Episode 5: Mariza Warshawsky of Assembly Group
On How to Hire the Right Team To Grow Your Portfolio Companies

Episode Transcript

Shiv: Hey, Mariza, welcome to the show. I'm excited to have you on.

Mariza: Excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Shiv: Yeah, I'm pumped to have this episode and have this conversation given that we've worked so many times together, but just for the audience, why don't you give everybody a background about what you do and about Assembly Group in particular.

Mariza: Fantastic. Yeah, I was chatting with a colleague and I think it's been four years since you and I have had the opportunity to first partner together across a number of different engagements and asset types and otherwise. At the highest of levels, you know, we are a boutique executive search firm. We focus exclusively on private equity-backed software executive search. So looking at C-level, their VP-level direct reports. And of course increasingly some operating partner and value creation work, given a lot of where our private equity clients are focusing. The standard for us is companies that are between 25 and 500 million in revenue, sometimes smaller, sometimes larger than that, but all at a critical part of their transformation, either recently having taken on institutional capital, a new sponsor, or at a different part of their thesis. It's really about bringing on executives who can align to that transformation and ensuring that they're driving the value creation that would yield to an exit over what's standardly a three to five-year timeframe. So, I lead our go-to-market practice, which means sales marketing, customer success, sometimes a combination thereof, and certainly an area with a great degree of title variability. But the focus for us is really ensuring that we're bringing on leaders to drive transformation critical juncture of a company's growth.

Shiv: Yeah, and when you think about value creation, oftentimes companies and firms talk a lot about strategies, but at the end of the day, it really comes down to the people in those critical roles, right? And so getting the right person in the right seat is really the X factor in making all those plans a reality.

Mariza: Absolutely, absolutely.

Shiv: And so when you're pulled in with these firms, are you primarily just focused on one or two roles? Are you brought into hire multiple folks in the C-suite, and is it more market-facing roles or is it a product and other types of roles as well?

Mariza: It varies entirely based on the company. In some instances, we've worked on six to eight concurrent searches for the same company. In other instances, it's one based on top-priority company need. We work across functions. So, as mentioned, I lead sales, marketing, and customer success, but I have colleagues who work exclusively on CTO or Chief Product Officer work, CEO, CFO, CHRO… increasingly we're focused on Corp Dev, Chief of Staff, other sort of value creation driver roles, General Counsel as well. So really rounding out the entirety of the C-suite based on where companies have a need. Again, there are times where we come in right after the investment is made and there's been some pre-acquisition diligence on the team and the sponsor knows precisely who are the first and most critical hires to be made or executives to be replaced. Other times, it's sort of mid-cycle and bookings have been missed or the thesis has shifted or the market has changed and we of course then come in and, more in those instances, sort of one at a time.

Shiv: Right. And when you're partnering with an investment firm on these kinds of engagements, are you being brought in at the LOI stage, in the post-close stage, or once it's already an established company? I would assume it's across the board, but I'm trying to understand how actively plugged in are you into the investment thesis and the board-level conversations?

Mariza: Absolutely, fair question and it is across the board. So, you know, often an investor partner of ours will come to us and say, “hey, I have a company under LOI and I already know where we have a need. We anticipate that we'll be going to search but prior to that. Is there anybody that you have currently in-network that you think could be a great fit for us?” And we start the conversation at that stage. At other points, it's, you know, the investment has been made, the announcement has not yet. And so it's about navigating the complexity and the confidentiality through some of those elements, of course, as well. And then at others, it's, you know, again, midway through the hold and there's a, you know, replacement to be made or somebody has exited the business. And so we really play through all levels. And of course, I think that it ties to being, you know, needing to be, deeply connected with your private equity partners and understanding where they are across each one of their assets or prospective assets and where you can provide most value.

Shiv: Right. That makes total sense. And so let's say you get engaged with a private equity firm and you are plugged into an executive search process. How does that unfold? What are all the key steps there?

Mariza: Absolutely. So the first piece for us, of course, is understanding the asset, the thesis, and the competencies for success. And so we'll spend time reviewing a CIM. We'll spend time reviewing investor decks. We'll spend time reviewing sales decks so as to ensure that we have a clear mastery of the current state of the business. And then there's a deep dive and take home where we’re asking questions relative to the function, the competencies, and outlining the process for the search. I think it's critical to be aligned upfront relative to what the expectations of each search are, what the company competency targets are, and what the market actually bears. And so those intake conversations are incredibly fruitful for us and really understanding how the team and board is thinking about this role and it provides us the opportunity to start talking about what we are seeing in the market by way of alignment, by way of compensation, and by way of actionability on this type of target candidate pool. 

