Lessons from a Nike Finance Director | with Alex Rodgers

Building a Coaching Culture - #81: Lessons from a Nike Finance Director | with Alex Rodgers ==== [00:00:00] Alex Rodgers: in my mind, one of the leader's responsibilities is to create more leaders and servant leadership is about enabling, the members of your team to reach their full potential, not just on the job, but, other aspects of their life because people will spend an inordinate amount of time at work. And so we're, you know, leaders there to help them find the right balance and, be in a position to be successful. Um,​ [00:00:22] J.R. Flatter: Hey, welcome back everybody. J. R. Flatter here and as always with my co host Lucas. [00:01:00] Lucas Flatter: Hello. [00:01:01] J.R. Flatter: Hey Lucas. Our distinguished guest today is Alex Rogers and Alex will give you an opportunity to introduce yourself in a second. I just want to remind our listeners and viewers who we are and who we're talking to. And Alex as well. [00:01:14] So we are a podcast on building coaching cultures and how do you in the 21st century build a culture [00:01:24] that's going to attract and retain talent in this highly competitive labor market. non profit, for profit, government, whomever, all complex leaders running those organizations. So with that quick background, Alex, great to have you here, love to hear your story. [00:01:43] I'm looking at your bio right here, quite an impressive bio. We can see where you are currently, but where you've came from and where you're heading. [00:01:52] Alex Rodgers: All right, great. Thanks. thanks, JR. as you mentioned, I'm Alex Rogers. I currently serve as a Director of Financial Planning and Analysis for Nike Global Technology. prior to Nike, I worked at Chewy as a Director of Merchandising Finance, in South Florida. prior to that, I worked at Walmart, in both technology finance and, merchandising finance and strategy in Walmart U. [00:02:17] S. before that, I had, I served about nine years at Office Depot, in a stores finance role, then, corporate business planning for about four and a half years. And then my final role was a senior manager finance, as serving as the finance owner of North America's Inventory. at Office Depot, prior to that, I worked at GE Healthcare, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, initially as a balance sheet analyst in the group financial planning and then, transitioned to a, into a commercial finance role for the used diagnostic imaging equipment business. [00:02:49] My first job out of business school was at LG& E Energy in Louisville, Kentucky. I started off my corporate career in general management rotational program. Initially started off in product management, then I call it operations, supporting the commercial product that I helped, bring to fruition, and then, transition to a finance role in the corporate planning group at LG& E in Louisville. [00:03:13] prior to entering the corporate world, I served in the army for four and a half years as a field artillery officer stationed at Fort Liberty, which used to be called Fort Bragg, and, I, I actually graduated from West Point, so I went straight from high school into, to a military, context. [00:03:30] and then would say that, you know, I really see myself as a financial athlete who's very adaptable add value in any type of like organization. I've served in finance leadership roles over the course of my career, that span a variety of industries, business models, business situations, and functional areas. [00:03:50] and I actually had a really good mentor at GE Healthcare. One of the things that she suggested is always, you know, to take the roles that other people aren't willing to do because they provide great opportunities for you to learn and actually help, you know, elevate the organization. [00:04:04] And I found that to be true over the course of my career. One of the things I learned, I think from my experience at West Point was, to not be afraid of failure. and confronting your fears, you often find that you're, a lot better than what you initially thought you might be in a role. [00:04:19] So, that's a little bit about me. [00:04:22] J.R. Flatter: Yeah, very impressive background. As I'm looking at your bio and listening to you, you're serving in big business in a lot of small cities. Other than Milwaukee, seems like you bounce around some small cities. Portland, I guess, isn't so small, but it's... It's out there on the West Coast. [00:04:38] Alex Rodgers: Yes. it's certainly, I would call it, I would call it a medium sized city. you know, just Louis, Louisville and Milwaukee are probably more, you know, I would call them medium sized cities. but you know, I moved from Louisville to Milwaukee. for me, it was all about the opportunity at the time, you know, GE was considered to be the best managed company in the world, and it was being led by, you know, Jack Welch at the time and the head of GE healthcare, Jeff Immelt ended up becoming the CEO of GE. [00:05:07] So it's a great company to learn how to be a general manager and it had a reputation for, you know, developing strong finance talent as well. So I saw it as a great opportunity grow myself and my career and [00:05:20] J.R. Flatter: I love that phrase you use, financial athlete. I took exactly one finance class in my entire college career, and it's probably one of the lowest grades I ever got. I just never got the bug. Talk to us a little bit about what it means to be a financial athlete and how someone such as yourself can bring value to a