Parker Gals | How I Became a Chief of Staff (w/ Lena Diasti, Ariel Investments)

0:00Week in my life, every week is very, very different. We could be traveling to New York for board meetings, day trips to see potential clients. It's really one of those jobs also where it's what you make of it. And so taking on more and more has been kind of the piece of the role that I've enjoyed the most. And that has expanded what the diversity of my week kind of looks like.

0:37Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Parker Gals. I'm Liz Hsu, your host. Today, I'm joined by Lina Deoste, the Chief of Staff to John Rogers, the Chairman and Co-CEO of Ariel Investments. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. So, Lina, if you could go ahead and just introduce yourself, your role at your current firm, and tell us a little bit about what Ariel Investments does. That'd be awesome. Yeah, I've been at Ariel for over two and a half years now. I started in January of 2024 and I started off as a special assistant and him being John Rogers, who is our chairman and co-CEO and founder of Ariel Investments 43 years ago.

1:18And I'm now his chief of staff. And so that has happened this past year, which has been really exciting. And it was a very organic way that it happened When I started at the firm, I wasn't sure which route I was going to go, but I really enjoyed working with John. And so I've been there for over two and a half years. Awesome. And how did you end up at Ariel Investments? So I ended up at Ariel through a very odd and interesting path. I was at J.P. Morgan in the investment bank, and that was my return offer leaving from college. And when I was at the role, I had done two summer internships there, and I really liked the people.

1:56And that was kind of the reason why I accepted the offer to come back. But I think I knew long term this wasn't going to be for me. And so a lot of people told me to do the two years and then kind of pivot. So very traditional. I'm sure you've heard the exact same thing before. But for me, I was like, let's just see what's out there. So I reached back out to the career advancement office at UChicago after I graduated. And I just said, hey, these are my interests. I want to do still in the investing world. I want to understand it. I'm not an expert yet. And I still want to do something that I get to work closely with senior leadership, something that has values that align with mine or ones that, you know, are atypical maybe for the finance world.

2:37And so they really were thinking that I would go to a foundation or maybe an endowment of some sort, university. And so they connected me to Ariel Investments, who has a lot of these kind of connections through John Rogers and the Rogers Scholars Program, which is at UChicago, that gives students these opportunities to go to these foundations and endowments. they ended up getting my resume and saying, actually, we're not going to pass your resume along. We'd like to consider you for the special assistant job for John. Oh, wow. Which I was at first, oh no, my resume isn't going to be passed along, but it ended up working out even better than kind of the initial outcome.

3:12Wow. Well, firstly, I didn't even know that career advancement will help you after you leave. Five years after. Five years after. Five years after. So I'm a big I'm a proponent of like everyone reach out. Shout out to Nancy Shaler from UChicago Creative Mansfield. Shout out Nancy. Oh my gosh. Okay, that's awesome. So you were originally thinking that you would try out banking and what was your kind of goal in doing that right out of college? And where was your head at at the time you were leaving? What were you not liking about the role and what were you looking for in your next role? I like to say that I started J.P.

3:48Morgan my sophomore year of college because that's when I had my first internship where did you intern so I interned it was a hybrid between sales and trading in the investment bank okay and it was this program called advancing black and brown pathways and that for me was kind of my in to the bank and from there I kind of just kept getting return offers which I was really lucky to had outstanding mentors and for me it was almost like you know I was so motivated by the people and I was so motivated by not knowing kind of what everything was and there was so much to learn that I was like let me just dive deeply into this if people are willing to invest in me.

4:26Right so you interned in kind of the sales and trading group your second year. Third year you was were you in the same group or did you do IB coverage at that point? I did IB coverage and I was in tech coverage. Gotcha and in New York right? In New York yeah I was in New York the whole time. So you're from Florida. How did you end up deciding to leave New York and come back to Chicago for your next role? Or was it mostly just for the role? It was for the role. So I didn't expect to come back to Chicago. My partner, who at the time was just my boyfriend, was living here. And so he was going to be in medical school for several years.