Once, of course, we've run through the intake, we have what's called a calibration exercise. So it's about really understanding from the team and the board what good looks like from their perspective - not by way of hypothetical, but by way of real-world backgrounds and understanding with every person, there will be a degree of a trade-off. What are the trade-offs we're willing to make? What are the highest priority competencies that we're targeting and experience sets and leadership categories and time and role? And where are we willing to make trade-offs now or potentially start talking about where we may have to make them down the line? 

Of course, once we're aligned on that, the way that we confirm alignment is through scorecard. So it's a deep competency and outcome scorecard where we're aligning what we have all heard and what we are all targeting, the different ways in which people can identify those skill sets and prior backgrounds. And then we're ensuring that each member of the interview process is focusing on specific elements of those scorecards, so there isn't conversation redundancy where the candidate is having the same conversations with different people, we end up at the end of the line and we still don't know some very critical pieces of information - we've only gotten seventy0five percent of the way there. Frankly, it's about ensuring we're protecting candidate experience as well on that front.

Shiv: Right. And talk about the calibration piece a little bit more because, let's say two companies are looking for CMOs, right? The needs feel like they would be fairly similar across those businesses, but obviously, that's not the case, right? So every business is different and the marketing needs are going to look a lot different. So how do you go about calibrating and identifying those differences and figuring out what is the right type of candidate and what should go in that scorecard?

Mariza: Absolutely. So you know far better than I the unique intricacies of each CMO and what they can bring in terms of value to each individual company. But you know, the way that we look at each role is not just by way of the competencies and experience sets and sort of functional focuses, but also by way of who this person is and how they operate and the types of environments in which they've gained them. So CMO, for example, are you looking for somebody to focus on product marketing? Are you looking for somebody to focus on demand generation? Is this a corporate marketing function focus, and certainly, the combination thereof? How are we thinking about what this business needs to accomplish and tying that to the skill set of the CMO that we're looking for? Of course, no one is sort of all in the same, because you can also then - once you identify the functional focuses, you're looking at the environment in which they've been able to gain these skill sets. Is this an organic versus inorganic growth play? Are we looking at net new market opportunity or penetration of the white space? Are we looking at global expansion? Are we focused in North America? Otherwise, are we looking at direct or are we looking at indirect marketing experience? How important is the channel or the partnerships piece? How important is this motion? Are we looking at PLG? Are we looking at ABM? Are we looking at a combination thereof? And of course, the breakout beyond that on the PLG side are all things that we are covering upfront through the intake. And then we're pressure testing through that calibration exercise so as to ensure that we have a clear command of - yes, we need a product marketing focus leader. Yes, our motion tends to be velocity. But indirect is increasingly important for us. And yes, we're willing to trade off on global because we've got some global expertise elsewhere in the organization, or no, we are not. And if that's the case, here's where we're aligning on compensation so as to ensure that we can attract this type of background to drive success across the organization.

Shiv: Yeah, and as you were talking there, my thoughts went to the idea that just even though we're looking for, let's say, a talented marketing leader, as you drill deeper and deeper into all those different areas, it's kind of looking for a very unique person for each business that you're advising and in this process with. It's kind of like looking for a needle in a haystack because the wrong fit can actually hurt the company quite a bit if - let's say, the company needs more help on the demand gen side but they bring on a marketer that leans more heavily on product marketing, well, over the long term, they're not going to get the results that they want, right? So getting this calibration piece right is critical to actually have the success that they want out of the candidate.

Mariza: Absolutely. And it's all about speed, right? We can certainly elongate the alignment process, right? And we've seen it done in a number of different ways where, you know, people are calibrating through conversation versus up front in that first discussion or that second discussion with clients. Now, what that means is it just elongates your process. You're spending time, the search firm is spending time bringing people to the table of all different types of backgrounds, evaluating them, pulling them forward only to later decide that actually a third of them don't make sense because they're demand generation-focused and a third of them don't make sense because they have no global experience. Instead of really being able to dial in on, this is what our core competency and experience set should look like, and this is the way in which people should have proven out those experiences and competencies to drive to outcome. Aligning on that upfront is absolutely critical, and being able to drive speed - not only the process, but also in terms of that person coming in and starting to drive value across the company. And you're right - fit is everything. And that means is somebody rightly aligned from a skill set perspective, but also do they orient in the right way? Do they have a top and bottom line orientation? Are they collaborative? Are their values aligned? All of those things matter just as much as the type of background that this person brings to the table.

