Next up, very pleased to have State Street with us. From the company, we have Joerg Ambrosius, who's President of Investment Services, and John Woods, who's Chief Financial Officer. Given this is the first time we have both on stage in their current roles, I'll just probably try a little bit of background. I think you guys all know John, CFO of Citizens Financial Group for almost nine years, and in State Street for 12 days. We're going to really pepper him. Joerg became President of Investment Services, which is State Street's largest business, last summer. Prior, he was Chief Commercial Officer with overall leadership of Investment Services, client-facing activities, and responsible for its international organization. We have the first question, ARS question on the screen. Before I ask these guys a question, though, Liz asked nicely for me to read this. Just to remind our audience that today's discussion may contain some forward-looking statements and actual results may differ materially from those statements due to a variety of important factors, including those risk factors in State Street's Form 10-K and other SEC filings. State Street's forward-looking statements speak only as of today and may not be updated even if these change. With all the administrative work out of the way, let's dive in. John, we'll put you on the hot seat. Obviously, I just mentioned you're relatively new to the role. I think maybe the best place to start is kind of what drew you to the company. Yeah, I appreciate that question. I've been getting that a lot recently. I think coming out of my last role, I was part of a great transformation growth story there. It was a good time to pass the baton and take on a new challenge. What an exceptional and compelling opportunity State Street is. There are just so many exciting things happening at State Street, and just a couple of things that I find really attractive. The first is, one of the oldest banks in the United States, with all of the heritage of trust and stability that comes with that, and global scale. We didn't talk about the scale around the globe, which is a huge competitive advantage. I think the second one that's interesting, even though it's one of the oldest banks in the U.S., is just a track record of tech-led innovation over time that continues today. We'll talk a little bit about that during our session here today. I find that exceptionally interesting, all that heritage, but still driving tech-led innovation. Maybe lastly, an incredible management team that's driving strategic growth out into the future. Put all of that together, and it just was an exceptionally compelling opportunity when Ron reached out. I'm glad to be here. I appreciate it. It's early days, but you've known about this new role for a while. Just maybe share your thinking in terms of initial priorities. You're going to be focused on looking ahead and what you expect your career is focused to be over the next few months. Yeah, as you mentioned, I'm halfway through week three here. Where I'm really spending most of my time right now is really diving into understanding the operating model across all of the businesses at State Street and how it all comes together as one State Street. That's really exciting. I'm very energized about helping to support that and understand that and communicate that over time. That's most of what I'm doing. That said, I have some thoughts about where I'll likely be spending my time going forward. First and foremost, just delivering on the performance expectations for 2025 and momentum heading into 2026 is probably the first one that comes to mind. The second one would be really looking at the balance sheet to see if there are optimization opportunities. What I'm thinking about there is just partnering with the rest of the Executive Committee to maximize all of the balance sheet resources to put into client-facing activities. On the other hand, just trying to drive greater visibility and stability to NII over time, over the medium term. I think that would be number two. Number three should come as no surprise, really focused on productivity and efficiency. There's a huge opportunity here to continue to drive additional resources to put to bear for client-facing and innovative pursuits. That's certainly a huge part of it. Lastly, and this is the exciting part, is just partnering on the strategic journey. There's so much opportunity at State Street, not just within the United States, but states are extremely attractive. We have a phenomenal position there. Geographically, it's really exciting. Lastly, I'd say the client and product roadmap that I'm partnering with Joerg and Yishen and the other business leaders on, some of the stuff you may have heard recently about wealth servicing, and Joerg will talk more about that with Apex Group, and what we're doing in the private capital space is just very exciting. That's the agenda: drive performance, manage the balance sheet, and invest in strategic growth over time. I couldn't be more energized to do all of that. No, congrats. Joerg, maybe kind of shift gears to your world. Over the past year or so, we've actually seen pretty strong momentum building in investment services since you took over. Maybe just talk through some of the changes you've made to turn the trajectory of