5:05I was going to be in New York. We were just going to do long distance. But then this role came to come work at Aerial Investments. and I just got a lot of great feedback from people about the firm and who John was and that was kind of all I needed to know that again like the unknown and what potential could be has always been a really big driving force for me of why I lean in and jump into something and so the job and John were the reasons why I came to Ariel. Makes sense well Chicago is definitely happy to have you back I'm sure. So I'm gonna jump into our indication of interest section to just help the viewers at home get to know get to know Lena a little bit more on that personal level.

5:47So the first question for you is what is your go-to comfort show? So I have two. My go-to now I feel like is Top Chef. My fiance and I watch it religiously and it's our go-to show. We do not cook like Top Chef. Who's going to say? Is that trickling into your daily life or no? I think my fiance would love if I learned how to hold a knife and chop correctly, but otherwise I feel like we get inspiration in terms of dishes. But technical skills, definitely not. But if I'm by myself, I'm watching Gilmore Girls and I have been since I was in elementary school. I think you're the fourth person on this show now to say Gilmore Girls there's a really high correlation between I don't know women in finance and Gilmore Girls why really I I literally had Gilmore Girls on my resume like when I applied as like the blasting and interest where it's like yes because I had just discovered Gilmore Girls and I think it was on Netflix that I was part of the like second second wave resurgence Gilmore girl audience and I was like I don't know why but this resonates with me so deeply that I was like I'm gonna put that on my resume and Cass the other co-host I think we talk about this in our debut episode like she is also diehard Gilmore Girls fan and no she was like there's something here oh my god when she saw that on my resume okay so this is huge this is huge um I love so if you like Gilmore Girls, you will end up in finance is what I'm hearing.

7:28Yes. Okay. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. It's also like one of those things where it's like Gilmore Girls stay together, right? And so, you know, you help each other out. I think it's because Lorelai is such like a strong female working boss girl lady. Yeah. I don't know. There's probably something there. And it's kind of like Rory is really hard on herself, pushes herself, but also has to just experience life which I also feel like the finance girls are always trying to push themselves the expectation and like Rory's dealing with that there's a lot of there's yes there's a lot and and it's it's just fun and it's just good it's just good writing it's just good like I want to live in the little town like I know yeah that's my that's my like alternative life okay well so important question who is the best Rory boyfriend um I know this is this is like still high school but I'm going to always kind of say it's Dean.

8:23Like it's always going to be Dean. It's Dean. Hot take. It's a really hot take. Okay. Okay. Like Dean, if we could just remember the first few seasons. Yeah. I think the writers kind of did him dirty at the end there. I think they did him really dirty. They needed him to leave. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Well, anyways, second question. What is something you can cook without looking at a recipe? This weekend, I just made dinner for my friends and I was kind of like Mediterranean spread I'm Egyptian so but I think probably like a really good like hummus like a you know chickpea dip hummus like I can do that in my sleep and I think that it's better than any like restaurant okay that you go to that's a great that's a great dish yeah it's an easy dip party pleaser as well yeah so that one I could definitely make in my sleep thanks to my grandma but that's do you have her specific recipe or is it just kind of a vibe that trickles down.

9:19Recipe for her is like a little this, a little that. So it's like a lot of grandma style. Yeah, grandma style. But she has like little tricks that are just, they make the difference. What's the tip for perfect hummus? The one that I think people miss out the most is when you, people just blend the chickpeas right out of the can, or they try to soak them and then they blend them for like 24 hours. Just buy the canned chickpeas. it's fine but then you rinse out that water that it's in and then you boil it in a sauce pan with like an inch above the chickpeas and then you put about like half a table half a teaspoon rather of like baking soda and you let that simmer and cook and helps break it down get really soft run it over cold water then you blend it and it will be really smooth tahini olive oil garlic onion whatever else like flavor you want but you have to get the chickpeas right or else the whole thing is right chunky and no one likes junky helmets no I mean I don't think so no no I don't think so you know so that's a great tip I will try that thanks and the third question is what does your perfect Saturday look like I'm waking up pretty early I'm waking up probably like 5 30 5 45 and I went to bed early to the night before the good morning will be start to the great night right and that means you're going to bed at like bars yeah yeah like you know you have fun you're out with dinner you have friends but then you're in bed by like 10 30.

