 I'm sure that most sessions, maybe this is a statement of the obvious, but a lot of us probably have been talking, reflecting all day today and through the week, how things have changed since the last time we were all gathered for SOCAP 2019. And today, lucky to be here with Quasie and Daniel, who I'll introduce in a minute, to really talk about the trends that were already in motion before 2019 for the private sector more broadly to step up and answer the call to help solve our largest societal and environmental problems. And since 2019 and all that's unfolded since then, we've just really seen those things accelerate and large corporations are integrating purpose into everything that they do and into their businesses. And at the same time, seen billions of dollars blow through ESG funding and through impact venture capital. So where do those two things come together? That's what we're here to talk about today and brings us to our two guests. I'd first like to introduce Daniel. He's currently the managing director at Halcyon's Incubator, which focuses on supporting entrepreneurs and finding game-changing solutions to our most pressing problems. By helping social entrepreneurs transform ideas into scalable and sustainable ventures, the incubator acts as a catalyst for measurable social outcomes. Daniel also brings a perspective from lots of different points of view, the Fortune 500 lens from his role at the MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth, from the investor perspective as the VP of Social Impact at BlackRock. And he served on the Council of Foreign Relations and is a Deloitte alum. I had to get that one in there. And Daniel has a BA from NYU and a Master's of International Affairs from Columbia. Thank you for joining us today, Daniel. And I'm pleased to introduce my colleague and friend, Quasie Mitchell, the first Chief Purpose Officer at Deloitte. Quasie's responsible for leading our organization wide strategy that powers Deloitte's commitment to purpose and drives broader impact for us, our clients, and our practitioners in the communities in which we live and work. With Quasie's leadership, Deloitte has committed to 1.5 billion commitment over the next 10 years to address equity for those facing the greatest barriers to prosperity. Prior to being the Purpose Officer at Deloitte, Quasie was the diversity, equity, and inclusion leader and their pro bono and social impact lead for Deloitte's 50,000 plus person, 50,000 plus consulting practice and served as the strategy of offering leader for Deloitte's government and public services practice. And my favorite part, which I was just saying, to round out things, Quasie has a PhD in inorganic chemistry of all things from Northwestern University and the MBA from Drexel University. So thank you, Quasie, for being here today. That was the hardest part getting through the introductions. So Quasie, maybe I'll start with you. The statement of the obvious, all that's happened since 2019. How have you seen Deloitte and Deloitte's clients perspectives, attitudes and beliefs change? And what and how is that showing up in the business today? Yeah, I think that there's a new level of intentionality with respect to how people address social impact. If you look at a lot of large organizations, historically, there's always been this notion of pet projects, interesting areas of people are getting engaged, perhaps some semblance of a strategy as you know well, but not something that's cohesive and tied to the core. And what I'm seeing more and more organizations doing right now is tying different aspects of the work that they're doing to their business strategy. As you were just indicating with our 10 year aspiration, that's specifically baked into our long term plan. And in such a way that there's accountability around what we did on a year by year basis. And that didn't happen historically. And what we really observed when we were looking at our giving, our pro bono services and our impact through the years was this kind of whiplash of giving where it's like some major incident would happen like George Floyd. We turn around and we dedicate $10, $50 million more worth of funding towards distinct causes. And then that would go away. It'd be a one year commitment. Now you're seeing organizations that are being much more thoughtful as to a one year commitment isn't going to drive systemic change, right? Like we have to be thoughtful with respect to the way that we engage with distinct partners, have long term commitments are focused on distinct issues and have an impact that is beyond a singular or at least two business cycles. And that's what you're seeing more and more from organizations of our size, which I think is well overdue and is a really good path forward. Great. And Daniel, from your varied perspective, both the fortune 500 investor and now non profit. How are you seeing this show up in the organizations that you work with? Yeah, it's very much in alignment with what you just said. It should be obvious that social impact, particularly a corporation should be tied to the business model. And for us at healthy and that's the exactly the kinds of companies that we start that we support for their startups, right? They are building that into how they are operating from business standpoint. I think corporates actually have learned that in order to report to be sustained, similar to for a startup, it needs to be tied towards what our core business objectives and not the one off the specific interest of one person in leadership. But really what can we sustain? What are the unique value that we're bringing to any statement of purpose? And so that's been a real sort of seeing that sort of play out for good and for ill in different roles. And also would drove me to want to be at healthy and to support organizations that are at their outset are really thinking about how to combine