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The Partner Bench is the Strategy: When the Deadline Can't Move, with Jennifer Torlone, Technoedje · Cleared for Takeoff - Real AI stories from the industries move the world.

• Ben: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Cleared for Takeoff. So today I've got the pleasure of welcoming Jennifer Torlone. Jennifer Torlone is the founder of TechnoEdge and has been a longtime friend and colleague of mine. So Jennifer, thank you for joining Cleared for Takeoff. Jennifer: Thanks for having me. Ben: Yeah, absolutely. As I said, we've worked together for years across multiple different actually roles that I've had at different companies, roles that you've had at different companies, done a lot of really cool stuff together. why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about you and your background, just briefly, your journey in technology? Jennifer: Sure. So believe it or not, I started on a help desk, so that's fun. So I know, pretty much my whole way up the ladder. I've... I think where life really took a, a turn for me, I was working for a manufacturing company in Miami. That's where I first met Ben, and I was there for about 10 years, and I was able to get my on-the-job MBA. So I was able to go in as a tech-- director of technology, but then actually take on roles like, customer service, accounts receivable, leadership for those, marketing, merchandising, international sales and marketing, and, branding, global branding. at the end of the day, I pretty much ran most of the administrative functions with the exception of HR, actual accounting. So I did AR but not, AP and GL, and then I didn't do operations at that point, but obviously partnered very closely with them. And that enabled me then to move in more senior leadership roles within a-actually aviation. So what was, my claim to fame at that moment and why the airlines started talking to me was, we launched the first iPad application in the home fashion and fur-furnishing industry back in 2010. So when iPads first came out, we saw the really wonderful opportunity to use them in the business, and it helped us accelerate go-to-market strategies, and we actually became a part of the business strategy. And again, because I held the roles within that business, I was able to clearly do that. And then I guess my career has just followed that path. So the Amerijet Holdings was-- they were a multimodal global transportation company, and we had air, trucking, rail, and sea, and they were very exciting and very happy for me to go help transform that business. It was PE-backed. And our goal was to sell it in three years. 10 years later, we finally did sell it, but we did such great things that our ownership was very happy to keep us, and we were very provocative in the space. That then led me to Willis Lease Finance Corporation. I was there, a publicly traded organization, for roughly six years. And the big thing I did with Willis, was to move the business to the cloud. So we had organizations across the country and the world, actually. We were doing mergers and acquisitions. We had in Wales, like 250 servers sitting in Wales and, across the US and Singapore, and other places in Asia. So we combined everything and migrated to the cloud, and we enabled the business to be more flexible. Excuse me. And we enabled the business to be more flexible. When COVID came, we literally just picked up our laptops and everyone went home, and the business kept running. That's excellent. And that was something that the board of directors was very excited about. So then come along and again, another private equity opportunity with Unical Aviation And this time it was to move a company not just from California to Florida, which is what we did with Willis Lease, but we moved the headquarters from California to, Arizona, and with it, we moved 97 million parts. Then we grew by acquisition. Yeah. Working to push everything into the cloud, and we did that, and I... We did it in 12 weeks. So that's the really exciting part, was that we prepared the organization for move. We were brought in late to the game, but the deadline was fast approaching, and everyone just took a deep breath, and, Deep Blue and my team, Lana and I, and the rest of the tight-knit organization that I had brought in, we just dug in, and we moved on. And so I think- Yep. Yep ... our success story there is that we worked very closely, obviously with everyone in the organization. I was the CIO at the table in that business, and we did do an exit. We exited in this, this past May, and we were purchased by Airbus. That's a really great story to say. We took a little company that was family-owned at one time from California, moved it to Arizona, built this incredible te- state-of-the-art warehouse, along with acquisitions i- of other companies across the world, and then Airbus is "Hey, you guys are pretty interesting. Let's become family." And that we did. Ben: Yeah, absolutely. So several different experiences across, one of our kind of focuses on the show here- aerospace. and I know that- the private equity background has been big too, and we're gonna I wanna touch on that a little bit later in the show here. What that, what