10:51okay yeah yeah that's my that's my ideal night it's like that's why I don't have good mornings ever yeah yeah it's like very condescending like I still love to like have dinner with a friend go out but like let's start it let's start it you know right after work if we can right right um so wake up early do like a morning fun and get like a matcha afterwards see some friends and maybe go on a long bike ride too like very active and then by this time it's like probably only like noon so you can have like a nice lunch do nice stroll later call some family and maybe yoga in the evening like as much movement as possible and then like someone else cooks like if my fiance cooks like i don't want to have to cook after that yeah yeah and if he cooks and like that's my deal night and then get to go to bed early okay sensing a theme yeah okay yeah I'm missing all right so jumping into kind of the career meet section of the interview I'd love to hear what drew you in the beginning to finance and investing.

12:02I didn't grow up around families who talked about the stock market or spoke about finance or were in investment banking, like those terms I didn't know until I got to college. And everyone was kind of fighting for these jobs. And they told me this was a thing to do. And so it made me really curious. And my first year of college is when COVID happened. And so we were kind of moved off campus right didn't really have much of a like community and so I figured let's use second year of college to just figure out things that I don't know and so I decided to do all of these kind of intro entry programs that you're probably familiar with like with all these banks did it with hedge funds I did it with VC firms and they were like one month to even one week programs and they just allowed me to really explore what finance was and all the different kind of elements and sides you could be on whether it be like diligent side or if you're on sales and trading or hedge fund which was interesting but i realized maybe not my personality and so that was kind of my in to finance but i got lucky where i kind of got into a few of these early insight programs or saw your sophomore going to junior year programs and i ended up picking the one at jp morgan and from there it was a small core cohort of people and again it was right after COVID.

13:23And so you're like first summer back with people and they let us come to New York and we stayed in their housing and we just kind of got this really immersive experience to learn what finance was. And it was really just a lot of like fireside chats with senior leaders. We did some work, they did some trainings with us, but I think that that was like scratching this itch for me of figuring out something I didn't know. And that was kind of my, my reason to, to dive in fully into it. Totally. How did you learn about those programs? Were you specifically looking for finance programs? Like how did you end up in there?

13:59I just searched honestly online early insights college programs. Yeah. And then I would search the company names. And so I would go down and look at like best companies to work for. Like this is like really how it started. Yeah. And I would like see like early insight programs because I knew that it was competitive to get kind of like like a full internship. Yeah. And so I just went down. I mean, I started like I did entertainment. I told you I'm from Florida. So like I was like Disney early inside programs and like they have a finance wing. Right. And they have media and they have all these different these different sides.

14:30And so I was just trying to see where they would let me come in and learn. Yeah. Was the biggest thing and not really having any like ego around. I needed this title or I needed this type of experience with the status of bank or the size of company and so that's really how I did it was just a lot of google searching of companies that did a very a very proactive approach yeah and yeah it seems like you were also pretty pre-professionally minded when you were in college as well is that when you came into u chicago was that something that was a priority for you and when you were evaluating schools evaluating future opportunities like how do you kind of think about that well I came to Chicago actually because of how how much freedom there was in the academic curriculum even though people say that there's the core which is obviously structured in the classes you have to take I was a fundamentals major so I got to create my whole major so I studied the intersection between data science and human rights yeah and so I actually think that my major the things I did outside of college like I also had like a podcast I you know taught writing creative writing at a at the cook county jail um i did things at the institute of politics all the things where i was passionate about but it wasn't like for a career my you know my major was not for a career and so i felt like the internships and the pre-professional programs that i did helped make me a little bit more structured and it was like my sensibility side of i'm going to study wherever whatever i want i'm going to become really interested and focused and become an expert in that.

