ESG Consulting: Bridging the Investor and Company Gap ft. Milla Craig (Millani Inc.)

Sustainability in the corporate world is changing so quickly. Over the past few years alone, investors, boards and companies have suddenly all had to understand the ESG considerations of their respective ecosystems. Many are feeling overwhelmed by the speed of change, even those who are lucky enough to have an in-house sustainability lead. Which is why the solution in speaking to many of our guests is seeking out an external sustainability consultant. In fact, this is one area that you, our listeners, have specifically requested we dive in deeper. 

I am therefore thrilled to welcome a guest who has been at the forefront of sustainability consulting for over 16 years and the financial space for over three decades: Milla Craig. 

Milla is President and CEO of Millani Inc., an independent advisory firm helping investors integrate ESG issues into their investment decisions, companies communicate their material ESG issues to investors, boards of directors understand their ESG responsibilities and capital markets participants create their proprietary ESG strategies.

Throughout her career, Milla has worked very closely with senior management and investor relations teams of Canadian publicly-listed companies, as well as financial analysts and investment managers of several Canadian pension and investment funds. Prior to founding Millani in 2008, she worked for more than 15 years in the institutional equity markets for major Canadian financial institutions such as RBC Dominion Securities and Scotia Capital, where she was consistently ranked as a top-tier salesperson. Later, as Deloitte's Leader – Sustainability, for the Quebec Region, she was actively involved in the development of sustainability strategy, management, stakeholder engagement, and reporting for a variety of Canadian organizations.

Until recently, Milla was a board member of the Responsible Investment Association (RIA) and the Chair of its Nomination Committee. She is Co-Chair of the Steering Committee of the Finance and Sustainability Initiative of Finance Montréal. Milla is recipient of the 2017 Clean16 Award, and in 2020 was awarded Montreal’s Y Foundation Women of Distinction Award, in the Business & Entrepreneurship category.

On this episode, we unpack how Millani bridges the gap between investors and companies, what the sustainability consulting world looked like when the company was founded, and how it’s evolved over nearly two decades. We also discuss the rise of in-house sustainability experts, the impacts of game-changing legislation like California’s SB-253 and CSRD, how investors can sift through the fluff. And as ESG becomes a hot-button issue, we’ll discuss strategies for advancing sustainability in ways that resonate across industries and ideologies. Finally, for those of you tuning in who are early in your careers, we’ll explore what it takes to work with a leading firm like Millani. 

This episode is packed with insights, advice, and actionable takeaways for anyone passionate about ESG in the capital markets space. So let’s jump in and start the conversation! 🌍 

*

[Host: Lauren Scott] So our next guest is coming from a space where we've actually had a number of our listeners write in and let us know that they want to hear more. And as many of our companies are starting to explore sustainability and go deeper, deeper into the ESG space, we have often turned to external support. And that means leaning on consultants or advisors on how we can really go along our own respective journeys. Our next guest is an expert in space, Milla Craig, and she founded her own organization dedicated specifically to this kind of advice. So, with that. Welcome to the show!

[Guest: Milla Craig] Thank you so much, Lauren. It's a great pleasure to be here.

And with Millani, you offer services and advice to both companies as well as investors. Could you help us understand what that looks like for those two different kinds of profiles? 

Maybe I'll start, if you don't mind. I'll start with the back in my career a little bit further, because that is where the story really begins. , not to age myself too much, but about 30 years ago, I had started a career in what's called institutional equity sales, which means that at working at some of Canada's largest banks, , we had a number of financial analysts researching and looking for great investment opportunities for large investors, like our pension plans and insurance companies, and those who manage mutual funds that you would see, you know, in the marketplace. , and we spoke... when we spoke about investment here, typically we're talking about organizations that are listed on the stock exchanges. So, think companies like Rogers or Bell or BL Blas or Royal Bank and, and many, many others, of course. So, in that role, I worked very closely with financial analysts, but I spent a lot of time with CEOs and CFOs of those largest companies as well, and we would go and visit these large investors. So, I tell you all of this because it's not easy to get into this world. And I'm one of the very, very, very lucky people who has had this opportunity to in a position to bridge between investors and these large companies and financial analysts. 

Okay, that's part of what I wanted to give that backdrop to, you know, answering your question. So, at Millani, we continue to work with both those large institutional investors and those corporations, only now we bring a very different service or a different lens to the services and the roles of both those corporates and those investors.