corporation, [00:05:40] Alex Rodgers: In speaking with some finance leaders that I've worked with, you know, one of the things I took from them is over the course of their career, they've, transitioned to a lot of different roles. [00:05:51] In fact, the CFO at Office Depot at the time, Mike Newman, said he sat down one weekend and he counted up the number of roles that he'd had in his career. And he'd said, it'd been 28 different jobs. he'd been a CFO like three or four times already. So what he was trying to impress upon me was that, experience of moving around and putting yourself out there in different situations really prepared you for the, you know, some of the more toughest business environments that you would encounter over the. [00:06:19] over the course of your career and if you just think about NFL players, you know, they may work out in the offseason, but they come into training camp, they're not ready to play a game. They have to get into like football shape in the sense that they need to get their bodies attuned to getting. [00:06:36] Tackled or blocked and having that physical contact, to make sure that they're ready for the game to, you know, to that which helps prevent the chance of injury and helps 'em sustain a 16 game regular season. This kind of view is like my view of a finance athlete is someone that, you know, has the experience and the knowledge because they've done different roles. [00:06:56] They, you know, they understand all aspects of the financial statements and how to add value at every area of the business. They also understand strategically, they understand the business model. [00:07:09] of the organization and how it generates value And also get involved with the strategy in terms of how the organization positions itself to create a sustainable competitive advantage that separates itself from the competition Because all strategy is is an integrated set of choices. and choosing what not to do and what to do. And as such, finance can play a key role in understanding, or articulating where value is being created and maybe where there's opportunities to create value. [00:07:37] Because effectively, that's the professional expertise of finance is the masters of value creation. Understanding where and how it's being created and where it may not necessarily be optimized. [00:07:49] Lucas Flatter: Yeah, and I think, that kind of answer about applying the financial strategies to, oh, I need to create value in this sector versus this sector, it kind of answers this question, but I wanted to ask, when you're a financial, planning and analysis director for one company versus another, do you Incorporate the mission and the goals of that in that corporation, I guess in other words, I see like finance and investing as agnostic, but if you're in an organization, you want to push their mission forward. So how do you do that? I guess. [00:08:26] Alex Rodgers: that's a good question, Lucas. You know, one of the tools that I often use when I join a new organization is I leverage the book, The First 90 Days. [00:08:36] And what it does is it's a fairly easy read, but what it does is help you, you know, really ground yourself in the current environment of the organization. and gives you a learning path to assimilate Start to, I'll call it, create value as soon as possible. you know, everything that you do within an organization, I think this is not just true of finance, but you have to do it within the context of the corporate culture. [00:09:04] As well. So, you know, understanding the company's history, its values, you know, how decisions are being made, you know, what behaviors that successful people in the organization demonstrate, I do that, you know, I usually pull together like a 10 I'm a 10 question questionnaire, and I ask various, I go and I meet with various people in the organization and ask them questions to try to formulate a point of view of how to navigate in the current environment. [00:09:30] And that's something that I did here and I actually had a 90 day plan that I put together for my assimilation into Nike a couple of years ago. because, you know, Yeah, sure, you may have the technical skills, but if you don't fit in before standing out, you can derail yourself, in your career trajectory within the organization. [00:09:48] you know, Nike is one of those companies that has been very successful over this last 50 or so years of existence. so... You know, you need to be, you know, sensitive to that even though I've worked at some other great organizations, you need to be sensitive to that as I was, you know, entering the organization. [00:10:03] J.R. Flatter: You're just full of nuggets, Alex. I'm going to come back to fit in before standing out. I love that one too. [00:10:08] Yeah, [00:10:09] Alex Rodgers: I, that's something that I learned that, you know, that's some good advice that I received at Walmart when I joined, is because it's such, you know, it's the world's largest company, it's, you know, it's, Huge. It's right now, it's over 600 billion in revenue. it's culture's a little bit, is a lot different. [00:10:28] It's more, especially like a Northwest Arkansas, you know, I'm naturally not a Southerner and it's definitely got like a, feels like family. and it's a very relationship driven organization and they have some very distinct values, as well. And so. the best way, in my mind, to be successful in that organization, or one of the best ways, is to, build relationships across the enterprise, no matter who it may be, because that can help you be