We start by going to the archives for an excerpt of our conversation with Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks, Membership Director of the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO). (You can hear our full interview with Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks and Timothy Garbinsky in Episode 74.)
We then shine our EO Professional Spotlight on Will Rodriguez of Vision Point Capital, who describes his efforts to raise ESOP awareness by educating CPAs, lawyers, and bankers about EO.
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Episode 92 Transcript
Bitsy McCann: 00:02 Welcome to The EO Podcast where we amplify and celebrate all forms of employee ownership.
Bret Keisling: 00:11 Hello my friends. Thanks for listening. My name is Bret Keisling and as it says on my business cards, I'm a passionate advocate for employee ownership. In today's episode, we're going to bring you conversations I had at two different national conferences. First, we're going to go back to the archives, Episode 74, where we brought you interviews with Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks and Tim Garbinsky of NCEO. We're going to play an excerpt of our conversation with Ramona. We hope that you'll go back and listen in full; NCEO has a lot of great things going on. We're really happy to have staff members come on the podcast and talk about it. This was recorded at their national conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in April, 2019. And then we switch to our professional advisor spotlight. We put the spotlight on Will Rodriguez, who's a very talented valuation advisor based in Tampa, Florida, and will was kind enough to sit down with me in Las Vegas. He was in Las Vegas for The ESOP Association national conference. We sat down and recorded there. And as anybody who knows anything about me or the podcasts, we support all of the organizations, all of the advocates, all of the professionals, and all of the employee owners, wherever we find them. So it's kind of fun for me to bring you an episode that goes from NCEO's national conference to one recorded during The ESOP Association national conference. So with that, here's a look back to Episode 74 and an excerpt of my conversation with Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks. Enjoy.
Bret Keisling: 01:47 Ramona, we're at the national conference. And first of all, congratulations to you folks. 1900 rough numbers, we think, largest ESOP gathering in history. I mean congratulations, but also thanks from the community, but you've got to be very excited.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 02:00 We're very excited. I mean, you say thanks from the community. Really. It's thanks *for* the community. This community is growing. They're excited. They're kind. One of the, one of the most hilarious conference evaluation comments that we've ever gotten was whenever I come to the annual conference, I feel like I'm part of the most genuinely caring cult in history.
Bret Keisling: 02:28 Cult! [Laughter.] That's actually very funny.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 02:29 It's very funny!
Bret Keisling: 02:31 And part of it, for those who might be tuning in for the first time, those who believe in employee ownership are very passionate about it.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 02:37 That's right.
Bret Keisling: 02:37 So there's no hidden rituals, there's no Kool-Aid. That's just all of us gathered around what we all think is a very good cause for us to be involved in.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 02:46 That's right.
Bret Keisling: 02:46 So when you look at-- we want to talk about membership a little bit and we'll get back to this conference in a moment, but NCEO, a lot of people think of in terms of the national conference, you also do a lot of educational stuff, but NCEO is doing smaller events around the country as well is that correct?
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 03:01 We do, we do smaller events around the country all year round. We have ESOP feasibility meetings specifically looking into whether an ESOP is right for you. We do the introductory ESOP meetings that are geared towards both people thinking about ESOPs and also people who are maybe looking at a second transaction or they want to send someone from their committee to learn more about ESOP basics. We do those. And then we have our fall forum and annual conference.
Bret Keisling: 03:29 And one of the great things, and I'll just speak about the conference for a moment and then talk about the other interactions members could have is when you come to an NCEO conference, first of all, there are great presentations that are given by leading experts and employee owners from around the country. But it is very usual if someone has a question in the audience, it's answered during the presentation. But if it's complicated or nuanced, people will gather afterwards and just trying to help people get the answers, it's very collegial.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 04:02 You're right. I've seen people ask questions of speakers and the speaker might, you know, begin to answer their question and then someone else will raise their hand in the audience and say, well, this is how I dealt with that issue.
