A two-time FAU graduate, Karrie Prehm earned her Bachelors's in International Business in 2002 and her MBA in 2011. Karrie is the founder and CEO of Global Regulation Advisers Corporation (GRA), an asset management compliance consulting firm based in South Florida. She has devoted two decades of her career to serving as a trusted adviser to senior executives in the financial services industry worldwide. To learn more about how to be actively involved as a business alumni, please visit business.fau.edu/alumni
A two-time FAU graduate, Karrie Prehm earned her Bachelors's in International Business in 2002 and her MBA in 2011. Karrie is the founder and CEO of Global Regulation Advisers Corporation (GRA), an asset management compliance consulting firm based in South Florida. She has devoted two decades of her career to serving as a trusted adviser to senior executives in the financial services industry worldwide. To learn more about how to be actively involved as a business alumni, please visit business.fau.edu/alumni
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Speaker 2:[inaudible].
Speaker 1:Welcome to what's happening at FAU business. I'm Kelly McCormick and I work in the Dean's office at the college of business where I focused on engagement for alumni. Here's where I talk to college of business alumni about common challenges faced by young professionals. Together with my guests, we will discuss what they've seen in the workplace, how they've overcome obstacles and provide tips for success. For more of business alumni, please visit business.fiu.edu/alumni today I'm speaking with Carrie prem, a two time FAU graduate. Carrie earned her bachelor's in international business in 2002 and her MBA in 2011 Carrie's the founder and CEO of global regulation advisors corporation or gray and asset management compliance consulting firm based here in South Florida. In 2017 she won the outstanding young owl award from the alumni association and currently serves as a mentor for business students. Carrie, thanks so much for being here today. Thank you for having me. This is really exciting. Good to have you. So I wanted to first talk a little bit about your experience as an undergraduate here at FAU. Sure. So I am a Floridian born and raised here. And so when I was doing my undergrad, I actually experienced both as a commuter, a commuter student, and then also as a a resident on campus here. Um, one of the things that stands out to me the most when I think back and I reflect on my undergrad is how much FAU and the college of business prepared me for the career that I've had, the resources that were available at that time. You know, to be able to connect with business leaders in, in the local community, um, to connect with employers that had opportunities, you know, for me to be hired. It was fantastic and it really did. Um, just prepare me for a lot of the, the unexpected pleasantries that came along with just kind of the, the, the career journey. Can you tell us a little bit about maybe a specific opportunity that you took advantage of when you were a student? Sure. Actually, I, well I was working full time when I was doing my undergrad. I, um, wanted to get a jump start on getting that relevant experience. So I was working at a bank and as I progressed through my graduate studies and I started to get into my economics, I actually did a minor in economics. I thought it would be so fun to work in the investment industry, not really knowing what that meant, but that's where I wanted to be. And so I actually attended FAS career day and that's where I got my opportunity to join Franklin Templeton before I had earned my degree, even though they were looking for garage, you know, folks that were going to be graduating. And I stayed with them for five years. It was, it was a huge door that opened through FAU for me to, to really branch out from the banking and get into the investment industry. That's great. So I'm sure part of what made you come back for your MBA was, was some of those experiences and having a good undergrad experience, but can you name like some of the reasons why you wanted to come back for your MBA? Yeah. So there, there were a lot of factors that influenced me to come back and in particularly to FAU. So I, because of all of the success that I had between finishing my undergrad and starting my graduate studies, I felt like FAU just prepared me, my, even with my undergraduate studies, the coursework prepared me to be able to sit at a table with a bunch of Ivy league alum and be able to contribute to the conversation and be able to, in some cases lead those conversations. And so I was at a point in my career where I felt like I had peaked in terms of tactical responsibilities and I really wanted to start taking on new challenges by thinking about my business. And more of a strategic way. And so at the time I was consulting, I was traveling like a hundred percent of the time. So the executive MBA program was perfect because I was able to attend classes on the weekends and then still be able to keep up with my business travel during the week. And I really liked that I was staying with the same core group of people because in business establishing a network is so essential to your success and to the opportunities that come to you later down the road. And then separately from that, the coursework actually had a lot of team building in the curriculum. So pretty much everything that we did was, was team projects, group projects, and you know in business, in order to be successful you really have to be able to work as a team. And whether you like the person or not or you see eye to eye on a lot of things you, you need to be able to, to come to together to meet whatever that common objective is. And in order to do that, you need to refine your communication skills. You have to refine your partnering skills and, and so that was really what I was looking to take out of out of the executive MBA program here. And I think it did help me. Definitely did help me. Yeah, that's great. I know that that core cohort experience can, can really be valuable in terms of when you, when you leave, you know, you stay connected to those people and they're all doing great. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious, did you always know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur? Yes, really? I did. I did. Um, yeah, my, my fiance and I have been together for quite some time and, and when we met very early on in my career, I, I knew that I wanted to be a leader and he teases me about that to this day. But I knew that, that I wanted to lead. I am just a very inquisitive person. I like venturing into the unknown and I like paving paths for people to follow. What I didn't know. And thinking back before I started my business, I was, I had this very naive idea about what an entrepreneur ship was. So I thought because I was lucky enough to already have a book of business and, and projects starting three days after launching my company, I thought this is going to be great. I'm going to work Monday through Thursday. I'm going to be off on Fridays. I'm going to take three months off vacation every year and, and I'm just going to focus on the thing that I'm passionate about, which is asset management compliance. And that couldn't have been farther from the reality. The reality is that I needed to brush up on my accounting skills, my marketing skills. I had to design a website, I had to come up with the content for a website. I had to come up with a logo. I had to go through all of these things that you somewhat take for granted when you work for someone else. So the foundation and laying that foundation was a much larger endeavor than I thought it was going to be. Um, making sure that you have the right insurance in place for your company to protect you, um, that you have the right legal representation, all of these things, so essential to your business. And, um, I, I just didn't really factor that into that initial, uh, launch, you know, or, or at least not, not the, the amount of time it was going to take to, to actually get that in place. Yeah. You can be an expert in something that feels so small when you go and try to start a business. I'm sure. Yeah. Feels daunting. But I think you persevered, certainly. So tell our audience a little bit about global regulation advisors. So global regulation advisors, which, uh, for sure is, is gray, uh, because compliance is very much a gray area. If you've ever tried to interpret the law, there's so many interpretations. So global regulation advisors is a, a asset management compliance consulting business. Um, I started it in 2014, so we just passed our five year Mark. Congratulations. Thank you. And, um, and basically what we do is we work with C suite executives at asset management firms, at hedge funds that wealth managers, the investment divisions of insurance firms to help them put compliance programs or compliance operations in place so that they can[inaudible] make sure that they're not doing anything wrong or we're violating any laws in terms of state regulations or federal regulations or even international laws. You've alluded to a few of these, but maybe you want to share a few more. Did you have, you know, sort of these big challenges when you started your business? So a lot of entrepreneurs will talk about how funding is such a talent. For me, I actually sell fund it, my business and I designed it in a way where right out the gate I would have a very lean operating model, very low overhead because my number one goal leaving a pretty lucrative, um, position in, in FinTech, um, and going off on my own, I wanted to make sure that I was going, it was going to be sustainable for me personally. And so, um, I had a goal of making sure that I made that, that same amount or more in that first year, and I actually accomplished that in the first quarter. So we hit the ground running. I was able to start hiring and actually started expanding because of that. So that was not a challenge for me. I would say that my biggest challenge at that time was probably myself and my own perception of how I was, I guess evaluating myself as a, as you know, launching a business, being an entrepreneur, building a business, what I was doing, you know, being a top performer, working for someone else and then going off on your own can be somewhat of a humbling experience. So even though I had this established book of business from doing consulting for nine years at a FinTech company, some of those clients didn't actually treat me the same. They loved me in the past, you know, when I was backed by this big company. But when it was just me by myself, then I was starting to see that, that their expectations were kind of lowered, right? So I kind of struggled with that because I was like, wait a second, I'm the same person that you thought was a rock star last year that that Reinhold it with you and now you're, you're trying to negotiate with me on the rate and you're trying to, you know, tell me that I need sir, like additional insurances or you know, basically what kind of questioning what kind of guarantees are with my work or if I'm going to essentially be around in a year. So those types of things I wasn't really prepared for. And I would say that for the, probably the first two or three years, I pretty much woke up every single day feeling like I was failing. And if you looked well, sure. But if you looked at like if you