16:03But I'm not going to study. I decided it wasn't important to study something that would ultimately be directly aligned with my job because I would have work experiences that would be just as valuable. So that was kind of my decision. Yeah, yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. Definitely UChicago is a good place to kind of explore. It sounds like you took full advantage of that, which is awesome. Maybe too much. Can't ever be too much. um okay so my second question for you here is more about people and it doesn't have to be someone in like a professional setting but who in your career so far has shaped you the most and how so I feel like the gut answer that I could easily say is John um sure right that's a big one John is probably not only one of the biggest influences on my life, but also someone who is constantly doing the work and is like an example of all of his values.

17:04And so he's someone who for 43 years, he started this company, he's had a vision, and he's stuck with it. And I think so often today, our generation struggles to have this consistency of like being at one place, or like the value of like creating something and where it can go if you're able to be sustainable with it and disciplined with the excellence and the practice and kind of like what you're doing especially with like style of investing doing the same style of investing for 43 years and so I think that piece of it is pretty inspiring as someone who's young and everyone says look here look there do something new after two years you need to go it challenges that and then he also I think has made the experience and the job that I have today, what it is.

17:50You know, a chief of staff job can be a lot of different things at a lot of different firms. And for me, the opportunity has been, you know, I like to say most things that are on his calendar are, you know, opportunities that I can sit in, I can join. He asked for my opinion. And that's been great because I get exposure, I get to meet people, but also it kind of raises the bar of, okay, what is my perspective on this? Have I, you know have I thought about this critically am I not just sitting and taking notes but am I actually being proactive about what my contribution is and how am I making you know John's life easier and better but then also how am I elevating the firm and so it creates a lot of ownership and I don't think every c-suite leader will be that democratic about the things that they'll allow you to join and do and so he's kind of changed that perspective for me a lot of like my own potential.

18:43Yeah. So, Lena, what does a chief of staff do and what could you tell us a little bit about what a week in your life looks like? Yeah. So, again, like chief of staff roles at any place, like very different. But my role is kind of to support him, do the best job that he can do as chairman, co-CEO, and then also a portfolio manager on many of our strategies. And so a day, a week in my life every week is very, very different. We could be traveling to New York for board meetings. You know, we could be traveling to, we were just in St. Louis for like day trips to see potential clients, other foundation leaders, CEOs, et cetera.

19:24But, you know, my role is to prepare him. So I'm doing kind of all the background research on who we're meeting with, what the, you know, what the purpose of that is and kind of framing for him with our sales team, what he needs to know and what's mission critical. And then I'm working with like the research team and some colleagues on that side to make sure that he knows the talking points, the stocks that we're talking about, the contributors, attractors from those quarters, and just really preparing him so he knows what to focus on for those meetings. And then John does a lot of speaking events.

19:56So going to those with him, making sure that those are planned out, thinking about which rooms John should be in, and then helping frame and kind of create those opportunities as well. So every week is very different, but happy to talk more about it. But I think that it's really one of those jobs also where it's what you make of it. And so taking on more and more has been kind of the piece of the role that I've enjoyed the most and has expanded what the diversity of my week kind of looks like. What about the chief of staff role kind of surprised you? And also coming from banking, how different was it?

20:34And what have you found to be very applicable versus not? I think coming from the investment banking kind of side of it and being really strictly finance is that when you're an analyst in investment banking role, it's really just like you and your computer and like the other analysts and like the associates are like the most senior people you usually interact with, maybe other VPs and executive directors, rarely you're managing directors on the occasion, where coming to this chief of staff role, right? Like I'm interacting with John every single day, multiple times a day, you're on the front lines, right?

21:07And so you have to kind of be prepared. You have to know who people are. You have to help John remember who people are and kind of be a really good support system for him. When he has things that he wants to do, who'll rattle them off to you and I'm like making sure balls don't drop that's a huge part of my job and I think the biggest piece is this is really this is a huge piece of my role is like a people's job right there's a lot of people who need to get in touch with John both internally and externally from the firm and so my job is to make sure that John is accessible and he has what he needs and other people get what they need from him but without anyone feeling overwhelmed or you know we're triple booked anything like that and so the people role of it and making sure that you know everyone's feeling good how's everyone doing making sure people know me that they can approach me when things are maybe not great or not right but this again like a low ego job you have to be willing to kind of do anything and so yeah it's been it's been kind of everything catch-all job Yeah.

