Radical Innovators #21 leading with change: empowering talent and driving AI innovation with Vialto’s Lisa Buckingham

In this episode of the Radical Innovators podcast, host Frank Congiu sits down with Lisa Buckingham, Global Chief People and Culture Officer at Vialto. With a career spanning leadership roles at Thomson Reuters, Lincoln Financial and US Soccer, Lisa brings a wealth of experience in navigating organizational transformation at pace.

Together, they unpack the evolving HR landscape, focusing on how to successfully blend cutting-edge AI with organizational agility while maintaining a steadfast people-first strategy.

Key topics covered in this conversation include:

• human-centric innovation: why Lisa’s mantra is "keeping human" in everything HR does, even when implementing AI agents to handle manual processes
• the future of work and skills: why intellectual curiosity and a shared responsibility for learning are essential as AI transforms job descriptions and workflows
• leadership under pressure: lessons from navigating challenging situations like a financial crisis high-stakes environments
• personal career journeys: Lisa shares her non-linear path to success, including the pride of finishing her degree at age 34
• rapid fire fun: discover Lisa’s go-to reset method (hint: it involves country music) and her ultimate walk-on song

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to the Radical Innovators Podcast. I'm your host, Frank Conju. Today I'm thrilled to sit down with Lisa Buckingham, Global Chief People and Culture Officer at Fialto Partners. We're unpacking the future of HR, how to successfully blend AI with agility, and what it really takes to lead a people first strategy. Plus, we reveal her ultimate walk-on music. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Hey Lisa, it's great to see you.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Hi, it's so good to see you as well.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Hello, all is well. Well, we'll get into that in a minute and we'll we'll check and see how both of us are doing. But you know, when you have um multiple children, you're not supposed to pick a favorite, right? Right. Well, I have many podcast episodes, but I come into this knowing that this is going to be my favorite. So I was thrilled to finally be able to get you scheduled given all you've got going on in your new role and how busy you are. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

You're welcome. And I hope I'm your favorite, but I have many favorites that I've already listened to previously. So I think that's a uh it's a very high compliment. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Well, for those who um wouldn't know this, I've written this on LinkedIn, but first time I'll share this here. You were one of the first people to ever join a dinner that I hosted back in 2015 when I had nobody that I knew in HR, and you took a chance and and showed up. And I recall after that dinner wrapped up, we were we hung out for a few hours up at the bar with a number of of your peers, and that was uh what sort of got me off and running. So it's been a privilege to have you attend so many of the things I do, and of course, your gratitude and bringing me into so many different circles, which I really always have appreciated.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Well, thank you, and thank you for that first invitation. And I always look forward to being able to attend those. But what my gift has been is just watching you evolve as an executive and you know, taking the notion of those beautiful dinners and really sometimes complex conversations, sometimes super fun, but uh you manage it with so much grace. And yeah, it it's just I remember I remember that night. I remember the meal. Like I just remember everything. It was so awesome.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Thank you for that. And and as you know, the intent of those evenings is twofold, right? One is that we hopefully get to share some of the things that are going through personally and professionally. And then, of course, the other piece is around sharing best practices or areas you're struggling and where you can benefit from the brain power of your peers. And so we'll strike that balance on this podcast as well today.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

And I have to say, those meals and the context around them, the conversations, I think really helped me fuel different times when there were big business challenges or pandemics or you know, what what you know, many examples we could talk about, and having smaller cohorts of CHROs to just like even at seven o'clock or 10 o'clock at night or midnight saying, what are you doing? and building that camaraderie and the trust to be able to have those conversations and not creating any antitrust issues, but really having the permission to call people. And I think those dinners and the events that you do put together create people knowing each other and create, you know, get rid of the barriers and hey, I know Illen, I can call Ellen or I know Shiri. I want to, you know, find out what she's doing. So so many, so many great outcomes from those meals and friendships and work working relationships.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