Bret Keisling: 04:15 And we all learn from the experiences. And ultimately ESOPs, just one form of business, but business is business. So there's so much different information and if you have a specific question, 99% of the time you're going to find someone who's had that experience and can speak to it.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 04:30 Absolutely. And our members are so -- I said the word kind and I really do mean it and sharing. There's a sense in our community that we should be learning from one another and that that's one of our strengths. So we see a lot of this kind of networking that happens, this peer to peer connection and just an incredible amount of openness, especially for people who in their daily business lives maybe they can't talk about all the strategies that they have, all the challenges, the specific things that come up around employee ownership, their regular network of business friends might not really understand that. But in this environment, not only do we have people who are running successful businesses, we have people who are running them in a similar way in this very unique employee owned environment.
Bret Keisling: 05:24 And you also and there's great value to the regional, you know, or the state based meetings. But you have the advantage even if you have a good solid team of ESOP experts you've got the entire national pool of professional advisors available. So it's a good time to meet new people, get new input and that sort of thing.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 05:45 And helping our members meet each other is one of the priorities that I have in my job. And one of the things that's really great about these meetings, for example, I had someone come up to and say, Ramona, will you help me find a company that's like mine? We really want to be developing an ownership culture and employee engagement, but most of our employees are remote. Can you find someone like that? I haven't been able to, and she's just had this look of, of desperation in her eyes. And I told her I didn't want to raise her expectations too much and I said, I will do my best. But not five minutes later I had another woman come up to me and say, Ramona, and she has this look of desperation in her eyes. And she says, Ramona, will you find me a company who is working on ownership culture and employee engagement because my company's 90% remote. So I was able to connect these women here at this conference. And that's just one of the best parts about my job.
Bret Keisling: 06:44 And the funny thing is it's a bit unique that in five minutes they both might come to you and you can make that connection. But if the second one hadn't walked up, you probably would have found her, knowing you a little bit, and it's, you see all the time where someone will be pulling someone almost by the hand or the sleeve to do a quick introduction just because everybody's here.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 07:03 That's right.
Bret Keisling: 07:03 So I'm really glad that you were able to do that and these folks go and the fact is they may learn a lot about ESOP and what they need to know, but that connection may be the single most valuable experience. So everybody gets different things out of it.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 07:19 That's right.
Bret Keisling: 07:19 We talk often, Ramona, about membership in NCEO. And just as we say, there are other professional advisors, we're not in a vacuum. There's The ESOP Association, ESCA, there are other organizations. And from our perspective if the community is healthy we we're all healthy. But with that, we generally say companies should belong and we don't push one or the other. And for us, just as professional advisors at Capital Trustees, we say go to the conferences and kind of talk like you and I just did. For the podcast purposes, though, there's a lot of benefits to membership. I know and you'll go through, but like a monthly newsletter and other resources. So why don't you tell us from your perspective everything that membership and NCEO would bring to the table.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 08:06 So I'm going to start with another story about networking and it might be a little similar, but a person emailed me and said, my board tasked me to find an ESOP company with a minority ownership interest that's in manufacturing that is under a hundred employees and in the Northeast. And we're... and he said I'm sorry if this is too much to ask.
Bret Keisling: 08:36 He's wanting you to identify a company with that criteria.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 08:39 With that criteria and connect him.
Bret Keisling: 08:41 Okay.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 08:42 And we're able to do that. We were able to do that for him. I - we're - working on a project right now that is mapping the ESOP universe, taking a stock of every ESOP plan there is and taking a look at certain data points about these plans that have never been recorded before including percentage of ownership. So I was able to take this new data and scour through it, find another member, actually several members that fit that criteria, and then connected people who were willing to speak with one another. It was fantastic.
Bret Keisling: 09:16 And by the way, for anyone listening casually, done very appropriately within your rules of communication and information.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 09:22 Absolutely! Absolutely.
Bret Keisling: 09:22 You know, as you guys are sharing this and that's part of the advantage.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 09:25 That's part of the advantage of membership because as members we open up the NCEO staff resources, us as human resources, we open ourselves completely to our members. You can call us, you can email us and ask us about employee ownership questions. We can't have too have an in depth conversation without charging for consulting, but we also do that and we charge very reasonable fees for that.
Bret Keisling: 09:49 Let me ask, because I didn't realize, and I'm glad that we're sitting down to do this, the consulting that NCEO does and obviously you have expertise. So, to your point, it's not like somebody can call up and they've decided that they're going to invest in a business and they're going to ask you when you're going to do 20 hours of research on that. There was a specific request that you were able to handle and you guys do that just as part of what you do. But tell me a little bit about the consulting services that you offer and how someone would go about...
