Parker Gals | Why an English Major Is a Secret Weapon in Finance (w/ Kate Nimmo, PSG)

0:00And there's a lot about the English major, truthfully, that I think is very relevant. And especially straight out of school in the investment banking, as we're like synthesizing a ton of information, you're the one in charge of putting together the SIMs, the marketing materials. Exactly. The English major, it almost felt like a secret weapon of like, oh, this is really within my skill set.

0:28Cass: hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the parker gales podcast i'm your host kass zeeble and i am here at parker gale headquarters and just continuing with the theme of the first season. We apparently had an amazing class of boothies that I went to get my MBA with, and I have Kate Nimmo joining me from PSG. How are you doing, Kate? Hi, Cass. Thank you for having me. I'm doing great. How are you? Awesome. And Kate is joining us from Boston. Indeed. Yeah, just down the street from Fenway Park. Okay. Did you, speaking of Fenway Park, did you go see Noah Kahn? I did not but from our office you can hear when there are concerts there like wafting if you're here late enough at night so I have um attended many concerts accidentally just from being outside at the at the right time as they're letting out yeah humble brag Kate is working all hours that's amazing I I used to live very close to Wrigley Field um and we had the same kind of thing.

1:35Cass: Like we just like open, we'd like let all the spiders in Chicago into our place because we were like free concert. Like I want to hear it. That's awesome. So it's good vibes. It's good stuff. Yeah. So before we go into the IOI, I'd love for our listeners to get to know your background a little bit. So let's get into that. Yeah, absolutely. So I was born in New York, but my family moved to the Boston area when I was five. So grew up largely in New England. Did my undergrad at Dartmouth where I was actually an English major. So I can talk about that at some point, but not the most conventional path into finance.

2:11Cass: And I did not know that I was an English minor. Oh, I love that. Yeah, I like definitely didn't go to college. I mean, I feel like everyone says this now, but there's no way I if I were in college now that I'd be getting, you know, job at PSG or whatever, because I feel like you have to figure that out in high school that you want to be like doing private equity so on and so forth it's crazy like how would you even know what it is when you're in high school but somehow you have to I know I I get emails from kids in like high school now or like freshman year of college oh yeah and they'll like have had internships too which like that was I was working at summer camps when I was 18 which is a great job I think it is I think you learn a lot I mean that might take me down a tangent but I think you learn a lot of real world skills that are relevant to whatever you're going to do.

2:56Cass: Okay, you're an English major, but then you ended up going to... Investment banking after school, yeah. Investment banking. Yeah, I would say I was late to the train on that, like dabbled with some other things. Because again, like back in, I graduated in 2014 from undergrad, you could kind of experiment a little bit more, but wanted, really wanted to be on the West Coast. And when I decided I wanted to do investment banking, wanted to be at a smaller firm, A, A, because I'd missed kind of the bulge bracket recruiting timeline. And B, I think just personality wise, I thought, oh, I'm like more of a small firm person.

3:28Dartmouth is kind of a small school. It's like the biggest of the liberal arts schools in New England, so to speak. So it felt more like that was going to be a fit with my personality. First job offer I got was in Seattle. I'd never been other than when I interviewed at this investment bank and was like, yeah, let's do it. Like, let's make the jump. So it's been a couple of years there, which was awesome. I actually think I had a very good investment banking experience. I don't know if everyone can say that. And it's not just like, stop. Not everybody says that.

3:55Cass: Yes. But I really liked the people I worked with really liked what we were doing. I think because we were a small bank, we advised a lot of growth stage businesses. And through that, got introduced the idea of growth equity, which is where I am now. I think I knew a little bit about venture and kind of like the more traditional LBO prior to starting the investment banking job, but didn't really know that growth equity was its own asset class or really what it meant but organically through the deals that we advised on came to realize that there's this other thing that's kind of sits in the middle where you're working with established businesses that already have product market fit but they're trying to get to the next level and are looking for a capital partner that also brings more to the table than just a check but like operating experience and kind of help take that next step and so that resonated with me.

4:44I thought that was really interesting. And through work in investment banking, got interested in kind of the growth equity world, spent two years at a growth equity firm in San Francisco, continuing my West Coast tour called Mainsail Partners. And then always knew I wanted to go back to business school, I think partially with the English major background and partially having worked at small firms. And also just, I really liked school.