being inside that looked like. But before we do that, let's talk a little bit about your new venture. Let's talk a little bit about Technoedje right? you've seen, how technology's misaligned from business goals, right? From the inside, and helped with the realignment in several of these organizations. so what made you decide to build a firm around that idea? Jennifer: Because I think there's a need for it, and I think there's a need for it at very various levels of enterprise. And again, the small medium enterprises or businesses don't necessarily have the depth and breadth, and they may not need to hire somebody full-time. So that's the other thing is, economics, right? But you need... You have the need, but you can't always, hire the fighter pilot that you really need for your business. So- There's just, when I talk to people all the time, I- they're like, "Oh, wow, that's great. That's a great idea. I think I'll try that." And I have mentored a lot of people in my career during this time, and I think Platinum, I know the opportunity with Platinum just prepared me for this. I walk into organizations now and talk to them, and it's clear that I can see it, help them, and then, turn their plans and their strategies into results. Ben: Yeah, absolutely. Operationalize what they're trying to do. that makes a ton of sense. So I know you started, Technoedje with Juana, who's a longtime, longtime friend and colleague of both of ours. What made you guys decide to start this together, and how are you guys planning on, dividing up the work, and how does the partnership work? Jennifer: We're just better together. We're better when we're together. Juana and I have worked together for a very long time. It just seems like the universe keeps us together. I think there was one time since I... since we met each other, we met at a, a company where we're both working in IT, in the business. We weren't leaders at the time. But, the universe just keeps us together. I was working for, at the first time, for f- for the manufacturing company, Fine Art Lamps, in Miami Lakes. And, I called Juana and I'm like, "Hey." We weren't working together. I had left the company where we met, and I said, "Oh, I'm here at this company. Would you like to have lunch together?" And I was needing an IT leader, so I had an agenda. And she's like, "Sure." And I'm like, where are you?" And she gave me her address, and she was literally, and I don't mean maybe, we were right across the street from each other. Wow. Like we could- we walked out the front doors of the business and we're like, "Hey." Meant to be. So it's always meant to be that we're together. she, is our CTO. Okay. So we're the co-founders, and she's the CTO of the business, and I just think, with her operational experience where she's always done the, networking, support services, cybersecurity, really managing the cloud and those kind of things, she just ma- it makes sense. we go in and then, we have the ability to do what we need to do, so we have, the ability to see the vision and then execute, and that's how we've always done it. We're just better together. Yeah. No, I've seen that. Ben: I've definitely seen that firsthand in working with you guys- Over the years ... in organizations where we, where you guys are partnered together there and we've been, fortunate enough to partner with both of you as a vendor and, and help you with, with the execution piece. I know that you guys have a really strong relationship andpartnership, and I'm really glad to see that you've decided to jump in, both feet to this, to this new venture together. That's awesome, and I'm looking forward to talking to her and working with her again, soon too. Jennifer: It is. That's amazing. Jennifer: It is, and I really think that we complement each other very well, and, again, the roles, our roles work together with assessing, planning, executing, governing, and that's where it works. Ben: Yeah. Yeah, 100%. so let's, let's talk a little bit about, your industry experience, right? So- Sure ... you've worked in, airlines, right? You've worked in, MROs and parts distributions. I think one of the things that, this whole industry has in common, is that, downtime's really not an option, right? obviously if you're an airline or a cargo carrier, downtime's definitely not an option. A lot of people don't know that when you're a, a parts distributor, you're supporting those flight operations, right? You really have to be available for things like AOG, around the clock also. so downtime's really not an option in this industry. H- how does that make things different than working. You were talking about some of your previous roles that weren't in aviation. How does it make it different when you're working in an environment where uptime is really so paramount? Jennifer: It's just more pressure. And it really requires you to strategize on redundancy and continuity. And it first starts with messaging. You need your staff to understand that it's not an option. Failure is not an option. It's a high-pressure situation where planes won't launch and can't get into the sky, and the commercial aspect of it halts unless we are operational. So yes, I worked for an operator. the holdings company, we had two