did a case study of my business, like right out the gate or you looked at how I was doing on paper and it would look like everything was just falling in line and it was perfect. Like I like I was born to do this, but I definitely struggled with like the whole impostor. Um, you know, situation. I mean, I just, it was tough. And then you get to a point where you're like, okay, well this is not going to be perfect and they're going to be ups and downs and peaks and valleys. You know, just to give you an example, you know, the, the one thing that I didn't prepare for was the balance and making sure that that was a priority because you have family, you have pet responsibilities, you have home responsibilities and current responsibilities and you want to get some time for yourself and go and exercise and you know, maybe see your friends. And basically when you're an entrepreneur you're, you're the one pushing yourself. And, and so I, I had actually maybe first year I was working on a board report for a company that was getting ready to be acquired by another one. And um, the board report was basically an assessment of their compliance program and I had just adopted this kin. And so I'm working on like maybe seven days straight working sometimes til two in the morning and my little kitten is sitting on my desk looking out the window while I'm there typing this board report board meeting is that week. I need to get this done. It has to be perfect. I have to read it over and over again. I've already spent time onsite out of state with this, you know, the whole group getting all this information and Mike hut decides to propel herself into the window. Ricochet back, hit my oversized cup of coffee rate into the all the notes into my keyboard, into all of it. And there I am sitting on the floor and I'm big puddle of coffee and I'm like, I need to throw in the towel at this point. I cannot do this. And of course I'd got myself together, went to office Depot, got a new keyboard, tried to blow dry my notes, make some sense out of them and, and basically persevere. But those are the types of things that you can't predict are going to happen. Certainly um, you know, health issues with family members. And your family needs you more, but you think that you're going to be able to, you know, dedicate yourself 1000% to building your business and getting it off the ground. I went right out the gate thinking, okay, I'm going to commit to this entirely. Everything else can fall to the wayside and I am not going to be a part of that one third that basically has to close up shop in the, you know, the first couple of years. But the reality is that all of these other distractions come in and you just kind of have to go with the flow. Yeah. I think that actually kind of helped me because I used to be very, very rigid, very methodical and on how I handled my education, my career goals, my basically my progress just in general for our students or other alumni. Thinking about getting out there and starting a business, what, um, what is the best advice that you want to offer for them? Well, the best advice I would say is to get some experience in your field working for someone else. I don't think that I would have had the progress that I've had in the past five years if I didn't actually do the exact same thing for someone else for nine years and learn under their direction. I've worked for a FinTech company that hired me to build out a compliance program or a compliance consulting business for them. And I had never done that. I knew I wanted to open my business one day and I figured, okay, worst thing that can happen to me here is I fail, they fire me and I move on. But at least I don't have all of the, you know, other things that go along with just running out and starting a business that you know little about like the financial aspect of, of all those losses if you don't do it right. So what I would recommend is definitely getting some experience in your industry and just not just in the specialty but like in the entire operations of whatever your business is. So you, cause you need to know that. And if you go off and you start your own company and you decide, okay, now it's time to start handing off some of these responsibilities cause you can't do everything yourself. Um, I maybe I don't like accounting and I want to hand off all my bookkeeping to another person, or maybe I'm just really not, I don't have the skillset or the time to, to deal with the web design and maintenance of my website and SEO and all of that. Yeah. So you start outsourcing these things, but you can't be completely removed from it. You have to know enough to know whether things are going well or if they're, they're going poorly. And, and I think that you get a jumpstart by getting the experience elsewhere, at least a few years under your belt. Because if you go into it blindly, even though it's okay to make mistakes, you might make mistakes that are, that you just can't rebound from. Oh, I would say that, that I think that that's probably one of the biggest things that helps me. And I also in that time was able to establish a reputation, um, for over always delivering, delivering on time. And that a lot of what I do now is, is actually residual for, for how I operate it back then. Yeah. It really sounds like your reputation followed you, which helped you sort of hit the ground running, which is great. That's all wonderful advice for, for our students. Thank you. Sure. I'm curious, do you have a mentor or a business partner, somebody that you feel like you can toss ideas around with, you know, sort of trust if you're, if you're heading down the wrong direction, somebody might, might help you out. Do you have somebody like