So now I'm gonna pivot pivot into your personal journey. I think when we met, you were the CHRO, well, actually, no, I take that back, you were at Thompson Reuters during the merger. And then you went on to become the CHRO of Lincoln Financial. We then reconnected again as you were taking on the soccer job, and now you're at Bialto. So a lot of different organizations that do completely different things. I'm curious what that's looked for you in in terms of the way that you approach talent within these different organizations, both from a brand recognition standpoint and how you're attracting talent, and then how you're leading and developing talent in these organizations.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Awesome question. And I what a gift it was to, you know, I grew up at Thompson, and when we talk about mentoring, my mentor started from there, Jim Rutt, and we'll talk about that, I'm sure. But I was the head of global talent during the um integration of Reuters, and I had a wonderful phone call in August of 2008, and it was for the CHRO role at Lincoln Financial. And so I went there and we'll I'll talk to you a little bit in in three slices of this, but I went to Lincoln and then very differently I went into search for a bit, which I loved working with Janice and just watching search executives. I have such a different and such a profound high respect for successful search executives. And I remember sitting down in her office and I sat down and I just said, Janice, I really, really want to be a CHRO again. So she said, Okay, how you know what are you looking at? And there were a couple of opportunities, and US soccer came along and, you know, again, from very different industry, and what I would tell you really stretched my learning. We were relocating our headquarters from Chicago, building the National Training Center, which by the way, I think by next month they should be opening the National Training Center. It's all on time, and I was very lucky to be involved in hiring um the men's national coach Mauricio, and we'll talk about that because that really was something that got me to the Alto. So each chapter, what I would say, Frank, when I think about it, and and and I I do think a lot about my career and what a gift I've had in opportunities and amazing people I've worked with, worked for, helped grow, helped develop, and just all those lifetime relationships, and just thinking about one from Thompson Reuters, somebody I was very involved with recruiting them as our head of strategy for the CEO at the time, Dick Harrington. I was able to have dinner with him in South Africa, Richard Budson Armour. So, you know, these relationships stay long and true. When I think about my career journey, and I think about Lincoln was scale, discipline, governance, oh my goodness, regulatory went there when two weeks later we uh applied for TARC during the financial crisis. So looking at that, from how do you go from this very, you know, 100-year-old company at the time that was always profitable for the shareholders, and then their stock price dropped 86%. I mean, that's that's a wake-up call, right? So it was really interesting to see even how leaders responded and how the board came together and the outstanding advisors. Then, you know, again, in my unbelievable HR network today, uh, many of those people helped me really thrive. And that market crisis teaches you a lot and how you respond in you know really serious situations. And U.S. soccer, what I would tell you, it's an unbelievable sport. We all know that. My husband went to college full scholarship, played soccer, was offered a professional soccer job. He ended up going to Deloitte. My son was a goalkeeper for a long time. But when you you take a step back and you think about U.S. soccer, it's also still a business. And it's a pretty phenomenal business. And obviously, the World Cup is coming this year to the United States. But the way I could put it is their purpose is profound. The culture under pressure is something we should all learn from. It's very textbook. Emma Hayes is probably one of the most phenomenal coaches I've ever seen in action. Stakeholder complexity. So it's a US soccer was a multi-billion dollar nonprofit and um very high on the you know, stadium rights. Think about, you know, um the players, the players' association, all of that. And interestingly, immigration and mobility issues for players. So we'll we'll talk about that. And then when I was called about Violet, again, worlds combining again, it was during a time that I was trying to help with an immigration issue and a tax issue for Mauricio, because we had just hired him. And I was just like, who is Vialto? Like, who is this organization? And learned that it was a carve out from PWC. And then I learned that it was immigration and tax and mobility. And I was like, oh my goodness, every CHRO needs to know more about the Alto partners. So um it's a really cool professional services organization. We're in 55 countries. Everybody thinks global is glamorous. So if you think being on a call at two in the morning or 10 o'clock at night is glamorous, you know, check that box. But it's worth it because the people I'm working with are phenomenal, Frank. It's about speed. We are a PE-backed firm with C D and R. And um, so that value creation piece is real. And this is transformation at pace. So it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