airlines. So we had a Eurasian airline, and we had an, US airline. And, it was the Americas Caribbean, American, Amerijet International. We were cargo, and we were with Silk Road Express, too. So it was all cargo that we did. And we served, I think we had 800. When I left, I think there was something like 865, destinations that we served. So that's pretty amazing if you think about it. So we had to keep that equipment running and turning and burning, and that we did our own line and base maintenance. So for people that know what, again, our listeners should know what those things are. So we had our own stores. It was, again, we ran our airlines, and we made sure that they flew because we had to cover, the ACMI every day and make sure our yield was the highest we could do. So yes, that was important, making sure we knew what parts we had, making sure everything worked, all of our certificates, everything was above board. And with cargo at that time, making sure that we could transfer the data to the other governments as we were flying, into international Ben: Right Jennifer: 'cause we went international country to country to country, and you have to make sure all your documentation and paperwork and everything are very accurate. So it wasn't just about making sure the planes could launch. It was making sure that we could clear customs and not get a fine. Ben: That is a whole other regulatory layer- It was ... when you're doing that, right? Jennifer: It was. Yeah. And we, for people that might know, ASACUDO was, like, a big thing, and we pioneered with Mexico, was the first country that we actually cleared with, and, it was very interesting. So there's a lot of things that are required. We needed to make sure that we could push off from the terminal as quickly as possible so we weren't burning block hours. there's all kinds of things, systems that made all kinds of differences, and I think the thing I'm most proud about with Amerijet was it took us 45 minutes to close a flight, and that means the pilots were in their seats, the freight was on the airplane, everything was ready to go. And when we started there, it was 45 minutes, and in a year and a half, we were down to two minutes to close a flight, and that's... If you think of every time you land and you get ready to take off, it's 45 more minutes. Then you can- Yeah. Yeah ... obviously expand and grow and put more freight on and blah, blah, blah. So that was scalability right there. And again, once we did that, the reason the private equity company kept us for so long is because every month and every year were the best the company ever had once we did that. We just, the sky was typically the limit, and it was. So that led Willis to be very interested in what I had done because they were, acquiring quite a few companies and Willis Lease Finance Corporation is one of the leading engine and airframe leasing companies. And, they've grown with services quite, rapidly, and I was there for a lot of the growth. I've manage it, We started, we purchased and started an FBO, so familiar with that. But Willis had, like Delta has, power by the hour. So we had programs where people could just have an engine waiting for them. And it was really funny because, Amerijet would fly all over the place, and I would get pictures from pilots from Amerijet that would say, "Look, there's a Willis Lease engine here." And that, I think that was the fun, the most fun is because my pilots, the pilots knew me, which is really crazy when you think about it, like I'm IT, right? Why would the pilots know me? because I flew on the airlines to see the destinations to figure out what was going on. So,helping Willis build that network, helping move everything to the cloud so we could expand and be more agile, was really paramount. And the other thing that we did at Willis, I think, that was very important was, all of the Sarbanes-Oxley and cybersecurity work. So that was really crucial to make the company very successful. Yep. So that's a part regulatory, again, a part that it's that administrative part that nobody likes to do in IT, but it's really important. Of course. And we looked at things with Deep Blue. I think one of the things that we should talk about in our partnership was we did launch the first blockchain consortium for aviation. Ben: Yep. Yep. Jennifer: And we did prototyping, and we launched it at that time, and it's pretty... it's fun to think about that. So that was a leading, technology at that time, and we met with, the big companies and, even GE came and said, "How did you do this, and how are you gonna commercialize it?" And, we were able to make that happen. Yeah. And we had our first big meeting in Hong Kong, and that was really fun at ... We went to, Cathay Pacific. So that was, great for what we did. And then I think at that point was when Unical or the, the parent ownership was looking for, the private equity company, was looking for, a leader to help finish the transformation, and the migration to the cloud wasn't going well, and they literally had to vacate that building, it was like three months. And what do we do? We called Deep Blue, our best partner, and we said, "Okay, here we go. We're gonna move." Ben: Thank you. Jennifer: “And guess