that business around. Thanks, Jason. As you mentioned at the start, I've been in this role now around about one year. I'm actually very thrilled to be in this role. Before I took the role, and you alluded to that as well, I had the Chief Commercial Officer role. That is when we started to really pivot on various points and kind of reset the strategy a little bit for the investment services business. I've been in the organization now for close to 25 years. I would argue I know success factors in that business well. I have lived through a couple of cycles in that business. That is all what we took into account when we did pivot a little bit, the strategy setting for investment services. That represents more than two-thirds of State Street's overall business. It actually combines the custody business, the traditional fund accounting, fund services business. It also now includes the financing business that we kind of moved closer to the core business and to the clients. More recently, it includes the front-to-back servicing, what you all know as the Alpha proposition that we are now bringing closer to the core business. We would argue, given the size that we have reached in the Alpha proposition, we have now the critical mass that this is more and more representing the core business that State Street provides. What did we concretely do to reimagine the investment services business and to get back on the growth trajectory? There are a couple of very concrete initiatives that we have executed over the last two years that are now showing, as you say, some really good results. We restructured client service and relationship management with a clear lens through client centricity. The core of what we do is centering around the large institutional investors in the world. We have a very attractive book of clients. There's a lot of room that we have seen, and we continue to see to grow with these clients. In order to get there, you have to really earn the right to grow with these clients. The way to do that is to make them very happy clients. That's what client centricity does. We have now organized the way and how we operate really around our clients. We have enhanced and increased our sales capacity. That has yielded a very, very good trajectory on sales results. We have announced in Q2 that we are very well on track for this year to deliver against our $350 million to $400 million sales target. Q2 alone was $145 million. This was, just to put it into perspective, the same number of total sales that this organization generated in 2020. We have seen a continuous momentum on the sales side, and we are very confident that this year we will deliver against the range of $350 million to $400 million that we have announced. Lastly, obviously, the revenue has to be brought to life. It's not only winning the business, you have to implement the business. We have committed last year and also through this year that we are working very actively and aggressively to bring the backlog of business that we have won onto our books. We are on target to deliver against this goal for 2025. Irrespective of that, the backlog is still growing. Why is it growing? We are winning a lot of new business. We have reached actually a record high in Q2 on backlog of $444 million. Taking this all into account, we are very confident that we will continue on this growth trajectory. As a follow-up, as you look to drive this kind of growth of organic servicing fee growth in the years ahead, what metrics should investors focus on to track your progress? Sales wins is clearly a good lead indicator for the revenue growth to come. The backlog that I just mentioned is another good indicator. That is business that we already have been mandated and now will bring to work. Therefore, for the foreseeable future, we feel very good. There are a couple of trends that we are benefiting from. I would like to call out one specific one, and that is private markets. Private markets continue to be a real growth driver for us. When we look at the Q2 numbers, we have seen year over year a 19% revenue increase. The private markets servicing business, as per today, represents 10% of our overall fee revenue. We expect that this is a real great opportunity for growth. We have the critical mass in that business. We have partnered with various of the leading organizations in that space. When you see where the flows in that business go, you will see that this industry is more and more consolidating. The winners get an overproportional share of new flows. We have a very large presence with these leading organizations in the private market space. That is an area or a long-term trend where we will definitely see continuous dynamics, positive dynamics for our revenue generation. Helpful. Maybe let me shift gears to the operating environment. We could put up the next ARS question. I won't ask about this yet. You know, John, you're new to State Street, but not new to CFO. We've got to keep you on the hot seat. As we approach the end of the third quarter, just how are you thinking about the macro backdrop and the operating environment broadly for the rest of 2025? Lots to comment on there. I guess I'd start off with, you look at some of the uncertainties that have been building. The unemployment picture has been weakening, right? Whether