I think our our friend Tony was the person who made the comment that where Lisa Buckingham goes, the HR profession goes. So maybe you could actually talk about where the HR profession is going.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Oh my goodness. Well, Tony's amazing, and I think that's a very high compliment, but I can only say that that is with a lot of really great peers, a lot of really great partners in research that I'm ever ahead of the ball. I mean, that it's just it can't be on my shoulders. This is really something that keeping up to date and looking around corners might be something I'm really talented at. Um, but again, there's so many great HR leaders and thinkers, and you know, broadly looking at folks like Dave Wooleridge and Josh. And, you know, I mean, all these people that, you know, again, I've learned so much from them. And, you know, I hope that when I interact with people, they learn the importance of how high level of keeping human and everything that we do is my mantra. And, you know, I see a lot of people saying keeping human and human resources, and it just makes me smile. So Tony definitely set a really you know high standard for me. And right now, what we're doing is going from a spin from a very large organization, super, super global, looking at how we're um organized, you know, from a territory perspective, how we are with our clients, um, making sure me being new and my role nine months in, ensuring we have the right people in the right positions, are we agile enough? Are we looking enough at where we can implement AI, but also keep in mind we're a professional services organization. So as a people organization, our talent comes up and down an elevator or into a client's office every single day. And so, how do you create that magic? How do you make sure that we have our RL2 culture? And I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that. But big, big ticket areas for me are we're working on performance management. How does that work for us? How do we work on pay for performance? How do we make sure that our leaders and we have an early talent program, we have a senior executive program, we're implementing lots more on LD and executive development. We're gonna formalize pretty slick executive development program for fiscal year 27, which I'm really excited about. But getting the right people in the right jobs has probably been, you know, a really important piece of my remit since I've been here, and learning the business inside and out. Way more complex. Thinking about the Middle East conflict right now. We have calls twice a day. We have a committee, a team that we're working with. We have 43 employees and their families in the Middle East, and I think about 11 of the families are still local, but this is our business. So it's been so incredible to see all these bright minds come together in a really, really stressful and scary time. But really, the talent agenda is what we're focused on, Frank. We just finished our employee engagement survey, and we wanted you know high participation. We got what we asked for, so now I have about 800 pages of open verbatim. We are not shy at the alto, so that's good news. And now I have to figure out the trends and where we can really, you know, have a call to action. So it's it's really about just making this a magical place for somebody to come into their career. And um, it's exciting times.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

So, how do you make it a magical place? Because I was looking at your company's values, and the number one is people first. And so I'm curious, what are some of the high return best practices that you're putting forward to make sure that employees feel that? Because our own work monitor um research showed that 63% of workers say they feel more connected to their manager than they do their company. And so, where are you seeing that interaction having the greatest impact? And there are any like one or two best practices that you'd impart or suggest people will leverage?

SPEAKER_02 13:55

That's a big question, but I'm happy to say that I have an answer for it. So, Frank, we we're at a good starting point. We've implemented something called the altitude, and it's really around naming out our strategic drivers for the organization and then naming the behaviors for what our expectations are, and then we've built upon that leadership expectations, and you are so right about the connectivity with your manager. If you know, people don't typically just quit a job, they're quitting their manager, they're quitting for, you know, we we could get into a whole other hour of this. But from my perspective, what I would tell you is that we've been, you know, really, really focused on what are the behaviors that we want for Vialto to have. So Vialtitude is a really interesting, um it's not just a communications program and it is a change program, but it's really laying the foundation for something called One Unrivaled Team. And that's our HR transformation work stream. And, you know, I'll just I'll dig a little bit into two things. You know, the behaviors that we outwind, and a lot of work went into this and a lot of engagement with the employees. So they helped us to find this, but around the world, and the behaviors, you know, find the client wins, talk straight. So now this is an interesting one because people talk straight, and you know, somebody's nasty and somebody complains about it, they were like, Well, I was just talking straight.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