profit and purpose and have that as as their revenue model skills, their impact skills. And often we've all heard that as part of this commitment and the new integration to business partnership comes up as a big thing. Ecosystems, partnerships, we all know all the key phrases for that. But how do you get how both of you all seen getting beyond the handshake, the MOU, the commitment that delays made and others to really drive action? What what's happening to really make those things move forward? Sure. I'll I'll sorry. I mean, I think the the housing and delay relationship is actually a really good one to start. We started this partnership eight years ago when I was on the other side of that part was a delay consultant managing a pro what we called then a pro bono relationship. And Deloitte was a very different company at that point. It was perceived as you know, one a one time engagement. And then we realized there was actually really something here that there was a value that was certainly to our fellows, our entrepreneurs that they were able to access this incredible resource. And there was a value to Deloitte. And it actually took us several iterations to get the partnership right and we're still continuing to evolve. But the lesson that I took away from there is that we started with something. We didn't say that we were going to change everything, but we knew what impact we wanted to have for the founders. And we iterated and as we demonstrated value, both sides continue to invest more. And I think for me that's the critical aspect of that partnership being able to set some clear objectives at the outset, not completely overthink everything and try to plan for every contingency, but actually modify, you know, some of the things that we initially started off with trying, we would do hackathons and bring in, you know, 200 Deloitte analysts at a time, which is great for the analysts and not so great for entrepreneurs are like, okay, that didn't work for the entrepreneurs. So we're going to try something different. And it was great to have a partner who's willing to to experiment and do that on both sides. And we built the relationship over that time, but it was really just a willingness to get in and get dirty and not focus, you know, on some broad statement of a 10 year objective, but really like, what's the work right in front of us? And I think to play off of that with partnerships that I've found to be highly successful, clearly they're they're sustained. But there's this understanding of what we as a firm do well and what the organization needs so that we can scale, right? Like you have this interaction where people have come in and they've talked to me and they've understood like, Hey, I looked at some of your material online, such as your DNI transparency report, you have challenges here. This is where we think that we can be part of the solution. And guess what? It's not just funding that I'm looking for. I want a partner who's going to help me bring in other people that we can convene around this issue. We want to use your analytical skills to really produce thought provoking pieces so we can bring other people in. And so the most like dynamic partners that we've had have also balanced in addition to that, this notion and as you know, an organization of our size, like part of our part of our impact is just engaging our people in some way shape or form. And so I really sophisticated partner show up and say, Here's some things that I can get hundreds of your people engaged in so they get an introduction and a feel for giving back to their communities. And oh, by the way, here's some infrastructure challenges that we have that we could use funding with respect to. And oh, by the way, here's a strategic problem that we have that we could use something such as a pro bono project and your thought partnership on. And when all of that comes together, you just find organizations that are so embedded and tied to us as a firm that that partnership just lasts for years and years. And to your point, you never quite get it fully right because organizations continue to change. But you end up with partners that are nimble that know on a year by year basis things ebb and flow and how to adjust on the fly. Great. That's super helpful and shifting when you describe that it has many layers and complexities, which I will know it Deloitte as well. But as we shift and think about accountability and measurement, how, you know, ESG people have lots of opinions on that and heard there was some lively a date debate about that even today. But what are your perspectives on ESG both for driving change more broadly and then how does it help Deloitte and healthy on holding themselves accountable for these action for all of this new purpose work that's being integrated? I think it's all about accountability, right? The carry you've heard me say before when we announced our 10 year investment, I've frequently said the reason that we announced that is so that we could be held accountable, right? Because no matter how much funding you give to a specific issue, it's never going to be enough to solve some of the systemic challenges that we have currently. So for me, like ESG is a risk management tool. It's a transparency tool. And we all just have to admit that is the data right? Are the outcomes ideal? Are there aspects of greenwashing? All of those things are in flux and will evolve. I don't think that it's necessarily something that we should just fundamentally walk away from. I would agree that the accountability pieces is key and that's what I would focus on. There was a debate, as you mentioned earlier today about ESG. So we'll get into the specifics of the measures themselves. I do think for some of the early stage investing community, there's been a confusion that ESG has added that I'm not sure is super helpful, particularly as I work with founders and