what? PS, we have 12 weeks to do it at the end." Yeah. And I think we were up to plan Q or Z or Z2. I- I mean, I remember- Ben: It was a challenging project for sure. Jennifer: It was very interesting because, there were literally servers hiding in the closet that no one told us about. Yeah. and we found them, and that was like 75 virtual servers and we're like, "Oh." So but that migration, itself went really well and it enabled the company to be, more flexible, scalable, and we work closely with our business partners in the business to implement things like AI. And I know it wasn't just AI. We modernized and we capitalized on the ERP and the systems we had because, again, they hadn't been upgraded, they hadn't been... The care and feeding of all of your systems is very important. So we had to... I think the, one of the funniest stories I tell, and I laugh even last night I was laughing about it, is when we were, Okay, we're now part of this big PE firm. Okay, now we have to follow, the compliance and they want us to do this big cybersecurity audit, Cyber Essentials." So we get the form and this, it's 45, 55, 85-page PDF And I read it, and I'm like, "Oh, this is hilarious." So I like- ... filled out my name. I filled out my name and my title, and yes, I'm responsible for security. I know that part, right? And then we just looked at the rest, and we gave them the answers that were truthful. Yep. And we gave them the plans. So that was the big thing, was to show we had plans actually for everything that was on that list, which was great. Yep. Yep. Yep. And we send it in, and it was like, "Oh, yeah, you got one question right." And they were... The guy, the auditor, was so worried to tell me- ... that I got one right. So when we get on the call like this, and he's I'm like: "So before we start, how many did I get, one or two? I just wanna know. Was it one, or was it two?" And he started laughing. And we became great partners, and I'm happy to say that we were, when I left, highly proficient and, one of the most, highest performing, I think, from a cyber perspective, or right up there. You can't ignore that in today's, climate, and I think that leads us right into AI. So people say, "Okay, what? AI. Oh, yeah, AI." Just like back then, blockchain. But there's responsibility that comes with AI, and so I think responsible AI is really paramount, and so you need to make sure that your cyber is in order. And that's one of the things that, we are good at, doing all these foundation things and making sure that it's correct, so that when you do roll AI into the business, in whatever form you're doing, whether it's, at the desktop for the user experience or whether it's agentic or in operation somehow, that it'slike a good citizen. We did work with Deep Blue at Unical, and we rolled out several, corporate IT initiatives. I think a couple of them that I'm very proud of showed incredible returns. I think one of my most favorite ones that I love to tell the story about is when we first started the adventure at Unical, I knew we had bought... We had just bought, hundreds of thousands of dollars of data to enrich our ERP and our parts. And no one could figure out how to use it. "Oh, we bought this stuff. Now what?" So when I came in, I, was looking at all the expenditures. I'm like, "What is this?" I found the data, and I remember saying, "Okay, we have to be able to scrape this data, and we have to be able to put it in a container and then upload it into Quantum, and it'll make everything much better." Ben: And we did it. Yeah. Jennifer: We did it, but it took... The technology wasn't quite ready yet. If you remember, it took us a while. But then we did that. We did it, and we did it. The actual development and implementation was 25% of the cost of every other solution we had looked at out there. Ben: Yep. Yep. Jennifer: And we did... and, our parent company and our equity owner, they supplied many choices. "Here's ideas." And I'm like, "No. We can do it with AI, and we can do it better." And the thing, that people need to understand is that AI doesn't have to be running 100% of the time if it's gonna be successful. This, this particular project, we were able to run it and then shut it down and just sit there and wait. Ben: Sure, sure. Jennifer: And it waited until we had the next purchase of data to put in the system, but it was repeatable, and so that wasn't just a one-time investment. that investment really could be seen as an ROI over time. And I think the most exciting part for people to understand is when you build big things like this that are repeatable in the cloud with, using one of [the Cloud Foundation agentic AI programs, you can, stand up thousands of servers. So the idea was we built the gold masters, we replicated them, we ran the thing, and then we turned everybody off and got rid of those except for the gold masters. And the bill part, Ben, and this is the part people miss, I think, was I think our total spend on, consumption and network and everything was $27 or $37. I think it was $27. And that was the surprising part. So then the next time, you turn it up, you know you're gonna spend 25 bucks, and you do it, and you get the data, and the ROI is ex- exponential. the sky's the