on a nominal jobs print or this kind of breathlessly high revision number, which we're still trying to figure out the impacts of, that's worrisome. Inflation is still above target. The fiscal picture isn't great. National debt is still kind of growing to levels that are not exceptionally comfortable. You say, OK, against all of that, what are the opposing forces? I'd say, inflation expectations seem to be under control. We have maybe the Fed put here in play. That'll happen next week. By all accounts, it appears we're going to get at least one cut. You put all that together, and out the window, we see a risk-on environment. You've got the equities sitting at all-time highs. You got the corporate bond market at really tight, and spreads are exceptionally tight. I think the volatility actually fell today, which is really something that is really incredible to see, to just give you a sense for that risk-on environment and some correlations. I think what we're thinking about for the rest of 2025 is that equities basically range bound and will hang in there. I think you've got the Fed teed up for three cuts. I think the bond market does. Our PPI print this morning isn't going to make that any less likely. Some conversation about whether it's 25 or 50 next week, not sure it matters. I'm also not sure we get all three cuts. Maybe CPI will inform us tomorrow. Nevertheless, we're going to get some Fed cuts here, which is a tailwind. That's in part why we think equities are range bound for the rest of the year at all-time highs. Talked about the rates market. We do think volatility, notwithstanding the drop in volatility today, that volatility likely picks up modestly given all these uncertainties. That tends to be a tailwind to our markets business. We think about that. That's the U.S. picture. I think broadly, there's some more rate stability likely outside the U.S., with the ECB and the Bank of England. Maybe valuations not quite as lofty. I think overpinning all of this is the binary situation with the geopolitical situation that seems to be unfolding in the last 24 hours. Absent geopolitical, our outlook is for a pretty benign and positive operating environment for the rest of 2025. Helpful. I guess, against that backdrop, in July, the company talked about updated guidance for 2025 on the back of a solid quarter and improved market backdrop, kind of nearing the end of the third quarter. Any updates you want to share? Yeah, I think, so my commentary, I would focus on the year, year over year, you know, sort of views. 2025 is shaping up very nicely. You know, kind of just going down some of the key drivers on the fee revenue side of things. I think we had a 5% to 7% guide out there. I think we now see that coming in at or slightly above the upper end of that range for 2025. That is driven by markets and FX. Importantly, it's driven by core business momentum across all of our business lines as well, which is very exciting to see. NII, I think we would position that as roughly flat. The variability there is driven, you know, primarily by deposit levels and mix. There are some seasonal tailwinds that we tend to see heading into the fourth quarter, and we'll see how that plays out. Of course, the rate environment, although we don't have significant exposure to rates, we're mostly neutral here in the U.S. and more asset-sensitive outside the U.S. That also happens to be where we think the rate environment is a bit more steady. I'd say deposit levels and mix are the main source of variability on the roughly flat for NII. Expenses we'll see coming in at the upper end of that 3% to 4% range, mainly driven by client-facing investments and tech investments. That's something that we think about in terms of investing for the future. You pull it all together, it's very pleasing to be able to talk about not only fee operating leverage, but total operating leverage, which is what we expect for 2025. That's how I would comment on the year. Helpful. Joerg, maybe taking a step back, you know, State Street has emphasized the importance of simplifying its operating model and just aligning it more closely with client needs. Just maybe walk us through, you know, how you're approaching that transformation, what progress has been made so far from your vantage point, and just how you're measuring success as these efforts take shape. Yeah, actually, it's a very relevant subject for our business as asset servicing is, and as of today, a scale business. Once you operate at scale and have the critical mass across all your businesses, which we clearly have today, then you are really in that position to optimize the way and how you operate that business. Where are we today on our journey? This is in line with what we have spoken about a lot over the last couple of years. I would call out three concrete drivers. First, simplifying operations and simplifying the organization. The second is re-engineering and optimization of the processes. Third, optimizing our resources to eliminate any inefficiencies or redundancies that we have across the broader franchise. That is actually something where we have had a lot of focus over the more recent past, that we are looking really across end-to-end franchise, end-to-end processes. The end-to-end processes don't stop at our border. It then