For investors, you know, it's been over 16 years now that we're in business. So what we've been doing with them... and it started with the investors, where what we were really doing was helping them... helping bring value to their analysis by bringing some new thinking about issues that, , investors may want to consider in their investment process that are connected to what we call environmental social or governance topics, so ESG. So really educating and helping them build some investment strategies and helping those investors consider how they might engage then with those corporations that they hold in those portfolios on our behalf, as pension funds or mutual funds, with a view of having those corporations perhaps advance or acknowledge and get educated and develop some new strategies themselves that could do better business or manage the risk that they might have.

And as I developed in this space, I recognized that there were a lot of people critiquing the corporations, lots of rating agencies and people critiquing, but there was no one actually going out and trying to help the businesses meet this growing and changing need of the investors. And so, you know, that's really how we kind of see ourselves as a figure... we work with the investors and we work with the corporates all around this dialogue and building bridges and helping each develop strategies so that we can keep capital flowing to Canadian businesses, and helping our Canadian investors get returns. That's really our objective behind everything that we do.

That's such a special bridge between the two groups, and I think so necessary. I can understand why you set up the organization 16 years ago. I am curious, because it feels like at least the sustainability space overall has changed. But specific to consulting, maybe what has changed the most, and has anything really stayed the same as well?

I know, 16 years ago when I started Millani, everyone thought I was completely ridiculous. I had a very... shall I say, a well-paying position at one of the banks, and a very prized position. To have left that and to focus at the time on what was called socially responsible investing, (I never really espoused that part, but that's what it was called). And this is really where individuals didn't want to have exposure to a certain type of company. So say they didn't want to have tobacco or alcohol or entertainment or adult entertainment or whatever in their portfolios and that's really driven by a person's or an organization's values, right?

But at the time, I intuitively knew that SRI wasn't where the system-level change could take place because it was too restrictive and what we needed to do in my view was move away from that values-driven lens to something that could be much more of a risk management tool. And this is really where I saw the opportunity to help the market adopt some new investment practices. So kind of thinking about adding an additional lens to current, you know, investment processes, which evolved into the integration of environmental, social, and governance issues that can have an impact on the business and ensuring that the investors are understanding if it's being managed as a risk or how the company is developing within the opportunities.

So there, when we first began, much of that work was on education. Okay, then it turned to supporting and the developing of some sort of reporting. But to do good reporting, you need to have a strategy and then a plan on how you can execute that strategy. And as investors undertook this process, then they started to ask questions of companies, and then companies needed to revise their strategies to ensure that they're meeting the needs of their investors if they wanted to have access to grow or to execute their business strategies.

So the market moved to something called materiality, which is because when you think about ESG topics, they can be really broad. But what's most important is that we talk about what's material for that organization. And... and today I would say, as much as investors are still major stakeholders who are pushing this movement towards ESG or sustainability, customers are actually becoming the major driver today. So it's a balance between... you've got two major stakeholders today, both your investors, but equally your clients are asking or demanding that you can demonstrate what your business strategy is and if you're reducing your carbon emissions or how you're taking care of your employees, things of that nature.

So that's probably one of the biggest shifts that we have seen, and most of that's been I would say in the last two and a half years, perhaps. 

And as part of those shifts, I'm certainly seeing from different guests that we've had on the show and my own contacts that maybe it's more the larger organizations, but more and more companies are starting to bring in-house sustainability leads. I would still say it's very slim for many of my contacts where for multi-billion-dollar, stock-listed companies, and they have one person, maybe two people. So has that shifted at all the dynamic when you're speaking with those companies of having that in-house person? Does it help to maybe centralize the dialogue, or what does that look like?

Well, and... and to your point, it really depends on the organization, right? So, let's just say there's various elements, as I just mentioned, that could be material when we talk about ESG topics or corporate sustainability. So, on that basis, it's important for an organization... you need someone to coordinate, because it's all elements of a business. And the question is, which are those that can be most financially material to your bottom line?

What we've seen is that it's really become important for businesses to do something called a materiality assessment. That's done with a view / lens of the uniqueness of the organization. It's very individualized, and that materiality assessment is often something that organizations ask for external support on, even though they have someone inside the organization because they want to engage with an independent voice with their various stakeholders so that stakeholders will be very open and honest and they will get very objective answers.