22:10And what are the kind of common chief of staff next roles? Yeah. Well, the next roles, it's really open, which is I think why I was so drawn to the role. I know this one woman, she was a chief of staff and she moved into like chief strategy officer at a company or chief operations officer. If they're more senior than I am, I wouldn't jump to something like that. but I think that that type of role where you're able to take a step back see the whole picture of what's happening and kind of work things really well and like a big group is kind of the art of being a chief of staff to a degree and right now I'm chief of staff just to one person who he does a lot but just to one person and so I think like long term how do you actually build that out and do it at a larger scale I think long term for chief of staff but for this role I think people typically stay as chief of staff I think for like probably like more no like no less than two to three years because I think it takes a long time to get to know your principal but I know people who this is like their career choice um but I think for me I think there's a lot of different things that you could do with it that interest me but again just trying to be excellent at this now and then figuring out what makes sense in the longer term future yeah that makes sense So I think we might have touched on this at the beginning, but I also want to double click a little bit more into John, Aerial Investments, obviously very long standing company at this point.

23:42I think he started it when he was 24 years old or something like that. Yeah. And so maybe he had a soft spot for, you know, rising 24 year olds. But can you tell us a little bit more about Ariel Investments, what you guys what you guys do, some of your well-known investments and what would people at home kind of need to know about Ariel Investments and about John Rogers in order to really appreciate, you know, the weight of like you're his chief of staff and you're his right hand right hand man. Yeah. So we are value investors at Aerial Investments. So kind of across the scope, you'll see value is what we look for across all of our different products and strategies.

24:18So what we started with is our small, mid and smid, which is that blend cap strategies in terms of equity markets that we work with. And then we also have international and global, which is newer additions, but longstanding teams that have come on to our firm as well. and then we have our aerial alternative side which is our private equity arm and there that team is based in new york and then we have our project level team which is our women's sports investment fund and so that one is currently raising and it's continually raising and uh melody hobson and jason wright are the two kind of leaders in that group right now who are uh making sure that we um meet our raises on all those things and so it's a diverse kind of group and the things that we're doing but they all kind of align in terms of we're looking for value where people aren't seeing it and so small cap value stocks value stocks in general are usually these like neglected john like to say orphan stocks that people don't do much research on they are fairly cheap people there may be household brands one of them like like smuckers is one of our companies that are that are in our um portfolio okay and that's a very well-known company and you wouldn't think that what do you mean how is the value stock but right right these are like these neglected brands that are been here for a really long time yeah so john is obviously a very well known figure here in chicago i heard somewhere that he has like played basketball with like barack obama and like michael jordan and all this stuff how has being in these kind of circles influenced how you view your career and what you could potentially do in in the future I think John is a great example of if you help your teammates, they will show up for you in the future.

26:09And so a lot of John's experiences he speaks about are from really being a good teammate. um and so you know he was supportive of president obama's you know senate campaigns to to him then also running for president and from there he's been able to like build this relationship and so uh being at home court at the obama presidential center when they were you know shooting the first baskets when that had opened up like that's an incredible experience it's like decades of relationships that he's also had with you know craig robinson which is michelle obama's brother who they went to Princeton together.

26:44And so it's a great example of how much relationships matter and really kind of never forgetting that, right? Like these are people you go to college with and you're still in touch with. People from high school, he, you know, our vice chairman, Charlie Bobrinsko, he is someone who went to high school with John. And, you know, he's brilliant in his own right. And so I think that these are kind of these long-term relationships that keep showing up. And you could say that for a lot of different examples and industries. So I think it's really industry agnostic, but that's been a big thing. It is one of those things that people always tell you.