includes co-creation, co-collaboration with clients to really eliminate the operational deficiencies that exist. When you look at the financial results that we have generated against these three pillars, assuming that we will deliver against our goal that we have given ourselves for this year, we are talking a cumulative amount of $1.3 billion productivity gain that we have generated over a three-year period. These are reoccurring and sustainable productivity gains. We have really eliminated expense. We feel very good about this. To John's point at the beginning, there's much more opportunity that we see that we will be able to capitalize on in the years to come. This is going to be a continuous focus of the broader organization. We obviously will take advantage of the development of what we see as a very effective tool to do that. That is the deployment of AI. I guess you brought it up, so maybe we'll go there. On AI, you know, definitely I think an exciting potential benefit for the financial services industry. Maybe just share a bit more how State Street is currently applying AI and looking ahead, just where you see the greatest potential opportunities in investment services. As I said, we see AI as a tool. That tool obviously is developing. We have been making usage of that tool for a long, long time, primarily in the machine learning space, where we have very effectively brought machine learning to life in very operational functions like reconciliations, where we were able to really bring a lot of effectiveness into the reconciliation space by deploying machine learning. The other concrete example I'd like to point out is fund accounting. We have found ways in the fund accounting space to predict breaches, to predict deviations. That allows then the fund accountant operating with this tool to operate far more efficiently. What does that concretely mean? A fund accountant that was able to process, let's say, seven or eight funds is now, by deploying that tool, in a position to operate a much larger amount of funds because he's more operating on an exception basis and an oversight function as the machine is taking various tasks away and operates these in a very effective and also risk-controlled fashion. When we now look ahead, what is next, we are definitely going more and more also in the space of agentic AI. That is something that we believe will have a real impact on the financial industry more broadly, but specifically our business. That is something that we will ramp up over the years to come. What I'd like to point out here is something that is really close to our heart. While we continue to scale the positive impacts of AI, it is very important to note that we are committed to doing this responsibly and ethically. We made significant investment over the last two years to establish a new responsible AI framework for the firm, including technology investments to centralize and deploy safeguards and controls for the responsible use of AI. That was clearly an investment that we felt we have to make to really now ramp up this at scale. The last point I'd like to make, we are also obviously now making usage of AI broader in the organization, where we did roll out to the majority of the population Microsoft Copilot. That is obviously something that I would say is becoming more and more industry standard. This is something where we are also now feel very well equipped to really get to the next level. Maybe you should jump in and emphasize, and those are important points. I would just emphasize that the productivity journey that we're excited about certainly includes AI and down the line, you know, the opportunities in agentic. Separately, it's inevitable that organizations that have been built up, both in terms of how they're structured and how processes and ways of working have all evolved over time with human intelligence as really the driver. Now that there's artificial intelligence, a re-architecting of all of that is inevitable. We're excited about that, given all of the efficiencies that will come. I would say that our productivity journey is not restricted to or solely dependent upon the AI journey. There's a zero-based mindset that we're espousing, where we have significant opportunity with automation of manual processes and a number of other levers to pull that are just short of AI that I wanted to emphasize in the near term. There's going to be huge opportunity outside of AI. Of course, we're going to be well positioned for the AI journey as well. I guess another hot topic is just, you know, digital assets. Maybe, Joerg, I'd love to get your perspective in terms of, you know, how State Street is preparing to service digital assets. You know, what services do you provide? What capabilities do you need to provide or are looking to build out and grow in terms of, you know, how do you think about this in relation to services fees? Yeah, so this is something that we have been engaged with for a long, long time. Now, obviously, after the signing of the Genius Act in the last quarter, we have, I would say, a different environment where we have more regulatory certainty in that area. When you look at our digital strategy or digital asset strategy, to be precise, we have three key factors. Digital asset custody is clearly something where we will be