Bank Notes

Appearing at a September 2025 New York Fed conference, a panel of institutional investors discuss recent market developments in multifamily affordable housing, highlighting their organizations' trends and strategies. Topics include investment strategies, mission-driven investments, and stability and predictability goals for the investments. Speakers discuss the need for better financial and impact reporting, the importance of local zoning and partnerships, and the role of federal policies in supporting affordable housing. For more information, visit nyfed.org/podcast.

Appearing at a September 2025 New York Fed conference, a panel of investment managers discuss institutional investment in multifamily affordable housing. Topics include the challenges of capital flows, preservation, and impact investing. The discussion also covers the importance of community integration, mixed-income housing, and the balance between financial returns and social impact. For more information, visit nyfed.org/podcast.

Jonathan Kivell and Carmi Recto from the New York Fed's Community Development team discuss the evolving role of private capital in multifamily affordable housing, drawing from a report their team released earlier this year. They highlight the importance of tenant services and the impact of institutional investments on affordability. The discussion also touches on global investments in US affordable housing and the challenges of defining affordability. For more information, visit nyfed.org/podcast.

The work of Community Development Financial Institutions intersects with an initiative led by the New York Fed’s Community Development team to connect new sources of capital to community needs. In this episode, we hear from New York Fed President John Williams, Community Development leaders, and lenders, investors, and nonprofit leaders on the question: How can seemingly unrelated problem-solving efforts be combined to achieve better outcomes? For more, visit newyorkfed.org/podcast/cdfis-serving-the-underserved-and-making-missing-markets

Community Development Financial Institutions can grow out of the communities they serve; a financial version of neighbors helping neighbors. In local and national CDFIs, a sense of personal commitment and connection drives professionals to this work. In this episode, we hear from researchers, borrowers, and lenders about how mission-driven lending, financial inclusion, and technical assistance can transform lives and foster opportunity within historically underserved communities. For more, visit newyorkfed.org/podcast/cdfis-serving-the-underserved-and-making-missing-markets

A small subset of the U.S. financial system called Community Development Financial Institutions, or CDFIs, supports economic growth at the local level. The industry is comprised of different types of institutions operating in different ways. Each works to achieve a common mission: improving economic outcomes for underserved communities. Research from the New York Fed shows the industry is growing and changing. In this episode we hear from Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, the New York Fed team doing CDFI research, a researcher from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and CDFI leaders. Our guests speak about the impacts and challenges of mission-driven lending and opportunities to scale this work. For more, visit newyorkfed.org/podcast/cdfis-serving-the-underserved-and-making-missing-markets

Former prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York Evan Norris discusses the FIFA corruption scandal and why his past cases carry lessons for the financial services industry. In this episode he discusses building cultures of strong compliance, and how misconduct can be harnessed as an opportunity for broad-based learning and meaningful improvement.   To learn more about the New York Fed’s Governance and Culture Reform Initiative, visit the website for additional resources related to the study of conduct and culture in the financial services industry.

How can organizations avoid reinforcing mistakes or bad behavior? Why is it crucial for upper management to understand the daily realities and social norms at a localized, team-by-team level? And how might removing the pressure surrounding results actually lead to better outcomes, including meaningful systemic improvements? In this episode, behavioral risk expert Wieke Scholten walks us through the ins-and-outs of turning negative events into positive opportunities for learning. 

In a high stakes environment where mistakes can be catastrophic, how can an organization plan for human error? When does shared expertise within a group prove most valuable, and when might it make more sense to foster cognitive diversity? Why do some after-action reviews successfully establish a consensus-driven vision forward, while others stir up feelings of shame, blame, and guilt? In this episode, Preston B. Cline, co-founder and Director of Research at the Mission Critical Team Institute, shares observations and best practices from working with teams in immersive, all-consuming environments where the margin for error is near zero. 

What can natural language processing tell management teams about the priorities of their employees? Do assumptions built over time more often lead to successful or unsuccessful outcomes? Does a speaker’s choice of words carry more weight for their audience than the substance of what they’re saying? Pointing to new developments in linguistics analysis and computational learning, professors Sameer Srivastava at UC Berkeley and Amir Goldberg at Stanford deliver some cutting-edge insights. 

What impact does remote work have on organizational cultures? What causes some corporate responsibility efforts to fall short of meaningful change? And is there a silver bullet to creating a more inclusive workplace culture, effective management, and streamlined operations? Alison Taylor, Executive Director of Ethical Systems at New York University, articulates some of the biggest questions that today’s industry leaders should be asking and offers a roadmap for collective and lasting impact. 

How can co-workers adopting each other's perspective address complex organizational problems? What are the tangible benefits to establishing a psychologically safe environment in the workplace? And why might establishing trust be irrelevant when it comes to ensuring successful collaborations? In this episode, engineer-turned-strategy consultant Per Hugander shares how he’s worked with corporate leaders to embrace so-called “soft skills” to garner solid results. 

Mark Roe is the Head of Risk Culture at the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). With a background in Criminology, he brings a unique perspective to the supervision of governance, behavior and culture. In this episode of "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," Mark shares his perspective on why risk culture matters and how organizations can impact decision-making among staff.

John C. Williams is the President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In this brief introductory episode, John touches on the perspectives that listeners can expect to hear in this season of Bank Notes, "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," as well as the importance of culture in shaping decisions at the individual and institution-wide levels.

Holly Ridings is the Chief Flight Director at NASA, an institution that’s spent more than six decades thinking about how culture connects to outcomes. In this episode of "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," she talks about putting safety and mission first, the importance of having humility to learn from past mistakes, and how NASA’s culture helps directors of human space flight develop their command presence and remain laser-focused.

David Grosse is responsible for conduct risk, culture and behavior at HSBC Global Banking and Markets. A long-time banker, he became convinced that understanding human behavior was central to understanding what was happening at a bank, and went back to school to earn an MSc in Behavioral Science. In this episode of "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," David tells us about his own experiences with context and group behaviors – including at rugby and soccer matches.

Mark Mortensen is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD. He studies collaboration, team dynamics, and communication, with a particular focus on remote and distributed work. In this episode of "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," Mark tells us what drew him from engineering to behavioral science, why we can’t rely on rules to drive good decisions, and the critical importance of psychological safety in building strong cultures.

Mikael Down worked as the Executive Director for Assessment, Policy and Insights at the Financial Services Culture Board, an industry body that assesses culture at financial institutions in the UK and helps to design cultural interventions at member firms. In this episode of "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," Mikael shares his perspective on how cultural norms in the UK banking sector have evolved in recent years, including the pandemic’s impact on firms’ relationships with their employees.

Taya Cohen is an associate professor of organizational behavior and theory at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business. She studies moral character in the workplace, including the predictive power of guilt proneness in individuals. In this episode of "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," Taya discusses why highly guilt prone individuals may have a moral advantage and shares her perspective on individuals’ proclivities toward ethical behavior and honesty, as well as how to hire for these traits.

Elizabeth “Zab” Johnson is a neuroscientist and the Executive Director of the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, where she harnesses insights from brain science to help understand and improve business outcomes. In this episode of "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," Zab helps us to better understand the neuroscience behind the behaviors and decisions that we see, and shares how practices like perspective-taking can help build stronger cultures.