Baron Ah Moo, Senior Vice President of Asset Management, IndoChina Kajima, interviewed by Lan Elliott

Baron shares how he approaches taking major risks, including moving to 5 countries on 3 continents, and the opportunities created by working in emerging markets, plus how those experiences enhanced his career in the U.S.  He also explains why one should not pursue a mentor simply because they occupy a role you aspire to as well as the two key qualities he looks for on his teams. 

Transcript

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Lan Elliott 0:04

Hello and welcome to its Personal Stories. My name is Lan Elliott on behalf of its personal stories, and today I'm really pleased to have Baron Amou on with us, and Baron and I have known about each other for many years, but we haven't really had a lot of in-depth conversations, so I'm really excited to do that today. So welcome, Baron.

Baron Ah Moo 0:28

Thank you, LAN. Thank you for having me. It's really a privilege.

Lan Elliott 0:31

Absolutely thrilled to have you on, and you have had an amazing career so far. You're not done yet, but you've lived and worked in five countries on three different continents. Could you share some of the inflection points of your career and if there was a factor that you think. Was important in your success?

Baron Ah Moo 0:55

I think there's a couple of inflection points even before my career started, which was the curiosity to travel abroad and see the broader world living in Hawaii. Growing up in Hawaii and being a native Hawaiian, it's the island mentality, right? Where you it's a village and you take care of everybody else and you get to. It's very comfortable and frankly very welcoming. But then when you get you, you watch television and you see some people who don't come from overseas and the visitors, the tourists and things like that, which got me back into hospitality actually, was the whole reason. You start to be curious about the world itself. And so at 16, I actually traveled to Japan. And then started my journey at 18, went to university in San Francisco and then just started traveling from that point on seeing the world, Boston, Spain, Ithaca, New York and then really traveling around the world from my career. And I think some of those inflection points were getting out of my bubble, getting out of my comfort zone, and, taking the risk of going to a country that I don't speak the language. And actually for, nine of the last call it. 20 years I've lived in a country that I don't even speak the language to this day. So that's a bit of a, a challenge. But I think that it's that having those people, having the ability to do that and then having the people that support you in that and any particular factor. I think it's really just the philosophy of knowing that home will always be there. Having a set of parents that kind of, give you that, but also know that you can be confident in the fact that your skillset, who you are and frankly how you carry yourself will translate into other cultures and other locations. And so that really was a kind of a marking point for me. If you'll

Lan Elliott 2:31

Yeah, you've definitely taken the path to be overseas for many years, and. It is incredible to decide to move to a country where you don't speak the language. I moved to Brussels for three and a half years where I do speak a little bit of French. I grew up with my parents speaking French at home, and to go to a country actually where I was born and live there for 20 years and not speak the language, but still be able to get around it, it is really very impressive.

Baron Ah Moo 2:58

And brave. It's just, yeah. And I think it builds character as well, right? You get a little ingenious if you will, or creative if you will, to get things done and do things. And I think that's where I really always encourage, people in our industry or coming up in, through the industry to do those types of things, right? Kind of push themselves. So

Lan Elliott 3:16

absolutely. Now, like most people, your path to success to where you are today isn't a straight line. And often we find that we learn a lot from setbacks compared to everything going perfectly according to plan. And I'm curious if you've experienced a setback that taught you an important lesson.

Baron Ah Moo 3:39

I think there's several, right? And I think, but really the big one has been that sometimes in your failures, I think it, it sometimes it's beyond your control. And I think in a couple of instances where actually, I was laid off, right? I was fired and it wasn't for anything in terms of incompetence but more along the lines of I wasn't the right guy for the job. As an example, in two situations I was in a company came in, took over my company that I was working for. Installed their person as my supervisor, as my boss, and they basically just wanted their own person in that seat, in my seat. And so there was nothing I could do. I really tried hard, I really pushed myself tried to meet the deadlines and all of the expectations. And, after a while I actually had a conversation with HR and some of my, mentors, champions, people that I, I relied on and they said, Baron, listen. If this person wants you to leave, they're gonna get you to leave. And even HR said, listen, you can fight this. You can go through some of the legal ramifications of what's happening here, but at the end of the day, it's just not a right fit and it's nothing that you could have done. So I think that's one of the biggest lessons that it taught me was, in through that failure, sometimes you self-reflect and beat yourself up about it, but at some point it's also time to move on and you realize maybe there's nothing more I could have done. So it's really. It is a learning experience. Something that I think, I've taken through the rest of my life and actually has created that that barrier of I gotta work harder. If somebody asks me a question, I can't just answer that question, maybe I have to, try to figure out what the next question will be, right? Just pushing myself to keep to keep going beyond what is just being asked of me.