an active participant in creating the ecosystem of the future. Second is that we provide accounting and fund administrative services for products like crypto ETFs. That is something that we are actively already doing. Let me end with the tokenization of funds, assets, and cash. You might have seen a great example of that is an announcement that we made in late August, where we announced that we are the first third-party custodian connected with JPMorgan's digital asset platform. That milestone reflects a deep collaboration between the investment management and investment servicing divisions of our organization supporting landmark digital corporate debt issuance. This is one concrete example on how this comes to life. We expect much more in that space. What we also expect, though, is that our clients will come to us and say, we want a one-stop shop. There is the existing world of assets, and there will be the digital world of assets. Our role is going to be to be a bridge for investors that are operating in both worlds. We believe that both worlds will exist for a long, long time. The reality is not going to be that we will all switch now to tokens within two years. We will have to operate in these two worlds. We have to make sure, and that is going to be our role, that clients will have the ability to look at their assets in a consolidated fashion. That is one of the values that we bring to the table. We feel actually excited about this. Last point on that, I mentioned financial ecosystem. The reality most likely will be that we have various ecosystems around the globe because regulation is moving at a different pace. Coming back to the one-stop shop, clients will expect from us that we can support them in these different ecosystems that will be established around the globe. Interesting. Maybe we can kind of delve into maybe stablecoins for a second. Just curious as to how State Street's view and the opportunities set around stablecoins. Is that an area you're looking to kind of expand your servicing capabilities? Just maybe talk to any risk threats for State Street associated with stablecoins. To what I said before, stablecoins for us is definitely going to be a key element of the future financial ecosystem. We are already supporting stablecoins in various forms. For us, that will become, let's say, a core service that we provide. What I said before is also true for the stablecoin world. Stablecoins might have a different flavor around the globe. We have just seen the establishment of the first Euro stablecoin that only happened last quarter. We are also moving in that area at a different pace in different parts of the world. Our ambition is to support our clients in that context on a global basis. We are active in that, obviously, here in the U.S. We are active in that in Europe. We also are very closely monitoring and are very engaged with key market participants in APEC. I don't know, John, if you want to add something from a risk perspective. Yeah, I mean, I guess I would say that we're very well positioned for the stablecoin, you know, kind of emerging trend. Just a few, you know, maybe zooming out general comments. I think that the point that you've made about being a trusted provider for clients that want to seamlessly move between fiat and stablecoin and crypto, we're very well positioned to be able to play that role. I think that's the first one I'd throw out there. The second one, there's no question this is going to be a disruptive trend. It already is. The question is what revenue pools are going to be disrupted and what revenue pools are going to be created. I think we're well positioned to be part of the revenue pools that are going to be created. We have maybe a lower footprint in those that are going to be disruptive. If there's a new payments ecosystem around the world and you happen to be a huge payments provider, you know, and you have big revenue pools there, this is, you know, a shot across the bow there. We are less exposed to those kinds of things. I think the industry as a whole has been challenged in the past. I mean, you know, and we're related to this, where the money market fund itself was a huge disruption to the banking industry back in the 1970s. We innovated as an industry to respond. This is a disruptive force that I think the industry will respond to, but I think will respond exceptionally well, given our history of innovation and focus and capabilities, as Joerg Ambrosius mentioned and then I kind of summarized there. Got it. Maybe, Joerg, just coming back to your businesses beyond digital assets from your vantage point, what do you see the most compelling opportunities in investment services? When we look ahead, private markets, I talked about that, is going to be one key driver of growth for us. Another key driver of growth is the continuous success that we have on our Alpha front-to-back platform. I mentioned that we are bringing this much, much closer now into the investment servicing business. The beauty of that business is that it really creates a very different dynamic between us and our clients because you will become basically the franchise outsource. You will basically become an ecosystem for the clients that are partnering up with you. There's a lot of upside potential for us with the organizations that