more effective in the organization as you go along. [00:10:58] As you spend time, you know, as your tenure grows there. And so, there are definitely some rules of the road that you had to be sensitive to joining. you had to be sensitive about coming off as arrogant and not being necessarily humble. [00:11:13] in Walmart's very big on servant leadership, which is a leadership model that it's very similar to the U S army's, leadership model. So for me, it felt right at home. [00:11:23] J.R. Flatter: you led me right into my next line of thought, and that is a lot of our audience are veterans and are currently serving. could you talk about that journey? You're in this Very impressive career trajectory, having come out of the Military Academy and after your time serving. What are your thoughts on that transition and how does one become Alex Rogers in 20 years after leaving the service? [00:11:50] Alex Rodgers: Well, it's interesting, you know, so I was a. At West Point, I actually majored in political science and,you know, everyone was required to also take, I'll call it an engineering minor in civilian terms, so an engineering track. So mine was, or systems engineering. [00:12:09] So, I always thought that I was going to go back to graduate school to get a master's of public administration. however, When I was at Fort Bragg, my roommate, who was one of my classmates from the academy, we did have one class together and, we had a couple of classes together as cadets and I, we had met through a mutual friend, I think one of his roommate actually. [00:12:30] But anyway, Rich Campbell was the one, he majored in econ, but he was the one who encouraged me to, get an MBA because he said that. Opened up so many more doors, you know, it had a lot more, you know, it was much more broad based and would give me, you know, positioned me better for a business career. [00:12:49] So, I had a couple of options. One, I could go. leave the army and then go work as a civilian and then go to business school, figure out what I wanted to do, or I could just go directly to school. And I chose to go directly to school full time at Duke to receive my MBA. [00:13:05] that was a pretty Eye opening experience for me, you know, getting started because what I realized is there's so much opportunity out there. It's hard to figure out what exactly I wanted to do and where my strengths So the good thing about business school, and I think the culture of Fuqua is there's a lot of, you know, the people there were very friendly. [00:13:24] And they were willing to share the benefit of your, of their experience. you know, I knew what I was going to do when I graduated from West Point. These folks may have worked in two or three different organizations before they even went back to business school. So I was drinking from a fire hydrant. [00:13:38] I think initially I thought I wanted to work on Wall Street, where, you know, finance is more of a profit center versus a, you know, cost center. regular, I call it an operating company, but, you know, no opportunities really panned out. So I had to make a, another set of choices and eventually I found a functional home. [00:13:57] You know, while I was at LG& E, my first job out of business school, and what I realized, what I found about finance was, you know, it was one of the more intellectually challenging functional areas of business. But the other thing is it provides the right balance of leadership as well as technical skills. [00:14:16] Because what you end up doing is pulling together some numbers, synthesizing what happened and helping, trying to tell a story and then influencing leadership or framing up, you know, different scenarios or to help enable better decision making. So really help tell the truth about what, what's actually happening in the business. [00:14:35] what the organization needs to do next. That's what I often find that I'm doing now in my current role is, Nike technology is one of the largest SG&A areas in Nike. And therefore we have a pretty significant impact upon the company's financial results. [00:14:49] Plus, we're also investing a lot of money for the future to enable future set of capabilities and people it's not just about, making the number, making our budget, but it's also enabling the set of capabilities. That the business needs to drive the strategy. So it's a fine balance between, a hard number, as well as the actual outcomes that we deliver as a tech organization. [00:15:12] And, finance is right at the edge. We're trying to find the right balance between, just make the number and that's it versus, provide the value as I, [00:15:21] Lucas Flatter: so, We talk about in building a coaching culture, you know, developing your team and investing in, like growing people on your team. and you mentioned difference between, you know, getting that number or the profit number what your strategy might be. So, do you see you know, investing back in, development of individuals like human resources? [00:15:45] valuable to you, or how do you factor that into the financial planning? [00:15:50] Alex Rodgers: you know, in my mind, one of the leader's responsibilities is to create more leaders and servant leadership is about enabling, the members of your team to reach their full potential, either, you know, not just on the job, but, other aspects of their life because people will spend an inordinate amount of time at work. And so we're, you know, leaders there to help them find the right balance and, be in a position to be successful. think one of my favorite