Lan Elliott 5:17

That is a tough thing to know that you were probably doing a good job before. Before there was this change, but it's nothing really about you and it is. A lesson you learn along the way that sometimes it's really not personal. It's really not about you it's about the bigger picture. They're just looking for something different. Or maybe they have someone specific in mind

Baron Ah Moo 5:38

and yeah, and a hundred percent because I think, yeah, I think, Lena, it was the fact that, it just by putting his own person into the chair that I'm sitting in, it just expedites things that he needs to do. His objectives and goals that he's made, promises to his supervisor, hi, the, his board, whatever you want to say. But it was really, it's heartbreaking, especially when you worked so hard and get surprised by the fact that, you are no longer being employed by this company that you've given your life to for a certain amount of time. I think that, that's, and we all take it personally, right? I hope, it's self-reflection, but it is a lesson learned and frankly has created the person who I am. So I can't really, doubt it, right? I can't really fight it.

Lan Elliott 6:14

Yeah, that's a great point. You touched on it a little bit tangentially, but I wanted to get into imposter syndrome because that is definitely one of those things, the things that go on in your head, the stories you tell yourself, and often we're our own biggest critics, and that noise can make us doubt ourselves and I'm sure. You've been in a situation like you were talking about, and the self-reflection can then move into rumination where you start having this cycle. And I'm curious how you handle imposter syndrome today.

Baron Ah Moo 6:49

I think those of us who come from the bottom, right? And what I mean by that is really just started out, hospitality does not really have a straight and clear path, right? I think everybody wants to be a general manager when you start out in operations, but there's no clear path as to how you get there, right? You don't get a degree in general managers and then you become the gm. It really is about finding your own path. And so when you look at how far I've come, right? And then you sit in front of. 350 people, all who are making, capital markets, institutional investors, private equity, who are listening to every word you're saying and potentially turning markets and making investment decisions based on that, you reflect back on the fact that I started as a valet. I was a kid who, didn't have, didn't put on shoes until I was like six or seven years old. 'cause I would run around barefoot or flip flops most of the time. And from where I've come from, right all the way to where I am now, you always think about why are they listening to me, right? What's the big deal? What do I have to say that nobody else is said? But I think, going around that whole narrative, you also have to recognize the work that you've put in and frankly, the work that a lot of people have put in to you. To make sure that you're successful. And I don't think that's where the confidence really comes from. And that's where you put the noise behind you, like you said, or just the, yeah, I guess I'll call it noise. And you think about the fact that you've prepared for this moment, you've done your research, you have the experience, the gray hair to show it all of these things, and you make that sort of call to say, listen, I'm gonna make the right decision. I know I'm doing. What I think is the best thing, and my comments will be fair and unbiased, and it's basically what I think and what I believe, and those can be challenged. But at the end of the day, the facts will matter. And I proud I've, yeah I've been proud of the fact that I've been able to keep that sort of reputation of being fair and honest. Many times I've come across very difficult decisions terminating friends of mine, terminating people that I've brought into the position. And again, based on nothing other than the fact that it was probably best for the business and not anything personal. And to your point, other people took it personally, right? And unfortunately, some of them have not have, I no longer have a relationship with them, so that, that's difficult. But I think imposter syndrome can be quickly. Can quickly fade behind the fact that you are doing what you think is right and you have a belief in it. And so just understanding that all the work that you've put in has led up to this point. Don't put too much pressure on yourself, but just understand that what you say comes from a voice of reason and fact and experience.

Lan Elliott 9:14

Love that you had mentioned. A bit about moving and living in a country where you don't speak the language after 20 years, but picking up your family and moving to five different countries, different continents, that comes with a lot of risk, not just for you, but with your entire family. And I'm curious how you approach risk. How do you think about taking a big risk either for your business or for you and your family?