we have signed up in that space. We are making very, very good progress. On the back of this Alpha proposition, there's obviously software revenue that we are growing. We have been very well on the way against our commitments that we made to the street in that regard. We feel very good about that trajectory. We are on target to deliver against our goals for 2025 on the Alpha journey. That is something that over the years to come, again, will allow us to deepen the wallet that we have with leading organizations in the financial market that have selected us as their strategic partner of choice. Maybe for State Street more broadly in the near to medium term, just how you're thinking about the one-state opportunity. That is obviously a term that is being frequently used in the industry right now. Seven companies at this conference. I would argue that this is something that we started to actually implement and live with that mindset because this is a cultural and a mindset change, two years ago. When I took the Chief Commercial Officer role, that was part of the goal to really drive a different way of operating, drive a different way on how we define success, how do we look at client relationships. When we look at client relationships today, this is a muscle that the organization has really developed well. We always put the franchise first. What does that mean for State Street as a whole? What can we as a franchise really bring to the benefit of our clients? We always put the client first. It is a real client-centric way of thinking and then also acting. The organization has come a long way. It really also helped us to overcome silos because the key criteria for us is this actually a good action or not a good action? Does it benefit the client? Does it benefit State Street as a franchise? That is clearly the way on how we look at commercial decisions, investment decisions. I feel that I have a very good partner in that with John. After the initial conversations that we had, it looks like that we are very much on the same page with that. 100%. Yeah, all in. I think the synergies across all of our businesses is really the excitement that State Street delivers. Each one of the businesses on their own are just fantastic franchises, and you put them together, the sum of the parts exceeds the whole. That's an exciting place to be. Got it. We have about four minutes left. I want to make sure I talk about inorganic growth opportunities. I have a two-parter. First part, you mentioned earlier the partnership with Apex you just announced. Maybe just talk about the strategic rationale for that partnership and just how does it help with growth. You have heard us for a while speaking about the opportunity that we see in the wealth space. We have been very clear about our ambition to enter the wealth servicing business. When we were looking at the strategic options that we have, as you always have, you can either build something, you can partner with someone, or you can acquire. In that exercise, we really analyzed the market in depth. We got to know Apex, and we were really, really excited about the opportunity that a combination of State Street and Apex brings to the market. We were especially impressed by the technology that Apex brings to the table. You will definitely hear more about this in the months to come. We are really, really excited about that opportunity. It is a great example where we use M&A as a tool to deliver against our strategic goals. Got it. Maybe provide some color how you think about just M&A in general in this environment. How would a potential consolidation in the space impact State Street's competitive positioning? Would it merge your peers, change your own view regarding more sizable acquisitions? Yeah, a lot there. I mean, I guess I would say first, there's a high bar for M&A that we think about at State Street. It emanates from a mindset of a strategic roadmap. If we, as Joerg indicated, that if there's a build, partner, or buy kind of opportunity to accelerate that strategic roadmap, we'll engage in M&A from a partner or buy standpoint. Apex is an example of that. We had a wealth strategy. This accelerates that. This is a good allocation of capital. High bar for M&A overall, but it all fits into the waterfall of capital in terms of how we think about it. First and foremost, we're going to be trying to put capital to work organically, you know, to serve customers and clients around the world. Along with that comes tuck-ins and bolt-ons and important strategic investments like we've made with Apex. We look at that as the primary role for the capital that we're generating. I would say that, of course, support the dividend and all that. As you get down the list, to the extent that there are opportunities to advance and accelerate our strategy, we'll consider it. It's a high bar. To your other question, I mean, we don't feel the need to be reactionary to what competitors or other industry participants are doing. We have exceptional scale without trying to chase or be reactionary to the activities that others may engage in. We're sticking to our knitting in terms of our strategic roadmap. We're using capital as a mechanism to accelerate along that journey. Perfect. On that note, please join me in thanking Joerg and John for their time today.