isn't always actually geared towards that accountability. So we get into these esoteric debates about how we measure ESG, whether we're just looking at risk or we're looking at positive measures as well. And then I actually see some of folks doing exactly the opposite of what I said before in terms of the business model. They start chasing things that they think are going to fit within ESG because they're saying, oh, there's trillions of dollars flowing, so we need to follow where the metrics are driving and we don't know that the metrics are right. So I think the accountability is key. I think for the entrepreneurs that I'm seeing, whether ESG is actually helping that conversation, I think the jury's still out. And I do think that there's aspects of it that's helping the conversation because we're having a different conversation, right? And that's what I'm always focused on. Like, are we having a different conversation today than we had two, three weeks ago? And for people who've been doing, you know, and in this field as long as we've been, we've had some of the same conversations yearly for the last 10 to 15 years, right? So I do think that that progression of the discussion is beneficial, even if all of the other trappings associated with the ESG aren't ideal. Great. And I think you're right. It's, it's, I, we heard, we were talking about the debate that happened and is there, should there be an I, that we're having that discussion at all is, I think, you know, exactly that point, crazy. We wouldn't have been having that, you know, five years ago, certainly not even two or three years ago. So Daniel, oh, go ahead. I was going to say, as long as we, and I think it's about making sure that we're focused on the accountability side. Yes. It's like, how many more letters do we add? Yes. Yes. Although that's if we don't want, that's for sure. And done a lot, I think, recently to reduce that across with the standard setters and things of that sort. So Daniel, I'm interested in looking at kind of the other way we talked about Deloitte and, and the partnership that Deloitte has, but how are the entrepreneurs that you work with experiencing this reality and how is that helping them grow their business or not? Yeah, it's certainly something that's evolved as I mentioned that we, we started out and we tried different things and really realized that we were also, we're almost speaking different languages and that, you know, I was a consultant at the time in, in trying to train consultants to speak to startup founders when they're typically used to speaking to Fortune 500 companies or large government agencies. And so the experience really, once we were able to get people speaking the same language and having the ability for the Deloitte consultants to understand what are the kinds of challenges and sort of the decision fatigue that's involved for early stage founders and then having the early stage founders understand what is the potential of this resource that they could use. And that's true for great relationship with Deloitte, we have relationships with legal pro bono support similarly and really helping them focus in on the decision at hand because I think so much for early stage founders, there's so many choices, right? There's so many ways that you could use this resource and it's often very overwhelming and lonely making sure that this is an additive resource, not another sort of set of decision points that they have. So it's really been fantastic in the way that it's evolved. You know, we've moved from having just one touch point to having teams around each of the entrepreneurs. And so the experience is now like one of the most highly rated aspects of our program, which is fantastic. And again, it's about having a clear partnership and being able to tell a partner when things don't work and having been on the other side as a funder in the past. You know, sometimes folks that you're working with because there is an asymmetry in that power dynamic, you don't feel like you can always make that correction because you've got this access to an incredible resource. You don't want it to go away. So being able to have a partner that you can have a real conversation with is super important and has been the key to being able to evolve the experience so that it's in favor of the entrepreneur. And that's what I love about our relationship with Halcyon because it is unfair to expect a founder to speak and understand Deloitte. Like we're 150,000 people within our U.S. firm. That founder should know what they're actually doing. They should not understand the nuances of some subunit within our organization that has the resources that they need. But Halcyon does, right, and can connect that to take to a conversation. So I think that that's the beauty of what I'm saying more and more organizations starting to like edge towards is rather than working with some of the founders themselves that you have organizations like Halcyon that are ideal for doing that translation of, you know, kind of mitigating in some respects that power dynamic so that you have founders focus on what founders should know and then you have an organization like us know how to show up in a way that's beneficial rather than a resource strain. Because as you know, like large organizations can be a resource strain if we show up with the wrong set of benefits and tools and things of that nature that we want to apply. We're here to help. Yeah, I'm going to ask one question, but I want to get your all questions that are coming through, but the iPad is not on the right place. So I'm going to ask somebody from backstage to come get the iPad when they can. And meanwhile, we'll continue on. But interested in both of your perspectives like what's been the most challenging thing in the journey over. I know the purpose office has been around for almost two years now and then in your tenure at