Baron Ah Moo 9:50

I think it's all about the data. Obviously you can only benchmark so much and then you have to go with some kind of intuition or, leadership thought, right? History doesn't always repeat itself, but it does give you a good road back to what might happen. Probability. When we came out here to Vietnam it was a family decision to a certain point, but I also felt like the back end of that was what was. What is the worst case scenario? What is our contingency plan if it doesn't work out? And again, it goes back to the fact that our family supported the move. They were obviously a little skeptical, but they knew that at the, at heart of hearts, everybody would do what was right for the family. And if it didn't work out, they, we could easily call back, for us to come back. And I think that's one of the lessons learned was, understanding what the risk you're taking, the reward that you have from that risk. Then preparing yourself for that kind of, risk reward scenario. And being able to contingency plan that. It's hard to really quantify exactly what that risk will be, especially when you're coming to emerging markets. But the reward has been significant. The challenges have been different, and but at the end of the day, a lot of people, when you're doing these kind of risk taking scenarios, it's normally out on the edge or on the frontier of the spectrum, and then there's not a lot of precedent, right? So then you're basically, you people will say, oh, you failed and not this, that, the other, maybe somebody has a better opinion or option that I didn't think about, but at the end of the day was your choice. And people should be able to just either celebrate or hopefully learn. From the risk that I've taken. So that's, but I always tell the people that I've mentored is moving to another country. Not speaking the language and just following something of, company or a position that you really thought was interesting. S several stories, both me personally and also proteges, mentees of mine have done that. And I can't tell you how successful they have or how rewarding it's been to them, whether it's, suc, how you measure successes, both personal and professional. I think rewarding maybe is the better word for that.

Lan Elliott 11:52

Yeah, I'm just thinking that if you don't take those big leaps, you're not gonna have those opportunities. And looking at what's next what could be, and thinking about if I don't do this, I'll never have that opportunity. And I've heard that people often regret more the things they didn't do than the things that they did do that didn't turn out the way they hoped.

Baron Ah Moo 12:18

Yeah and I know that you said that a lot of the questions that you get is how do I get from operations to investment, right? And that's one of the big questions that a lot of the people ask me, and I can tell you that I think it was being on the fringe, being taking those risks, taking a role that maybe I wasn't a hundred percent ready for, but I did work my tail off to, to try and understand what that role was, right? And to be honest with. AI now and the internet even I was working before the internet, tho now researching and getting data is much easier than the times when I had it. When you had to buy a book or, rent it from the library or go talk to, have coffee chats with people. Now that information is readily available so you can de-risk your decisions a little bit or take those roles on. But it, it is about being out on the edge. And honestly if it weren't for the country of Vietnam, I'm not sure I would still be an investment, right? Because of the fact that it gave me a great foundation of, because the market was also from an investment perspective, relatively young. So I learned all the basics from not just the. Private equity, institutional investor, high net worth individual family side, but also from the government side in terms of what are the regulations and laws that are applied to these types of investments and the structures that they present. It was really interesting. And it, so it gave me a great foundation such that when I went back to the United States and did something similar, I asked these questions that some of the private equity guys never asked themselves because they didn't understand how the structure was. It's so compartmentalized and, I'm doing this part of the fund. You do that part? I do this part, but I looked at it holistically because frankly we have to at that point. So it was very interesting in how, working in an emerging market made me potentially better prepared for working in developed countries.

Lan Elliott 14:01

Yeah, I do think being in an emerging market also gives you the opportunity to. Be the front runner to discover new things, to become the expert, at least from maybe back from where you're from to become an expert because no one else has been there doing it. But it can also give you many more. Opportunities that maybe wouldn't exist if it was a very developed market and there were a lot of people with your kind of skills in that market already. And so I love that call out of being, taking the risk to be in an emerging market, giving you the opportunities that you might not have. For example, if you'd stayed working in New York.

Baron Ah Moo 14:40

Yeah, exactly right. Exactly right. And it has been a blessing, right? It really has allowed me to compliment my skillset and allow me to do things that maybe I wouldn't have done if I were just specialized in, in New York.

Lan Elliott 14:51

Yeah, absolutely. One of our other guests, Scott Berman, mentioned that exact path to developing a niche for himself, and he found a niche when he moved to Florida and became the expert because nobody else knew, and that's how he made his expertise as he built it himself. And he was the expert. He was first there. So I applaud you for going into a new market and figuring it out. Now you had,

Baron Ah Moo 15:19

yeah,

Lan Elliott 15:20

go ahead.

Baron Ah Moo 15:21

No please

Lan Elliott 15:23

go ahead. Go ahead.