And we're like, No, that's a tricky balance to maintain that, right? Ray Dalio figured that one out, I think.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Uh oh, I don't know if we figured it out, but we've been really redefining that, but the talk straight, it actually has been very helpful because what we're trying to say is everybody has a voice. So, you know, we do different uh ways of communication, and our our one mode is called the Vialto voice. And and and we have pets of Vialto, and we have a lot of really fun stuff, and then a lot of very, very serious stuff, and a lot of pop public policy information every single day. But the other two behaviors are join us up and what does that mean? And it's like really breaking down silos across the organizations and also across borders, because we want, you know, we're focused on borderless work. And then the last one is solve it now. So looking at how do we, you know, solve issues are these, you know, do we have to go through five levels of hierarchy to get something approved, or can somebody approve it? So decision rights. So if you think about change management, we're really working on that. And how are we doing it? I would just say communicate, communicate, communicate. We use our Teams channels, we use global town halls, we have one tomorrow. Um, and we have high, high subscription to those, lots of QA. And and people are really excited, and they're seeing that you know, we're a four and a half-year-old company now, and there are some people that still carry around their PwC mugs, and that's fine. But what we want is people to really identify with the Alto. And so the altitude was what we invested in, and that's really the foundation, Frank, for everything that we're doing from uh strategic drivers and also HR transformation. So it's it's it's it's fun. It's fun.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

You know, you hit on something that immediately triggered an old comment for me, but that idea of needing to go through five layers of approvals to get something done. And I and I recall an old leader who said to me, There's nothing that you can break that we can't fix together. And I think empowering people to go out and trust their instincts and knowing that we can come and solve this together. Um, now that business is a little bit less intense and regulated than maybe yours is in. So perhaps that advice wouldn't work as well. But just one of those things around how can you empower people to take the risk or or just lead without being encumbered by so many levels of approvals.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Well, I think that advice is spot on, by the way. And I think that there is a level of that we have to have and embrace across our organization. And I'll give you an example that it was just mind-blowing to me. Somebody very senior on my team sent me a note and they were like, Can I take this group out to lunch? And it just put me back for a moment. And I said, Of course you can take them out to lunch. You know, I I just think that it was it was a very, you know, there's a cost efficiency in public, you know, professional services, and of course, but you know, now nobody asks that question anymore. And and they'll actually stop by my office if they're all in town and say, hey, do you want to go to lunch or dinner? And and it's just it's great. But I I think emulating making decisions and you know, decision uh rights and things like that get clarity, and that that is something, Frank, a big learning for me coming from public company CHRO. We had everything thing so buttoned down, right? And here working with a new comp committee and my comp chair is amazing, and we have an outside advisor now, which we didn't have when I first came on board. We've created a rolling agenda and we've put rigor in, but you know, for me, I don't have to think about proxies, but I do have to think about monthly operating reviews, right, with with um our sponsor. So it's definitely interesting, and we just have to empower people and talk to people about what we're doing. So my strategic, you know, angle on this is communicate, communicate, communicate, and do it in a lot of different avenues. And we have to remember that our time zones are so difficult. We can't always ask people to be on 10 p.m. conference calls. You know, so we do do a lot of recording and share information, but our engagement's super high, super high.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

This is the Radical Innovators Podcast. So you knew there's going to be a question around innovation, but and and given every conference we go to, every dinner conversation, probably every meeting you're in, AI continuously comes up. You've mentioned on this call in terms of the way you're leveraging it. You've previously talked about how it allows us to move faster, but we need to continue to look at how do we stay more human. How do you balance those two seemingly contradictory demands?