Shiv: Right, and how do you set the expectations with the company in terms of the impact from a candidate like this, right? Because the search process can take 60 to 90 days, you know, to even find the person. Then they have to actually join, which might take another month. And then they actually have to get onboarded and ramp up. And in terms of actual impact, you're looking at six months to a year before you start to see any green shoots at all. And from what I imagine that - when you're working with companies, the expectation is for impact to be made a lot sooner. So how does that expectation management conversation go?

Mariza: Yeah, so there are a number of different ways in which we aim to expectation-set I think upfront, just as much as we were talking about the calibration being important for us as search partner and being able to target the right pool. We also talk about what process looks like from that stage forward and every element of how we are ensuring that we are evaluating getting the right people to the table and what the general sort of search process would look like, and we're also ensuring that we're giving clients visibility into the fact that if we're targeting people who are currently in-role, we're looking at least a month to two post the time that they sign their offer letter for them to join because they're doing what's right by their current employer and building out a transition plan and the like, and so those conversations relative to timing and process and expectation-setting are happening from the outset, and we're ensuring that our clients have visibility throughout. The other piece for us is really ensuring that our clients have the right onboarding processes in place for whoever comes into the role, right? Getting their perspective on how this person should come in, what kind of support structure they have in terms of their 30, 60, 90 days, and otherwise, and a great way to sort of pressure-test through some of those pieces is to actually have candidates present on what their onboarding plan would look like and having a back-and-forth dialogue with clients around that piece so that both parties are very well aware around what the expectations would be a month and two and three in, and being able to sort of cross collaborate relative to expectations on that end and ensure nobody is going in blind on that front relative to what expectations would look like.

Shiv: Right. Yeah. And we share this expectation-management conversation too, right? Because as we're presenting to private equity groups and giving the marketing strategy, there is usually this gap between us presenting what we think they should do and the team's ability to execute on it. And there's a lag. And the engagements where we've partnered, like we've had to come in and play that interim role of CMO while the new CMO has been hired. And so we're able to inch forward the goalposts a little bit by being able to execute on those plans before the ideal candidate is actually found. But that's not always the case. And then you have investors that have projections that they need to head for this year kind of sitting right there at the same time.

Mariza: Absolutely. And like a lot of our private equity clients have phenomenal talent teams, right? And talent teams are often comprised of people who have been roles like mine, right? In the executive search or more broadly in human capital leadership roles. And talent teams, the emergence thereof, have really dialled-up across the course of the last decade or so. And now we're seeing them, you know, driving incredibly robust talent organizations across some of your leading firms. And so talent partners and their teams are doing a phenomenal job expectation-setting as well. A lot of them are running some internal searches. They're running VP or director-level searches across the portfolio. Sometimes they're even running C-level searches via network and otherwise. And so we're hearing more and more that yes, the expectation is always of course for urgency. But in order to ensure that you are getting to the right answer, it's about ensuring that you give time to the process to ensure that you're effectively validating running somebody all the way through to get that full 360 advantage point. But there are definite ways to be able to pull up information sooner rather than later. We're finding, of course, the market is more broadly understanding of what it takes in order to run the right process to get to the right results.

Shiv: Right, that's fantastic. Okay, so let's say the expectation is set, we've set the scorecard, we've calibrated the type of candidate that we're looking for - what comes next?

Mariza: There is a deep market mapping effort. So we have - and many firms have - dedicated research teams. And their sole focus is market mapping, understanding where they should be targeting by way of geo, by way of competitive landscape, by way of type of organization, by way of scale of organization, and backing into identifying candidate pools via identifying what the market and the target market should look like. And so there's a deep and dedicated sourcing effort that occurs across the life cycle of a search when it's particularly dialled up for the first two weeks so as to ensure that no stone is left unturned for the most bullseye candidate, so to speak. The market mapping exercise sort of iterates across the course of a search. One thing that's important to understand is that search is relative to people and much like that, they're living, breathing things. And so feedback loops, etcetera, can course correct or drive new competency focuses that may not have existed at the outset. And so, assume it to say that in the background, research teams are consistently iterating so as to ensure that they have the right breadth of exposure to the market, while also ensuring that there is tightly mapped to the competency targets that have been aligned across the course of the search. Through that, we as recruiting teams are deeply assessing candidates, really ensuring that they align to the scorecard and of course applying a different combination of assessment methodologies dependent on our private equity clients and how they focus on assessments, whether it be through assessment tools, through rigorous questioning processes and otherwise, so as to ensure that we're getting to the root of who the person is and how they operate and their experience sets. Then, of course, we're managing them through the search process, meaning making the appropriate introductions, ensuring that our clients are aware of the strengths and gaps of each candidate profile, and then making sure that each candidate is sort of slotted through the appropriate search process, meeting the right people at the right time, that they're able to gather information in as much as the interviewers are able to gather information about them. It's a buy-sell process. And so ensuring that they have as phenomenal of an experience with each company, as the goal is to ensure that we're getting details around their background and making sure that those are both mapped. And then of course we support all the way through to the end. So happy to provide more context on that as well.