limit. Ben: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's a, a good overview of some of the specific things, that you've worked on, across aviation, some of the specific, kind of challenges, with, with the pressure, with the, the to go ahead and be available all the time, right? The different aspects of working in that industry. let's... you talked about the PE kind of part of- ... part of this a little bit. let's go into that, a bit, right? So you've gone through several different PE-backed, kind of situations, right? and you've guided, you've guided Unical through an acquisition, right? And worked with them through, the first kind of part of being an acquired company. What does that first initial piece after an acquisition look like, from a technology perspective, right? What do you prioritize, and then what do you what do you put in the queue for the future? Jennifer: I think, again, I... we did an exit at Amerijet too. The difference- between Amerijet and Unical was that I came on board when they were-- had decided that it was time to really exit the company, just like Unical. And the first pressure you have is- many masters. you know private equity purchases your company and they're going in and saying, "Okay, we want to get the value out of the company so that we can do what we do," which is exit, right? We have to create value- ... for our shareholders, our portfolio people, those kinds of things. Yep. It's how do you manage the many masters? So a lot of that comes from, putting in processes that, for IT, that say, "Okay, here's your framework, and here's what a ticket looks like, and here's what a project looks like." And, then meeting with the business itself and doing a steering committee. So you have a steer co for IT that says- Sure "Okay, business, we have many masters, including private equity. Let's figure out what the top 10 most important things are," and we work on those. And then the other thing is to meet with the business on a regular basis as part of the steering. So we would meet with leadership, and then, the alternating week, we would meet with, the leadership of each business unit and their key people. I like to tell the story that when we walked in, we were... We did this due diligence, and I... It's, my key strategy. I walk in, I learn the business. That's the first thing I do. I might take a month. It might take two months. Willis, I had to fly in. The same thing with Amerijet. I had to fly all over the world to meet these people and figure out what it was. But then once then you tell your customer base, the business, "Here's what I've heard from all of you. Now help me prioritize because, what part of our business are we gonna focus on first?" Ben: Yep. Jennifer: So that way you're in touch with the business all the time, and it makes not only working through it easier, but budgeting because you know what the projects are gonna be for next year. You already know what your partners are thinking, and budgeting becomes very simple. And then you have common currency. When you have a new project that comes up, instead of being like, "Nope, can't do it," you go to the table and say, "Okay, team, we have this. How important it is it, and what one, one of these 10 things are we gonna give up to do this one thing?" Ben: Sure. Jennifer: So there's that. and it, and just making sure that everyone's aligned. So managing the multiple masters is really important. And I think the other thing that people have to understand is that it's a race. it's not, an easy marathon. Sure. It depends on wh- which private equity firm you're working with. But at Amerijet, the ownership was happy to keep the company. They were more long-term investors that, waited for a certain exit that they wanted. But, other equity owners that I've worked with want a... It's, a three-year formula. Two to three years, and that's it. So I think when you work for an airline or in aviation, especially when you're doing line-based maintenance 145s, supplying parts, all the things that I've done, leasing engines for, C checks or, to make sure that there's no AOGs, those kinds of things to keep commercial business going, that you have to understand that it's more than what a normal IT life is. So you're in a private equity firm, let's say, for I don't know, clothing store, it might feel a little different than if you're a private equity-owned for, an airline or a parts company, but there's more pressure. You have to go faster because airline, the aviation industry and aerospace, it's fast.That's why we do it- . is to get somewhere from here to there, in not a week, but like an hour. Ben: Yeah. Yeah. It, and yeah, I think a lot of that makes sense, right? So it sounds like managing multiple stakeholders, including the private equity folks is a huge piece, right? Being able to set priorities, early and manage those sounds like a huge piece. And then, the added focus on performance, I think makes a lot of sense, too. I was talking to another founder at an event I was at, who's sold his firm to private equity, and he's operating it with them now, and he told me, their favorite number's more." Jennifer: Exactly. Ben: It's like their favorite number is more. so I think that's, that's kind of, uh, echoing