Halcyon over the last year, what's been the most challenging thing that you've been faced with? You want to start? Sure. So many jobs. This is a 10 months into the journey at formerly in this seat at Halcyon. Obviously I had the experience when I was at the weight. Honestly, the biggest thing for us as a nonprofit incubator has been making sure that the resources match our ambition, right? And I don't think that that should never be a gap that's fully closed because that would be we weren't being ambitious enough with the opportunities so vast and the understanding of the importance of investing in early stage and back-driven entrepreneurs has evolved so much that we have so many different opportunities in so many different places that we could be working. So figuring out how we align all of that to really make sure we're doing our best by the entrepreneurs. We're never going to be the biggest and that's really not our ambition but to be the best and to be able to bring our partners along that journey. That's been, you know, kind of the evolution of the thing that I'm constantly thinking about over these 10 months and in this job. I would say the hardest thing for me, stepping into this role and it's inheriting a portfolio that's not really a portfolio, right? Like inheriting a set of initiatives, activities, investments that are, it's not even apples to oranges but apples in small cars right? But it's just been all over the place and to the point of, you know, I always laugh when people point out I'm a chemist by training. Like my training is like you exert order over chaos and there's a certain level of chaos that you need to have within a portfolio to test things to figure out what works to that new partners and things of that nature. So my, my hardest challenge has been like what within that portfolio does not serve as well in comparison and never will in comparison to the things that are what is in our portfolio that we haven't shown up with the right partner yet or haven't done that translation yet or had the right leader lean in to really like maximize the outcome that we're trying to drive in our communities and that's still something that I feel much better about now but like that evolution is still a work in progress because my natural inclination is like we do 10 things and 10 things only and we're going to have an impact on those 10 things and that's just not the way this works. Yeah, it's interesting because the thread that from both of you said shows up so much in the work that we do with our clients as well and we talk about it as the sprawl, you know and how do you rationalize how much of the sprawl is a good thing and gets engagement and activity. Where do you want the 10 things and what they are and so it seems to be something that we're all struggling with is more and more happens and proliferates and companies. How do we make sort of sense of that chaos? I do have the iPad working so it's good news now. So we'll go so send your questions in because I'm ready but one of the first questions was about working in communities and how are both entrepreneurs and larger companies like Deloitte thinking about working in communities to help with both threats that are happening day-to-day pandemics you know most immediate things and solving for longer term systemic problems that have been there for a long time that are just now getting exacerbated. So Daniel, yeah. Do you want to start? Sure. Yeah, I mean to we've got a number of programs some that are really hyper local like a program that we've focused on entrepreneurs coming from the D.C. Metro area and even within our small ecosystem we have to recognize we the Halcyon is set in a beautiful historic property in Georgetown D.C. That's not the place where that's not where the entrepreneurs who we are serving are coming from. We sit in a beautiful building that was built by slaves and are working with entrepreneurs who are coming from Anacostia which is one of the neighborhoods where freed states move to. So for us it's you know are we showing up in a way that we're meeting entrepreneurs where literally where they are and also are we working with the organizations that are already working in those communities to source those entrepreneurs to make sure that our everything that we're providing to them is contextualized and makes sense and we have to do that across programs because we have you know Super D.C. focus program and we also have programs that focus on Middle East and North Africa or Sub-Saharan Africa and so adjusting to each of those context is super important and realizing that we don't have nearly all of the answers and identifying who are the recruiting partners who are the folks who actually know where the early stage entrepreneurs are in those communities we know there's still lots of barriers to this work some of its terminology people don't know you know some folks who don't know equity equity that equities or even just breaking down language so that we are doing our best to reach those entrepreneurs and for us it's all about our communities the vision that we've set with respect to the activities that we're doing within the firm in my role is that we would have our people be able to walk out of their front doors and see that there is an issue within their community and know that we're actively trying to engage on it and actively trying to really help the communities in which we live be more alleviate some of those challenges and so the key things that we've learned and how we're trying to show up that's different in the past is a by working with leaders that are more approximate to the issues that we're trying to solve right I mean an organization of our size it's very easy as most with large organizations and you've seen this through the years who show up and they are masters in the universe and think that they can show up and solve things in such a way and