SPEAKER_02 20:14

This is such a challenge, right? Because I think we're living this at work and in our personal lives in the whole world and even getting new cars and things like that. And so I I would reframe the term a little bit. And I I love the radical innovator because that's what we should be doing. But what it actually means to me is what I want to talk about. And it's really, it's not innovation for innovation's sake, like not just being the coolest, the boldest, and doing a lot of things. It's about challenging legacy assumptions in HR and what can we do differently while we're still empowering our employees and our our our HR leaders and folks who want a career here, um, challenging, you know, we don't have to do it that way. We we can put an AI agent in there, and then you can do more strategic work. It's very similar, in my opinion, humble as this might sound, but in my opinion, it's very similar to the digital transformations that we went through because we just it's new workflows, it's new tools. And then you're like, oh my goodness, like I was able to do that right now. Assuming you're gonna ask me this question, you know, we're implementing a lot of AI agents through our workday modules and um workday help. We we solved over 1,300 um open questions in three days through through the workday help module that probably would have taken you know HR business partners, you know, probably 15 of them many weeks to answer. So the speed of that is happening. And it's great. We just have to make sure our data is right before we put it in, right? Because that is, you know, foundationally really, really important. So, but you're seeing leaders use it and the adoption's pretty high, but that doesn't mean that our HR business partners are going away. It doesn't, it just, they're going to work differently. And, you know, organizational development skills are so incredibly important. Change leadership skills, so incredibly important because we're the architects of driving this new change, right? So for me, celebrate the new tech investment. That's great. But make sure that you're holding really, really true to your relationships with your businesses and clients. So that's really, really important to me.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

So where are your teams using? I mean, you highlighted an example, right? I mean, that's that's a great example. And I hate, I think JP Elliott put a great post out um today around we tend to talk about the business and then HR, and that's a disservice to the HR organization. Um and so where as an organization outside of HR, where are you seeing some of the most high return areas of it being deployed?

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Well, I mean, manual processes, right? I mean, across the board, but that only impacts fractional pieces of people's work, right? So then you have to start thinking about so if they have more capacity, what else can they do? And what I'm seeing at Vialto, we're redeploying in new innovative areas, like let's go and test and try this, let's give somebody 25% of their time and try this. So for me, it can't be just end-to-end. This is really about the, you know, what is the art of the possible? How are we looking at, you know, what does our job look like tomorrow? I don't know. Like think it, thinking about like in executive comp and I'll use equity plan management as an example. You can overlay a lot of AI on there, but you're they're not putting any human judgment in their standpoint. And that that's really important to me. The human judgment piece is where do you want to invest in that equity? Or, you know, what are we seeing any trends, negative or positive, that we need to be looking at? So for me, it's you know, again, in the businesses, it's a lot of manual work. If you think about tax returns, if you think about immigration applications, we can do the best of the best in our innovation and our processes. Now, the tax authorities receiving our data or an immigration authority receiving our data, are they ready for that? That's the you know the big question as we innovate. So you have to be you have to plan for all of it.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Yeah. You, I mean, I like what you were where you were going in terms of the not innovating just for the sake of innovating, right? So doing it with the the outcome in mind and then building. Uh, my friend Brian Evergreen talks about this all the time. And uh I was at a dinner last week that I hosted, and one of the CHROs said, like, why do we even have job descriptions anymore? There's no world in which we are going to hire somebody for these set of tasks and we're gonna need that beyond six months or even 12 months. And then someone else challenged her and said, Well, at what point do we even have companies anymore? Like, why doesn't it just an organization that uh puts out this what the task is that they need to be done or the various skills needed? And everybody effectively is a gig worker. Where do you stand on that? Are we years from that? Is that even a reality? Something you see?

