Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Work-Life Balance Wins Big: How Melissa Dickerson Contributed to Genstar Capital’s Massive Growth While Raising Three Kids

Transcript

Work-Life Balance Wins Big: How Melissa Dickerson Contributed to Genstar Capital’s Massive Growth While Raising Three Kids · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotas Bodi
0:17
and today's guest is Melissa Dickerson, Chief Financial
0:21
Officer and Managing Director of Operations at Genstar Capital.
0:25
They are a private equity firm based in San Francisco that
0:29
invests in middle market companies providing both
0:33
financial resources and deep sector expertise.
0:37
Their mission is to help organizations in areas like
0:39
financial services, healthcare, industrials and software achieve
0:44
transformative growth quickly. With the help of Melissa's
0:49
leadership, Genstar has seen an impressive increase in assets
0:53
under management, growing from 300 million to 50 billion.
0:58
Melissa herself has over 2 decades of experience in middle
1:02
market private equity, including 21 years at Genstar.
1:05
She's been honored as one of the top female deal makers shaping
1:09
private equity thanks to her leadership in operations,
1:12
finance and team development. Before joining Genstar, she held
1:17
key roles at American Industrial Partners and Deloitte, giving
1:21
her a broad perspective of the industry.
1:24
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1:56
All right, back to our guest today, the CFO of Genstar
1:59
Capital, Melissa Dickerson. I appreciate you making the time
2:02
to Share your story. Thanks for having me.
2:06
So Melissa, I want to set the stage for how you found yourself
2:09
in the world of venture capital. So let's go back before that.
2:12
You graduated with an economics degree from Vassar and you took
2:17
a job with Deloitte, very large, well respected consulting firm.
2:21
What did you learn there at Deloitte that would later become
2:25
helpful in your roles in the ventures?
2:27
Yeah, that's a great question. I think Deloitte is obviously
2:31
still is a very great brand. They invested a lot of time and
2:36
energy and training me when I got out of a liberal arts school
2:39
'cause I did not major in accounting.
2:41
So I had to go to night classes and study contract law and
2:46
accounting and all sorts of other topics to be eligible to
2:51
sit for my CPA exam. But I have to say, the one thing
2:55
that stuck with me from Deloitte, you know, I was on the
2:58
audit side. And that really has helped me
3:00
over the years in the role that I'm in now.
3:03
Understanding how to, how to document an audit trail, how to
3:08
substantiate your, your reasoning, your thinking,
3:15
Especially because often times people are asking why did you do
3:19
a certain thing several years later, maybe six months later,
3:22
12 months, 18 months, auditors, IRSSEC.
3:27
And so just to, to understand and, and get that training and,
3:32
and to understand it's not a personal thing.
3:34
Like you're not telling people they're doing a bad job.
3:37
You're just documenting everything and how you thought
3:40
about it and why you did things. I guess the, the new AI is doing
3:45
a little bit of that. If you look at certain, you
3:47
know, applications AI, they kind of put together all the backlog
3:50
of how they concluded at a certain outcome.
3:52
And I think that's important because often times you want to
3:55
understand why did you make a certain decision six months ago
3:59
and here you are today and we're kind of unpacking, you know, why
4:02
we are here today. Being able to document those
4:06
thought processes and reasonings as you go along, because six
4:10
months, 12 months, 18 months later, you're not going to
4:12
remember everything as. Yeah.
4:13
And then not, not putting it in any kind of critical or personal
4:17
way, it's you're not critiquing anyone's decision making
4:19
necessarily. You're just understanding the
4:22
why. So how and why did you find
4:28
yourself drawn into the VC world?
4:30
Then? How did?
4:31
That they were a client. American Industrial Partners was
4:33
a client of Deloitte's. It was one of my audit
4:36
experiences when I was young. I think I leaned more into
4:40
finance, being a child of the 70s and the 80s, you know, going
4:43
through some of the economic ups and downs as a family.
4:46
So I was definitely a middle class kid wanting more financial
4:50
security in my future and I leaned into financial and
4:53
financial service clients. And this industry was
4:57
fascinating at the time. I don't think it was very well
4:59
understood or well known, was definitely lucrative,
5:03
successful. You had definitely lots of smart
5:06
people attracted to it at the time.
5:08
So that was all very interesting to me.
5:10
And then an opportunity came up with AIP and I took it.
5:15
How did the opportunity with Genstar become ideal?
5:17
So that was a few years later. I had worked for AIP for several
5:22
years. They had undergone a bit of a
5:24
transformation. So about a year into working at
5:26
AIP, most of the finance department quit.
5:30
It was a pretty interesting transition.
5:33
So that gave me an opportunity to really step up from being
5:35
more of a junior accountant to ACFO or a leader of the finance
5:39
department at the time. But at that time at AIP, they
5:44
had a couple partners who were a little bit older.
5:46
I was pretty young. I was 26 and I think they were
5:49
in their 60s. And so I just thought, OK, if I
5:52
want to do this long run, I'm going to probably want to
5:57
partner with investors that have a little bit more runway because
6:02
you could see that these folks, these leaders at the time, I
6:04
think it's since transitioned. So there's new leaders now.
6:07
But at the time when I was there, I just, you know, they
6:10
were, I think focused more on moving on.
6:13
And so I took my time. I looked around and threw it was
6:17
just through a recruiter I found Genstar and it at the time again
6:21
had younger partners. It was just beginning its
6:25
investment track record. So it just felt like a good
6:28
opportunity. They were very transparent and I
6:30
I wanted that too. It makes my job a whole lot
6:32
easier if we can be transparent with investors.
6:35
So just having that approach to communication I think was one of
6:39
the big decision makers for me. What was going on at AIP that so
6:44
many people quit? Was it because there was this
6:47
sense that the leadership wanted to move on?
6:49
I, I just think it was like, I think there was one woman who
6:51
had an illness and another who wanted a little bit less of an
6:54
intense role. So it wasn't a big department by
6:57
any stretch of the imagination. I don't want to imply that like
6:59
the whole firm quit, but it just was a small firm and those folks
7:03
moved on and it just opened up the door for me to step in and
7:06
and kind of take on more leadership that it was
7:09
unexpected at the time for me. So let's talk about what the
7:15
investment thesis is like at Jen Star.
7:17
What kind of companies are you guys?
7:19
Looking for, yeah, you said it in the intro.
7:21
We have a particular domain interest in industrials,
7:24
healthcare, software, financial services.
7:27
We always like to bring capital situations that need change.
7:32
We like to partner with them. You know, we're fairly
7:35
entrepreneurial, so we like management teams that can manage
7:38
their assets. We're not prescriptive.