27:22They're like, oh, you never know. Like the people that you worked at JP Morgan with like many decades into the future are gonna be like running private equity firms and doing this and that. And I feel like when you're in our current position as like 20 something year olds, it's kind of hard to imagine that where it's like, well, no, we're all just like here in the trenches. is like you know working on excel together yeah exactly but i think that's a that's a totally great point of like you just when when you see that happen and it does happen like it's just a great reminder for you know like you said stay humble be a great teammate and do what you say you're gonna do so those are great yeah so moving along what is something that you have figured out recently that you wish someone had just told you earlier it's like one of these things where did the lesson teach it like did you need the lesson or you know would do you wish you just kind of right yeah um i think that i think i wish that i knew that things come in good time um which is a lesson i think i'm still learning but that lesson is right you want a promotion or you want this next step it will come when you've already proven your stripes and i think that that's something that this patient's theme coming back again of like things come up to you and come to your plate when you're ready for it but you also have to kind of prove yourself and so something that someone told me at the firm once was like you can be excellent go be excellent right but like you can't do that if you think that you deserve the world but you haven't proven it yet right and so i think like kind of waiting for things to come to you but then also being ready when yes it comes that you're sprinting and you're running for dear life to make sure that you prove to everyone that like you were the right choice and like this was the right decision yes and so i think that's one kind of uh hoo-wah type of thing where i i wish i knew um and then another thing i wish i was better i think any like technical like when you can be faster and excel powerpoint those things i wish that that was like like printed in my fingers and i could just do things quickly i think that would be a skill that would have helped me in my investment banking days so that's like more of a technical sure yeah yeah that's a it's a great one i mean you you can't under sell how much we live in excel powerpoint exactly investment banking analysts so exactly Yeah, definitely put in those hours.

30:00What are you most interested in or excited about right now in your industry?

30:08I think I'm really excited about, you know, there's a lot of talks right now with where small cap value is going to go. And specifically thinking about how the market, everyone's like living and breathing on the stock market every single day. but I think that it's a kind of one of these testaments where if you stay true to your strategies and your beliefs that there's kind of this light at the end of the tunnel um and I think that with small cap right now there's a lot of potential and opportunity and so it's kind of a really interesting time to be working at aerial where we are sticking to our guns we're sticking to the strategies that we've done for 43 years a lot of the teammates have been there for over 20 years it's crazy and so you know 15 20 plus 25 years and so for me seeing them say it's gonna be fine right like I'm like you know watching Bloomberg News and people are like worried about every headline and it's a pretty like calm office like there's not there's not like a headline that comes up and people are up in arms about and so I think that seeing that type of like steady consistent work from our team makes me really like interested and excited of like what you know a few years from now will look like in terms of kind of like the markets and how people will be talking about small cap versus this like large cap bubble that we're seeing so i'm curious to see it and i think it's an interesting time in our 20s to live through it where we have some we have some things at stake right but we're still like very slow in terms of like building up our portfolios and things like that so i feel like we have less we have less skin in the game yes but we have kind of this opportunity to like really see how yeah these kind of big kind of like high we have very high visibility into you know high stakes choices but actually like we ourselves are insulated from it and that we're just the doers kind of at this point um so no i i'm totally in the same boat with you there I think um like Parker Gale invests in largely software and there's also this kind of vibe of like there's a lot of sass apocalypse talk and all this stuff and kind of very very simplistic um hand wavy write-offs of things where it's kind of like oh well don't touch that with a 10-foot pole yeah but if you have if if to kind of observe like my bosses and who have been through this as well multiple cycles and kind of be like no like we've actually seen this before and this is gonna we think this is gonna play out differently and I think like from our seats as the juniors in the firms to kind of um to kind of see people double down into their bets and be like well we don't want to blindly do that but like we have a reason for why we still believe and we have our own capabilities and expertise and experience that enables us to make these double down bets that are not just like being stubborn, right?

33:06It's like they're thought through and there's a rationale and there's a reason for it. So it's pretty special to see someone have the type of conviction that I think you're talking about and like the leaders that I work with have. Yeah, totally. And last question in this section for you, what is a commonly held belief in your industry that you don't agree with? I mean, I think it goes back to that. The people and like the relationship business is not as important as like if you worked in like another industry. I think that working in finance, you kind of realize that there's always there's still clients and you're still a seller, right?