Baron Ah Moo 15:25

No, I was just gonna say, back in 2007 when we started out on this journey of a hospitality fund private equity hospitality fund we would go to these hospitality investment conferences around the region, which was still NASA and I think it was probably 10 years in, 15 years in no more than that, these conferences were going on. Whereas in the US they were, they've been going on now for 40. Plus years, we we would have this Vietnam panel and there were several conferences that would have Vietnam panels, but it would all be the same group of people going, the before panelists, all of us are the same. Two of us are competitors, and two of them are either a consultant that we used or an attorney that we used, or an accountant that we used. So all of them would be the same people, which then, allows you to develop that sort of expertise, if you will, because you're using some of the best. Understanding the law and even helping with the regulation. So

Lan Elliott 16:12

I love that you had alluded to being put in roles, maybe you didn't feel like you were ready for them, and that often comes from having mentors or champions who advocate for you when you're not in the room. How important is it to find mentors and champions, and how does one go about it? How have you managed to do it?

Baron Ah Moo 16:38

I think you know there, obviously it starts with your parents, your family, your kind of core around you, that gives you the confidence to go on and move it forward. Now, there are times where. I distinctly remember when my father said, I don't want you traveling to Spain because you know what happens if something happens to you? I was 20 years old or something like that, and I, I tugged at my, my, my emotions because, my father is my idol and my champion, and he told me I shouldn't go, and I said, I really want to go. I just want to figure out what's out there and see it. And ironically, this was probably a month before I, I was gonna go, I bought my own ticket, I was ready to go, and then a week before he called me and said, listen, I was wrong. I support you. And I, I just want what's best for you. I'm just trying to keep you safe. But if you want to go to Spain and you know it better than I do because he grew up on a little island in the middle of the ocean, he's go ahead. And so those types of ways, it's not just a one way kind of championship, right? It's just actually, I. Learning from each other and knowing that person has your best interest in mind. Even if it's a tough conversation. So how you identify those people is they just float to the top. They're willing to take a coffee or a chat with you. As an example, at Cornell University where I got my master's one of the classes I had to take was food and beverage, right? And as there's a restaurant night where you the class actually runs the restaurant and, I had no interest in food beverage. To this day, I really have no interest in food other than from the finance side. I have to know it, but operations had no interest in it. And the professor that I had was tough. He was tough on me. He was German, and he really just, beat us up. Ironically, he's one of my best friends today. In fact the person that I go with and go and stay with when I go back to Ithaca and we've become very tight. He's one of my mentors now just because he has a different view of life. And he's a wonderful man. Family, man, everything. And also self-made everything that you want to, you want from a I guess a mentor, a champion, or yourself. But he was, he was one of those people who came out of nowhere, right? And became someone that you could really call upon. For those tough, difficult decisions, both personally and professionally. And I think that's the other thing. I think you don't have to have one to be both right? If you don't have to have one person to be both personal and professional. You can have a professional mentor, you can have a personal mentor, and you, maybe you don't, go between those two. Sometimes you need those both parties to be separate because those decisions are quite different. I, what I can tell you is that it's invaluable. They'll come out of nowhere. They'll probably come through both work and personal lives. The people that stood around me. For most of my life, and I would call my sort of close circle are probably people I've known for 40 plus years, right? The guys that I grew up with, everyone from a guy who I met when I was four years old, to a guy that I've met from was 10 years old to 13 years old. But all of those guys are people that I could call upon and be, and I think also from a professional standpoint, whether my professional life, when you're high flying and charging the way we do. They also give you the grounding of, okay, listen, should you be going to Vietnam right now? You're having your second child. All of these things, right? It's a tough decision. But actually they supported me on that, right? They gave me their opinion, but supported me regardless.

Lan Elliott 19:39

I wanted to pull out two things that you said there. The first one is around finding a mentor. In someone that maybe was very difficult when you were taking class with them, your professor that you mentioned, how do you turn that into mentorship? And then the other part of it is you mentioned asking people to coffee. That takes a certain amount of vulnerability to go and ask someone more senior to you to. To spend time with you, and I'm just curious about the process of turning someone into a mentor.