that? Yeah, I'm actually very, very lucky. My close circle is, is full of entrepreneurs. Um, my parents both had entrepreneurial spirits, well, you know, before they retired. And um, my fiance and my closest friend, but it started their businesses about I'd say nine years before I started mine. So I always have someone around who I can bounce ideas off of that will, they will tell me if I am thinking crazy things. But aside from that, I actually, I don't know if if these people know this or not, but I sort of adopted them as mentors. A couple of the professors here, um, one from my undergrad and another from my graduate studies. And um, I do still keep in touch with them after all of these years and just, just basically to run certain things by them and just to kind of catch up and, and take a pulse somewhere where I'm headed, where I'm going and what I'm doing now. Oh, that's great to hear. I'm sure they would. They would love to, to hear that you might think of them as a mentor. That's great. It's also good to hear that even if there's somebody not necessarily in your particular industry that they can provide showing certain advice for you. So that's nice. Well, the, the interesting thing about business in general is that even though from one business to another, the specialty might change and it maybe they could be categorized into service based businesses and product based businesses, but the fundamentals are the same. The challenges are the same. Um, the specialty might be very different, but there are a lot of similarities there. So yeah, I think that even if it's not in your industry, you can, it doesn't even have to be like a formal, you are now my mentor. I am your mentee. Um, you can seek out mentors or there are all around you people who are willing to help you and give you great advice and, and you know, watch you, support you while you reach for whatever your goals are. I did actually have a mentor very early in my career who, um, she was my manager and she actually had a teaching background. Um, had worked, she, she had worked for the Chicago board of options exchange and she was my very first manager and um, compliance. And you couldn't go into our office without a notepad and a pen because she was going to teach you something. And she actually inspired me to want to go into, to compliance and I probably owe her a very, yeah, a big, big part of where I, what I've been able to do with what she taught me. That's great. How do you draw up business for yourself? You know, we talked a little bit about your reputation, but how do you sort of bring new clients to your business? So I do not use traditional marketing. I actually don't advertise on social media. I did start my business with a pretty solid book of business. Um, but basically the, the clients that I with, um, they, they refer me to other clients. And so it's really just a way for all base business. I just had a call yesterday with a client in California who was referred to me, who, who referred was referred to me by someone that I had worked with about 20 years ago or 18 years ago. So it's very interesting how all of that can come full circle and that's why your reputation is, is it really is everything in business. Yeah. It sounds like you've, you've certainly provided some good, some good service for your clients, so it definitely goes before you, it's just nice. Could you name some of maybe the best opportunities you've had in staying connected to FAU as an alumni? Uh, you mean aside from this opportunity he has, aside from being swollen know. I would say that judging the business plan competition has been, uh, is a Brin a very exciting opportunity because you get to see all these great ideas and, and read these business plans and um, and, and also kind of mentor and help these students that are trying to launch their ideas. Uh, that's, that's a very exciting opportunity that I've been able to do the last couple of years. And then I'd say that probably an a maybe tied with that is the mentorship program, which just launched last year. And, um, and that, that's, that's just a, a really great way to be able to give back. And, um, I know how important it is to have mentors. I know I can think back on my career on, on how many people have helped me, giving me really good advice. And, um, and so being able to turn around and do that for some of the students here is, is very rewarding. That's great. So I know you're in, you're into now, your second year at, in the mentor program. What, what made you decide to continue this year? Cause I can only imagine that your schedule is quite busy. My, my schedule is definitely busy. I actually, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to participate this year. Um, bye. I actually have a, a, um, remote mentor ship growing with, with a mentee. Uh, she's out of state and I'm looking forward to meeting her. I haven't met her yet, but we're going to do this virtual mentorship because of my schedule because it was so busy. But it was nice that that was, that was an opportunity that was offered to me. The reason I decided to come back and do this again was, even though it is a commitment for sure and, and the way I see commitments is if I'm not going to fully you present that I'm not going to do it just because it's just not fair. It's not fair to the, you're wasting people's time and until consultant time is money. Yeah. So, um, the one thing that I really liked about the program last year is that, you know, you get so caught up in your current career progressing, right? And so here I am 20, let's just go with 20 years later and, and basically, you know, the years start passing very quickly and you don't really see your own progress. You don't see the challenges