5:07Cass: Oh, I loved school. Well, you were an English major. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, that's what brought me to UChicago and how you and I met. But at that point, I knew I wanted to be back on the East Coast. Knew of PSG. They were kind of a newer firm at the time, but growing really quickly. I also knew they had an MBA internship. So I got to know the folks at PSG and interned there the summer in between years one and two at business school in 2019, and then came back in 2020. And now it's been six years. The rest is history. The last six years have flown. Flown. I will say, like, going back to you being an English major, I'm, like, starstruck by this because I really wanted to be an English major.

5:50Cass: But I was told by career services that switching from accounting to English was a poor career limiting move, I think is what they used to call it, CLM. And so I was like, fine, I'll just take a ton of classes. That was a real acronym they used CLM? CLM. Well, I don't think they used it, but I think that used to be, like, popular. are like, oh, that's a CLM. If it's not, it's going to be now. Yeah, I feel like maybe if I had spent more time at career services, they would have said that to me. But I sort of, because Dartmouth is liberal arts, they, yeah, and I believe in this too. Oh, it's a totally different flavor.

6:22Study what you want. If you work hard, like you're going to learn these foundational building blocks. And there's a lot about the English major, truthfully, that I think is very relevant. And especially straight out of school in the investment banking, as we're like synthesizing a ton of information, you're the one in charge of putting together the Sims, the marketing materials. Exactly. The English major, it almost felt like a secret weapon of like, oh, this is really within my skill set. I had to work really hard at the finance and accounting and getting up to speed. And I think that's maybe one of the, not downsides of a smaller firm, but we had less of a formalized training program than you'd get if you were on Wall Street.

6:55So I had to work really hard at that. But there's so many things about the English major piece that I think have continued to be valuable and just like how you communicate and writing emails. I mean, now maybe everybody's using AI to write their email. No, they are. It's a lost art. It's like communicating well.

7:10Cass: I think you stand out more in the age of AI with your communication skills. Because everybody sounds the same right now. All the em dashes, all the meh. Yeah, you know when you're talking to Claude. And like nobody uses quietly this much. And then like if this, then that. That one. Yep, yep, yep. I'm right there with you. Yes. So I think it's a superpower. and it's clearly served you well in your career so far. So then you went investment banking at a small boutique firm to Mainsail, which is a firm with a great reputation. They're super operationally heavy. But you found PSG. And then I love that you gave everybody a flavor of growth equity.

7:54Cass: I think you're the first person that is doing growth equity versus traditional LBO models on the podcast. And it does sit in this weird world between like how people think of venture and how people think of traditional private equity where you are able to do different types of deals that feel somewhere in between, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that's a good way to put it. And I think we're able to be flexible in ways too. Like we do minority deals, we do majority deals, but the emphasis is definitely on growth. And I think that's a misconception as people think about private equity, they try to label it in a single way.

8:29And I don't think that's fair in any segment of the market, particularly in growth equity though where our emphasis really is on building and like how can we support management teams we're adding most of the time like we're adding more people to the management team we're helping you build out your sales and marketing function establish repeatable processes it's not the kind of big scary cost cutting that i think a lot of people think of when they think of private equity and so again like i i said it resonated with more what excited me but i think it's a very interesting and exciting and dynamic place to be in the market and also resonated with my personality of like, I wish I could be a builder.

9:03Like, I feel like through doing this, like I get to have a taste of the building and like, well, you are.

9:07Cass: Yeah. Like assistant builder. The teams are doing all the heavy lifting, but we get to help them through that. And such a critical point in a company's life. And yeah, I think just, again, like the emphasis on building things up rather than cost cutting and like, where can we optimize? Like, obviously we want efficient growth and we're focused on that too. But I think in general, the emphasis is really just on building. Awesome. Okay. So now we're going to move on to the indication of interests. What is your go-to comfort show, Kate? I think it would be Grey's Anatomy. Have you watched? That's a good one.

9:47Yeah.

9:48Cass: I dropped off. It's like 10 seasons long. How many seasons is it? I think there are like 20. I should caveat this by saying. There's 20? They're still going, but I don't watch as much as more. They're still going. Wow. I was wondering if they were still going. Okay. Yeah. Maybe spoiler alert for all the people listening. I stopped watching when they killed off McDreamy. Like, I was out. I was out before that because I didn't even know that happened. Yeah. So that's when they lost me. But I started watching it. I wasn't watching it from the beginning, like, as it was being released. But I mentioned I moved to Seattle.