examples of, developing that kind of coaching culture is, In my last role at Office Depot, I was a Senior Manager of Merchandising and Finance, and we had a reorganization in merchandising, and I had a new analyst come over to my team, you know, he'd worked at, I think, in merchandise planning for a couple of years. [00:16:36] He was really smart, really hardworking, ambitious, but he just didn't have, a lot of experience, and he wanted to, you know, grow his career. So he came over and, had the right attitude and everything, but one of the things I did is I was able to, you know, having come from corporate planning, I had access to some presentations and some like analysis that my team had done that I was able to share with him to help familiarize him with, what is his role within the, you know, entire corporate structure. and then I also provided him with some corporate finance training to help him understand, inventory management, as well as like the, you know, the impacts on the balance sheet, the cash flow statement, and the P& L. [00:17:15] So he understood exactly this is why, These are the areas of the business that lines the financials that we're directly impacting, and this is why this is important. I actually said, hey, we have this inventory forecasting model, and I'm going to give it to you. [00:17:29] you're going to own the consolidations of the forecasts and the actuals each month. And so you need to, you know, update this tool, get it up and running. Also, you're going to have a leadership role. you're going to interface with the inventory planners to collect the information. [00:17:44] So you're going to be it's going to give you an opportunity to set. Priorities and set calendars and, deliverables for with everyone. So you're an analyst, but you're going to be in charge. you're going to get your arms, hands dirty. [00:17:56] And for him, that was a really eyeopening experience and it really challenged him. I was trying to build him up to be a finance athlete, as well. And ultimately what I'm really excited about is the fact when I left Office Depot for Walmart, he ended up stepping into my shoes afterwards. [00:18:12] and he was at a point where he had grown himself over 18 months or so he had the level of confidence and knowledge and skills to be able to step in and backfill me. So, that speaks to the power of. You know, coaching and mentorship, as well. And Mark and I still have, we still keep in contact with each other. [00:18:30] He went off and started his own tax preparation business. that's an example of you know, providing an environment for your team to be successful, [00:18:37] J.R. Flatter: So, I'll go back to your line of, fitting in before standing out. One of the recurring things, Lucas, that I come across in our leadership development and coach training and coaching is, how can I be my authentic self at work? I'm not being allowed to be my authentic self at work, and you're saying something contrary to that, even, this idea, and I don't mean to be provocative, but a recurring idea that comes across our desk is this idea of code switching. Morphing yourself to fit in rather than being that individual. I'd love to hear your thoughts on all that. [00:19:12] Alex Rodgers: Well, you know, the way I think about it that, The organization has a set of values and behaviors that expects it's team members to, buy into, the culture is all about the behaviors and the values that the leadership, demonstrates and tolerates. [00:19:27] As well. so that's something to keep in mind. you certainly don't wanna be bull in the China shop on the other hand, I think people get to know you, find out about who you are, And when you're business meetings, and maybe other, social events, they get to know you and understand are and what you stand for. [00:19:45] I mean, often what I'm finding here at Nike, we'll have, different meetings and there'll be a, portion of the meeting where they feature. different members of the team, and they may play the game Two Truths and a Lie, and so that's an opportunity for people to, get to know who you are outside of work, and we also have a lot of, social events and happy hours. [00:20:06] Those are opportunities for people to get to know you beyond just the day to day work environment. I guess, you know, there's a word of caution about bringing full self to work. It still is a corporate environment. how you behave and some of the things you do share, you need to be very, you need to be attuned to what, maybe there's too much information there. [00:20:26] but for me, it's all about being approachable too. You know, you don't want to be someone so rigid in their mindset that people don't come, to you General Powell, Colin Powell said, when soldiers stop coming to you for your problem, that's a problem. one of the things I appreciate doing is, just mentoring people when I have the opportunity to do so. [00:20:44] I'm actually mentoring someone who A student at the University of Illinois who happened to reach out to me on LinkedIn, and I actually grew up in Champaign Urbana. My dad was a professor at Illinois, and so we already had something in common. I think she's the first member of her family to go to college. [00:21:00] And so she's just looking for some, advice, you know, she didn't want anything other than that. And I've spent time, Mentoring, having some conversations with her over the last month and a half, simply because, you know, was courageous enough to take the first step [00:21:14] but, I think those type of situations also