SPEAKER_02 25:36

So I love both of those conversations, but I would say it would be super hard to manage, especially in early talent, if somebody doesn't have a job description, right? Like, I mean, I think you really have to say, what are we trying to achieve with this person's role? And how are we developing them? So, you know, there has to be some baseline of something, right? Again, and then that's connected to how do you price a job and you know, how do you get promoted and how do you measure and pay for performance and all of that. What I would counterbalance both of those conversations, I think this is the most exceptional time in the world for intra and entrepreneurials, because we are all working differently, whether you know it or not, we are thinking differently. Think about during COVID, one of the worst times in the world. But think about during COVID, there were so many people that they just couldn't go to a bank anymore. So they adopted online banking. So when you put it to that perspective, if you remember when money machines were ATMs were put in place, people are like, so I don't get to see a teller anymore. Well, now in the art of the possible, is there are these great minds. And, you know, folks that are going to uh university or trade schools right now, they're learning differently. They're learning how to work with AI, machine learning, whatever you want to call it. And there's going to be so many cool businesses that come out of that. So I think this is, we've just started, you know, we're at the you know, the beginning of this huge transformation. And by the way, aging myself, when I started in Thomson, I worked in 1995 and hiring data scientists for our natural language processing labs. So guess what? That was AI before it was named AI. So it's always been here. Now it's more prevalent. We we owe it to our employees to offer learning and development around AI, but I firmly believe that this is a shared responsibility by our employees as well, that they have tempt the intellectual curiosity. You can go out and you can find, you know, a lot of courses. I I personally went through a program at MIT about two and a half years ago. It was probably the best six months I ever spent on really challenging like machine learning and understanding. And I had to use my own case study, so it was cool because you obviously I had help, but you know, built my own processes. And everybody should be thinking about that. So is work going to change? Heck yeah, it's already changed. Is it gonna change more? It will continue to change. Now, how we change it and making sure that we are tried and true to who we are, like, and that's where you were talking about the bounties of the Alto. Our values are not gonna change. Will they evolve? Sure. We brought in the altitude last summer, and now that's just growing, growing, growing exponentially. We have our top 100 in a group called Tag, and that is the accelerator group. So we're having them really help us drive the strategies forward across the company and be the force of change with our employees and our clients. So we're we're just operating differently. And I think everybody that's going to be super successful will do that.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Now you got me thinking because you talked about this course you went through for several months through through MIT? You have a son in college, and my daughters are a little ways off from that. But in what world do we think that we would send our children to a college in 10 years if we say a lot of the skills are being replaced and evolving so quickly, combined with the fact that education costs are continuously rising? So could Andrew have forgone going to university and gone into one or two of these courses that you're that you've taken or newer versions of those and easily have found a role within an organization?

SPEAKER_02 29:44

So, Frank, it's such a good question. And I'm gonna say yes, but so like you know, I come from a blue-collar family, you know, my mother was a truck driver, she had her own company, my dad was military and educated. What I would say academic system is one of the slowest evolving systems in the world. And I wonder, like, in, and that this is just me. I'm open to hiring people without a degree. You know, if they if they have the skills, we can, you know, assess that game on. You know, I I graduated from Georgetown at 34, right? I I had left school, uh, I went to Marymount first, and I left at 22 because I was offered a rotational program in HR. So, and then this amazing person at uh Thompson said, you're never going to forgive yourself if you don't finish your degree. And I did that on nights and weekends, and I'm really, really happy I did it. Did it make a difference for me and my career? I don't think so because I was negotiating labor contracts well before I finished my degree. But it opened doors for me, Frank, that with a degree, perhaps if I didn't finish a recruiter or a firm wouldn't have had the mindset to even consider me as a candidate, especially with all the EOC. You know, then there's a lot to unpack there, but different times though, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:10

I mean, I'm saying 10 years from now, do we think that's going to change? I mean, IBM a few years ago said 50% of jobs won't require a college degree. Now, I don't know if that's true. I'd have to go check their site, but that was a few years ago that IBM came out and declared that. Do you think you're gonna see more organizations doing the same?

SPEAKER_02 31:27

I do, I do, and I think that the balancing of that is there you're seeing PE firms invest in education at the college level for trees now. So I mean, it is if I close my eyes and you know, if I could just say this is what I think is going to happen in 10 years, I think that, you know, there will definit definitely be, as I mentioned, I do believe that this is like the most ripe time for entrepreneurials to start things and and do different things and organizations want to buy versus build. So there's a lot of cool stuff there. But Frank, I'd I think that the evolution will be a little bit like what we saw during the financial crisis. If you remember, everything like just got a reset button. So we're gonna just keep resetting and skills will change. And the phenomenal brilliance of the talent that I talk to daily, it's it's amazing. So I can only imagine what folks will be coming out of university or trade schools in 10 years. So, but it's it's a learning agility, it's different, and you know, we probably haven't even you know touched what is possible in the future.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Well, we'll we'll see. We'll revisit this in 10 years. I'm gonna mark this on my calendar to check in with you on it.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

You talked about mentors a few times. I'm a big believer in mentors, having been blessed to have uh a few great ones for me, both in my personal and professional life. I'm curious, is there one piece of advice that stuck with you over the years that you got from a mentor or a leader that you'd want to impart on others?