they create solutions for people that no one asked for right like we show up with the banana and that's they actually wanted again a car right or something of that nature and the other thing that's been really important for us as we've been thinking through this as well and engaging with our communities is the notion that like we really have to sit with some of the challenges for the while rather than and invite other people in so it's not a matter of us pushing out a press release that says to your point earlier like hey Deloitte has decided to do X, Y and Z it's like no here's a coalition that we're building around specific issues because these challenges are incredibly varied and and it's really important to bring the right different tools to the particular challenge that we're trying to address. Great thank you so as I knew it would the Deloitte commitment is getting a lot of attention on the iPad so crazy could you tell us a little bit more about Deloitte's commitment including how Deloitte's making decisions about where to focus what to do and measuring impact on that front. Of course and so what we decided is that we wanted to focus on three specific areas like we spent a while studying the issue of what's most impactful from the standpoint of the skills that we could bring and simultaneously what we've seen play out of the course of the pandemic and you just think of long-term inequities. So we decided to focus on three distinct areas education workforce development which is just core to who we are. We hire tens of thousands of people on an annual basis and just being able to expand that pool and provide pathways for people for family sustaining careers was really critical. The second area that we've been focused on is health equity and and health equity has been interesting right because if you think about we launched the Health Equity Institute about 18 months ago and we've really been focused on a few different things and what we discovered which is different than what we did in the past is like half of that you know excuse me a third of that team's time should be focused on dealing on whatever is the pressing health issue within a community today and we historically would have never planned that way and then the last place is like financial inclusion just thinking about how do you lean in on helping us to bring our clients and our capabilities to reducing the racial wealth gap and so those have been like the primary areas the leader who's driving so much of that for me is in fact caring so the item the items associated with lower focus is like what are the skillset that we bring we convene people well we're great with research and analytics we're great with bringing services in addition to funding such that we can surround an organization and do some really impactful things but it has to be a series of item particularly items that are that we're addressing a root cause or that we can use our scale to help other people like really surround a particular challenge in and of itself so there's a variety of different things that we're looking to evaluate kind of the investments themselves and I am incredibly lucky to have here in our colleagues be the people who are helping me think through how we vet and how we move forward with the the commitments that we'll make in the future anything you wanted to add since you believe that it doesn't help it's a great honor to do it and it's it's both a challenge from the portfolio standpoint as you said and having both the flexibility to look at the national level and local community level or or things we're trying to balance as we move forward as well so a great question here about like talking about getting it real get you know get real on this is both understanding how complex it is to change and diluate and wanting to understand what it's like for these entrepreneurs talking about what are the actual teams of people doing as they support the entrepreneurs and that the part of the question for Deloitte is how do how do project teams what are they up against and facing as they try to do this work in Deloitte that isn't part of necessarily the mainstream business do you want to start again? Yeah, I should I'll start and like we're just going to keep with you so he says things that are insightful and we can follow right yeah yeah so it really varies by entrepreneur where they're at with their business so they could be working on work with a senior consultant who has a team of really great analysts to be honest we have been often told that this is the best project that the folks have worked on Deloitte probably want to say that too loudly but people get really excited about this kind of work because they're be able to they're able to flex the muscles that developed as consultants on a really important problem and so the amount of commitment that we get from the consultants is really high and the entrepreneurs often you know will prioritize something they just can't from a time perspective don't have the time to do and that's why we've got a lot of sort of market entry research really focused on you know can you help me create my ideal room so that I'm ready for when that investor knocks on the door and I think something that we've learned on both sides how to do better is to pivot with the entrepreneurs that's not not at something that I think a muscle that it was as as developed it before on either side but realize that things change within a minute for entrepreneurs and so being able to have that flexibility and knowing that a deliverable that you that you may have worked on yesterday is not going to be relevant anymore for the entrepreneur which are things of valuable skill for an at any point in life but also for quite work but that's a little bit of sort of the nitty gritty of the experience yeah and I think that challenge within for project teams that are trying to support social