helped me be more effective. [00:21:18] at Nike and other enterprises, leadership is an ongoing practice where you're constantly trying to hone your leadership skills and abilities. So as a win. [00:21:29] Lucas Flatter: you had mentioned earlier that, this role, this functional role, combines the technical with the leadership and being able to present, you know, some story that the numbers might have shown you. how do you go about adding that kind of narrative to something so technical and what are some of your strategies for that? [00:21:51] Alex Rodgers: Well, lot of the audiences that I deal with are very visual, so they don't necessarily do well with just putting a bunch of numbers on a PowerPoint slide. I find that integrating the use of graphs and I, you know, some words and some really tight bullet comments that help articulate the story, tell the story are the most effective. [00:22:14] because, Not everyone is like a finance expert, so one of the things you have to do in finance is to boil a complex idea into very plain spoken language, try to avoid a lot of the finance jargon, but really, help people connect the dots. [00:22:30] so, for example, you can show the, you can just show the, maybe just the P& L, by the different major line items over the course of time, but then you have another slide that says, okay, here are the major, I'll call it tech programs that we're investing. [00:22:47] And when I'm investing on this particular program, and here's necessarily like the value that it's going to enable as well as like the case set of capabilities in terms of words, not way people identify. Well, okay, that makes sense. Versus like just looking at the PNL accounts. That really doesn't tell you anything. [00:23:05] It tells you just what the dollar amount is and how you may be, how it may play out on the P& L, but it doesn't tell you exactly creating or you're enabling. [00:23:13] J.R. Flatter: So as I look at the trajectory of your career, almost 30 years now, I misspoke. I keep, I guess it's because I'm a boomer, I keep forgetting that 95 was almost 30 years ago. as you look at that career, it looks to me like you did a lot of self selection. You decided, I want this and I'm going after it. [00:23:33] Where did the world pick you? So I'd just love to see your insights on self selection versus the stratosphere or karma picking your path. [00:23:43] Alex Rodgers: Okay, that's a good question. So My first job I mentioned out of business school, I was working at LG& E in a general management rotational program, eventually landed in a finance role. And I realized that, you know, this is where I found my passion. This is where I want to, you know, This is the direction that I want to take my career, but I recognize that, you know, utilities are essentially a regulated monopoly, and I wasn't really going to reach my full potential in that situation, in living at that organization. [00:24:17] I also didn't see, Louisville, Kentucky as, my final... destination as well. And so I knew that, you know, GE at the time was one of the best managed companies in the world. it was an academy company where people would come, could come in at the early start of their career, right out of college and grow. [00:24:42] So, I attended the Black MBA conference out in Anaheim, California, and, I ended up interviewing for a job there and I ended up, you know, receiving an offer, from that, so that was more of an independent job search on my own. I took the initiative to go put myself in a situation where go to a larger role. and then, what also happened at GE, you know, my, I was there for a year. I was actually in a job that was probably too large for my level of experience, but my mentor suggested, you know, that I transitioned to this role in, in GE Gold Seal, which is the used diagnostic imaging equipment business for GE healthcare, because it was an opportunity to work under like a seasoned finance manager from, for GE. [00:25:28] Someone who'd been with the company 30 years, and it was a small, but fast growing business where I get my hands into everything. And that for me was an inflection point in my career. Cause it really, bolstered my confidence and my knowledge and skillset. and I was able to, you know, add some value in that position. [00:25:45] you know, unfortunately, at GE, GE also was known for having a lot of reorganizations. So, my role was eliminated at about four, four years into my tenure at GE. And so I was approached by, actually, I found an opportunity on the Duke alumni website and the hiring manager for this role at Office Depot was actually another Fuqua alum. [00:26:09] and as I interviewed for the role, there were like two or three other Fuqua alums on the panel, so I think the stars aligned with me in that situation as well. it was great because the role I accepted was effectively a regional CFO role, where I was the only finance Person supporting region, at Office Depot. [00:26:27] It was, you know, a billion dollar business with about 180 stores across six states, and I had a whiteboard to like kind of craft, set the priorities and the strategy and figure out what I wanted to focus on. And so that was a perfect opportunity for me, but it also got me deeply embedded in the business. [00:26:44] So I'd never worked in a retail before I come to Office Depot, not even as a teenager, you know, it's not, that's not a teenage job that I had. So I was coming in, you know, with my eyes wide open the other great thing about that role was I was able to. walk the stores the regional