7:41
We like strong leaders. So we we try and partner with
7:45
strong leaders, bring capital at moments of change in the life
7:48
cycle of companies. And we also have a wonderful
7:51
group of strategic Advisory Board partners.
7:53
Those are former CEOs, leaders in industry that have been in
7:58
industry for, you know, 20-30 years that can help diligence
8:02
companies or sit on boards of companies, be coaches to CE OS
8:05
and CF OS. So we bring that expertise to
8:08
the table too. And I think it all makes a big
8:10
difference. So that's generally how we
8:13
approach investment. And I'm gonna guess you sort of
8:17
following the typical life cycle you're looking for kind of a
8:21
five to seven-year kind of exit on your investments.
8:24
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think over time I've
8:26
noticed patterns where in certain markets you're, you can
8:30
exit maybe really more quickly than you ever thought if it's 18
8:33
months or two years. And then certainly as you see
8:35
like the Great Recession, you, you, you see a bit of a
8:38
slowdown. It's organic.
8:40
And, and so over time, again, I've been in Gemstar going on 21
8:43
years and in private equity almost 26 years.
8:46
So you just, you're reflecting the market, right.
8:50
I think over that time, I think it's something like it used to
8:57
be 2000 private equity backed companies in the year 2000,
9:02
something like that. And it now it's over 12,000.
9:04
So it's grown quite a bit. I mean, relative to the market
9:07
cap of public, it's still about 10% of market cap for public
9:11
companies. So overall value, but it's a
9:14
huge amount of companies that are private equity backed today
9:17
relative to, you know, 20 years ago.
9:20
So you know, I, I think we can, we're just trying to manage our
9:25
assets through the cycles, be as patient of capital as we can.
9:30
Our investors are signing up for the long run.
9:32
That's the nature of private equity.
9:35
You know, we're not looking for the next quarter's returns.
9:38
We're looking for that longer on five, seven-year profile.
9:45
And why do you think that there's been such a big increase
9:48
in companies that are backed by private equity funding?
9:52
Well, I think I, I mean, I'm not going to pretend to be an
9:55
expert, but I think a couple of the reasons are certainly the
9:58
regulatory environment is challenging.
9:59
If you want to go public, you need to be of a certain size.
10:04
So some companies might want to avoid that climate for a time or
10:10
support their growth in the meantime.
10:13
I also think you need a lot of capital.
10:15
I mean, the whole point of going public is to get a lot of
10:18
capital, hopefully for again, some sort of investment of that
10:20
capital back into the business. And I think with the advances
10:26
we've seen in technology over the last 20 years, you can do
10:29
quite a bit more with less like. So you don't need as much
10:32
capital to see meaningful changes in, in companies.
10:35
You can do quite a bit with technology.
10:37
So I'm interested to see actually, as we move into the
10:39
future with AI that mix, are we seeing more public companies?
10:43
Are we seeing more private equity backed companies?
10:47
I'm I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm I'm curious to to
10:50
see what the future holds. Do you have visibility into your
10:56
portfolio companies to see if you know with the popularity of
11:01
AI in the last couple of years, are you seeing them able being
11:05
able to do more with less as you said?
11:08
Again, my role is generally back office focused, so I'm not going
11:11
to be an expert on all the different nuances of our
11:14
portfolio investments. We have investment professionals
11:18
who sit on the boards and manage the assets and have the thesis
11:21
of that about the investment, particularly in the industries.
11:26
Certainly I think we've all been paying attention to AI and and I
11:29
think we all want to run businesses efficiently.
11:32
I think that's just how we approach investment and, and
11:35
day-to-day operations. So I mean, again, I, I don't
11:41
know if I've necessarily created particular metrics to measure
11:45
our people being more efficient 2 years ago versus today.
11:50
I just, I'm curious to see how we all implement AI and how much
11:54
more efficient it makes us. I I just think there's quite a
11:57
bit of potential with that. Yeah.
12:00
Melissa, what are some of the other trends or big changes that
12:05
you've noticed in the 27 years that you've been in this space?
12:08
Yeah. I think again, I mean certainly
12:10
the the size of private equity has grown significantly.
12:14
So when I started it was unknown, it was small.
12:19
I think we talked about we closed a 500 million funds these
12:27
days there's so much interest in alternatives.
12:29
You you know, we just closed a 12 billion fund.
12:32
People are looking to alternatives as an investment
12:36
space because it yields pretty meaningful returns relative to
12:40
alternatives if it's public markets or other types of
12:43
investments. So certainly that just growth
12:46
and interest as an investment class has happened.
12:50
The growth of the companies that are private equity backed
12:53
overtime has been another big change.
12:56
I'd say the approach to investing has evolved.
13:02
So I think in the beginning it was financial engineering.
13:05
You really just did the LBO model and put debt on a company
13:09
and and hopefully paid down the debt and exited.
13:13
Whereas today I think people want to bring operational
13:17
change, partner with folks in industry to change.
13:21
If it's top line, if it's bottom line, if it's approach to sales,
13:24
investing back in the companies. I think there's quite a bit more
13:28
that's done with portfolio companies than ever before or
13:32
coaching or oversight discipline.
13:36
I think we've seen certainly that approach to investing
13:39
change over time. I think that we've also seen
13:43
again, back when it was smaller, you had an investment
13:46
professional wear a bunch of different hats.
13:48
If it was financing the company, sitting on the board of the
13:51
company, you know, understanding the CEO and the CFO, maybe
13:56
searching for new candidates for those roles if you needed to.
13:59
Whereas today you have a dedicated capital markets
14:02
person, a talent management person, it may be a deal
14:05
sourcing person. So there's definitely been more
14:08
of a right, yeah, which is it's almost intuitive.
14:12
I think if you think about starting up a company, you
14:16
initially wear all the hats and then as you grow bigger and
14:18
bigger, you become a little bit more particular and specialized
14:20
and disciplined and you bring in experts.
14:22
You can make those sections of of your business more
14:27
productive. So those are just a few of the
14:30
changes I've seen over time. It's been interesting and I'm
14:33
I'm curious about what the future holds.
14:34
It'll be fun. And you, you've been at Genstar
14:38
for 21 years. Clearly you must really enjoy
14:41
working there. How would you characterize the
14:43
the team that you? Work.
14:44
Oh yeah, I love, I love Genstar, I love the team.
14:48
As I said in the beginning, I think I was really attracted to
14:50
it because we were very transparent with investors.
14:52
We partnered with investors and I think that's still true today.
14:56
We call them a lot. If we have questions, we report
15:01
to them at any, anything we any kind of question we have, we go
15:06
back to our investors. We're we're kind of keeping them
15:08
top of minds. Is that unusual?