For us, we've got that happening. And now, now we're in a place where we have regulations in Europe that are coming into place that are really pushing this further into something that we call double materiality. And even that it... you know, it's very prescriptive. So, we're finding that a lot of organizations are looking to firms like ours for guidance and assistance to meet the changing regulation and ensure that they are meeting the appropriate disclosure requirements connected to that. I would just say, I haven't even started on the conversation of climate change because, you know, businesses need a strategy on how they can transition their business, often engaging firms like ours or others to help them consider what are these various climate scenarios that the market is talking about, what could those impacts be on our business, and then really again helping develop strategies, but also reporting, because those same stakeholders are requesting. 

I would say then, you know, there's a lot of work to do with boards in sharing insights on guidance, on education. And of course, that sustainability person is key to that internally, but boards like to hear external voices. They like to have them; like they want to be challenged. Then I would say finally, you know, there's that whole reporting element, and I mentioned it earlier, both for climate and some of these European regulations, but there's, I would say, no lack of need, even though there's someone internally, to have external support and sounding boards and education.

And maybe the last thing I would say about this is this space is moving so quickly. Even ourselves, and this is what we do all day, every day, and we find it difficult to stay on top. So that's one of the things that we've been finding most recently. There's a lot of desire. Just please keep us up to date. We can't risk from a reputational standpoint to be acting in the wrong way or not meeting some new regulation or, you know, just ensuring that we are staying and keeping pace with the market.

So yes, lots happening inside, but there's, you know, lots of support that's still required outside of the organizations.

I completely echo that. To your point, I think with the changes of regulations and depending on where you're operating, there are different timelines. We know you mentioned in Europe with CSRD, with California, with the different state bills, SEC kind of starting and then stopping. How has the regulatory landscape and the pace at which it's changing, how does that impact your work whether it's the investor community or the companies? Is it really kind of helping bring everybody up to speed and to keep them updated on those changes?

Well, I mean, really what we're seeing is a drive from voluntary to mandatory reporting today, which means that businesses need to take these issues seriously. And it's really that they need to develop not just a report but appropriate processes and oversight and then auditing of this information and data today. And that's probably, you know, as we move to mandatory, that's one of the biggest shifts that we're seeing.

This is something that the investor community has been pushing for, I would say, for well over 10 years or more, so we're getting much closer when we come to, in particular, something like climate change. But, you know, to your point, CSRD is beyond climate change and it's anything that can have an impact on the business, financial or otherwise. Even with the SEC, you know, does it move, does it not move, any companies in the US that sell products outside of the US and have clients asking for information from a competitive positioning, on that part of the equation, that needs to be considered as a business. So, it's not just that there's a regulator that's saying you need to do something that you do it. Good and growing businesses are going to move on these things because their clients demand it or their investors are, if they want that capital to grow.

So the regulators are a great complement, I think, as we see as they set the rules based on standards that are being developed. And, you know, an example here in Canada is that we have the IFS's - International Sustainability Standards Board - has put forth some global standards for disclosure. Here in Canada, we have our own Canadian Sustainability Standards Board that is reviewing those global standards and will determine if Canada should adopt those international ones or whether we should adjust them for our own economy. They have indicated that they're about to come back to the market shortly with their recommendations, and once they've done so, we anticipate that the Canadian Securities Administrators will then move and direct public companies on what they need to disclose and what framework to use.

So we're moving to a place where we're going to have the clarity of what the framework is on what you need to report as a public company. But again, public companies or private companies don't need to wait for the regulator. They can voluntarily disclose this information. The standards are there. They've been in the market. We see a lot of demand for organizations from, you know, from organizations to help them prepare. And, you know, maybe there's a tweak here and there, but generally, the consensus is there.

And I think that's one of the biggest things is regulators are a piece of the puzzle, but if you want to compete today, you can't wait for regulators. And so even if the SEC is a stop and go, at the end of the day, we are already seeing change.

We do a study of the disclosures of the TSX once a year, and we're already seeing that companies are moving to disclose this type of information with or without, you know, a regulator saying that they have to do it. So if you want to lead, you're not going to wait for the regulator. You're actually going to try to get in front of the regulator.

Well, one additional regulation that is coming onto our radar, I think, at the beginning of the year for Europe, and then we're starting to see it Canada, and then probably in US soon, is that around greenwashing. And I'm very curious, when you go back to your investor community, and I know it's a different ball game than myself as an individual investor, trying to sift through the different funds and see what is truly, real tangible progress for a company versus kind of just marketing language: how do you help guide your investors to really see what is true progress for a company versus what might just be kind of that marketing language?