vice president who spent his entire career in retail. And he had done every of those jobs, so he knew it. So then once, once I spent time with him, I started to make sense of the numbers. every store is different. They have their own P& L, but they have their own dynamics because they're all, you know, based upon a certain area. So they're all dealing with different challenges and different opportunities. [00:27:21] So, you know, that was an example where I leaped into something that I had no familiarity with, but it was a excellent, learning opportunity and career growth and opportunity to show my skills, role. you know, Office Depot, I was there for nine years and I got to a point where I had a lot of good deal of success, added some value, but didn't have the opportunity to grow and Walmart called and I listened. I'd had several conversations with them over the years and finally had an opportunity to. join the world's largest IT organization. So I took that opportunity and moved from South Florida to Northwest Arkansas. you know, obviously a pretty significant change in, I'll call it culture as well as like geographic area. [00:28:06] but I knew that, you know, going to a company, you know, transitioning to a company like Walmart would. You know, with its scale and scope would really position me well over the course of my career. Plus, I'd be doing something different, supporting IT. And, you know, I had the opportunity to work you know, in, I think tech finance at the time within Walmart wasn't like the greatest place to go. [00:28:28] But, that was before e commerce really took off. So, Coming into the team, I was able to, you know, be the, serve as the finance lead for a pretty large, pretty significant IT initiative, which I think impacted both the Sam's Clubs, as well as the Walmart U. S. stores and saved, you know, Walmart money. [00:28:47] And so I was able to position myself for another great opportunity within the organization. So I think that, I mean, long story short for me, it's a combination of both. It's, you recognizing what your potential is within an organization and what your career goals all are and understanding whether or not you believe you can achieve those goals within that context. [00:29:10] The other thing is, what's become more important now is having an A strong, profile on LinkedIn, social net, you know, on social media, in a sense. And what I found is that having a strong LinkedIn profile and a public profile indicative to, people reaching out to you about new opportunities as well. [00:29:30] So those are the things you have to find the right balance. And one thing I think I also learned is at Fuqua, there's a pretty heavy investment in teaching students how to write their own resume. And so, you know, I think I became pretty adept at it, but once I achieved,the director or junior executive level, I realized that I was probably at the limit of my capabilities, that there's a lot of professional resume writers who can really craft your story and your profile in a much more refined way, so that, it projects the, you know, the image or the message that you want to articulate. [00:30:06] And so, as Clint Eastwood would say, a man's got to know his limitations. So I got to that point I have somebody else help me with my profile now. So, I hope that answers your question. [00:30:19] J.R. Flatter: No, that's beautiful. Yeah. Thank you. Lucas gets our last question. That's part of our tradition. [00:30:25] Lucas Flatter: I really like what you said about, you know, taking that, like the resume and maybe you need help with it. it reminded me of okay, you're a financial, you know, expert by many rights. How do you take that into your personal life? And do you have any, high level tips for people that are trying to do their own financial planning? [00:30:46] Alex Rodgers: so I guess the kind of work that I do is more Financially Planning Analysis within a corporation [00:30:54] You know, I do a lot of, financial forecasts, reporting results, consolidating a lot of information, a lot of data and translating it into information. I think from an individual investment standpoint, I mean, the way that the approach to that is you could engage like A financial planner, someone that can help you, you know, understand how to allocate the capital that you do have and build, I'll call it build wealth for yourself, you know, either for retirement or some other, maybe to send your kids to school, all those type of things. [00:31:25] and then of course there's, you know, there's an immense library. of like books and resources out there on how to learn about different, you know, investment, I'll call it tools, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, you know, options, those, all the different investment tools that are available to one to, you know, create value or wealth for themselves. [00:31:50] I think that's one of the things too, that, I did take a personal finance class at West Point and, the professor was actually my economics professor as well. You know, we're required to take, and macro economics at West Point. [00:32:02] So I think I had the same professor both semesters. And, you know, I took his personal investment class and that's where I got, I caught the, started catching the finance bug back then. I guess I just didn't realize it at the time, but, as you learn about the different investment tools, or paths that you can take, you start to become more attuned to you know, I think business finance in that sense. [00:32:28] Lucas Flatter: Okay.