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 10:18 Right. You can call us up and think and say something like, I want to reevaluate our executive compensation and I want to know more about what other ESOP companies do and what kind of structures I can put in place as far as stock compensation or you know, innovative ways on compensating executives. And not only can we provide you research like our executive compensation survey that we do that is ESOP specific. We also have just a wealth of knowledge around stock ownership in general. And so we'll get Corey Rosen on the phone, we'll get Loren Rodgers on the phone with you or via email and you can just have a little conversation that will guide you in the right direction, that can lead you to ask more detailed questions of the advisors you already work with.
Bret Keisling: 11:04 And that's the key thing. We want to be clear for the advisors who are listening. You are not suggesting that if they hire NCEO as a consultant they're not going to need ESOP lawyers...
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 11:14 That's true.
Bret Keisling: 11:14 ...Or you're not going to say you're not going to need valuation advisors. The folks are still going to need, but you're an excellent starting point. And even with the consulting on an in depth level, you can bring it to the level, but at some point the regular professional advisors would be brought in as normal.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 11:30 Precisely. And sometimes the answers to the questions that we get is this is what we think about it, but you need to talk to your lawyer or your valuation advisor or your trustee.
Bret Keisling: 11:40 I'm almost thinking for some reason -- and it's a horrible analogy -- but I pictured like the Butterball Thanksgiving hotline where someone calls up, I need a recipe for employee ownership. Then you're like, take two teaspoons of stock options.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 11:51 Right.
Bret Keisling: 11:51 You know, but that's very cool. It's cool that you guys do that.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 11:54 Sometimes it is the emergency help line. And I'm telling you, it's call early, don't call late. Of course you can call late if you're in an issue, but you can give us a call for early guidance and we can save you time. We can save you money and we can save you hassle by pointing you in the right direction, pointing you in, you know, you bring up legal direction. Sometimes people will call us up and I hear Corey say, you can't do that. That's not legal. And that's very valuable advice.
Bret Keisling: 12:24 Right. Right. Andvthere are certain things and, and you wouldn't get this question, but "Can we commit bank fraud?" A quick "No!" is very helpful. [Laughter.] You know, so that sounds fun. So one of the give me some of the other stuff that membership that you'd like to talk about.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 12:40 We produce webinars almost weekly, so this is a great way, you know, I was talking about those people with employees who work remotely. It's a great way to remotely connect to ESOP knowledge and also to share that knowledge with your employees. If you're an employee owned company and a member of the NCEO, the way we structure our membership, every employee is now covered by the membership and can do stuff like log into the webinars and learn about communication and culture or learn about how to communicate a valuation statement or learn about what goes into a valuation.
Bret Keisling: 13:14 So let me get close to the mic and repeat this. So everybody listens. Employee owned companies, you are able to have every single participant be able to login and get the resources that they'll want and not to replace the other culture and communication efforts you are working on. But if you are interested in culture and communication -- and you better be -- what a great additional resource for every single employee owner. And then to encourage, and not all of them are going to go, but to be able to say they have a resource is wonderful.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks: 13:44 It's true. I know some companies will sometimes, especially companies that might not be so computer-based or their workforce isn't so computer-based. They will I know. Restek, a great Pennsylvania company who's here on the host committee of this conference, projected the webinar "Intro to ESOPs" and just had a little meeting and invited everyone who wanted to come. Maybe they served breakfast, but the content we took care of.
Bret Keisling: 14:08 That completes this excerpt of our conversation with Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks. We hope you'll tune into Episode 74 of the podcast in our archives available at theesoppodcast.com and check out the full conversation with Ramona as well as conversation with her colleague Tim Garbinsky. We're grateful to belong to NCEO and hope you support all of the organizations. We'll be right back with our conversation with Will Rodriguez, but first....
Bitsy McCann: 14:37 Are you interested in sharing your passion on The EO Podcast and ESOP Mini-cast? We're looking for correspondents to tell us their great stories of employee ownership. These one to four minute long segments can be recorded remotely over the internet or by telephone. If this sounds like something you'd be interested in, please reach out. You'll hear contact information at the end of this episode.