Yeah, so I think, to your point, as an individual, if we're talking, you know, in investors as individual, it's very complicated to, to be very honest. I would say that perhaps the pendulum went too far with regards to claims on products, but we've seen, in my view, a great correction on that already. So we've had a pushback, you know, some conversations in the US in particular around this. It was very strong. We've seen a lot of organizations who sell mutual funds, etc., really review and even step back some of their claims. We've seen the same thing in Europe, and here in Canada, we have a recent bill from the federal government called Bill C-59, and you know, I would say that that bill - it's being called the greenwashing bill here in Canada - and there's all sorts of efforts around that. It's now in law.

It has caused all organizations, so whether they're investment management firms or whether they are a bank or whether they are a manufacturer, they're all at this point, you know, their legal professionals and their professionals within the organizations have gone through everything with a very concerning eye to ensure that what is being made public to the market is viable, and that they can stand behind any claims that are being made. So I think that's, you know, that's very significant. But one of the things for an individual is that often your investment advisors are not comfortable with these types of products, and they don't know the nuances, and I think this is one of the greatest opportunities in our marketplace right now is to help investment advisors learn and to serve individuals, because there is something called know your client. Investment advisers are supposed to ask you these types of questions, but there's a very high level of discomfort because they themselves have not had or received the type of education. 

But there are great organizations out there, and, I will be careful, but I was on the board of this one, so by am intimately aware, but something like the Responsible Investment Association of Canada, they have a place on their website where they do a really good job of categorizing different funds according to industry names, and so you can check that out if you're looking for that type of tool.

And otherwise, I would say, it's time to ask your advisors, and if your advisor pushes you back a little bit, push again. Because there is a multitude of products in the marketplace, although what you might expect a fund to be may not be what it is, so it's really important to read the fine lines, etc. such that you are investing with your values or with what it is that you're desiring to have in your portfolio. So, your investment advisor is really where you need to push a little bit at this point.

I love that you mentioned the pendulum swaying one way and then coming back. It certainly feels like the topic of ESG has been a little bit polarized in the past year or two and then certainly politicized, and recent elections south of the border, we have an election coming up in Canada, I'm sure it's going to be coming up. How do you maybe approach the topic of the environment when you're talking to your customers, and maybe more concretely in terms of an action? How have you managed to reach across the aisle and show both sides, for lack of a better term, that this is a common problem that we can all work towards, and that there are probably solutions that benefit everybody in that?

Yeah, so maybe I'll address that. So I would say, first and foremost, that this polarizing and politicizing of ESG specifically is, is very specific to the US. It is not so much here in Canada or in Europe. To back that up, so twice a year we go out and we speak to the institutional investor community in Canada. We do it in June and December. So in June, as many people are asking the same question as you, we've been asked consistently, is ESG dead? And I thought, well, I can answer that question, but really, what I need to do is go ask the professional investors who run pension plans and mutual funds, etc.

So I did. We had 37 institutional investors who participated, and 81% of them gave me a very emphatical, “no, ESG is not dead, but it's no longer enough”. So that's what's really interesting. And, and maybe, you know, one of the proof points to share with you is I had a portfolio manager who actually told me, even if someone told me “I can't do ESG” or look at the integration of these topics into my investment approach, the reality is I have a duty to take into my purview the best information and all the information I can to get the best performance for my clients. That's that professional's fiduciary duty. So you can't risk and the risk related to ESG issues. As we get financial analysts and we get organizations disclosing as a professional, they have a duty to integrate them into their investment process, or actually they're not meeting their duty to you.

So, no, I'm actually not very worried. These issues will remain. We will get some ups and downs, and yes, the US election, you know, unpredictable is probably the word to use. It may cause volatility in the marketplace overall, but the issues will remain. They're large systemic issues that these large investors can't actually invest away from. So, when we think about something like climate change or income inequality from a societal standpoint, these issues are so big that if I'm a pension plan and I invest, you know, I invest around the globe, I can't actually divest away from climate change. I have to invest through that topic.

And so that's what's happening, and we will end up with these bubbles, and we will end up with something circulating, and yes, there is some unpredictability over the next four years, but there are enough regulations that have already moved forward. There is enough happening, and I would say there are enough investors in the marketplace that have a fiduciary duty recognize that there is information being made available to them and that they have a duty to look at that information. What they do with it after, so I think we're actually pretty mainstream on the integration of these ESG topics into investment management.