10:22The premise of the show is Meredith Grey is moving to Seattle. She's starting her new job. She's a doctor. She's saving lives. You're like, she is me. I'm doing investment banking. Not saving lives, but supporting a healthcare company. So like, you know, indirectly saving lives. But yeah, so I think I watched it at a time in my life where it felt like, oh, yeah, there's parallels here.

10:45Cass: Very loose, loose, loose parallels. That's amazing. What is something that you can cook without looking at a recipe? I like cooking. Okay. Okay. Maybe like a carbonara. I would say there are also some things that I bake that I could bake without a recipe. Like some chocolate cookies. That's actually where the real skill is because like baking is so much more scientific than cooking, right? Like you could like add way too much salt or add too much oil and like it's quite forgiving usually. But like baking, you got to be on. Yeah, my mom used to always say that. I'm sure other people do too. Sorry, mom.

11:23But yeah, Baking is the science and cooking is the art. But yeah, I like cooking. It's hard to do with this job and everything.

11:31Cass: But yeah, it's fun. And then there's like a whole different lens when you have kids of like, if I spend my time actually cooking this, like, am I going to have to be a short order cook to a separate meal? Yes. Also, because I don't know if your girls are this way, but my older son is very fickle. Like he really likes something that we have for dinner. And then I send it in his lunchbox the next day. And they're like, oh, he didn't eat anything. I'm like, what? But we loved it last night. We had like, what happened last night? What happened? I know. I know. The worst thing you could do is buy more of the food that they like.

12:01Cass: Like, hey, they like melon. You go to Costco, you do a Costco run. No. All of a sudden, melon's yucky. It's 100 % true. And then what is your perfect Saturday? That's a tough question. I feel like that has changed so much too. I know. That's why I like asking it. Yeah. These days, I mean, certainly can't sleep in. I would love, I guess on a perfect Saturday, I'm sleeping in. In a perfect Saturday, you're sleeping in. Yes. I don't know what's happening to the kids. When are you sleeping in until? Like 7.30. Whoa. Dream thing. Crazy. No, but then we'd probably have, my husband makes either pancakes or French toast on Saturday morning.

12:44So like that would happen because that's a normal Saturday occurrence but that's also in a favorite Saturday occurrence that's gonna happen um probably some outdoor time maybe some running around playground maybe I get some me time you get some walk or run or I like to play squash I don't play very much anymore but I used to but you you on this perfect Saturday you have your friends lined up to play

13:11Cass: squash with you yeah no conflicts of schedule no flakes no last minute dropouts yeah I'm going to the sauna after I'm relaxing a little bit uh then we're probably doing a family dinner and then maybe like drinks with my husband sitting outside it's summer in my perfect day oh yeah so that sounds like a nice Saturday I know it is so funny how far we've come of like like yeah that that that sounds perfect to me but in business school I don't know if that would have sound perfect to either of us we've been definitely not not enough like TNDC recovery it would it would certainly be like in business school or it would be like I would fly to like where can I fly somewhere in like x amount of hours and maximize the day and then you know fly back at midnight oh things exchange.

14:05Cass: Okay. And then let's get into career questions. So you're, as we were talking about liberal arts, great school, Dartmouth, English, but like, why this kind of path in the first place? What drew you into it? Yeah. And so I guess the choice for banking was more I wanted, I didn't think I was going to be career in investment banking, but knew I'd get a really good training ground and also be able to learn about different other pockets of kind of like the business world and try to figure out what I'd want to do next. And so I touched on this a little bit earlier, but it was through the banking and advising on kind of the growth stage businesses who often were ending up with growth equity partners that I really got intrigued by growth equity and thought, you know, like with investment banking, it's a shorter term engagement.

14:52You're working with a business for maybe three, six, 12 months as you're finding a home for them. But with growth equity, it's longer term. And through the process of the investment banking, you're uncovering why they want, like, why are they sitting there? Like, why do they want a partner for this next stage? What are the areas of opportunity, some of their pain points, but being on the growth side, like you're getting to help affect that change. And so I alluded to some of the areas where we will commonly help our portfolio companies, building out, you know, functional areas, adding to the management team, helping with product releases, getting into new markets.