33:41Like all of these dynamics are still at play. 100%. And so I think that those like soft skills are so important and so critical. And I mean, I have not met an econ student who had to do like a soft skills class. So I think that that for me is like something I always pound home. We have interns and every time I like kind of connect with them, I always tell them like, you know, you're, if you're feeling nervous about presenting something or you're like nervous about meeting someone, like that's totally fine. Be nervous, but like keep this a little bit internally because I want to make sure that I can hear what you say with some confidence, right?

34:21I want to judge the content of what you're saying and what you're selling or whatever you're doing and trying to present to me not that like you're not getting words out or I'm not hearing you correctly right like I think that like this like confidence that like let your let the onus of your work kind of show and then go from there and I think that the soft skills of like knowing how to read body language knowing how to work with people and having the confidence to just kind of show up is something that's kind of sometimes lost in finance, especially I want like for women and making sure that those are sometimes like our secret weapons and something that you can be really great at while also being amazing at the technicals and being someone that they want the junior on the deal.

35:04But if you're like the great associate to work with as well and like you're clear and you're confident, I mean, that's, sometimes I think I'm like, oh, that's why I think I got my return offers at JP because people really like to work with me. They were just impressed with the overall person. They just like, like working with the person. I mean, that's why I came back. Right. And so I really like working with the people. And so I just think with those soft skills, with people skills, those relationship skills are so critical that actually make, make the long-term difference. Yeah. No, I fully agree.

35:33I think like people affiliate finance with, you know, just being crazy good at Excel and it's all about numbers and accounting principles and being down to the, down to the last digit. Yeah. But at the end of the day, like in our business as well, I, from my seat, I can observe, it's like, oh, it's actually like that founder just really likes this partner. And that founder just really likes the CEO that we're going to bring in. And actually, they just want to like hang out. Like, that's why they're, that's why they're picking us. It's not because, you know, we're necessarily the best with the numbers.

36:10Yeah. Maybe we are. Who knows? But right. It's like, that's not actually the thing that makes people sway. their final decision it's a lot of times a lot about well i like lena i just want to i want to do business with lena because i like her exactly and it's it's kind of just as simple as you do business with people that you know and like i mean once you learn how to do excel you learn how to do excel like there's like there's kind of like a cap to that yes yeah so especially now with like ai and everything yeah exactly yeah so so easily replicated for sure yeah so this brings us to our last segment the closing call first question is what is the best book that you've read this year i'm gonna go with two but the first one is start with yourself by am agreed i recommend listening it to as an audiobook and then one that i read last year they have to add is unreasonable hospitality and that one is yes okay outstanding those are my two perfect second what is a job that looks nothing like yours that you think you'd be secretly great at?

37:12I always like to say in investment banking, they used to joke that I dress like an art teacher sometimes. And I really enjoyed that because it was like this creative side. And so I think I would be a great specifically like middle school art teacher. I love that. I think that that's like a really fun time for like the developmental like stage of children. And I think that I love how art teachers dress is. And I think it's definitely like an idea. Do you think you're channeling art teacher today? I think I am. A little bit? I think it's definitely like my like comfort outfit, like something fun, a little different.

37:45Hopefully as I grow older, my wardrobe will be more eclectic and fun to build that vision while still being in finance. Yeah, no, I love that. That definitely makes you stand out in finance if you bring a little pizzazz to the outfit. Last question. What would you tell someone earlier in their career who's sitting exactly where you were, let's say five years ago? I would say just like learn deeply. I think that there's this rush to go to the next step constantly and that there's this right job and that there's the right class to take and that you need this grade. I think once you detach from if you're interested and you're really learning the content of what you're evolving yourself in, there's kind of exponential opportunity from where you can go from there.

38:35And so don't take a prescribed path and learn deeply and do what's interesting to you and follow your interests. And I think that you'll find a lot of success and a little bit more peace in yourself if you do that. Well, thanks so much for coming in today, Lena, and really appreciate the interesting conversation. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I loved all the quick questions. Definitely made me think we were on my feet.

39:04Thank you.