entrepreneurs or nonprofits more broadly within the firm it falls into a couple categories right because your point is like spot on like you see our people who are working with some of these organizations and they're just like this is the coolest thing I've ever done in my entire career and and for me that's people finding their purpose they're taking their skill set that gives them energy they're finding a cause that really matters to them and they're seeing impact on a daily basis like they see I do something with this organization and they implemented it wasn't let me run this by my boss and then put it in front of the board and see what the board comes back to not talk to you in two years that we didn't right and so that notion of being able to see that in real time and having that play out that's the challenge that we have with respect to people are engaging on these projects because if you look at like our entire pro bono portfolio it's collectively like I just said our us firm is 150,000 people it's probably at any given point in time if you add everything up probably 150 to 200 people we're working on pro bono projects that's just not at a scale that I would really think is able to be as impactful as we would want to within our communities and that's one of the things that we're really focused on for moving forward so that we can drive impact with broader organizations and produce more interactions with our people with some of these organizations because not as many of them are having that positive impact or that positive experiences I would like and I will say that one of the things we talk about mechanical that I think Deloitte has done well is match up some of our processes for these so that as a practitioner I don't have to worry about being on a pro bono project versus a client project that's treated as one of the same so at least there's a a there's no barrier to participate in those things yeah I just think the barriers is more opportunity right like if I if I sat back and I looked at all the people who would want to work with some of these organizations are just a number of people who work with housing through the years like we're talking about thousands of people now it's not like 50 yeah right like who have done it and coming like if we had that opportunity and more of those and it we're able to accommodate more of that it would truly be exponential and that's really one of the things that we're working on now is how do we build in opportunities at a broader scale for people to engage in a way that is really meaningful for them so maybe a harder question here that I just got from the crowd is is just out of history so wanting to hear from both of you all on when something we were talking about this earlier the know when you get the know and and in what instance that was and how you guys have experienced that in this impact journey well I it was actually at Deloitte and this is a a great evolution I think of the company Pro Bono at yeah at one point was kind of a one and done thing and so we did this great thing for a year Halcyun was was a startup itself working with startups and then we had to pitch it again people like well we don't do that we we already did we already worked with them once and kind of worked creatively and it was actually really to the credit of Dan how but you was leading that the group we were in at the time who believes now the CEO of the firm that says no actually there's something that's beneficial we'll try it out again we'll try it again and then the third year came and we we pitched it again we changed slightly the value proposition and then I think there was also the same time the firm recognizing that pro bono wasn't just this kind of one-off thing it was actually something that was creating value for retention it was creating a lot of skilled development you saw the people who are working with us actually go on you know one of the folks who currently manages the relationship was an analyst when I started and now he's a manager and so I think the value was seen on both sides and I think that helps as the firm was evolving and thinking about pro bono skills-based volunteering and our purpose is more broadly that we were able to grow with it and so that no actually changed into a no and that we were able to do something really really cool and that was very different than what had ever been done before yeah I do end up saying no a lot right and and it's generally driven by just helping people understand I mean we're just at such a unique point with respect to like the state of society where you have people who leave the virtual walls of the firm which they feel are like relatively orderly makes them feel safe and included and then they go about their ordinary they're hopefully extraordinary lives and they just realize that there's just all these things that are wrong within the world that are personal to them they then want to come and have the firm focus on and having to explain to people like we need to focus on things that we can impact like I fundamentally can't impact right quite a few things floating around well a lot of things right and so helping people to understand that yes we are the large professional services firm on the planet but we can't influence wars right and things of that nature is a real challenge so there's pretty frequent nose and like reminders of people of what's on strategy the other thing that it's you know I have heard no less from my broader leadership team and actually pretty infrequently because we've been very thoughtful on as we think about our portfolio we need to have everybody see themselves being part of it as long as people can identify with something within that portfolio meaningful to them that they care about which is how we landed on the three priority areas with our investment it's been pretty key for moving forward so that's always you know one of my