15:13
I don't, I don't know. I mean again, I've been 21 years
15:16
with the same firm. I think I know other firms again
15:21
have have more dedicated investor relations people and we
15:23
do have some of that at Gemstar too.
15:26
But I do think we like to have those relationships, those
15:30
connections with specific people more one-on-one directly without
15:34
intermediaries. So I know that's something that
15:37
we, we value. I, I do think again, I'm really
15:41
lucky to have a group of partners right now that are my
15:45
age. We kind of came up in the
15:46
organization together. They transitioned into
15:48
leadership. So we've been able to kind of go
15:55
through the same phases in life together, which has been great.
15:57
You know, having kids, getting married or getting married and
16:00
having kids and then sending them to elementary school and
16:04
high school. I think that's been great.
16:07
I mean, again, I, I can't underestimate or undersell the
16:10
talent. I do think our investment
16:12
professionals are very talented investors.
16:15
They're really knowledgeable about, about their industries.
16:18
They're really good relationship builders 'cause I do think
16:23
there's a moment initially when you're an investor, you come out
16:27
of like an investment bank, you kind of, or the Excel jockey and
16:30
the spreadsheet can do all the modeling.
16:32
But there is a moment where this becomes more of a relationship
16:35
building business where you have to connect with your management
16:38
team, connect with your board and, and just those are very
16:47
powerful things, right? It's, it's a sales role in a
16:49
sense. You, you have to want, people
16:53
need to, want to work with you, right?
16:55
If all things being equal and you're looking at 2 private
16:56
equity funds, you want to hopefully differentiate yourself
17:01
on the front of, we're going to be good partners for management.
17:04
So I I just think we have a really talented group of people
17:07
that are really good at building relationships and, and not not
17:12
only that, but also obviously picking good platforms and
17:17
industries that that have a lot of potential for growth in the
17:20
future. There might be some people
17:24
listening who are interested in pursuing a career in this
17:28
industry. As you look at sort of the, the
17:30
folks that you work with, is there sort of a common thread or
17:34
a track where, oh, most people tend to start out with this
17:38
college degree and then they work at this place and there's
17:41
sort of these blocks that they stack up that put them in a good
17:45
position to enter the private equity space?
17:48
I think the traditional approach has been, you know, you go to a
17:52
good college, probably major in something like finance,
17:56
accounting, there's certainly other majors too.
18:01
You probably do some time at an investment bank, a big one, JP
18:04
Morgan, Evercore, Bank of America in a particular domain
18:09
and then consider an associate, which is a 2 year rotation at a
18:13
private equity firm at that level.
18:16
Then consider going back to Business School or getting more
18:19
operating experience and then coming back as an investor.
18:22
That's generally the track that we see.
18:26
I mean there's always exceptions over again.
18:29
This is another domain where we've seen change over the last
18:31
20 years where in it was pretty rigid historically and I think
18:35
it's become less so. So going back to get your
18:39
business degree isn't always a requirement anymore.
18:41
You can go, for example, maybe to a portfolio company and work
18:45
in operations there and then maybe come back.
18:48
I think that that gives that candidate some great opportunity
18:53
to again, understand what it's like to be on the operating
18:57
side, to be in the boardroom. It really gives them a great
19:03
perspective that they can bring as an investor.
19:06
They can bond a little bit more quickly with management teams
19:10
because they had a role in the management team.
19:13
The alternative to that is maybe going to Business School.
19:16
And that also brings great experience.
19:19
You often times are, you know, graduating with people who also
19:23
go into investment. So you know, peers in different
19:26
operations and firms and can understand how how they might
19:30
approach investing, what they're doing, where they're investing.
19:33
So that's a network that you can leverage over time.
19:36
So both alternatives have a great outcome.
19:39
It's just they're different and that's changed I think over
19:42
time. It used to be just you'd have to
19:43
go to Business School, but now I think you can do either route.
19:48
Multiple paths, yeah. You mentioned, you know, going
19:53
kind of through similar phases of life with a lot of your team
19:56
members, you know, getting married, having kids, kids in
19:59
grade school, kids in high school.
20:01
How do you find that work life balance?
20:05
Working for you with kids and you know a very demanding.
20:09
Career, yeah, no, it's, it's definitely been a, a journey.
20:15
I have 3 kids, they're all teenagers now.
20:17
So I've got a junior, a sophomore and a 7th grader.
20:21
He's a teenager though, so we'll call it that.
20:24
Two boys and a girl. I think when they were smaller,
20:29
it was more of a a physical game and so you needed to just take
20:34
care of yourself, make sure you were sleeping with the kids and,
20:39
and and leveraging other people. I mean, it's, it's never a one
20:45
man job. It's you know, you and your
20:46
husband and then your extended family or your.
20:49
We had a no pair live with us, which was fantastic.
20:52
We're still in touch with her. And, and so I, I also, again,
20:59
because we, we all kind of came up together, I think there was a
21:03
lot of understanding that if you needed to miss a Monday morning
21:06
meeting because you had the first day of kindergarten, that
21:08
that was the right choice. I think all of us have the same
21:11
values. You know, we value family.
21:14
And so to put, you know, your family first in certain
21:18
circumstances, if you're having a baby, expecting a baby, take
21:22
time off, you know, enjoy that moment in life.
21:26
So I think it's just a, it's kind of, I wouldn't say it's
21:28
been easy 'cause it's been a challenge, but I, I just, it's
21:34
very much worth it on both fronts.
21:36
Like I, I feel obviously my investment in my kids is paying
21:41
back dividends, but my investment in my work is also
21:44
paid back dividends. And I, I can see my future where
21:50
the kids maybe are grown and I'm, I'm doing more on the work
21:52
front and I don't know, I feel like keeping a foot in both
21:57
worlds is, has been really important to me.
22:00
I, I had a mom who worked when I was young.
22:03
She was an RN. And so that was the model I had.
22:06
I never contemplated not working because I always again, came
22:11
from, no, I wouldn't say it was precarious financially, but it
22:13
wasn't 100% easy. She had four daughters.
22:17
So that was a big family. My mom and dad had four
22:21
daughters. So just to, to make sure that
22:24
you had an ability to take care of yourself and have a job was
22:27
important. The security of that and then to
22:30
have the time to devote to your family.
22:32
And so that's I think one of the reasons I was attracted to my
22:35
role as the CFO in managing operations is that I didn't have
22:39
to travel a ton like the investment professionals do.
22:43
And I had a little bit more control over my calendar.
22:47
So that enabled me to be both successful and and invest time
22:52
in work and invest time in family and that's been a big and
22:57
very important balance for me have.