Shiv: Yeah, I guess the first question that jumps out is in terms of the pipeline itself of the candidates, how are you building that quality pool of candidates that companies can then find the right fit of a candidate for themselves from? Because I would imagine the bulk of the work is having a large enough pool or enough of a pipeline to be able to staff out these roles.

Mariza: Absolutely. So I think first it comes down to understanding the market in which they would be sourcing from. So the fact that we focus exclusively on private equity software means that we have a deep advantage on private equity software companies and their executives within. Who has, you know, been a part of a business that has had a successful outcome and how do we actually track whether their activities or those that yielded to a successful outcome. The vast majority of those candidates or executives, I should say, sit within our network. We know them, we're one degree of separation from them. We have the ability to reference them in ways that are very critical. 

The goal for us is not to pull exclusively people who are from network into a search, it's to run net new sourcing as well. And so assume that on every search, there is a degree of easy ability to pull through network that we know rightly aligns to what the client is looking for, but on the flip, it's entirely new research. It's about unturning stones relative to the domain. It's about unturning stones relative to finding other types of companies to be able to target from, or people who may be bringing a slight variation relative to skillset, but given the needs of the business could actually be quite interesting. And so we're spending a tremendous amount of time upfront building out what's standardly over a hundred people that we'd be looking at or considering and having a very extensive number of conversations to weed people out so as to ensure that we're getting closer to the right target profile here. And so we're spending two weeks in market doing that before we typically present a candidate because we're understanding what the market is telling us, we're making sure that we're bringing the right people to the table, and that the client has enough conversations at one time to really be able to compare different types of backgrounds and what makes most sense to them. So it's sort of a deep sourcing effort on all fronts.

Shiv: So one of the things about top level candidates is that they're often already employed, right? So there's a challenge there in finding folks who are actually interested or at a stage where they're ready to make a jump to another opportunity. And then the other thought around it that jumped out for me is that there are certain roles for which there's a supply shortage, like in marketing itself. I can tell you that experts in marketing are really hard to find. Versus another area that's like security is that jumps out where, on the technology side, that role is, I would imagine, really difficult to fill. So in those types of instances, how are you going about finding candidates? Because maybe the person with the right skill set doesn't have PE-backed experience, maybe hasn't had a meaningful exit. So how are you sourcing candidates like that?

Mariza: Yeah, fair question. And suffice to say that across private equity-backed software, there's a shortage of talent. We have never come across a search, certainly, that I can recall where there's been a wealth of available, actionable, and well-aligned talent where it's sort of the pool in and of itself isn't our biggest sort of issue within the search. And that's because you're looking for people who are exceptional. And people who are exceptional are typically in a job or they're at the later stage of another process. And so we're always in some sort of competitive offer position as we end a search, irrespective of function. 

Another right now in incredibly in high demand is finance. Everybody is looking for a CFO. Why? For a number of reasons, certainly, but given some of the shift by way of the market across the course of the last couple of quarters, Finance is the most in-demand function that we're seeing across the course of our firm and certainly what we've been hearing across the course of the market as well. Now the ways in which we are considering the finance role is also really ensuring that we're looking at people who are having conversations with our clients relative to whether or not they're open to different types of backgrounds. We have seen some great success in placing first-time finance leaders if they've been able to prove out that they are very successful in terms of, you know, FP&A, highly acquisitive environments, and they've worked with tier one sponsors in past, and they've got the right references and the right orientation to be able to sit at the table for the first time. Sort of opening to first time in seat is something that, you know, is a pretty critical consideration factor to give us flex when the market is tight. We've been running an analysis relative to whether or not a client is open to a first-time executive and whether or not they actually end up placing a first-time executive. And for the first time across the course of the last three quarters, we've seen an uptick in openness. And then we've seen an uptick in terms of successful placement. So it's something that we're starting to track by way of what will happen with these successful placements and ensuring that they're actually driving success and outcome on the other side, but it's certainly a trend that we're following.