15:28At PSG, we've got a pretty good M &A muscle. So we've done about 520 add-on acquisitions across the firm's history relative to 520-ish platform investments. Yeah, yeah. So if they're looking to do acquisitions... So like, oh, five times the amount.

15:41Cass: Yeah. Yeah. And it won't be, you know, not every portfolio company is acquisitive. Some have done many tens. Yeah. And others will do zero. If that's something that they're interested in, And then we help with that. And so I think it's really the emphasis on building and partnering with companies when they're at this inflection point. My favorite kind of setup, and we saw this so much at Main Sale, we see a lot of PSG too, is a founder that was in an industry and lived a pain point. And was like, I wish there was some sort of software technology to solve this. I probably should have said this at the beginning.

16:11PSG is focused on technology investments. And so a founder who's kind of like, I'm looking for tech to help me solve this problem and can't find something. so they find a technical co-founder and then they've created a solution to solve the problem that they live so they intimately know the problems from the customer's lens because they were in theory a hypothetical customer they were in those shoes before and then they just need help commercializing it and taking things to the next step and so I love love those stories um where again like you you're always having kind of product market fit and there's a lot to like about the business and it's just a matter of helping them kind of build out infrastructure Figure out how to scale.

16:50Cass: Yeah, figure out how to scale. And so it's a fun stage in a company's journey to be a part of. Totally. And that product market fit from the jump because they lived it is huge. We're also tech investors. And in a way, it is like being a generalist investor again, because you have to learn so many industries. It's like, oh, how do you sell in automotive? It's a totally different beast to sell tech into automotive than it is to sell into healthcare, than it is to sell into, you know, aerospace and defense, government, gov tech. Like, you're learning so much about these industries. And, like, that founder who came from that industry and all the nuances of that industry aside from tech is just such a valuable skill set, too.

17:41You touched on something that I also think is fun about this job, though, is like you're learning every day. And every time you're working with a new company, you know, a good part of my week is calls with CEOs like for the first time, getting to know a business for the first time. And so every time you're in one of those calls, like I'm hopeful that they're learning something. But I'm definitely learning a lot. You're definitely learning a lot. The fact that like you're learning every day is just it's fun.

18:08Cass: As two people who love school. Exactly. Exactly. We're like, yeah. We're just in school, kind of. Yeah, that's great. I love that. And then pivoting towards like more mentorship, a mentorship lens on your career. Who in your career has shaped you the most and how? And that could be like pre your kind of current role or within your current role. Take it however you want. Yeah, I think I'd go back to the three managing directors I reported to in investment banking. I think, A, I sort of felt like they took a chance on me a little bit with the unconventional background. And again, like we didn't have...

18:48From a great school, but yes, yes. We didn't have a huge analyst class. So it was a small handful of people who were starting around the same time. How many people were in your class?

18:56Cass: Do you remember? Like three or four. Like it's... Oh, wow. Yeah, pretty small. And so it was a lot of hands-on training that... And the deal teams were lean too. So like one of them was an SVP at the time is now an MD, but like even the MDs were kind of helping me get up to speed. And I think just that level of investment was huge. And when I was thinking about business school, obviously they were huge sounding boards and have kept in touch with them years later too. Yeah. But I'm really grateful for the folks. I don't even think I've said the name of the bank, but Cascadia Capital. Very, very thankful and grateful for the experience there and just helping me kind of get started.

19:36Cass: That's huge. And I do think a lot of times when I'm talking to those freshmen in college who are reaching out, if I take that call, I'm often telling them probably the opposite of the advice that has resonated and stuck with you. I usually am like, go big first, get tools in your toolkit, be in a class of 50 people, 25 people, because they know how to train and like execute on that training and like get a ton of people up to speed very quickly. But what I'm realizing from this conversation is like how valuable that hands-on, more entrepreneurial, small firm. Like I currently am at a, you know, Parker Gales, 13 people right now.