23:01
You ever found it difficult to explain to your kids, especially
23:05
when they're younger, mom can't be there for this thing.
23:08
Like there were times maybe where you couldn't show up for
23:11
the event that they wanted you at.
23:15
I, I don't know, I, I haven't really struggled with that.
23:20
There have definitely been times when I haven't been like today
23:23
will be a time we've got our investor meeting and I've got to
23:26
go to that and my son has a recital.
23:29
I think we're there enough so that they don't feel like we're
23:33
not, we're not there enough. That might change when they're
23:39
35 and in therapy and saying mom, you're never.
23:41
That's something. But but I, I don't get the sense
23:44
that they, they are feeling neglected.
23:48
I suppose I make a big effort to try and, and connect with each
23:54
of my kids as a human being and as a person and really see them
23:58
for who they are and, and try and, and meet them there so that
24:04
they know I see them and I'm paying attention.
24:07
And it might always might not be that I'm showing up for a soccer
24:10
game. It might simply be just, you
24:12
know, checking in at the end of the day and saying, you know,
24:16
how is your friend doing? You were talking about, or how
24:20
are you feeling about the math test for tomorrow?
24:23
But just making sure I'm staying current in their lives and
24:26
understanding what they're going through and, and respecting them
24:29
and their decisions and, and trying to facilitate and help
24:32
them in their choices. I'm in the teenage zone now, so
24:37
it's a little different game than when they were small.
24:41
It's more, you know, guiding versus directing, I suppose when
24:47
you're when they're small. I selfishly asked that question
24:52
because I was dealing this this with my 8 year old son the other
24:55
day where he forgot to tell us until yesterday, 2 days ago that
25:00
he had a speaking part in upcoming school mass.
25:03
And, you know, could we be there?
25:05
And I looked at my calendar and I'm, you know, booked solid
25:08
during that time. And it, you know, I, I was able
25:11
to change my schedule the last time something like this came
25:14
up. And he was very happy that I
25:16
could be there. And he couldn't understand why I
25:18
couldn't make that happen again. And it was just sobbing, just
25:22
tears coming out. So I thought maybe you would
25:25
have a little golden nugget there for me that you could pull
25:29
on from your experience that I could put into play.
25:31
Yeah, sorry, I'm not. Yeah.
25:33
That's all right. The Nuggets.
25:38
Let's see, you guys have grown quite a bit in the 21 years that
25:42
you've been there. When you first got there,
25:45
roughly 300 million in assets under management.
25:49
Now 21 years later, you're at 50 billion with the B.
25:54
What, what do you think are some of the biggest levers that you
25:56
guys have pulled over there at Genstar that have allowed for
26:01
this kind of growth? Right.
26:03
So I think one of the biggest ones is outsourcing.
26:06
So I know and it was not my idea.
26:08
I'm going to give credit to to Tony Seleski is one of our
26:11
partners. He was interested in the domain
26:15
more for an investment idea, but we, you know, we tried it on and
26:21
it, I think it was the right choice, especially facing the
26:24
growth that was coming. So partnering with a good
26:28
outsourcer. Right now we partner with Apex
26:31
Fund Services. They help us with all of our
26:33
fund administration, our ESG portfolio company data
26:37
collection, producing everything that we need for financial
26:42
reporting. They're, they're global.
26:48
So and then certainly have a great perspective and this is
26:52
true of a lot of outsourcers, right, that work in the spaces
26:54
they work with a multitude of different general partners,
26:58
investors, different types of asset managers.
27:01
So can tell you, here's generally what we're seeing
27:04
people do on this question, on that question can give you that
27:07
perspective so that you can hopefully conform or make good
27:12
choices relative to peers, certainly have access to great
27:16
software solutions and probably get more responsive support
27:21
because they have a big footprint with those software
27:24
providers. So outsourcing has been, I think
27:27
one of the main elements of leverage we've used to grow the
27:31
back office for sure. So when you say the outsourcing,
27:35
you are talking specifically about the back office and not so
27:39
much sort of pushing the outsourcing model on your
27:44
portfolio? That's right.
27:45
No, so I'm specifically talking about the back office 'cause if
27:48
you think about it, we want to have the investment teams focus
27:54
on what they want to focus on what they do best, which is
27:57
investment and connecting with those CEOs and, you know, being
28:01
in the room there for board meetings.
28:03
And so we don't want to build a huge back office that someone
28:09
needs to take a decent chunk of their day out of managing.
28:11
And in addition to me, it would probably be some sort of
28:14
president or CEO. So outsourcing has allowed us to
28:18
partner with the front office in a way that gives them the free
28:22
time to just focus on investing and being good investors.
28:27
So again, it's been just a wonderful way for us to obtain
28:30
leverage over over the years, one of the biggest ways.
28:35
When did you start to embrace that?
28:37
Probably around 20/16/2017. So that was about the time we
28:44
partnered with Apex. We already partnered with an
28:48
outsourced a law firm that does a lot of our our legal work and
28:53
a big accounting firm to do taxes.
28:54
That's been kind of the case since I started, but really
28:59
partnered with a fund administrator in that 2017 time
29:02
frame and that I think since then we've grown in AUM pretty
29:08
materially meaningfully. Was there something, I don't
29:12
know, it's sort of the broader macro environment that sort of
29:18
nudged you in that direction? Or was it just sort of like,
29:21
hey, we're seeing some other folks do this, this seems like a
29:23
good idea, Let's go. More down this, I would say in
29:26
my experience that investors, you know, again after probably
29:32
the Great Recession, I think you saw investors do quite a bit
29:35
more diligence on the back office.
29:38
That's probably for a number of reasons, both macro and micro.
29:42
And So what it's it's called operational due diligence.
29:46
The investors will come in and they'll they'll grill me,
29:50
they'll want to understand how we do everything on the back end
29:52
to assess risk management. And I think the feedback we got
29:57
as we grew in AUM, especially as we kind of raised that first
30:01
billion dollar fund was that generally with of AUM size this
30:07
big, we'd expect you to partner with a fund administrator.
30:10
There is an inflection point I think when you're a smaller like
30:13
if you're raising a couple 100 million and you're starting out
30:15
as a private equity partner, you can probably figure that out.
30:19
I'd still encourage you to outsource because I think that's
30:21
a great way to just get everything off the shelf.
30:23
But if you didn't, it's not the end of the world, and I think
30:26
people would still support you. But I think as you grow in AUM,
30:30
investors wanna see that partnership with a fund
30:33
administrator because they wanna manage their risk.
30:36
And I think a fund administrator gives them a nice clean way to
30:39
do that. Fund administrators generally.