That's reassuring. I do want to switch gears a little bit because we do have a lot of our listeners who are either entrepreneurs or business leaders, and some of them are listening and thinking, “okay, this is exactly what I need. I would like to approach a company like Millani”. What would be their first step to kind of get all their material together before even reaching out? Is it pulling together all this sustainability material, or what does that look like before they even reach out?

Actually, you know, I wouldn't set that expectation. To me, it's really understanding what you need and what your desired outcomes are. So, what are our drivers? What is it we're hoping to achieve? I think it's our role, and, you know, we take a very client-centric approach to our business, and it's our role to come to the table and ask questions and to really understand our client and then work with them afterward to say, okay, this is what we need.

So maybe it comes back to my market, where it's know your clients, as I mentioned early, you know, you have that obligation. So, I would just say don't feel like you have to do all this work before. We often have clients who call us and go, we want to get to X, but we're at A, and we really don't even know how to get to B. And, you know, and so that's, you know, that's our role in all of this is really to hold the hands of organizations and go, okay, you don't have to worry about getting X - let's just try to help you get from A to B to C, and then once you've got that, you can probably do DFG by yourselves, and then you might need us again at some other point along that path.

It's about helping organizations become independent and be able to do, you know, a lot of this work by themselves, and as they grow, they're going to need other support, etc. But yeah, we pride ourselves in really trying to help the organization integrate it into their own businesses. 

That probably feels a lot less daunting if you're listening! Another profile that we do have of listeners are younger profiles, just starting in their career, super interested in sustainability, and they listen in to try and hear a little bit more about what different options are available to them. If we do have listeners who are thinking, I maybe want to go work for a company like Millani , are there specific backgrounds that you would recommend, whether it is educational or maybe just getting that couple of first couple of years in a company? What does that background look like when you're trying to hire and build your own respective team?

One of the biggest things we have come to is we like to look for people who have an MBA. Someone who's had a couple of years of experience, have gone to do their MBA, and then and that's really where we found the sweet spot because we're looking for individuals who can understand business.

The other is we're often looking for individuals who have some experience in financial markets, although that's not necessary, but it's an added because what's in the textbook isn't actually what gets lived in financial markets or in business. And that's why, you know, for us now we do, you know, take in a couple of junior people here and there and have them grow with us.

The other thing I would say in this, and it's really it might be a little contradictory to what you might think: in the past we've seen a lot of young people just into the traditional financial analyst career. I would highly encourage young people today or anyone that's listening to this and thinking about career changes as well: climate change is not going away and climate accounting, the background and the backbone of climate change and the metrics and the data and the measurements, etc. The accounting field is changing enormously. With the changes in regulations that we spoke about earlier, there's going to be a significant need for talent in being able to audit, in being able to understand and develop these strategies. So as much as, you know, financial analyst remains one of those careers, it should you should be very seriously thinking both of those, they go hand in and today and they will go hand in and in the future.

This is not going away from the investment community, so it's probably one way that young people can come in and add value to an organization pretty quickly because there is a bit of a gap in, you know, individuals who tend to be in the latter part in their careers with knowledge around climate change, especially deep technical knowledge. So a couple of thoughts there. 

Those are great tips for those just starting out and actually to flip it back onto you, and when you were younger, was there a specific moment where you realized that you wanted to dedicate at least part of your career to sustainability? Was it gradual or was it really a moment in time where you thought, okay, this is absolutely where I want to go?

Well, no, it wasn't quite that simple, but I did have a light bulb moment. I had left the markets just before the financial crisis in 2008, and I was thinking I was done and, recognized that I wasn't quite sure where I wanted to go next. But I realized how much I love business, so I couldn't step away from business. And I did something that made me—I had a coach at the time, and he encouraged me to do something that would make me very uncomfortable. So I did: I went to London, England, to the Ethical Corps Responsible Business Summit, and I thought, okay, after being on a trading desk at one of Canada's—running the equity side of a trading desk—I was like, this could not be any more uncomfortable for me. However, I had a light bulb moment at that at the conference, and it was shortly, you know, into the first day or so, there was this panel and it had The Economist and Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, and, and they were all talking about this new investment model, and I went into a couple of the breakouts, and I had these corporations talking about how they were changing something and how their backlog was increasing and how this client demand was growing. And I was like, these are the things I talked about when I was sitting at a trading desk about what makes a good business. So that was great, and really was my moment.