20:17Cass: I love being at a small firm. I feel like you wear a lot of hats. You learn a lot. You learn very quickly. But I think I haven't given credit to like how beneficial that could be also early in your career. Yeah, I think it's two different approaches and they're valuable in different ways. And I've talked a lot about I wanted to be at a small firm then and I've played sports for most of my life, like teams and just you get to know everyone really well. And like that smaller classroom, the smaller bank team, that's just really resonated. And you're playing up and you're playing down. Can't really have an ego about that.

20:49That still holds true at PSG too. We have a bigger team here, but there's still so much time.

20:54Cass: I was looking at your website and trying to find you and scrolling and scrolling. There are a lot of people on your team. Yeah. Yeah. But it's the same thing here is like deal teams are lean. And so you're playing up, you're playing down and you've got to be a good team player and you've got to be humble about that. And I think that really helps you learn and grow and grow on a faster timeline too, is like, you're just being exposed to so much. And so I appreciate that part of the banking experience from the smaller firm lens of, like you said, just the exposure of what you're seeing kind of even in that first year.

21:24Cass: It sounds like you had like the perfect match of opportunity and like great mentorship, which is awesome. And then what's something that you figured out recently that you wish someone had told you earlier, you wish you learned earlier, speaking of our obsession with lifelong learning? I think one lesson that came to me later is just just not feeling like you need to know all the answers day one. I think I felt that a little bit when I transitioned from Cascadia to main sale, like, oh, I was coming from finance, I should know everything. But growth equity is different than investment banking. And then when I came to PSG, also a growth equity firm, I think I felt like, oh, I should know everything because I was at main sale.

22:07But we have a different way of doing things here, slightly different, you know, presentation materials and like thought process, just the whole deal different teams different people different dynamics um and and to i i at times i think i've been too slow to acknowledge that and like maybe ask the questions and i think as i've gotten longer in my career recognizing too that like when we're in a live deal process and we're working with our third party partners whether it's the lawyers the accountants the commercial dd providers like they're all part of our team too team i guess is a big emphasis for me and so asking, like picking, there are no stupid questions.

22:43If like I'm leaning on them, pick up the phone and ask them, like, don't feel like I have to be the accounting specialist or the lawyer because I'm not. And so like knowing a little bit where I should be the expert and where I can lean on other people. And then also just feeling like, you know, like we're all motivated by the same thing here, like getting to the right answer, whatever that is. And so asking, like not being afraid to ask questions and don't let that uncertainty of not having all the answers get in my own way. So I wish I learned that a little bit long when I was a little bit younger, but it's hard.

23:14It's a hard lesson to learn when you're younger because you're like, oh,

23:17Cass: the older I get, the smarter I get, the more I know answers to stuff. Right. Like, and so I want to be seen as the person who has answers. Yeah. Yeah. My hot take these days, literally in like the last like six months, a year of like having AI is that I feel like people are feeding back into that belief a little bit because you can have answers in front of you and know more very quickly but it might not be exactly what you need to know and you're like missing that friction of like being a little bit uncomfortable that you don't know something and having to ask the question because you can just ask chat or you could just ask Claude right like yeah it's a good um and so I feel like people are leaning I feel like especially people at our age in our careers that's a big lesson I'm learning that lesson too um and I feel like people are almost like retreating slightly back because it's never been easier to just pretend you know the answers because AI knows knows quote on air quote the answer um so it's a good thing to like keep fresh in mind because I think we're all just trying to like avoid that imposter syndrome that we feel too yeah yeah um and it feels silly to ask a dumb question but the smartest people in a room are usually the ones who are asking the questions.

24:35Cass: Asking those questions. Yeah. Yeah. What are you most interested or excited about right now in the industry? It could be like an industry one of your companies is in. It doesn't have to be private equity in general. But anything exciting? I was going to say AI, but I feel like a lot of people say that. So maybe I would do a little bit different. You can say AI, but I just say say more. Say more. Say more. I'm part of the healthcare team at PSG. And so I look at all of our healthcare deals and that spans kind of like provider, pharma, payer, and everything in between. And I think the technology shift in healthcare right now is probably the most interesting.