Baron Ah Moo 20:20

I think it, it's much easier than when you and I are growing up la I hate to sound like the old guy right in the room, the email and the messaging and everything else just allows you more points of contact that can be, that can turn into actually a conversation. Back in the old days, you'd have to pick up the phone, make an appointment, maybe even try to be slick and, cross paths with them at the coffee shop or wherever they were at, wherever their car was parked. That kind of thing. And, almost stalking, I guess you could say. But I, I think that there was something in terms of being fastidious about the people that you really like or, maybe bring something to the table. With my professor it was really interesting 'cause he you get the sense that he was pushing you for a reason. And again, people like you and I are natural mentors. I think he's one of those as well where he just has this sort of aura about him. Some people are made for mentoring, some people are not. And I think that's also important thing, don't force yourself into a role where you think, this person is in the position that I really want or is doing something that's really cool. Some of them are not great mentors, right? As, as in sports, right? Oftentimes they say the players don't often make good coaches. And I think it's the same professionally, right? Somebody who's doing the job maybe is not the best person to coach you on how to do the job. I think there's something to be said for that. I really feel if you just believe that most people have an altruistic sense in some way, shape, or form, that if you ask them, Hey, I wanna go to, I want to, can I buy you a cup of coffee? 'cause I'm really interested in what you want to wanna do. These informational sessions, if you will, that in itself will tell you whether or not there's an interest in really. Sharing with you. Again, if it's something that you're very interested in, I would look at maybe doing it two or three times to try and reach out. But on the other hand, if there's somebody, another role that you want to pursue or do something and that person is not, that one person that you targeted is not open to it, I think you do have to move on. It's one of those things, but it's it's come organically for me. I've been lucky and frankly. A lot of them have come from just a long background and history of, again, your reputation is built over time, and I think they you see it from both sides, right? You see this person who's constantly been giving you advice or even sharing things with you, and then on the other hand, you have been an upstanding person with them. Know they're, they can see who you've been and how, how you've even personally grown up. It, it shows the track you have. And again, it's basically representing your own brand because the brand, your brand, your personal brand, and I don't want to sound like some kind of, heretic or something like that, but your own personal brand has value too. And you wanna make sure that's expressed appropriately. 'cause that's what leads you into these conversations with both mentors and mentees. 'cause they see that.

Lan Elliott 22:56

Love that. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I wanted to shift over to when you're a leader, because building high performing teams is an important part of leadership, and you've had to do that a number of times. I am curious how you approach that either from when you're starting from scratch or when you inherit an existing team. What do you look for when you're. Talking to people on your team, is there some characteristic that you're searching for or interviewing a potential candidate?

Baron Ah Moo 23:30

I think there's, when you're talking about, leadership and high performing teams, right? Normally they're, someone is putting that team together, either yourself or someone else for a goal, right? Or an objective, right? Taking a step back and saying, okay, are, is everybody in the right seat in the bus? Are we all. Going the same way, are these the right people? And we've mentioned the fact that sometimes, people want to put their own people on the bus. Because it just makes the bus go faster. So that's always, in the back of my mind. But I think really, what I like to see in someone is just an attitude of kind of. Grit, as people say, I think one of the TED Talks, the most famous TED Talks is about, what makes one child or one student more successful than another? And really what they boiled it down to quantifiably is grit. Whether they can actually survive through some of the difficult times, get through some of those times. And, you mentioned about, overcoming setbacks and things like that. I went to a very kind of high flying private school in Hawaii. The one that the former president went to. I was in similar role in terms of, a little bit outside of my comfort zone. It was a, known to be a white missionary school. And here are these brown kids there. So it was really interesting to fit in there. But then when you went outside the gates of the school, actually more people looked like me than inside the gates. And so it was a really interesting dichotomy of learning how to work in teams and creating teams and leadership skills. So if I had to say anything about, back to the leadership role is, quantifiably, I'll look at the timeline, the project, the goals that are set. And then figuring out whether all the right people are on the bus. But if you're looking for sort of one or two items, one is grit, right? Is probably a skill that very difficult to measure, but also you can see. And I think the second thing is just willing to learn. A willingness to learn, a willingness to adapt a. A willingness to understand other people's point of view. I don't want them to be jellyfish either with no backbone, but I do want them to be able to absorb somebody else's opinion, yet be able to still set their own opinion. And then understanding that the leader of that group or that team or the objective will make the decision, which what they think is best for that goal. And that's the important thing, right? And we may not all agree that this is the bright decision, but at some point people have to as you said, let it go. Run it, run, let it run its course and I run into a lot of people who oftentimes take these decisions very personally. I used to do that as well, another learning point for me. But you have to remember that in business, most of the time it's not personal. Most of the time I will tell you. But it's more about what they think is right for the company or the group. So that's where I would say, basically grit and a willingness to learn and adapt.

