I am in a traditional financial services business - but we at Fidelity can see that the evolution of technology is setting our industry up for disruption. What if this technology could do for the transfer of value what the Internet did for the transfer of information?

Abigail Johnson

Categorized in : I Am Business Technology Internet

I demand pretty aggressive goal setting and a commitment to measured progress towards those goals because I don't like surprises. I don't even like good surprises.

Abigail Johnson

progress goal commitment

No matter how senior you get in an organization, no matter how well you're perceived to be doing, your job is never done. Every day, you get up and the world is changing; your customers are expecting more from you. Your competitors are putting pressure on you by doing more and trying to beat you here and beat you there.

Abigail Johnson

senior organization jobs

Sometimes you can gradually improve things. But sometimes, they don't work, and you've just got to just say: Let's grind this baby to a halt.

Abigail Johnson

grind baby sometimes

Lots of people will give you advice... and depending upon how well they know you, the advice might be valid or not so valid.

Abigail Johnson

advice giving people

Blockchain technology isn't just a more efficient way to settle securities. It will fundamentally change market structures, and maybe even the architecture of the Internet itself.

Abigail Johnson

architecture technology change way

I love this stuff - bitcoin, ethereum, blockchain technology - and what the future holds.

Abigail Johnson

blockchain future technology love

At the end of the day, you know yourself best.

Abigail Johnson

yourself best day you

Change is something that is expected and, therefore, not resisted.

Abigail Johnson

therefore something expected change

Don't assume that the answers are out there in the form of somebody else already doing something. Sometimes they are. But you have to think beyond that.

Abigail Johnson

doing think you sometimes

Every day, you have to get up with new energy and new ideas to contribute to pushing the organization forward.

Abigail Johnson

every-day day you ideas

Even a small reduction in errors and rework can have a significant impact.

Abigail Johnson

even small impact errors

I was raised to believe that New England is the best place on the planet.

Abigail Johnson

new place best believe

There's a time that may come in an organization where leading by influence is not enough. When things are not going the way they need to go, there's a time when one has to step up... to set the organization back on the right direction.

Abigail Johnson

step influence time way

You have to think that the answer - and the right answer - for you and your organization might not be something that's been done before. And it's up to you to discover and work with your team to form and figure out how to do successfully.

Abigail Johnson

think you team work

We at Fidelity view ourselves just as much a financial information processing company as an investment management firm. That may not be too newsworthy.

Abigail Johnson

view company information management

I like analyzing and managing large-scale transaction processing platforms, record-keeping administration, and brokerage trading services.

Abigail Johnson

like trading platforms administration

When computer systems cause errors, you can end up with The Dreaded NIGO - the 'not in good order' transaction.

Abigail Johnson

end good you errors

We need to come up with use cases for this technology that drive clear benefits for individuals and institutions - these are our customers. Too often we see bitcoin and blockchain technologies as solutions in search of a problem. We don't just need these systems to be technically better than the alternatives - we need them to be more user-friendly.

Abigail Johnson

drive better technology problem

Across the board, women are unhappy with our industry.

Abigail Johnson

women-are women industry unhappy

When everyone is running the machine, and it's all working, there's a tendency to look at the short term and focus on incremental opportunities and not look ahead to the really big opportunities.

Abigail Johnson

short ahead look focus