SPEAKER_02 33:08

During my labor days, I was working in a warehouse setting. It was it was an office supply company. It turned out they were acquired by corporate express. But there is my CEO was in my office, and somebody called. Somebody from my family called me, and the assistant came in and said, Hey, uh, let's just call it my mom was on the phone, and I said, I'll call her back. And his name was Howard Brown, and he said, Lisa, take that phone call. And I said, Well, okay. Uh you know, it was what this is pre-cell phones, you know, the whole thing. So when we finished having the conversation, the conversation was, Lisa, at times you have to wear your job like a jacket. And while you're wearing that jacket, do everything you possibly can. Do great stuff, you know, be brilliant, you know, all the whole thing. But he also said, you know, you don't know what's on the other end of that phone. Like, why are they calling you? And he said, so wear your job like a jacket. And it's really good advice. And especially in our business and the people business, there's no off button, right? Like something's happening 24 hours a day. You have colleague people around you, I hope, as teams, uh, to help so we can level load and balance. But that advice was really, and it still rings true today, on, you know, wear your job like a jacket, because sometimes you just have to take it off and say, you know, I'm I'm going on Safari and I have three people I'm gonna level load my work to. And and I was able to do that. And I've only been here nine months, and I was able to do that. We planned this trip two years ago. But I I I give that advice to people. And the other advice I give, and I got this from uh Jim Reddit at Thompson, and he said, you know, don't use those words work-life balance with me. Use know where you need to be. And and he, you know, we had a development operation and it was 24-7. People were drinking Mountain Dew like crazy and ordering food in at all crazy hours. It was like the best of times during the dot-com era. But, you know, he always he talked about, you know, work-life balance, no, but you know, you know where you need to be. I tend to really always lean into you know where you need to be, because there are days that you can say, I I need to be at a hospital or I need to do this. So it it it's it's an interesting, you know, advice is very interesting. You know, you can take it, you can sit on it, you can, you know, digest it, and then formulate it, how it works for you.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Well, and you can give it. So now we're gonna shift into some uh rapid fire questions. Okay. Um and we'll just see where these go. But to your point of know where you need to be, what's your go-to reset when you're just when you're feeling overwhelmed, or whether that's at home, work, some combination of both? What does Lisa do to slow down?

SPEAKER_02 36:25

Some really good country music. Finish my wordle puzzle that I forgot to do. I'm a big believer. I I wake up before the sun rises, and I I do selfishly keep that time to myself and have a cup of coffee, and I love watching the sunrise. And in New York, where where my apartment is, there's no really great place for the sunrise. But you know, when it's rising, and I just take that moment because that's my time, and you know, I I cherish that. So that that's a good way for me to clear my head. And we take so much on in these roles. And sometimes you just have to really say, you know, this is, you know, is it going and getting a pedicure or something? You know, just it's guilty pleasures, I guess. But country music is my base. That's my foundation. If you hear me playing country music in my office, you know I'm resetting something.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

There we go. And for those of you listening, I can tell you this is true because Lisa texted me at 4 a.m. this morning.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

So I did.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Sometimes I'm up. This morning I wasn't. What habit are you trying to break right now?

SPEAKER_02 37:37

Well, not working out enough. That's a bad habit. So I I literally sent two of my girlfriends. We were on an email this morning, and my my one friend is in Morocco right now, and her guide reminds her of her son's godmother. And then the other friend is an eye surgeon who's a very, very good friend of mine. So the eye surgeon, Jackie, she sends this note from her coach and mentor, and it was really all about you know longevity and positivity and all of this stuff. And I literally wrote this morning, I need to start working out a lot more, a lot more. So the habit is putting my health to the side, I need to bring that. I really need to work out more.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Unsolicited advice, but the big the easiest way to ensure you do that is just do something, and then you get into the momentum. So it's it's easy to be in a conference room all day long. And I bring the elastic bands now with me when I travel because it at least forces I can't say I can't get to the gym. It's like I can do something in the room before I go. So figure out maybe what that is for you.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