Bret Keisling: 15:00 Thanks, Bitsy. And now we turn to Will Rodriguez who sat down with us while he was in Las Vegas to attend The ESOP Association national conference. I hope you'll enjoy this conversation with Will.
Bret Keisling: 15:13 I'm sitting here with Will Rodriguez of Vision Point Capital. Will, how are you today?
Will Rodriguez : 15:18 I'm doing well Bret, thank you.
Bret Keisling: 15:19 You and I worked together a little bit back when I was with Capital Trustees and I really appreciate your coming on the podcast and wanted to get to know a little bit about you and your firm and share with the listeners. So I know you from Vision Point Capital and I know you as a valuation advisor, which is how you met when I was a trustee or how we met when I was a trustee. Before we start the conversation, let's talk a little bit about your background. I understand you have been doing valuations for 20 years. You've been in the ESOP space for about 12 years. You also do a couple of other things, so just share a little bit how you got to be in this conversation with me today.
Will Rodriguez : 15:55 Well, Bret, it really just started with, started with that one. It started with one client that there in Tampa that I got to kind of know their story, again in valuation obviously that was my, I headed up the group at the CPA firm that I was a part of. And you know, as I got into this I just immediately became engulfed and just read up and got all the education I could. And of course, what do you want to do when you have one you want to get the next one.
Bret Keisling: 16:20 So this was about 12 years ago. You got your first ESOP client.
Will Rodriguez : 16:22 That's correct.
Bret Keisling: 16:22 You had been doing valuations for about eight years at a traditional large CPA firm that had a multitude of clients in multi-disciplinary.
Will Rodriguez : 16:32 Exactly.
Bret Keisling: 16:32 And you've got the one ESOP and you drank the Kool-Aid as soon as we perhaps inarticulately say. So you started building from there and added clients.
Will Rodriguez : 16:41 Yeah, added clients. And then about five years ago, I left that CPA world and went independently on my own and opened my primarily valuation shop that we work with ESOP and non-ESOP clients as well. But still, you know, that one client turned into five and you know, upwards of 40 now that we work with all over the nation. I've been involved in probably over a hundred transactions since our beginning of working with ESOPs. So again, it's just a space that, you know, we love. I personally you know, just get up every day and again trying to help move employee ownership forward.
Bret Keisling: 17:14 It is very cool for me that I get to do what I've been doing my whole life, which is frankly work in business, grow business, and create value. But it seems that I'm doing it for a whole other class of folks now and not just the ones who have traditionally been the business owners the board members, et cetera, but we have the opportunity to create true wealth for folks that didn't necessarily have the opportunity in the past.
Will Rodriguez : 17:42 I agree. Definitely the employee engagement and thinking like an owner and that stuff, you know, the real key is not only -- it aligns the owners and the employees in the same direction
Bret Keisling: 17:55 In the ESOP space you provide valuation advisory services to the trustee.
Will Rodriguez : 18:04 Correct.
Bret Keisling: 18:05 In the other aspects of your business, let's just talk about that for a moment. You are on the seller side, you're, for example, if you're doing M&A advisory that's broader than whether it's ESOP or not. Correct?
Will Rodriguez : 18:17 That's correct.
Bret Keisling: 18:17 So just give us a moment and just talk about broadly what your practice does.
Will Rodriguez : 18:21 Yes, for clients outside of ESOP transactions, we're generally working with the owner, the seller, maybe it's a partnership buyout. They need the company valued so they can execute a partnership buy back. Maybe it's an attorney that... again, two parties, people fight. I don't know if you know that?
Bret Keisling: 18:40 [Laughter.] I am one of seven children and used to litigate. Why, yes, I'm aware that people fight. [Laughter.]
Will Rodriguez : 18:44 Business owners fight as well. So we get brought in to determine the value under those circumstances.
Bret Keisling: 18:50 And that will lead to the litigation support and hopefully....
Will Rodriguez : 18:54 And of course there is the tax practice. Again, state and gift taxes, and with exemption so high it isn't so relevant for a lot of people anymore, but still we'll get engaged on a number of transactions per year in doing valuations for estate and gift purposes as well.
