John Taft

John Taft is the CEO of RBC Wealth Management–U.S. and is a leading proponent of the necessity of stewardship in our financial system. At RBC he is responsible for the company’s growth strategy in the U.S., and he helps clients achieve their financial objectives through full-service wealth management offerings (investment management, retirement planning, cash management, credit and lending, insurance trust, estate planning, and more). Taft addresses financial regulation and stewardship, or as he calls it, “the choice for service,” which he views as the only way to fix our broken financial system.

Stewardship. Taft is the author of the book Stewardship: Lessons Learned from the Lost Culture of Wall Street, which analyzes the origins of the financial recession of 2008–2009. Taft believes that the downturn’s root cause was the deterioration of Wall Street’s true mission: to serve as a means to greater ends by connecting those with capital to those who can deploy capital in a way that benefits everyone. In other words, Wall Street failed to live up to its stewardship responsibilities. Taft also argues that while the markets and the economy may have improved since the near collapse of our global financial system, our best days as a nation are behind us unless we embrace our role as stewards on Wall Street and Main Street alike. Our collective willingness to live up to our stewardship responsibility extends beyond the economic impacts of our actions to the most important issues of our time: resource scarcity, climate change, population growth, fiscal policy, and income inequality. Stewardship contains wisdom and outlines a path forward that creates hope for our future and future generations. To live – not just preach – his point, Taft is also donating the proceeds from his book to charity.

Taft’s thought leadership on the precepts of stewardship is informed by his family legacy of generations of public service. His great grandfather was U.S. President William Howard Taft, whose brother Horace Taft founded a college preparatory school with a motto that roughly translates to: “to serve…not be served” His grandfather, Robert A. Taft, was a Senator from Ohio, whose memorial in Washington, DC, is the only memorial to a member of Congress on the U.S. Capitol grounds and pays tribute to his deeply held belief: “equal justice under law.”

Financial Services History. Taft has worked in financial services since 1981, and he is uniquely qualified to speak on the subject of stewardship as the leader of a firm that remained true to its duties before, during, and after the events of 2008–2009. As former chairman of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, Taft was also a leading spokesman during the Dodd-Frank legislative process and subsequent rule making. This includes being a vocal and frequent supporter of establishing a single, business-model neutral fiduciary standard of care for all financial professionals who provide investment advice to retail clients. Additionally, he is frequently called upon to speak at government and industry events and is widely quoted in the media.