that you encounter day to day over those years. Right. But when you start working with someone who's just getting started, it starts triggering memories. A reminisce about, wait a minute, okay, I remember that. I had no idea if I was hitting my resume right? I had no idea that I needed to be prepared to negotiate for my salary. And it might be sooner in the interview process and later I, I, you know, is it okay for me to want to negotiate for let's say more vacation time and you know, and is it, is it common practice that those benefits might be negotiable? And, and so to be able to say, yes, I've seen it and yes it is. And yes, you can ask for this or here are some sources where you can get some good information. So when you go in for these interviews, you're, you're being an advocate for yourself. So I really enjoyed it last year. I'm looking forward to doing it this year. It'll be a little bit different cause we're not going to be in person but, but it should be very exciting and I hope that whatever advice I can I can give to my new mentee is going to help her with her career growth. That's great. And such a wonderful experience for our online students, which you know, is a population that's certainly growing here in FAU. So great to hear that, that they're able to be a part of it as well. Absolutely. Okay. Well my last question is, I'm curious whether you have any other tips for students, entrepreneurs, young professionals, anything you want to share? Sure. So tips for an entrepreneurship. I would say that it, for anybody out there who's thinking about starting a business, you know, one, get some experience in your space. Don't just venture into it blindly without having a good education. And in white, what is acceptable in that industry, what your, your clients will accept or customers will accept how to protect ourselves. So you know, another thing, make sure you've got enough resources to have strong legal representation on tracks. Contracts are very important, um, pretty much every type of business. And, and then also your insurance because the, the legal representation and the insurance are going or what, what will protect you in the end. Um, you know, if, if for some reason you make a mistake that you can't rebound from and you want to make sure that, that you just have, you have the right skilled, experienced people, I'm there to step in when that happens or if that happens. Yeah. Last thing that I would say is, is maybe just some advice that someone gave me about three months into me, into my launch of the um, uh, of my, my business of global regulation advisors. Uh, I was invited to have lunch with a CEO of a company who was thinking that we could collaborate and partner. And so we have line two, we, we were discussing all of these different ideas and, and then the conversation turned to, so how are you liking this whole entrepreneur thing? You just started your business. And I was like, well I had a customer or a client three days into launching my business. I kind of had to launch my business without all that foundation in place. I had to very quickly get the insurance and you know, just kind of scramble. And so it's been rough because I've been working around the clock and any, he just kind of smiled and obviously he had been doing, he built his company and he had been doing this for maybe 20 plus years and he just said to me, so I'm going to give you a little bit of advice. And I said, okay. He goes, yeah, your life is going to change dramatically right now you've decided that you are going to start a business and Arthur raid that you're going to grow is going to be X just exponentially larger than maybe the people around you. Any. So one of the things that you need to always be aware of Azure venturing into this and people keep demanding your time and your attention is that is that your life might be changing, but the people closest to you there is might not their day to day. You guys watching maybe your favorite show on Monday night or going to dinner every Thursday night or Friday night. Those routines might get interrupted by you starting this business and he said, no matter where your company ends up going five years on the 10 years on the road or or or longer, he said, none of it is going to be worth it if the people you care about the most are not with you. And, and that really kind of stuck with me. I didn't, maybe I didn't understand it at that point, but of course, five years later, I definitely understand that because it's, for me it's been very difficult to say no. When these opportunities pop up, I, I will say yes because I think, wow, I don't want to miss out. What if this is the opportunity that really takes my business to the next level and um, and I just think that, that you have to make sure that you're only saying yes to the opportunities that align most closely to your passion and your mission. If you're deciding that you're going to venture out into the world of entrepreneurship and, and start a business because saying yes to everything is, is basically a recipe for disaster. Um, we all have the same 24 hours in our day and you start having to, there's an opportunity cost there. You start having to cut back on your time with your spouse or with your family. And when that starts to happen, then all of the success that you might find with building your business is going to not be as sweet if you're by yourself in the end. That's great advice. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here and participating in this great podcast. Harry Kelly, this has been wonderful. I've really enjoyed this. It's happening at FAU business is part of the FIU college of business podcast network. Learn more at business.fiu.edu/podcasts.