what you're saying here. Jennifer: So I met- recently with, a company that was just acquired two months ago by private equity. And they had... It's so funny. They had the fir- the first time I ever worked with private equity, I kinda looked like they did, which is just you're like this. You're just, numb because of the onslaught, of everything. Like you said, more. It's like, "What have you done for me lately?" Not what you just did. Ben: Yeah. Yep. Jennifer: So it's under... and then they're like, how did you, survive?" And, part of it is you're an adren- maybe you're part adrenaline junkie. I'm not really sure. A lot of coffee is important. There you go. And, and good partners. Yep. that's the thing I have to say is I have a incredible portfolio of partners that Ben: Yeah, you always have. Jennifer: Yep ... You know that. I'll call on them, and they help ... We help the success, right? Yep. So I obviously called Deep Blue, and I called a couple others that are- Yep ... not in a competing space. Yep. And I'm like, "Okay, team, we have 12 projects to do by Wednesday." Ben: You have a whole ecosystem that you've built over your career, right? And we- Yep ... I mean, we're very thankful and proud to be part of that ecosystem, but we've worked with everybody else that's in there. And- Yep ... and yeah, you, you definitely have people that ... I mean, in the ecosystem you've got everything you need to be able to plug in and execute quickly and with a- high level of trust and efficiency. it's a, It's- ... incredible, Jennifer. Yeah. Jennifer: That, I think that's my superpower. And I think one of the things that I've always done is make everyone understand your space with me is safe. You know- Yep ... I want you to do this. Now, you might do what these other guys do, but they do it better, so this team is gonna do that. No, you don't get that business. And so- and, we collect new vendor partners along the way. But again, I think success, especially in private equity because of the speed, you need to have that bench. Yeah. You need to know... and the beauty of it is the people that have worked with you know what you expect. Ben: Of course. And so- Of course ... Jennifer: it's that you don't have to go through that dance, and, courtship- ... and, first dating and everything. It's just like- Yeah ... "Yeah, we know each other, let's just go. We're married. Do it." Yeah. Ben: Imagine the Unical project, had you have started and had to go find people to do everything, you would've never made it on time, right? Ben: There's no way. No, we wouldn't. We would never have done that. there's no way. It wouldn't have happened. Yeah. Yeah. 12 weeks. I think the, that's the big message is reader... viewership people, we had- ... hundreds of servers, hundreds of workloads, 97 million parts, and we had 12 weeks to get it done. Ben: Yep. Yep. And we did it. that's awesome. Jennifer: So- We did. And we did it- Yeah ... the last server went into the cloud, and we tested, and it was ready as we were literally... They were, it was the minute we needed to start unplugging. I mean- Yeah ... I remember it was incredible. It was a concert. It just worked. Ben: Yep. Yep. So yeah. Yep. We're super, super proud of that one. So let's jump into AI, for a few minutes here. So- Sure ... your... So TechnoEdge, when you guys talk about, how to introduce AI into a customer environment, you're saying it puts it at kind of the end of the journey, right After process, systems, data governance, right? What happens when, companies, try to get into an AI initiative when they don't have those foundational pieces in place? Jennifer: I think we've seen it. I, we referenced it earlier in the call, or the, the, chat was AI finds a way.It finds its own way, and it says, it tells things that people don't necessarily want it to tell them. And so I think, bringing it back to, practical, it's more oh, I wanna know how much Jennifer makes, and I can do that and find out. Ben: Now- Lack of governance, right? Yep. And yep, so governance, responsible AI is very important. Jennifer: Yeah. And I think the other thing is that, You need to, to bring it back, to, more reasonable. So we have the governance part, but y- you have it going out and sharing your data, and I think that's the other part people don't understand- Yep ... is that not only can I find out what Ben makes, but other people in the universe that are not at, Gen Air can find out what Ben makes or find out what Gen Air does because, little person put in stuff about, "Oh, I need to write a marketing brief for this," and they use some AI that, "Oh, there's a thing. I have a policy at work that says I can't do this, that, or the other thing." And there's policies that are meant to kept, keep the company safe and the people safe, but I'm just gonna use my phone because Claude. And chat, and then that information gets out there. So those are things, again, make sure that your housekeeping is good for your network. You have security in place. You have data governance, first. Then make sure you have a policy that everyone can follow and that everyone agrees on and they're signing. And PS, train your people, okay? Yeah. Don't just assume the policy trained them because they don't