Bret Keisling: 19:07 On these professional spotlights, we're asking our advisors to share what they think is particularly important or interesting in the valuation space. What is it in your mind that would be of interest to our listeners?
Will Rodriguez : 19:19 So again, for me being in Florida, I know ESOP awareness is a key, is a big challenge that we're trying to tackle as far as either through some of the associations that are already -- such as The ESOP Association -- or through some other means. So really trying to get the CPA, the attorneys, the bankers or other advisors to really understand it, educate them from, you know, what is an ESOP. How does employee ownership really create a win-win for both the seller, which is primarily would be their client and the employees, which again, we know is the reason why we're here.
Bret Keisling: 19:54 It's kind of interesting that we all understand that ESOP transactions are going to come by definition from those who are selling their companies. But it seems that it's been a struggle historically for ESOP world, and in that sense, I say "we" -- all of us -- to really penetrate with the selling advisors that you mentioned. Maybe the CPAs, the folks who have the relationships with these selling shareholders. Do you have any sense of how to approach it or just keep with repetition?
Will Rodriguez : 20:26 Well, again, the, the CPA, the attorney, you know, that really trusted advisor, they're, they're not going to want to recommend a strategy to their, their business owner client that would create any type of ill will or kind of egg on their face. So again, ESOP is complex. Again, we're at this conference, there's hundreds of breakout sessions. I mean there's a lot to get into. It's trying to get the advisor or the business owner kind of over that learning curve that, say, barrier to entry in order to understand it, appreciate it. And I think a big key for that is for current ESOP owners and employees to really kind of take the ball and reach out to those and tell their story. Let everybody know what a great thing it is to be an ESOP, an employee owned company, and try to create the momentum going downhill versus it seems like we've been going uphill for a while.
Bret Keisling: 21:19 You're exactly right. And we've chatted prior to the podcast recording. Will, as you know, I'm as huge a fan of employee ownership, but I think that there's some candor that shouldn't be misunderstood as negativity, but we're pretty much stagnant in terms of growth of ESOPs. Since 1996 we're hovering in around 65- 68,600. So to me it's how do we marshal the troops and galvanize everybody to put the message forward of what we all tend to believe that employee ownership really is of great value, not just for the selling shareholders, but to the employee owners who are created through the transactions. So that is the challenge that you're talking about of, of penetrating with that message.
Will Rodriguez : 22:03 And again, working with ESOP clients for over 12 years now, again, I've seen firsthand the benefits of starting from very humble beginnings to people really building up significant amounts in their accounts that they would otherwise never had the opportunity to have that amount of wealth generated, you know, through this tax favored transition strategy. That's again is something that's the best kept secret. It is up to us to help spread the word and help engage employees to share their story and again, work with business owners to help them understand our purpose here.
Bret Keisling: 22:40 I think that's very well said, Will, and when you talked about the best kept secret, I think that, that I equated in my mind almost if you think about like a destination, a location where the locals and the people who know about it say, don't tell people we don't want it to get crowded, we don't get it. You know maybe it's a place in North Carolina or a place in California, wherever, where, "Hey, this is the best kept secret." But employee ownership. I think that we are missing something a little bit because it's not the best kept secret. It's the worst kept brilliant strategy that we're really not. I mean, you and I are both believers that it's not just a good transaction, but for good reasons. So, how do we...
Will Rodriguez : 23:26 I've had conversations with clients, they really, they're like, you know, maybe I'm trying to host a seminar or webinar or ask them to speak. They're like, we really don't want people to know how well we're doing because it's something of, again, kind of flying under the radar I guess in their business or industry. Sometimes, you know, they get a little gun shy about spreading the word. So...
Bret Keisling: 23:46 And it's kind of ironic because first of all, if you take a community like Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and a couple of months ago and one of the podcasts [Episode 87], I highlighted eight companies that had come together and done a newspaper ad. And I expect to have the companies come in, in future podcasts, and tell their stories and we want to get back to Iowa. But some of them are in the same space. And I think what they've come to understand in Iowa that I think is ingenious, and Daniel Goldstein of Folience drove this project. But if employee ownership community in each town or state is more robust, there's more opportunity for tax, you know, benefits from the legislature, there's more opportunity for the government to interact and we need to get out of the model where even the employee owned companies are saying, Hey, employee ownership is a secret that we must protect rather let's spread the word because there should be a lot more employee ownership than there is. Do you agree?
