A short history of the Center for the New Middle Class, its purpose and mission, and how it has led to a broader and more complete understanding of American household finance.

A description of some of Jonathan Walker’s research and insights related to financial services, financial behavior, financial psychology, and financial services policy. As well as a list of the reports from The Survey of American Household Finances.

Jonathan Walker presents at conferences, company-wide events, executive presentations, customer insights events, podcasts, and on YouTube. The following is a partial list of his appearances and events.

You can't find a business of any meaningful size without a coterie of business analysts, dashboards, reports, and PowerPoint presentations so thick with numbers that you can't possibly understand what they mean without significant explanation or experience. Indeed, measurement is the lifeblood of a business. If you do not understand what is going on, how can you possibly make effective decisions?

If we can't accomplish simple goals, you absolutely cannot accomplish meaningful, complicated, and long-term objectives. I believe that effective business execution requires four basic components: clarity, focus, accountability, and leader involvement.

Anytime you get a group of people cooperating towards a goal whether it be earnings results, finding a customer, or delivering value to the world, a culture develops amongst them. Developing an effective corporate culture requires the cultivation of values, leadership involvement, broad-based communication, company alignment, proper resource allocation, and long-term consistency.

Excerpt from the book “Anchors, Ostriches, and a Hot Pair of Scissors: Navigating Human Behavior as a Financial Professional” written by Dr. Mary Bell Carlson and Jonathan Walker.

Customer experience management is a category of business expertise that is largely misunderstood. Some believe it to be just a euphemism for UI/UX design. Others see it as a question of product innovation. Some see it as an extension of market research and customer analytics. Successfully managing a customer experience is all of those things…and more.

Half the U.S. adult population have credit scores that fall below 700. They constitute the non-prime population. Below that line there's no guarantee that someone would qualify for the credit that they need. These households have no credit safety net when things go wrong.

One of the most powerful things a company can do to strengthen its culture is to expose its employees to its customers. Having customers speak of their experience with your brand in front of your company live has a powerful affect on your corporate culture.

Good business intelligence can tell you how to allocate business resources to improve your company’s results. Good market research can help you understand the value of new opportunities. Customer empathy can drive innovation. It can help you find hidden opportunities. Using empathy to hone the customers’ journey created loyalty.

Businesses thrive when their customers’ success is aligned with their business model. Too often, though, businesses fail to even ask the question, “What does customer success look like?” Too often, we are content only asking, “What does business success look like?” Businesses thrive when their customers’ success is aligned with their business model.

Jonathan Walker has been quoted as a financial services expert in USA Today, Fast Company, Yahoo! Finance, Forbes, Fox Business, CNBC, CBS News, CNN Money, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Market Watch, among others.