Now I will say when I came back to North America, it took a little time before people believed me and felt that it, you know, that I was on the right track. And even for myself, I think I would say, I was working in this direction with the investors, and I spent a year at DOE, and it was really when that year at DOE where working with the businesses, that's where I was like, no, everything I see and I have seen, I'm seeing it in action within these organizations today. And that was one of those the confirming moments, and you know, it's 16 years later.

And if you could go back to and visit yourself at that conference and knowing everything you know now about the sustainability space and all of the work you've done, is there any advice that you would give to that version of yourself?

Yeah, it's something I say to my colleagues all the time: when there's transition, when there's something changing, just like let yourself get uncomfortable. It's probably the hardest thing to do, however, you just have to do it. You have to go put yourself in places where you're a little bit uncomfortable and, you know, we're in a major transition right now. There are great opportunities if you're an entrepreneur to develop new products, to get the skill sets for tomorrow to it. 

And we see these conversations about productivity, about AI, you know, these are at climate change incoming. Like we are in a major transition, and in transition is where there are opportunities. And so if you're, you know, if you're someone who is entrepreneurial—and to be quite frank, I never thought I was, this was not, I never set out to be an entrepreneur—but no one would listen. And when no one will listen, that's obviously where you are in the best opportunity to be first to a market.

And so, I would just say to anyone, to myself back then, get comfortable with being uncomfortable and look for the opportunities because if there's something you see that feels like there should be service and no one's doing it yet, go for it.

And leaning into that discomfort: certainly as an entrepreneur and you manage a team, you drive a company, it can sometimes feel heavy. And then when you add a layer of sustainability and trying to move ESG forward, it can, it can be hard sometimes. Have you found any tools for yourself over the years just to help refuel yourself so that you can come back and recommit to that work that you really believe in?

Time is the hardest part: finding sufficient time, but I am fueled by what I do. I know I could go and work in other organizations, but I choose not to, and I choose not to because I have the leeway to work with the clients I want to work with. I have the leeway to create impact. Our team is very driven by creating impact and we, you know, for us, it's through capital markets, it's through business, we know that's what we're looking for.

So, what are the tools? I mean, I'm far from perfect in this, but I do, you know, I like to be in nature. I have a beautiful family that I love to spend time with. I am someone who's very curious. I'm someone who likes to be disagreed with, and it's part of our culture here that it's perfectly fine to disagree with me. And, I think with that, it allows me to stay open. And the more open I am, the more curious I am, then the better I am as a mom, as a professional, and as someone creating impact. So, you know, it takes that, you know, it takes patience in what we do, it takes diplomacy in what we do. But I can't say I find it hard. I actually, you know, I see the change. 

I was previously called a puzzle maker in my previous careers, that I'm someone that can pick—I pick the pieces and then I see a vision and, and I'm able to drive with this. And I think that's what Millani is. 16 years ago. I had pulled together the pieces and thought, "Geez, there's something here no one's doing it." I just, I love what I do. This is not a job. This is my life’s work, and I'm incredibly honored to be able to work with the clients that we work with and to serve them.

You feel that energy talking to you. You feel it even admittedly when checking out Millani on LinkedIn. I'm constantly fueled by the content, whether there's that report you mentioned that you do every year. So, it's so informative. We do like to ask the same question at the end of every episode. What do you think it will take for businesses and leaders to be resilient going forward?

Well, I think I, I mentioned one: I think we need to be open-minded. There is a lot of change going on right now. And I think you need to have a strategy for your individual self and or for your business. And that's really as we think of— I know I keep coming back to climate change—but you know, climate change is here already. We're just starting to feel the implications on policies and all of these other elements surrounding not just the physical impacts, right? So, you know, you need to stop and think, "What is my strategy on this? How am I going to manage my business? Do I need to pivot? Do I need to do something?" We also need to think about AI, you know, artificial intelligence. It too is here as is income inequality. It's dividing society.

So these are some of the issues that I think leaders really need to be considering, and if you're not, then you are not going to be resilient in the next 10 years. So, really having a strategy on how you're going to manage these types of issues is key. And then you need to have the courage to move on that strategy as well. That would probably be my biggest thing is we are on the cusp of a very significant shift in markets, in clients, in demand, etc., and you need to be well-prepared for that transition.

Thank you so much. This has been amazing. I really appreciate you sharing all of this, and it was worth it for our listeners who've been writing for a few months asking for somebody in your space. So thank you so much!

Well, thank you, Lauren. It's been a real pleasure to have this opportunity to chat with you and your listeners.