Will Rodriguez : 24:49 Oh, definitely agree. Definitely. I know we had a meeting through an M&A group there in Tampa about three or four months ago just talking about employee ownership. So we had Publix come in and a couple of local Tampa ESOPs...
Bret Keisling: 25:03 And Publix was -- probably is...
Will Rodriguez : 25:05 Publix is the largest ESOP in the country.
Bret Keisling: 25:06 The posterboy for -- that's probably not a great phrase -- but they define employee ownership in a lot of ways.
Will Rodriguez : 25:13 Which is good and bad because again -- Good, everybody sees Publix in our marketplace, they know who they are, they know the success story. But also, you know, companies that, "We're not Publix, so ESOP isn't a right fit for us." We're not that big...
Bret Keisling: 25:25 We're not supermarkets. We're not that big. We don't have that many employees. You're exactly... that's and interesting point, yeah!
Will Rodriguez : 25:29 So it's really up to the advisor group and, again, employee owned companies to spread the word. Look, you know, maybe we're 50 person, little HVAC company, but there is an ESOP implemented here several years ago and here's howI've personally participated and benefited from, from this transaction. So spread the word.
Bret Keisling: 25:51 Will, you're a talented guy. You've been doing valuations for 20 years, you've been doing ESOP valuations for 12 years. You could bring your talents to any aspect of the valuation space. Is there a reason that you're interested or spend your time in employee ownership? It's not the easiest space to build a practice. So I'm just wondering, is there some resonance of employee ownership with you that makes you want to be here?
Will Rodriguez : 26:24 Bret, I definitely would say the number one reason is, first of all, I is the opportunity, the win-win that I see creates for not only the seller but also the employees. I mentioned offline here, we were talking about a company up in the Midwest that a blue collar worker just retired with a $2.2 million distribution check. I mean, that's something that, again, would never be created otherwise and it's just echoes the reasons why we're talking about this today and why employee ownership is so key, especially given economic political environment we're in again, social security, everything else that employees need to take upon themselves to have that opportunity.
Bret Keisling: 27:09 Will, I really appreciate your time. I hope you'll be kind enough in the future to come back on the podcast and share what you're doing both in terms of Florida and what your in that category as we've discussed of what I've been calling the emerging professionals that, as I like to say, probably deserve more traction than they're getting in the ESOP space. And I hope that you'll share your progress with the podcast and keep us informed if there's anything that we can do to help you or the Tampa or Florida communities, because as we have talked offline, we are both passionate about growing employee ownership. So anything that we can do to help you, please keep us apprised and come back.
Will Rodriguez : 27:49 Well, Bret, definitely appreciate you having me on the show today and look forward to a great conference here this week in Vegas.
Bret Keisling: 27:55 All righty.
Will Rodriguez : 27:56 Thanks so much.
Bitsy McCann: 27:59 We'd love to hear from you! To contact us, find us on Facebook at KEISOP, LLC and on Twitter @ESOPPodcast. To reach Bret, with one "T", email Bret@KEISOP.com, on LinkedIn at Bret Keisling, and most actively on Twitter at @EO_Bret. Again, that's one "T".
Bret Keisling: 28:18 Thank you my friends for listening. We're grateful you checked out this episode. We hope you'll join us next week. Have a great day.
Bitsy McCann: 28:26 This podcast has been produced by The KEISOP Group, technical assistance provided by Third Circle, Inc. and BitsyPlus Design. Original music composed by Max Keisling, archival podcast material edited and produced by Brian Keisling, and I'm Bitsy McCann.
The views expressed herein are my own and don't represent those of my own firms or the organizations to which I belong. Nothing in the podcast should be construed as guidance or advice of any kind in any field and the fact that I mentioned an organizational website or an advocate or a company on a podcast does not reflect an endorsement, but if you've heard your name or your group's name mentioned on this podcast, I'd love to have you come on and talk about it yourself.