I I I love that, and um, we we have a great gym and a pool in our building. And I will tell you, um, nine months ago, I was super excited. I went down at like five in the morning and I ran into one of my board members who lives in the building. So that's where I stopped, but he I don't think he'd have a problem with me swimming, but I didn't want him to see me swimming. So it was it was I have to go and reset that, Frank. That that is, I'm gonna start tomorrow morning.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

You should commingle these things, you should do meetings on the treadmills. Oh Lord.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

Probably would do it if I had the shot. That's the problem.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Years ago, I won an award and I was hoping to win the award the year before. I didn't. So I asked if I win the award next year, can I have some walk-on music, which was Rocky? And at some point I'll share that video with you and give them your Philly ties. Um, I'll actually, it's a cool video. What would your walk on music be? And um it can't be a country. Maybe it is.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

You know what? I think um, and I I should know the artist, but this girl is on fire. I love that walk on music.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

That's Alicia Keys, right?

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Alicia Keys, that's right. That's great. I it's so empowering, and that would be my song.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Next time I we have a dinner that you're coming to, that's gonna burst on when you when you come in the door.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

I know nothing about her, uh Alicia Keys, but I think she'd be fascinating to sit down and talk to.

SPEAKER_01 40:16

She's got a great voice.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

I would ask you uh early arrival or just on time, but I already know the answer to that one.

unknown 40:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:23

Early, 100% early.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

Yeah, that question doesn't work for you. How about your favorite way to spend a free Saturday?

SPEAKER_02 40:30

Uh easy. Get up, hang out with my dogs, watch the sunrise, go to the market, and get super fresh stuff and cook all day for my family.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

Last thing, what's something that people would be surprised to learn about you?

SPEAKER_02 40:45

Maybe what I said earlier that I graduated college at 34. You know, not everybody has that straight line. That that was something that, you know, again, I was really proud to accomplish. And I think I was embarrassed for years to tell people that I didn't graduate like at 22. But I'm really proud of the path I took because I was able to have experiences, especially on the labor side, that maybe I wouldn't have even thought about if I was going into HR in a different way.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

We share that. So I graduated at 26 because I worked full-time while trying to go and do a full course load, and it became a bit much to balance, then couldn't afford to continue to pay for it. So then I met Keith Frazzi and he allowed me to work full-time for him and allowed me to work in a flexible schedule to be able to finish school on top of switching majors. So that also set me back a bit, but shared that embarrassment of telling people, and then it was always justifying it by while I was working full-time and then the first person in my family to ever graduate college. So we've got the truck driving background. My dad was a truck driver. So college just wasn't a thing.

SPEAKER_02 41:53

Uh no, it wasn't. My dad said, I'm not paying a penny unless you do RHC and big military family. But you know, I think that you're bringing something up that was, you know, a big deal for me when I was, you know, at certain points, I was head of recruiting and college campus recruiting. And I always felt like I was a fraud because I didn't have a degree and I was interviewing people. And so as it evolved, and I I did go back to school, and I was like, if I'm going back to school, I'm gonna go to the best school in DC. So I chose George Black as the best. But um, it's interesting how we grow, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:31

And not to date the episode of which we're recording this, but uh hopefully your team will get back into Marsh Madness again at some point because they've been on a it's very disappointing, very disappointing.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

But we had our heyday while I was there. How's that?

SPEAKER_01 42:44

There you go. Lisa, thank you so much for spending time with me. I have to uh, you know, I said this at the beginning, but would have to wrap with that. This has been a ton of fun. And the the time that I get to spend with you in all the different formats and your constant generosity in in so many ways, I'm eternally grateful for you and thank you for all that you do.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

Back at you, let's just say that, number one. But number two, I'm it's an honor to be interviewed with you. And I just, as I mentioned earlier, I'm just so proud to see you evolve as an executive and where you're going with your life. So thank you, and I can't wait to see you soon.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Yeah, look forward to seeing you soon. Thanks, Lisa.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

Okay, take care.