2019 Professional Excellence Award – Philip Taylor
As the vice chairman for Invesco, a $1.5-trillion global asset manager, Philip Taylor, BCom/78, has made a significant impact on the company, its clients and its employees over the past 20 years.
Philip joined Invesco in 1999 as senior vice president of operations and client services, and later became executive vice president and chief operating officer. In 2002, he was named chief executive officer of Invesco Canada, and in 2006 he expanded his responsibilities by serving as the head of Invesco’s Americas business. Responsibility for the firm’s human resources, business strategy and exchange traded-funds (ETF) capabilities globally followed.
“One of the highlights of my career was turning around Invesco’s U.S. business line, the largest profit contributor to the firm,” said Philip. “There was nothing going right for the firm there. More client money was leaving than was coming in. Investment performance was so-so. Brand equity was below average. There was no credible vision or plan. Morale was low. I started by surrounding myself with the best people to help me take stock of our situation and plan our way forward.
“My priority was strengthening the investment teams and their processes where needed. Then, as things started to take hold, I restructured sales and marketing. What enabled success was having a credible vision and plan which rested on a culture of collegiality, client service and ethics and values. My team and I took sales from $12 billion to $120 billion. Investment performance improved materially and brand equity rose to be ranked in the top 10. It was a classic turnaround where vision, determination and toughness tempered by patience, meaning taking no short cuts, won the day.”
Philip believes in the importance of a strong company culture as a means to cope with change and enable growth.
“Along with my global colleagues, I worked hard on having the right culture in place,” said Philip. “I initiated regular measurement of employee engagement across the globe. Starting at below average results, over the years we boosted employee engagement and all its sub components to be higher than global financial services norms as well as high performing company norms, irrespective of the industry. Having a shared purpose for the firm and living it is now much more important than when I started in business, where we just did what we were told. With our workforce evolving to a greater percentage of millennials, it’s important to articulate the benefits they’re providing to society and why what they’re doing is important. Throughout my career I’ve been attuned to culture and people, and have a personal need to believe in what I’m doing.”
Prior to his experience at Invesco, Philip was the creator and president of Canadian investment dealer Investors Group Securities. He also co-founded and was managing partner of Meridian Securities International, and has held various management positions with Royal Trust which is now part of the Royal Bank of Canada.
Philip graduated from the Bachelor of Commerce program at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University, following which he completed his MBA. With his notable experience at Carleton being a research assistant and teaching assistant and a consultant at Carleton’s Business Advisory Program over two summers, he was recruited to Richardson-Vicks in the U.S., now part of Procter & Gamble, and began his career in consumer brand management. After three years, he took what he learned about business planning, marketing, advertising, pricing, research and sales and switched to financial services. It seemed to be the right choice as he hasn’t budged from this industry in almost 40 years.
“When I think of professors who had an impact on my career, I think immediately of Bill Lawson and Jacques Bourgeois,” said Philip. “They taught the Mount Everest of courses. Bill’s Finance classes were crammed with difficulty but were so intellectually stimulating and taught with such humour that we all loved him. Working as a teaching and research assistant in marketing research for Jacques gave me a leg up on how marketing research can uncover consumer needs, as well as help in competitive positioning. It wasn’t just what I learned in class, but it was the practical application of helping him with his research and learning how to use various statistical sledgehammers to break open this data.”
Aside from his career in business, Philip has been a champion and a supporter of the arts. He is an honorary fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) and received the RCM Medal. Philip received York University’s Schulich School of Business’ Alumni Recognition Award for Outstanding Public Contribution. He was awarded the prestigious Edmund C. Bovey Award for a lifetime of significant philanthropy and leadership in arts and culture and Canada.
“The arts and health care are two of the many areas my wife Eli and I have contributed to, but music is definitely something that is important to me,” said Philip. “Growing up, music played a huge part of my life starting with my father introducing it to me and surrounding me with it. When Eli and I were raising our children, we made sure to expose them to music, opera and theatre as well. For us, it brings emotional fulfillment. Just like yoga and running are a workout for the body, music provides a workout for the soul.”
On November 25, Philip was presented with the Sprott School of Business Professional Excellence Award. The Professional Excellence Award honours a Sprott graduate of a degree in business who has demonstrated outstanding achievement in their career or community service.
“This whole process had me thinking of my journey, and when I first arrived on campus as a late teen with long hair and negligible study habits,” said Philip. “I realized that while I could get through high school with a minimal amount of work, I wasn’t gifted to be able to coast through university. My own journey started with how does my brain work and how do I learn. Carleton started me off, and I just kept adding from there. I’m proud to be recognized by Carleton as having made a significant contribution to the business world. It’s quite an honour and had me reminiscing about the ways in which I’ve grown over the last 40 years.”
When it comes to being successful in the business world, Philip believes that taking on challenges you may be uncomfortable doing or feel inadequate for are crucial to unleashing your potential.
“I can spot three of four major occasions where I was way out ‘over my skis’ in terms of what I was doing. At the outset, I was uncertain, anxious, tense and supremely uncomfortable about being in completely new territory – some of it very public. Who wants a very visible flame-out? I directed this angst by collecting myself and calmly thinking through my path for each. I planned and then executed, and I succeeded – sometimes to my surprise, actually. The first two times I thought I was lucky to have pulled off my assignment. Then I realized I actually might know what I am doing. With each stretch assignment, I collected personal management tools that I could pull out and deploy in future work. I learned that the experience I accumulated could be put to good use in different situations, even in the not-for-profit work I do. I owe it to stretching myself in ways I didn’t think possible.”