25:18It's like one of the most interesting times in healthcare, certainly in my career, but I think in a long time here. and one thing we talk about is that a lot of companies were seeing this like COVID was a big forcing function for a lot of industries but the healthcare folks were like delivering healthcare and so they were not part of the same kind of like technological revolution that many other industries are seeing or we're seeing but they kind of are now and I think that's neat and so there's a ton of opportunity it's just back to the learning like I'm always learning healthcare

25:49Cass: care is very humbling I would say but yeah I that's one of the industries that I I interned during my MBA was somewhere that was like focused on health care a little bit health care is such an enigma to me and it affects everybody I mean you're it's everybody is affected by health care in one way or another in all sorts in in multiple ways usually yeah yeah but yes so you're saying like in terms of technology, in terms of AI, in terms of all of it? Yeah, it's kind of like the intersection. So like in the way that healthcare is open to leveraging AI in productive ways, I think they're often thought of an industry that's kind of been tech laggard.

26:31And so it's just an interesting to see the excitement and interest in this new flavor of technology and it be embraced in a way that I probably wouldn't have anticipated. But it's exciting.

26:44Cass: How did you find yourself in focus more on healthcare over time? So it's a good question. Kind of a long and winding road. In banking, I was just assigned to healthcare. So that was fortuitous. So I was just like luck of the draw. When I was starting, they were like, okay, we need a healthcare analyst. So I spent a lot of time there. And it was interesting. But then at mainsail, we were generalists within tech. And actually, PSG, we were pretty generalists up until about two years ago. And so I spent a lot of time in other industries as well. And then when the firm was making the decision to be more focused and kind of have people focus in certain verticals because of the healthcare background and it just always being an area of interest, I kind of got back into it.

27:30So it was a little bit of luck, and then the luck led to an interest. And that's sort of how I got here.

27:36Cass: that's awesome what's a commonly held belief about private equity that you disagree with and now we kind of talked about this in your intro which I love yeah I want to go back to the the like the growth flavor and not every flavor of private equity is the same and I guess you empowered me to say that I can think of myself as a builder too but like we are also builders and we're not just kind of the LBO perception that a lot of people have is is not true of probably most places but um there there's there's more yeah that's the thing is like probably most places because the there is such a long tail of middle market lower middle market and i mean even you guys i don't even know if you would consider yourselves do you consider yourselves middle market you're like yeah uh eight billion six billion dollar fund yeah our current fund our six fund i'm like which what how many billions no we're we're we're middle market and i mean And we're partnering with businesses that are, you know, five plus of revenue.

28:38So they're still, it's still small. Yeah. Yes. This is our sixth fund. And we were founded in 2014. So it's been a ride. It's been a journey.

28:47Cass: Wow. That is. That's pretty crazy. Six funds since 2014. So a little over 10 years. And you said you've done 120-ish platform deals? Roughly 120 platform investments and over 500 add-on acquisitions. Wow. We've been busy. That's awesome. So, Kate, what would you tell somebody who's earlier in their career? So think about like where you were about 10 years ago, who's sitting where you were 10 years ago. What would you tell them now? I think just that careers are long and winding and there's going to be unexpected things that will pop up. but also don't feel like it's a sprint. And I know that's cliche, but it's a marathon.

29:37And like the promotion or the title or whatever, the next thing that you're reaching for, six months doesn't make a difference. Honestly, like a couple of years probably doesn't make a difference. And so think about what's best for you and what's exciting to you rather than being super caught up in kind of timelines. And I think, especially in this industry

29:59Cass: where not to stereotype everybody, but it's a lot of type A people who are very focused on milestones. I must be in this rung of the ladder at this point. Yeah. It's just like take some of that pressure off yourself and also like think about what's interesting to you and pull on some of those threads, even if it feels like it's a little bit of a deviation. I think like the MBA feels like a good example of that to me where it's not needed in most private equity firms these days, but felt incredibly worthwhile for me. And I'm guessing you not to put words in your mouth, but I think a lot of people are like, why'd you do that?

30:35Like when I was thinking about it or kind of like, why are you thinking about it? And even now people be like, why'd you do it? Like set you back a couple of years. And it was expensive.

30:45Cass: It was expensive. Yes. Yes. But I remember being very stressed about that. I was like, I'm taking this. I'm it's time. It's money. But like, I feel this itch. Like I do want to do it. I want to go back in a learning environment. I want to meet new people. I want like a different approach. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think of the career as a longer term endeavor and take some pressure off yourself for like achieving the next milestone as soon as possible. Yeah. I love that because I think it's really easy to get caught up.