30:42
Is it because it's sort of like a, a, like almost like a neutral
30:46
third party that's sort of keeping an eye on things as
30:48
well? Is that part of the reason why
30:50
investors. It's absolutely that.
30:51
It's generally the fund administrators again have good
30:55
software. They typically do that what's
30:57
it's called a sock report statement.
31:00
I think it's of controls. A big accounting firm will come
31:03
in and assess their internal controls.
31:05
So again, it gives some comfort to investors that OK, they're
31:08
partnering with a firm that understands accounting, that
31:11
it's using the right tools, that's getting itself a third
31:16
party to check it on controls. So again, it just gives them
31:21
that much more comfort that something isn't gonna go
31:23
sideways. Now it makes sense.
31:28
Listen, you've been recognized among top female deal makers.
31:34
I'm curious if there's any specific ways that you've been
31:37
able to mentor or guide other women aspiring to leadership
31:42
roles, whether it be sort of in the funding space or finance and
31:46
operations and other industries. I mean, I, I think for women or
31:51
men it, I mean, I just think of my kids and I think of people
31:57
that I've, I've helped over the years.
31:58
I'm always open to helping. And so certainly over the years
32:04
I've had people ask about this or that, if it's or, or wanting,
32:10
for example, a reference, leveraging my network to get
32:14
them introductions if they want a job opportunity.
32:17
I've done all sorts of things, spoken at my kids high school,
32:21
spoken at my alma mater for Business School, had folks come
32:26
and ask about, I think you originally asked the question of
32:30
what, what is the profile and how do you get into private
32:32
equity given them coaching on that front.
32:35
I'd also, again, now that we're talking about it, just highlight
32:38
to anyone who's interested in in private equity is to consider
32:40
roles in portfolio companies that are private equity backed
32:43
'cause I do think those are great opportunities, much more
32:46
frequent, much more. There's just many more of them
32:50
and that those would be great ways to get introduced to
32:53
private equity working with. Private you're getting that
32:55
perspective from sort of inside so that if you do kind of flip
33:00
around and you know now you're part of the investment fund
33:03
that. You and then I mean kind of
33:04
understand what those positions are going to be lucrative.
33:07
Hopefully they'll be a combination of salary and equity
33:09
and then lots of different skill sets apply.
33:12
You could be good at just sales and become a salesperson at that
33:16
portfolio company that's backed by PE.
33:19
You could be an accountant. There's just lots of different
33:21
profiles there. So there's just so much more
33:23
opportunity on the portfolio company side that I think people
33:26
should take advantage of. But yeah, mentoring I think is
33:31
for me, it's been just being open to if anyone needs help
33:36
that I'm willing to invest time. Just the other day somebody was
33:42
saying to me they'd love me to look at XYZ that they want to
33:46
propose as a product for private equity.
33:49
And I'm happy to give them my two cents.
33:51
And if I can be helpful or if I can think of a, another
33:55
introduction that might be helpful for their endeavor, I'm
33:57
happy to make those introductions.
33:59
So it's just having that generosity, I suppose, to
34:05
others. That's been my strategy around
34:09
mentoring. Is that something you learned
34:13
from one of your parents? Is it just sort of innate in
34:16
you? Was there a mentor early on that
34:18
kind of said, hey, embrace life in this way?
34:21
Yeah. I think my father was very
34:23
generous and we learned that pretty quickly.
34:25
He was always the guy who's gonna give a giant tip to the
34:28
waitress or help out a friend move.
34:33
So we definitely had it in the family to be generous, to be
34:38
overly generous. And I, and I think that's
34:40
something I'm teaching my kids too.
34:42
I think it's important. It's, it's being part of a
34:48
community. It's, it's understanding that
34:51
you're certainly your family's important, but you're part of a
34:54
bigger community. And so having that generosity of
34:56
spirit and, and having an ability to give back, I think is
35:00
important. How do you teach that to your
35:04
kids? So I think it's, it's an
35:06
amazing, wonderful trait to be able to try to instill in
35:11
ourselves and then, you know, teach to our kids as well.
35:13
Do you have any suggestions for the rest?
35:16
Of us, I think the most powerful thing you can do as a parent is
35:19
model, right? It's the choices that you make,
35:21
it's the way you're carrying yourself day-to-day and all the
35:25
big and little things. Certainly I, at least with the
35:29
teenagers now, will do charitable work and bring them
35:31
with me kicking and screaming sometimes.
35:35
But they they get there. So I, I think both Roger and I,
35:40
I think, have made an effort on that front.
35:43
I know the boys just went to Cuba for a baseball holiday and
35:47
the idea there was more of a charitable endeavor.
35:49
You're bringing baseball equipment to a country that
35:52
needs that and they enjoy themselves and on the baseball
35:56
front and then got to feel good about providing for others.
36:00
So I mean those are just, those are the examples.
36:05
That's one thing I can't keep track of it, you know, Are we
36:07
allowed in Cuba or? I know I can't either.
36:09
We're allowed in Cuba. This was spring break.
36:12
I'm sure it's changing. I don't.
36:13
Yeah. I don't know.
36:15
Yeah, but at the time? They were allowed to go.
36:17
It was a great experience and something that they got to put
36:20
into practice from what you and your husband have been teaching.
36:24
Them and I mean the idea came from again, just the larger
36:27
community. We have a connection to someone
36:30
who's from Cuba who who had family there and that's kind of
36:33
how we made all of it happen. My husband was in charge of all
36:36
of it. So that was a great example and
36:39
he brought the boys, which was nice.
36:42
You know, Speaking of being generous and you know, helping
36:45
folks understand that you put on a CFO summit.
36:49
Can you tell me more about that? Sure.
36:51
We're having one here in the fall.
36:52
We gather all of our CF OS at our portfolio companies
36:55
together. We try and keep it small.
36:58
I think the idea for me was way back when I started in private
37:02
equity, I reached out to pretty much cold emails to a couple
37:05
other CF OS that sat in my seat. And I think we all found it
37:10
pretty invaluable that we had these connections.
37:12
So we would at that time just have occasional lunches
37:15
together. And then it got bigger and
37:17
bigger, you know, so it's at this point it's a, you know, we,
37:20
I, I know across the country, lots of other CF OS, but that,
37:23
that was so useful, You know, you could call particular people
37:26
up, ask specific question, you had a problem, you wanted to use
37:31
a new software, you could get some perspective.
37:34
And so that was the origin story of why I wanted to do something
37:38
similar for our CF OS saying, OK, all of you are in similar
37:42
positions, maybe different industries, maybe different size
37:45
companies, but have definitely things in common being private
37:49
equity backed and giving them an opportunity to meet each other,
37:54
to network with each other, hopefully to get to know and
37:56
feel comfortable with each other.