Shiv: And so how do you measure that, like for, whether it's an experienced candidate or a first time candidate in that type of a seat, how do you measure and figure out that it's actually working out longterm?

Mariza: Three ways. One, consistent check-in with client and candidate. Are they accomplishing the goals that are set out in front of them? Are they the right fit? Are they driving to the right success? So when a search closes, it tends to be sort of the middle range for us in terms of client communication, right? We are ongoingly in contact with the clients and candidates placed. Two, do they stay on through the target outcome event? And then three, was the target outcome event successful? And so if you're able to track all of those three things and the positive, you can track them to be a successful placement.

Shiv: Right, right. Are you finding that compensations have accelerated or gone up significantly and with all the shortage of talent that's out there?

Mariza: Compensation continues to increase. I would say it's at less of the spike. There was a dramatic increase in terms of what was being targeted and some of the offers being made. And I would say that was generally a result of, you know, a hyper competitive talent market. Now it certainly remains competitive. It's just a different type of competitive than we saw a year and change ago. We're still seeing increases at a, you know, single digit to low double digit year over year, and we're tracking that across function. So it wouldn't say that it's necessarily spiking across the board, but steadily increasing yes.

Shiv: I'm surprised it increased to even 22 to 23 with the decrease in deal flow and fewer opportunities. Any theory on why that might be the case?

Mariza: Because those that are making hires, or I should say, even when our clients were not focused on new deals, they were focusing on righting the ship and ensuring that any area of focus that was not sort of optimally operating, there were new operators brought in. And in that case, yet still, competition was fierce. And in order to be able to drive to the outcome and a more, you know, cost-constrained environment, you yet still need to ensure that you're bringing on the right leaders to do that. We saw reductions in headcount, and again, we didn't see the same spike, but we did see a steady increase by way of quarter over quarter, I should say year over year, tracking.

Shiv: Right, right. And this brings me to another interesting point, which is so far we've talked about sourcing and vetting the candidate and also like doing a bunch of interviews to figure out if they're the right fit. But there's also an aspect when you're in a scarce marketplace for the right type of candidate and there's a shortage or supply issue on those types of candidates and there's an urgency to fill the position, then it becomes even more important to pitch the candidate on why your opportunity is the better fit for their career as a next step. And so how much of the process, say, you guys lead focuses on that?

Mariza: We are deeply focused on ensuring that our teams are well-prepared to position the searches that we're working on. It goes back to that intake conversation. So not only are we gathering information relative to the business, but we're really understanding what differentiates it, why somebody should join, what the opportunity here looks like, and being able to effectively position that in the market. More broadly, because of our focus in private equity-backed software, we understand, and our teams are trained to understand. why there is a likelihood of success for this person in this role, in this company that's differentiated from the rest of the market. More than ever, we are seeing people right now focusing on the diligence of an opportunity so as to optimize for speed and certainty of outcome. And it is impossible to hit that effectively without understanding the broader market. without understanding which investors are investing in what types of businesses and what standard success looks like and what standard approach looks like to partnership. And those things all come from understanding the broader market, market trends, investors, and the way that they operate that is much more than just focusing on the business itself. It's about giving candidates the opportunity to view this as a de-risked opportunity compared to where they are or to where others may be. And it's key to be able to understand that in full to be able to effectively position it as a home.

Shiv: Yeah, because people like yourself and me, we work with these private equity folks and we understand what their strategies are and what separates one firm from another. But if you're a candidate - and we've even placed some people together where they're coming from another place where they're not familiar with the private equity world or the opportunity that's there. So it feels like such a huge risk to take that kind of a leap. And then the compensation or the financial package is one type of motivation. But really understanding the bigger vision that the PE firm or the CEO has for that business ends up becoming a critical step. So how actively does the PE investor or the CEO get involved in pitching that opportunity to the candidate?

