When people told Sophia Kearney-Lederman early on in her role as senior economist for FHN Financial that they thought economists were dull, she wasn't sure how she should take it. "When it first happened, I was like, 'Oh, is this a compliment or a little bit of a judgment?'"
Now, five years into her job, she doesn't take it personally. Breaking down complex economic data and news into digestible analysis for the employees and clients of First Horizon Bank, parent of FHN Financial, and explaining why it matters to them personally, is quite interesting, she said.
"The basis of economics is data and analysis and charts and complex theories, and that's not everyone's cup of tea. So I get it," Kearney-Lederman said. "But I hope to make it engaging."
Kearney-Lederman spoke at 32 client events with more than 1,400 attendees over the past year, often as the featured speaker for the bank. She also makes presentations to the bank's executive committee and board of directors. With every audience, the key is to communicate what she's learned and why it's important, she said.
"We can run all of the analytics and do all of the assessment of data, but if you can't tell people the what and the why, you've wasted time," she explained. "It's the what and the why that can be applied to business [and] that can be applied to making decisions."
Kearney-Lederman sees uncertainty as one of the biggest economic challenges currently, and she said that it's not likely to dissipate. Another challenge will be the speed of change.
"A lot of data that we watch is backward looking and slow," she said. "The challenge for myself and for probably economists at large is going to be figuring out how we keep up." Looking ahead, she said she'll be looking for more high-frequency data and new sources of data, including data from clients.
In the future, Kearney-Lederman wants to reach a wider audience and young people in particular, she said. "I'd love to have an audience that is the next generation." While today's youths have access to data and social media, they're often exposed to misinformation and lack the information they actually need, she added.
She'd like to be the person who can reach them and "make economics cool again," Kearney-Lederman said. "A lot of people think that concepts behind economics are inaccessible to them. There's a lot of acronyms and there are a lot of theories and big formulas. That becomes a barrier to people feeling like they can't understand."
Explaining the relevance of seemingly esoteric subjects like the Consumer Price Index or the Federal Reserve and its dual mandate of stable prices and full employment can help break down barriers that people have in their minds of "that's too complex or that's too high level," Kearney-Lederman said.
"It all impacts all of us, right? Your credit card interest rate, in the end, circles back to the Fed funds rate," she said. "Everyone is involved in the economy. So everyone should be able to, if they want to, understand what's going on."