37:57
So that if they do have a question, they can pick up the
38:00
phone and call each other and, and get some good coaching,
38:04
'cause you learn quite a bit from other people, right?
38:07
That's like one of the biggest ways you learn is from other
38:09
people. And so the opportunity also was,
38:14
was kind of a, it came out of when we partnered with one of
38:17
our former CF OS, Gary Michael. He's a strategic Advisory Board
38:21
member now for us. So he had a great perspective
38:25
because he had walked a mile in that role.
38:27
He was a CFO of a successful platform, exited, had also had a
38:32
pretty deep career as a CFO with other types of companies prior
38:39
to working with Genstar. So just between Gary and myself,
38:43
we can plan a couple days for the CF OS that hopefully is a
38:50
productive and helpful 1. So it's a little networking, but
38:52
then it's also talking about particular things if they have
38:56
questions. So I think we'll probably focus
38:57
a little on AI this time. How are we using it?
39:00
What are the use cases? What are particular maybe
39:02
consultants or partners that you can consider using?
39:06
But those are, it's just a great way we found to connect the CF
39:11
OS together. And hopefully it's a good tool
39:12
for them to learn and and bring it back to their platforms.
39:17
Yeah, You know, I get to talk with a number of CF OS, whether,
39:20
you know, through my other line of work or, you know, that I
39:22
interview here on the podcast. And one of the things that I
39:25
hear again and again is and I, I really want to learn how to
39:30
better leverage AI. Like I'm just sort of dipping my
39:33
toe in the water and they've been having trouble finding the
39:39
expertise or the, the person to sort of train them to kind of
39:42
take what they're doing at this level and, you know, move it on
39:46
up. So, yeah, I hear you talk about
39:48
being able to, you know, put on a session like that for your
39:51
Porco CF OS. And I'm like, oh, I, I think
39:54
they're gonna be pretty excited to.
39:55
See, well, and that's learning, right?
39:57
I just, I guess that's the other thing I with my kids, I, you
40:00
know, 'cause they'll come in and they'll complain and this is too
40:02
hard. But I mean, that is learning,
40:04
right? When you're in the deep end, you
40:06
drop yourself in. You feel a little overwhelmed.
40:10
You don't know if you can figure this out.
40:13
You just kind of keep looking around, figuring it.
40:16
You just keep, keep on, keep it on.
40:18
You just keep tackling it. And then you eventually kind of
40:21
get through that and go, oh, now I understand this particular
40:26
question, this subject, this use case, you know, you just have to
40:30
keep at it and learn. Yeah.
40:35
I think the other great thing about what you're doing is that
40:39
peer support, You know, when you're the CEO or the CFO, you
40:44
know, you are the top person in that department at your company.
40:48
And sometimes you can feel like you're a little bit alone, like
40:52
you're on an island, like everybody looks to you for the
40:54
answers. You know, where can you go when,
40:57
you know, you need a bit of advice for a sounding board And,
41:00
you know, with, you know, Genstar, you've kind of got that
41:03
baked in, especially, you know, with the extra effort that
41:06
you're going to put on these summits where everybody can come
41:10
together and they can meet each other.
41:11
They can exchange notes. You've got that networking so
41:14
that, you know, three months down the road, it's like, you
41:17
know, you hit this roadblock. You're like, I've never seen
41:19
this before. What do I do?
41:20
You know what I'm going to call Sally that I met at that
41:22
conference. I bet she's dumb.
41:24
And that's, that's another change I think I've seen over
41:26
the years too, is that when we started, it was pre Internet,
41:31
you really did feel isolated. You felt like you were the only
41:34
firm doing this, that or the other.
41:35
You were the only person trying to solve this problem.
41:38
And then the Internet age happened.
41:40
And I think we all discovered that, wow, there's so much we
41:43
have in common with each other. So many of us are trying to
41:47
solve the same problems. And then having the ability to
41:50
research it and come to kind of some conclusions that are pretty
41:54
common, I think is powerful over the years for sure.
41:59
Melissa, what's your superpower? I I think all of that.
42:08
Well, I so. Don't be modest.
42:14
I think what you see is what you get.
42:15
I, I am, I'm a very calm person. I suppose it's my mother who is
42:20
an RN and you know, she lived through some emergencies, but
42:23
she kind of taught us that having a cool head and stressful
42:29
times is the only way to to get through it.
42:32
So I do think that I've lived through lots of things, you
42:36
know, the Great Recession, 9/11, all the different big macro
42:39
challenges to the markets over the last 20 plus years and kept
42:46
cool head through all of it and understood that, you know,
42:52
that's the only way to succeed in times of stress is to to keep
42:55
your eye on the finish line, to keep your eye on the ball, to
43:00
triage, you know, to get through it.
43:03
But there is another side, you know, you will get to the other
43:06
side. So I do think that's one of my
43:09
superpowers. And then honestly, it's love of
43:12
learning and curiosity. Just over the years we've
43:16
evolved and changed so much. I didn't need to change jobs to
43:19
get that. I got that just staying at the
43:21
same job, but I really needed to be open and comfortable with
43:26
change, comfortable with trying new things on, iterating and and
43:33
that's just my love of learning so.
43:37
So we're recording this episode late May of 2025.
43:41
Curious to hear if current economic political conditions
43:46
remind you of any other periods of time that you've been
43:50
through, whether from a positive perspective or well, this is
43:54
something we're concerned. About I think honestly, I I am
43:58
not experiencing a ton of angst. I think again, we've lived
44:03
through the Great Recession. Certainly the registration with
44:07
the SEC for the private equity industry was a big change.
44:11
I would say the focus of the SEC, it depends on the
44:15
administration. But you know, we've always had
44:18
somewhat of a lens put on alternatives and privates
44:22
because of the growth I think and people wanting to understand
44:25
that market. So I've been pretty comfortable
44:30
'cause I guess I've, I've been living that life now for a
44:33
while, being ready to, again, that audit background, just if
44:39
someone comes in the door, I can answer questions.
44:41
If some risk is out there, I can assess it.
44:44
I'm not going to get worked up about it because again, people
44:47
generally come in with a certain theory in mind and I just need
44:51
to understand what that is and sit down and we can talk, we can
44:54
go through the facts and the data and, and either agree or
44:57
disagree. But I think, you know, again, I,
45:01
I feel very lucky that we, that I've got really talented
45:04
investors and really wonderful good people that I work with
45:09
that make good choices. So yeah, it helps quite a bit.
45:14
So yeah, I, I, I wouldn't say that.
45:17
I mean, it's you, you keep your eye on the news.
