bravo , to uncover how one of the world’s largest software-focused private equity firms grew from $8B to over $180B in AUM while staying true to its core values. Jennifer shares how trust, transparency, and culture form the foundation of Thoma Bravo’s enduring success, from nurturing long-term LP relationships to leading through market volatility. She reveals the firm’s people-first principles, including the “Four Eyes in the Room” approach to authentic connection, and how disciplined, values-driven leadership shapes lasting impact. Listeners gain actionable insights on scaling without losing integrity, building cohesive teams, and redefining work-life balance through seasons rather than perfection. Meet Jennifer James: Jennifer James is Managing Director, Chief Operating Officer, and Head of Investor Relations & Marketing at Thoma Bravo, based in San Francisco. With over two decades of experience in private equity and venture capital, she leads the firm’s global operations, investor relations, and industry communications programs. Recognised by The Wall Street Journal and San Francisco Business Times for her leadership in fundraising and influence, Jennifer previously held senior roles at Sofinnova Ventures and Alta Partners. She holds an MBA from Northwestern and an AB in History from Bowdoin College.

December 5, 202549 min

#91 - Leading with Integrity: Lessons from a 45-Year Career in Banking (Jonathan Weiss - Former CEO of Corporate and Investment Bank at Wells Fargo)

In this episode of the Investing in Integrity podcast, Ross Overline , CEO and co-founder of Scholars of Finance , welcomes Jonathan Weiss , former CEO of Corporate and Investment Bank at Wells Fargo, and former MD of JPMorgan Chase, to reflect on leadership, trust, and ethics across a 45-year career in finance. From his unlikely start as a romance languages major to leading a $20B business, Weiss shares lessons on building ethical cultures, leading through influence, and navigating shifting political and market dynamics. He offers candid insights on rebuilding institutional trust, fostering transparency, and prioritizing customers’ best interests, not just avoiding harm. Listeners will learn how humility, emotional intelligence, and consistent values shape resilient leadership and sustainable success. Whether you’re early in your career or leading teams at scale, this conversation offers deep insights into balancing performance with integrity in today’s financial world. Meet Jonathan Weiss: Jonathan Weiss is the former CEO of Wells Fargo Corporate & Investment Banking, where he led a $20 billion revenue business before retiring in June 2025 after two decades with the firm. Over his 45-year career, he also headed Wells Fargo’s Wealth & Investment Management and Wells Fargo Securities divisions, following 25 years at J.P. Morgan and its predecessors. A Princeton graduate in Romance Languages, Weiss is recognised for his ethical leadership and service on boards including Youth I.N.C., the Lawrenceville School, and the National Humanities Center.