Lan Elliott 26:00

Those are great skills there. You can take to almost any role, and that's incredible. Thank you. One of our favorite questions on its personal stories is what advice would you give to your younger self? And I am curious, 22-year-old Baron, I didn't know you then, but what would you want 22-year-old Baron to know?

Baron Ah Moo 26:26

I, it's wrapped up in what I've been talking about, which is, failure is actually inevitable, right? Sometimes you're gonna fail no matter what you do, right? And maybe you're not set up for failure. Maybe you thought, actually, the hardest ones to take is actually you thought it was an easy win or an easy victory and it was a failure. Those are probably the most difficult ones to take when you know, and again, you go back and you reflect on what more could I have done? What could I have done personally to be, and in some cases there's not more you can done. In other cases there was. And then you have to learn from those. But, knowing my 22-year-old self I remember going to a job interview in San Francisco and being surrounded by some very high flying people. People from Stanford and Berkeley and UCLA, and I was just a small kid from the University of San Francisco. Looking around the room, thinking about, wow, how did I get here? What is this? And I'm not ready for this. But what I didn't think about when I was 22 years, 22 years old, 22 years old, was the fact that somebody on, within that company that put us all in that room thought I was good enough, right? Thought I could compete with these people. And so oftentimes I'm looking at, oh gosh, imposter syndrome, here we go again. I'm not really good. What did they see in me? But in fact, somebody saw something in me. And put me in that room. So I thought that was interesting, right? There's two sides to every coin. And for my 22-year-old self who saying, listen, failure's gonna happen, move on. And just keep trying hard, right? Just keep your nose. 'cause doors will open up, things will happen, and maybe even fate takes a play in what you're gonna do, which I think has a lot to do with my career as well.

Lan Elliott 27:58

Back to resilience and grit. I love that. Baron, you've given us a lot of really fabulous advice, and I love the perspective of someone who has moved countries and continents multiple times. Do you have one final nugget of advice for our audience who are looking to advance their careers?

Baron Ah Moo 28:18

So I've always tried to live my life within two sort of mantras, right? One is and I take it from a very close friend of mine. One is to be a leaf. He calls it be a leaf, which is, the leaf goes where the wind blows it, but it never really falls far from the tree. It always has the DNA of that original tree that he was attached to. He or she, I should say, was attached to. But then it also plants its own roots, right? And then grows from that, right? But never really losing the DNA that it has. So I guess my point there is that you want to be a leaf and just go where the wind blows. You don't, if an opportunity presents itself, maybe don't overthink it. Think about what you know the potential. Advantages are, and if you're even remotely interested, just try it. The thing you lose is time. And as I get older, I know that's more valuable than anything. But I also think as a younger person, you have that opportunity, right? You don't have a family maybe, or you don't have those responsibilities at home. So if you, if it does not work out, only the only person that maybe pays for it is you, right? And then I think the second thing that I would say is you wanna be, sometimes similarly, you have to look at it and go. You know what, why not? Why not do it? Why not try it? And maybe, I don't know. Everything, coming to Vietnam in 2004 traveling to, to, to Japan in 1983, going to a small island off the coast of Guam in 1995, I believe it was. All of those are to say that, did I know a lot? Did I know exactly what I was getting involved in? No, could I have done a little more research maybe, but the people that put me in that role or that opportunity had some kind of faith in me, saw something in me. And so I think you have to reflect on that and go, it's a lot of pressure and maybe a little bit of risk, but you do have to say, okay, if they think I can do it, I think I can do it right.

Lan Elliott 30:00

I love that. It's a wonderful way to end our conversation. Baron, thank you so much for your time today and for sharing your wisdom. I really enjoy hearing your perspective and it's so different because you've been in so many different situations and different countries. So thank you so much, Baron. I appreciate you being here.

Baron Ah Moo 30:23

Lynn, and thank you for giving us the platform. I know that the acronym DEI is now, under attack. You could say being changed, but I really appreciate you stand standing steadfast and continuing to support those of us who are coming up from a different way and really allowing us to tell our story. So thank you truly. Absolutely.

Lan Elliott 30:41

Absolutely. Thank you so much. And for our audience, if you would like to see more interviews with hospitality industry leaders like Baron, I hope you'll go to our website. It's personal stories.com