45:21
So for me, it's more of like making sure I, I don't go
45:25
overboard, but but yeah, I'm not, I'm not massively stressed
45:30
this this time versus just, you know, a year ago.
45:36
Do you feel like you're just sort of a naturally calm person?
45:40
Like that's sort of how you're wired?
45:43
OK. I was gonna ask if there's
45:44
anything you do like meditation or exercise or particular
45:48
dietary choices that sort of. Help.
45:51
Yeah, I I love running. I love weightlifting.
45:54
I'm definitely a movement person to manage stress and frankly
45:58
just for fun, but I also do default to calm and, and you
46:06
know, again, I would say also this is going to be funny, but I
46:11
have teenagers, right? So I, I've been living a little
46:14
bit on the edge, you know, for years now.
46:17
So the, the macro, whatever is not throwing me at all, 'cause
46:22
my, my teenage son does better at that, you know, if it's, he's
46:26
made a bad choice. And now I'm going into the
46:29
school, you know, to figure out. So I don't know.
46:33
I I yeah, but I I do think. That's that's built up a little
46:38
bit of. Yeah, for sure.
46:39
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's we're kind of on
46:43
that path anyways. Curious to hear about maybe a
46:47
serious challenge, Melissa, that you've gone through, whether
46:50
it's personal or professional. Yeah, I think we talked a little
46:56
bit about this in the lead up, but I want to both of my sons
47:01
have ADHD and it was for my oldest diagnosed right before
47:05
COVID and and that was a challenge.
47:09
And I mean, again, I want to be sensitive to his situation
47:11
because it's his story too. But it was, it was a challenge
47:16
for me to understand it 'cause I am the opposite.
47:21
I'm, I can be very organized and focused and think five years out
47:24
and the ADHD temperament is I only want to focus on what I
47:27
want to focus on. I'm not interested in other
47:30
things. I'm interested in this thing.
47:33
And so it, it's a, it's a different approach.
47:38
He's a very smart person, but it's tough for a kid with ADHD
47:43
to go into a traditional educational environment and
47:46
succeed because that requires a level of like focus and
47:50
discipline and organization that I'm not sure that profile is
47:53
inclined to. In fact, it's kind of the
47:55
opposite. They just again, want to focus
47:56
on if it's math or history, let everything else go.
48:00
So that's been a challenge for me to understand where he's
48:06
coming from and how best I can help him and support him.
48:10
It's been a challenge navigating the public school systems.
48:14
I know we had to hire a lawyer to get him on an IEP.
48:18
It was struggle, which was difficult.
48:21
I have a fantastic lawyer. She's wonderful.
48:24
It was hysterical. The first time I called her.
48:26
I was practically in tears 'cause he was struggling in
48:29
school and I didn't know how to help him.
48:30
And I felt like I'd done all the things but I wasn't having
48:35
success. And she was just wonderful,
48:37
'cause she came and said, you're doing all the right things.
48:40
And, you know, she was just, she is still a great help to us
48:45
day-to-day with just that perspective on the temperament,
48:49
the profile. I, I do think and hope in the
48:51
future that the public schools will acknowledge this type of
48:56
approach to thinking and learning and, and kind of meet
49:01
the moment with a teaching style that's a little bit more attuned
49:05
to that. I, I, I, I don't, I, there's a,
49:09
a ton of great teachers in his high school.
49:13
And then there are some that probably need a little bit more
49:15
education on the, on the temperament and the profile.
49:19
And then, you know, to be fair to them, you know, he's an
49:21
independent guy. And so it was this combo of like
49:25
how he approaches things and him being pretty fiercely
49:27
independent, but that, that definitely just cause your kids
49:33
are obviously your most treasured asset or however you
49:40
want to say it in life. And, and it, it's, it's tough to
49:44
see them suffer and you definitely want to see them
49:47
succeed. And you obviously worry about
49:50
them pretty much your whole life.
49:53
But you know, navigating that has been a challenge.
49:58
And I don't know, it's, it's, we're on a, we're in a good spot
50:03
now. And I think he's, he's teaching
50:05
me a little bit more to lean back and let him do his thing.
50:09
And he's, he's figured himself out, which is what you want to
50:11
see as a, as a mom of a teenager.
50:14
But it's, it was a journey. It was a struggle.
50:19
Yeah, I've got a young son. Who we identified pretty early
50:24
on that he needed some help with speech, with comprehension.
50:28
We got him some services there. My wife is actually a speech
50:32
therapist. So that certainly helped in kind
50:34
of being able to notice that early on, there was some
50:38
questions about, you know, as we're getting those services,
50:41
like would he qualify for an autism diagnosis?
50:45
And that smacked her across the head in a way that's sort of
50:50
hard for me to put words to. Ultimately he does not.
50:55
But at the time, like there was, there's, there's sort of already
51:00
this sense of, did we do something wrong?
51:03
You know, like, is this on us? Should we have made a different
51:08
choice here or there? And then, you know, when that
51:12
came in a little bit later on, like, oh, you know, maybe we
51:15
should get him looked at for autism, She had a really hard
51:18
time because it was like, this is her area of expertise and she
51:22
had not spotted that. And she, you know, put even
51:24
extra guilt, pressure, shame, whatever negative emotion you
51:28
want to sort of attach with that.
51:30
I'm curious if you kind of went through any of those emotions of
51:34
like pointing the finger back at yourself and like blaming or
51:37
wondering like, I don't know, is this?
51:39
Somehow. Oh, of course, yeah.
51:41
You wonder even even like honestly, did I eat the wrong
51:45
things in pregnancy? Did I do the, the wrong
51:47
nurturing when he was tiny? You know, just, you can really
51:53
go down a rabbit hole with all of those things.
51:55
And I, I, I was saying, I read a book one time that talked about
52:00
I think parenting as either being, constructing, you know,
52:04
houses, being a builder or being a gardener.
52:07
And I think the idea was there was that, you know, you have a
52:10
ton of control over like building a house.
52:13
And as a gardener, you kind of have a little bit of control
52:15
'cause you can weed and water, but it's really organic and, and
52:19
whatever happens in your garden happens.
52:21
And it's beautiful at the end of the day, but it isn't
52:23
necessarily something like building a house.
52:26
And so I, I, I do think as, as we go through that with
52:29
parenting, we, we kind of always want to lean into, oh, it's a
52:32
house, but I think it's more like a garden and that you're
52:34
just doing what you can, the watering, the sunshine, the, the
52:39
feeding, but you're going to get what you're going to get.
52:42
And it's not, not everything is in your control.
52:46
It's not everything is your fault.
