 Welcome to JSA TV where we're covering the latest stories trends and innovations from leaders and global connectivity Digital infrastructure and the networks within. My name is Emily Sherer for JSA and I am joined today by Brian Hasegawa from Light River He is the chief financial officer and chief operating officer. Welcome Brian. It's great to have you here. Thank you for having me Absolutely. So from what we've seen and heard 2023 was a great year for Light River So we would love to hear a little bit more about some of those key successes and some of the things that made you successful last year Yeah 2023 for Light River was a banner year for us You know after several years of supply chain disruption Think we're finally kind of get seen through that and able to capitalize on the pent up demand that was there So our service delivery team our software solutions teams were really able to step in help out and drive the Great top line results as well as bottom line Excellent great and any specific successes you want to share Yeah, yeah, so we've had some great wins with our hyperscalers as you know hyperscalers They're really big into the AI and our service delivery team was able to really expand on that and deliver kind of like long-haul Rows provide the services that you know They absolutely need right now as they deal with this explosive growth. That is fueled by AI Excellent great great. We've heard so much about AI so excellent growth that you're seeing there now a couple months into 2024 here What aspects of the market landscape from 2023 do you believe will serve as strong tailwinds for Light Rivers continued growth? And how is Light River positioned to capitalize on some of those those trends in 2023 was was an interesting year You know after years, I would say of kind of like free money It became a year of efficiency and a path to profitability a focus of profitability was being pushed down on the companies And you know one of the panelists here said I Get all that but how do I meet the demand with discipline? And I think that's where Light River can really help in that that you know We can supplement we can complement all these pare down teams that exist with our network services solutions our software solutions You know, how do we essentially automate people's job? How do we make them more efficient? That's where Light River can really step in and that's been a tailwind for us So that path to profitability actually just generated more business for us as people are looking for partners to help them out You know basically meet that demand with discipline as the panelists said. Yeah, absolutely So it sounds like 2024 is gonna be just as successful as 2023 was for you all Yes, Devin. I look looking forward to a really strong 2024. Good. Excellent. Excellent Now we've heard about the potential challenge of sustained interest rates affecting cash use for companies like Light River And can you shed some light on how the company plans to tackle that obstacle while maintaining its growth trajectory for 2024? Yeah, it's you know as the the mantra goes cash is king for us We've been very lucky that our debt levels were pretty sustainable They're not you know exorbitant to back to the point where you know We have to pay down tons of tons of money on interest expense, which you know some P back firms have to deal with So for us it has been more of how do we invest properly? How do we invest appropriately into our own business and that really is investing in our people? So for us, how do we kind of navigate through that is to? Identify the right people the right talent invest in that and make sure that we're using our capital properly And the people that we have and that will kind of sustain our growth and and essentially support our growth for the future Yeah, absolutely the right people make all the difference. So great. Yes, definitely luck with that. Yeah Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining us Brian. Is there anything else you want to add today? No, this is great Thank you so much for having me great. Enjoy the show and to our viewers. Happy networking and keep tuning in for more interviews from Metro Connect