criteria with respect to what we invest in our people just need to see themselves in it in a way that's like a pretty broad scale for us to be able to move forward and as long as we stick to that like as one of our criteria we generally do all right with respect to getting to yes and a lot of things great and a related question for both of you all and then we'll go from negative to positive is what's an obstacle that you both have overcome in the last year that you didn't expect you got them thank you yeah there are so many things that I didn't expect and moving from 4500 to to now not public I think is honestly just being flexible with the journey of our entrepreneurs right there's so much that's changed in people's lives even just in these 10 months that I've observed people having health issues and something I should have mentioned is that we are residential programs so part of our program people actually come and live and work with us which is pretty unique in being able to say okay we had this policy didn't really make sense because person has this health challenge has a a challenge with childcare how do we change ourselves to meet the needs of entrepreneurs and there's just been so many such a diversity in those challenges particularly when you're working with entrepreneurs who are not coming from backgrounds where they've got tons of support or so that's it's another we're fully overcoming yet but it's something that we're continually trying to like how do we actually meet entrepreneurs where they're at and how do we adjust ourselves to to be the best place for them and my thinking was like trying not to say something abundantly obvious it's hard to change 175 year old firm a little bit so the whole notion of being able to say like hey we've got these great ideas I know we've been doing a certain way like by the way we're going to do x y and z and even people being fully supportive like that ship does not move easily and and and I thought I was charming enough to have but I'm not right and so I think the notion of just like organizational not bureaucracy but just process and protocol is real and it's there for a reason to try to do something new is just substantially harder than I would have ever imagined yeah the good news is the process is there once we get it going right like it will uptake exactly the machine will take it for sure so the we have about five minutes left to be at the end of the day be conscious that time and I promise what we will end on a positive so several people have asked for you all to share kind of some bright spots what have you seen that is most hopeful gives you the most hope and either specific projects or in your own journey like what are the things that give you hope and all of that at the end of the day I have the best job and that I'm working with entrepreneurs are trying to change the world on a day-to-day basis and so everything from aquatic farming in Jamaica as a response to climate change sort of focus on restoration there to building assistive technology for folks with low vision those are all issues that I'm being in conflict every day and realizing how much I don't know but that education has been amazing because it just means that we are actually supporting folks who are doing things that have never been tried and that is absolutely the positive and that we've got such an amazing community that is really just doing everything they can to make sure that the folks that come through our doors are being supported that for me I said this at one of our recent showcases that's the cure for all the cynicism that in cynicism is an easy place for me to be I'm in the record so it's kind of the way I grew up but really those entrepreneurs are absolutely cure for that because they are just they've got the incredible whether it's optimism or delusion sometimes is both but it's fantastic and that's that's what gives me hope that's great we should all have a dose of that every morning yeah it's it's fascinating because I'm my chief of staff is here somewhere I'm eternally hopeful but she frequently points out that I'm still grumpy though took a balance but like you know I am so hopeful when we meet you know some of the people that are just doing things they're just so phenomenal right like and like I've left meetings and I'm just like I kind of love that person right like they're just doing some amazing things the other thing that was just really amazing for me what was in fact our 10 year aspiration right like I scratch that out on a napkin while sitting at a bar like a year ago and I don't know I think I have like five three minutes and I'm just like we have to do something to galvanize our people and show them that we're showing up in a different way and work on these challenges in a different way and I think collectively I have like a five minute conversation with our CEO and then a 10 minute conversation with his executive team and it was you know it was kind of like they all steered at me and they're like okay why don't you do it faster right and so that was just the fundamental bright spot for me that knowing that continuing to put forward bold ideas continuing to try to influence you know our impact and it being so tightly tied to our business strategy that things just became more of no-brainers rather than like an uphill push that's great and it takes us almost full circle back to where we started about how many of the trends that were in motion have just been hyper accelerated and that's the thing that makes me the most hopeful is that both comments there's the entrepreneurs more than ever have support to bring forward those great ideas and and the promise of Deloitte on the platform that we have at Deloitte to really advance and a social change in a way that we just wouldn't have even thought about talking about and large corporations five years ago so with that we have lots of work to do