31:22Cass: We are at the closing call already. Doesn't it fly a little bit? You're like, no, not at all. it does okay good uh well now I'm very curious on your answer for this because you're an English major oh you're like no not at all uh uh what is the best book that you've read this year listen in the past year I've got a 10 month old I am not doing a lot of Kate reading for fun yeah but I do a lot of board books and picture books I've got some personal reading pursuits, but they've been on the bedside table for longer than I'd care to admit. So yeah, most of my reading these days, I'd say is children's of the children's variety.

32:05Cass: When I can swap out the bedside book, when I finally made it through that like copy, I have a stack of three usually. That's roughly what I got. Yeah. Yeah. And like the top one is the one that I'm actually quote unquote reading. And like the switching of the guard of like actually being able to switch out a hard copy book because I finished it is rare and like I feel like I deserve a medal yeah like a ceremony around it or something small ceremony please we are now at the stage with kids books where like I get in a heated debate with my four-year-old at night about like which ones I want to read and which ones I don't want to read and like she'll be like I'll basically she negotiates at this point of like I'll give you an Iggy Peck if you give me a Super Kitties like or a Spider-Man and I'm like oh fine smart girl the Spider-Man story arc makes no sense but sure like she's learning she doesn't even need to take the negotiations class at Booth she's oh I'm taking a negotiations class every single evening every day every single day yeah uh that's way harder than anything that I did at that we should I'm pitching a class to Booth.

33:19Cass: We should pitch this. We should just like have people attempt to negotiate with toddlers. It's negotiations 103 or 303 or whatever. Advanced, advanced, advanced negotiations. The most advanced. I love that. So what is your go-to karaoke song since you're going out so much and you're hitting the bar scene? Oh my gosh. I have a horrible voice. I do not wish karaokeing with me on like my worst enemy because it was just not a good experience. But what I will say is I will commit and I will. Yes. Yeah. You know, like I will go. You strike me as a person who would totally just be like, I'm just going to commit.

34:03Yeah. So I'll go for it. So like I'll go for like Kelly Clarkson, like Celine. Yeah. Like we'll go, but it's not going to go well, but I'm going to have fun. And I feel like with karaoke, that's like, your energy is 80 % of it, because you got to get the people going. And if other people start singing, then they're not hearing you. So that's kind of my psychology behind it. I don't know. I think that's correct. If anything, it might be 95%. He's 95.

34:33Cass: Mine is, I love 9 to 5. I love a Dolly Parton 9 to 5. I do have a Spotify playlist. Now I'm getting nervous as I say this out loud. if it's public, I'm going to go make it private right now, of like the songs that like when I'm in the shower or otherwise where I'm like, ooh, I could like actually maybe hit that note. I can't, I can't. But like, I will pull that up and believe that like I can hit some of these. You just got to commit. You just got to commit. That's so true. Okay, so the last question I have for you is if you weren't in private equity, what would you be doing instead? I think something more in line with the English major like writing.

35:16Writing. Over one maybe I shouldn't admit this over one of my mat leaves I drafted a TV pilot of like my ultimate dream would be like if I could write for a TV show that's never gonna happen but I love writing and I like creative writing. I wasn't a creative writing major within the english major but i took some creative writing classes and i love it it's just fun i don't think i love that you did that it was like years in the making like i'd had a note on my phone that just like when inspiration would hit i'd be like oh this is like i'm building out like my characters and apply it's only it's a pilot so it's like 60 pages or something which i shouldn't understand like it still took work and i'm blessed my son was a good sleep like this was happening while he was napping.

36:03But yeah, it was really fun and just like fun to use the brain creatively. I think there's there are many creative elements to our job, but like it's different. It's like a different type of creativity, I would say.

36:15Cass: I love that. I will be bugging you about that. I won't make you spill all of your secrets on this podcast, but I will I will be asking for a copy. and yeah we made it this was fun this is fun thank you so much for coming on the podcast today thank you for having me I learned so much this was fun like I learned not only about your career but I feel like like I love that you were an English major I love your career arc so far huge fan and when you do you know hey you're running a private equity firm in the future while you're also just like putting out episodes of something like I will be support Grey's Anatomy season 27 yeah they do need some refresh of the writer's room I mean call me guys I got ideas I got it I love it well thank you well thank you for having me great to see you

37:20Thank you.