know. Yeah. "Oh, I just did it on my phone, but I'm on the corporate network, so aren't I safe?" Yeah. there's things like that. Ben: Yeah. No, I agree. I was speaking to a, a- another longtime time customer this morning. They do a lot of software development, and their development teams have just started, really jumping into AI-assisted software engineering- Oh, yeah ... but- Yeah ... but without any, any guardrails, any standards, any governance, any- anything like that. And they're finding that not only are they not getting the productivity gains, but it's introducing other problems like huge amounts of cost in the AI tools, right? Jennifer: Oh my gosh. Ben: Hu- huge amounts of issues going into QA for the code that's being written, all kinds of stuff. So we're working with them to, do the training a- and, i- install the guardrails, et cetera. And that's just around the, the software engineering piece. Productivity AI, same thing. I completely agree, right? Making sure that the right infrastructure, is in place is a huge part of- being able to get value out of this in the enterprise, and then also being able to do it safely, right? So that, Jennifer: But I think- ... makes huge sense to me ... I think it's something land I'm just gonna put a mirror up. I mean- People need to understand that it could be big bucks. "Oh, yeah, we've released this, AI agent to help the people do the thing," whatever that is. It could be, AI-aided coding or whatever, and then they get a bill on the corporate Microsoft or corporate AWS or flavor of the day account, and it's $80,000 a month. In a month. yep, yep. That happened to someone I know. yep. $80,000 in one month. Yep. And so- Yep ... that's another thing. that's the cost. Now, we did talk about the big project that we did with AI, but that was ... Again, we didn't do that until we had the network secure and our cyber scores were good, and we had our data governance in place, and we knew that it couldn't escape, Yeah. The agent was purposely built to do a thing, and, we shut it off. Like I said, you don't need to just leave it out there running if you're not using it. It's just- Sure ... and it, 'cause it can get into all kinds of trouble. Yeah. And they've seen it with other things. So I'm not trying to be doom and gloom and scare because- again, but let's be ... We have to be, informed, and we have to be- Sure ... like I said, responsible. Ben: yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, and I'm ... We're excited to work with you, Jennifer, in your new capacity- ... as a founder now, which is awesome. Oh, thank you. and I know you're gonna be, helping all of your customers, make sure that they use, AI responsibly and have the, the, the necessary foundation in place, and we're excited to partner with you on that. So we've only got a couple minutes left, so I'm gonna jump into our rapid round. I've got four kinda quick questions if you give me quick answers, at the end of our session here. so what do you think the most over-hyped thing in AI, right now is in this industry? Jennifer: it fixes everything. Ben: Yeah, The silver bullet, right? The silver bullet. J- just rub a little AI on it, right? Yeah, no. Yeah. That's it. I agree. I agree. what do you think is the most underrated? Jennifer: Used to be Microsoft OneNote for me. But I really do think that the most underrated thing is responsibly using, I'm gonna say it, responsibly using AI to help in certain workloads. I mean- ... there are end user, workloads that can be done, not to replace the user- Ben: Yep ... Jennifer: but to actually be more productive and done well. Yep. So I think that's one of the most underused. Truthfully, it's-again, it's kinda interesting to say both, but... Ben: Okay. Okay. No, I th- I think you're right. I think that's huge. And then what should every technology leader in aviation be paying attention to right now? Jennifer: Some of the new regulations that are coming out, and figuring out how- Okay ... they're gonna work in your business. Parts is coming, and that's gonna be a big one to look at, especially in the parts and MRO spaces. And, again, responsibly using, I hate to say it, but- Yeah ... responsibly using AI. because it's coming, and people are using it, and are you ready? Ben: Yeah. Yep. Everybody's gotta be ready. I agree. All right, so last but not least, what does Cleared for Takeoff mean to you personally? Jennifer: It's interesting because I think the more tools that you have in your toolbox and the more, you rely on the help of trusted partners, the more you can scale your business. And like I said, the sky is the limit. So I think clearing for takeoff means that you have all your governances, your, infrastructure, your platform, everything for the business ready to go, and then it's scaling that business and letting the business do what it does, which is operate efficiently and positively impact the bottom line. Ben: Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Jennifer, thank you again for joining us today. This was an awesome session. It was great to chat with you. Jennifer: Thanks so much. Yeah. Ben: And I'm so super excited for you, for your new venture. Congratulations. Jennifer: Thanks, Ben. Ben: All right, my friend. .