52:49
And, and sometimes that's not even a useful frame of mind or
52:52
approach. So it's, yeah, I mean, you have
52:58
to, it's, those are day-to-day conversations you have with
53:00
yourself. Can I even just the other day, I
53:03
want to say Charlie was telling me, you know, why are you so
53:06
concerned about this? This is my life.
53:08
And he's right. It's like, that's not your
53:11
choice. I'm confused why you're thinking
53:12
it's somehow your thing and when it's not your thing, it's my
53:15
thing. And again, he's right, but it's
53:18
apparent. But I think when, yeah, when
53:20
you're, you've been so successful in your career path
53:25
and you're very good at what you do, you tend to put things, Tell
53:29
me if this applies to you. This is how sort of my brain
53:32
works. It's like, oh, I'm very good at
53:34
this. I'm very successful at this.
53:36
I can pull these levers. I can generally make a lot of
53:39
these things kind of move in the direction that I want.
53:42
And why can't I do that with my kit?
53:44
Like I should be able to have the same level, you know, right?
53:48
I should be able to put the fertilizer in the water and the
53:50
sunshine and I should get out what I'm expecting and what, you
53:55
know, the output should somehow equate to my input.
53:58
And boy, sometimes that. Is I always joke that kids are
54:02
like employees you can't fire, right?
54:04
So like, you have to figure this out because at work you can, you
54:09
can manage people and then you either accept sometimes
54:14
limitations or maybe you solve for a different person, but
54:17
that's not what you've got going on at home because you, you
54:20
can't exactly, you got to work with the kids and, and you're,
54:24
you know, you're not in control of everything and that's OK.
54:29
And they teach you a lot. And that's one of the big
54:30
lessons, right? Is that they are their own
54:32
people and they're going to be different than you and, and
54:36
they're going to teach you things.
54:37
These days, my kids teach me so much.
54:39
It's amazing, from the small things to the big things.
54:43
What's a big thing they've taught you recently?
54:48
I think this, this conversation I had with my oldest around
54:54
where I end and he begins because I think for a long time
54:57
I've been his partner in school and especially with the ADHD
55:01
profile, you think, OK, I've got to be his executive function.
55:04
I've got to think ahead. I've got to and, and I have to
55:08
let go a little because I'm not going to college with him, you
55:12
know, So I have to let him fail a little.
55:14
I have to back off a little. He's got to choose to do this.
55:19
And it's hard, right? Because as a parent, again, from
55:23
the get go, you're involved, you're there, you're doing the
55:26
watering and the wedding, and it's really hard to just stop.
55:32
But you have to. And I think that's definitely
55:37
the memo that I got earlier from him, which is good.
55:41
I raised a kid who's going to talk to me like that, which is
55:43
also good. So yeah, that that's that was.
55:48
Probably a memo that they've been trying to get you to.
55:50
Read for a. Little bit, yeah.
55:54
And now it's finally starting to sink in for mom, huh?
55:56
A little bit, yeah. How about a a favorite book or a
56:01
podcast, Maybe a course that been super helpful or
56:06
instructive for you, whether it's on the personal or their
56:08
professional side that might want.
56:10
To give you a couple come to mind there, I love Phil
56:12
Tetlock's book Super Forecasting and Annie Duke is another one.
56:18
She wrote How to Decide She's a Poker player and both are very
56:23
similar. And that if you think about
56:24
investing, it's a lot about predicting the future and making
56:27
decisions. And I think what both books tend
56:30
to focus on is a little bit figuring out what is knowable
56:34
and what is not and figuring out how to think in a disciplined
56:37
way, in a informed way. You want to, again, do your
56:41
diligence, figure out some knowns, create some bookends
56:47
over a question, be real. You know, you're not going to be
56:50
able to predict 12 years from now who's going to be the
56:52
president of the United States, but you could probably make some
56:54
reasonable guesses in the next, you know, 3 weeks, 3 months or
56:58
so. Both of those books, I think,
57:01
speak to that type of decision making.
57:04
And I think it's very helpful to, to think about it, to read
57:08
about it, to get some of that education, because I think a lot
57:12
of folks maybe think they, either they, I, I was guilty of
57:16
this, like you, you just want to get to an answer.
57:19
So maybe you'd skip over some diligence and then you learn,
57:23
Oh, no, I, if I'd just asked or gotten a little bit more
57:26
educated, I would have figured out some of these problems and
57:29
gone a different direction. So I I think that's super
57:31
helpful both personally and professionally.
57:36
And these books kind of give you some guidance on how you might
57:39
do some of. That professional.
57:40
Diligence or think about approaching it.
57:43
So if you wanna, I mean, Annie Duke's book is a little bit an
57:46
easier read. It's well done.
57:49
And it's it's she again was a poker player.
57:52
So you can imagine it's very poker examples.
57:55
But that is decision making and informed decision making.
57:58
And then Phil Tetlock's book did experiments with cohorts of
58:03
people. So it's very fascinating.
58:06
That was super forecasting. So I'd recommend both books to
58:08
folks who want to learn more about decision making and have
58:12
some some clarity around some of some good best practices.
58:18
Melissa, I've just got one more question for you.
58:20
But before I ask it, I want to do 2 things first.
58:23
First of all, I'm going to invite everyone listening to go
58:25
ahead and hit the follow button on your favorite podcast app.
58:28
We've had a great interview today with Melissa Dickerson of
58:31
Genstar Capital. We want to get more great
58:33
content like this. I also want to let people know
58:35
the best way to either get in touch with you or follow your
58:39
story. Melissa, what would that?
58:41
Oh, you know, Genstar has a, a, a website, gencapgencap.com and
58:46
that's probably the best place to see any news or announcements
58:49
about our firm. Gencap.com, we'll include that
58:53
link in the show notes. So last question I have for you,
58:56
Melissa. Let's say you and I reconnect a
58:59
year from now and you're celebrating one thing.
59:03
What's that one? Thing I've got 2 graduations, so
59:05
I've got an eighth grader next year and I've got a senior in
59:08
high school next year, so we're hopefully celebrating graduation
59:12
this time next year. Are we looking at?
59:15
Colleges. We are definitely looking at
59:16
colleges, yes. So we'll see where we land with
59:19
that too, which is gonna be a journey, but I'm excited.
59:22
Is it, is it a local net that you're casting a regional net or
59:25
he's going? Across the US, we'll see where
59:29
he lands, but I'm excited to actually see what the next
59:32
chapter holds. Yeah.
59:34
No, Melissa, I'm going to be the first one to thank you for
59:37
sharing both your time and your story with us today.
59:39
I really appreciate. It thanks for having me, this
59:40
was fun. Folks, that's a wrap on another
59:44
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
59:46
Thanks for learning with us today.