An Interview with Kathleen Taylor, Chair, Royal Bank of Canada

A: It’s been a longstanding belief of mine that there’s an inextricable link between a company’s purpose, its strategy and its plans for how it’s going to execute on that strategy. And one of things that fuels all of that, of course, is its culture. All of these elements have to be connected in a way that allows the organization to figure out what value it wants to add to the world, how it wants to do that with individual customers, clients and business partners, how it’s going to do that in a responsible way, and how it’s going to create a culture that encourages employees and others to want to align themselves with the values and goals of the organization.

Again, this implies an inextricable link between strategic direction, risk appetite, purpose and culture. All of that has to come together as different building blocks that go into making a successful business. So, from a governance perspective, it’s no surprise that relevant oversight and stewardship of culture should be seen as a core responsibility of the board of directors. We have to understand what the organization thinks its purpose is, its destination is, its mission is, and how it’s going to serve its clients and its customers, whether those be individual consumers or business partners. And then doing that in a way that creates a sustainable proposition for long term success. All of that has to be taken into account.