Mariza: Very involved, and it's critical that they do so. Right, I mean, certainly our intent is to ensure that we're getting the right people to the table, but we are not gonna convince somebody to take a job in the end, right? That is the CEO, that is the team, that is the board. And it's critical that we're of course, aligning expectations across and ensuring that each CEO and each executive team and each board know precisely where these candidates questions are, where their reservations are, what the gaps are, what their competitive or evaluation criteria is so that they're well-prepped to address it. But it is absolutely critical that everybody that is deeply involved in the positioning or pitching process to get somebody through and to the end of the line. And you're right, I think at the end of the day, the positioning of private equity versus venture versus public versus otherwise. I rarely am in a position where we are pulling somebody in because we have the best compensation package. That's really not where we end. Where we end is giving somebody the ability to see how their skill set can influence this business, how the things that motivate them are well tied to the goals of this business, how the operating framework in which they like to exist is well tied to that of their colleagues in this business and how together they have the opportunity to achieve a pretty significant financial outcome versus, hey, here's a heavy cash package up-front.

Shiv: Right, right, because that's all very short-lived and temporary, but really the differentiators are in all the other things. So last question, I guess, because we've talked about this a bunch over in the past, but how do you measure your own success? I know you mentioned those indicators about if they stayed as the objective met, but are there some metrics that you use to evaluate yourselves as a business? Are you doing a good enough job in placing the right candidates, whether it's NPS or how long it takes you to place a candidate or things like that?

Mariza: Absolutely. So we're tracking days to close. We're tracking, you know, from our end, quality of pipeline. So of course, there's a whole slew, a whole slew of internal versus external tracking measures. For us, the most critical is NPS of both clients and candidates. And it is also ensuring that we're tracking, you know, ongoing outcomes and whether or not people are in the roles when those outcomes are achieved. By way of internal, we're looking at - I mentioned quality of pipeline, we're looking at volume, we're looking at conversion rates, we're looking at whether or not people are taking our calls and then determining that they're not interested in a role or vice versa. And through that, we're able to make some tweaks relative to how we're positioning or where we're pulling in investors or the board or where we're pulling in a CEO to be able to effectively position something when there may be a degree of nuance throughout. So we believe that data is everything. I mean, again, playing in the world that we do, private equity, speed is critical, data is everything. And we're doing a deep amount of sort of data tracking on our own so as to ensure that we're operating against the right measures. We also have client reset conversations. If something is going on a little too long, 90 days for us suggests that there is something that isn't aligned. Either the market isn't receptive to the role or we're looking for something that the market might not be bearing. How do we actually look at what our conversion rates have been, what the interest has been, what the reasons for disqualification have been to form a conversation around, hey, we need to be making this adjustment in order to yield to the right result. Operative word being 'right'. We're not looking to make sacrifices that are not going to yield success. We're looking to optimize for bringing in the right person in a way that they can drive value efficiently and expediently and we can't get there if the market is not allowing for us to get there. So how do we have that conversation upfront?

Shiv: Right. That's fantastic. And having been inside these processes with you a few times, I can definitely give a great testimonial to say that the process speaks for itself and we place multiple CMOs inside companies that have delivered some amazing results. So happy to give that. And for the audience, if there is a CEO or an investor listing that is in the middle of a search or wants help with a potential executive search, how can they find you guys and engage with you?

Mariza: Absolutely. So we are Assembly Group. We are - feel free to email me directly at [email protected]. Whether or not we end up partnering with people in networks, CEOs, sponsors, or otherwise, I'm of the firm belief that helping counsel people around what a search process should look like. And, you know, making myself a network available for back channelling and otherwise is the way to build relationships. And frankly, we're not the right fit for every search. And we might not be, but it is my intent to ensure that we're making the right recommendations, whether by way of process or other search partners, that can help people yield results. So I find myself in this world of executive search being a win-win. I came from law. And there's a very specific reason why I'm no longer in law, which is, you know, you found yourself in a... win-lose or lose-lose situation often. And in executive search, primarily with the sponsors that we partner with, you find yourself in this very readily, very exciting sort of win-win environment. You're helping reposition a business, you're helping a business drive to the outcome that they're targeting, you're helping it drive to success, and you're helping create a new opportunity for a person and their family and, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, it's, you know, huge winning environment. And so as much as I can do to help that for anybody out there, I'm happy to do so.

Shiv: That's great and we'll be sure to link out to the website and your resources in the show notes. But with that said, thanks for doing this, Mariza. So I think this was great to hear about your process and hopefully some PE firms and CEOs listen and definitely work with you guys. So I appreciate you doing this.

Mariza: Absolutely, it was a pleasure. Thanks much and we'll talk soon.

Shiv: Thanks a lot.