Bill’s CEO says it’s not healthy for entrepreneurs or society to focus on wealth creation over innovation

Co-host Alan Murray joins Lev-Ram for the pre-interview conversation.

Listen to the episode or read the transcript below.

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Transcript

Alan Murray: Leadership Next is powered by the folks at Deloitte who, like me, are exploring the changing rules of business leadership and how CEOs are navigating this change.

Welcome to Leadership Next, the podcast about the changing rules of business leadership. I’m Alan Murray.

Michal Lev-Ram: And I’m Michal Lev-Ram.

Murray: Michal, I was really sorry I couldn’t join you for your discussion this week. Tell us a little bit about your guest.

Lev-Ram: Yeah, I was sorry you missed us. We missed you. But I’ll give a little bit of background. So René Lacerte is a fourth generation entrepreneur, and both you and I talk to a lot of founders and founding CEOs, Alan, but I think it’s kind of rare to talk to someone who has, you know, literally got it in his DNA. And he spent some time at Intuit. He sold his first company to Intuit, stayed there for a bit, then started Bill. And it was a really fascinating conversation, you know, partly about the company he started, of course, but a lot of it just about founders and the current climate for founders and just what he’s learned over the years, you know, both himself and from his family.

Murray: Yeah. And I don’t want you to give it all away, but what bottom line, what is the climate for founders today?

Lev-Ram: It’s challenging. I mean, it depends on, I guess, what stage your company is at. And there’s definitely a lot of excitement around early stage, you know, especially AI companies as we know. But for for slightly more established founders, especially founders who are kind of in this in-between spot where they need to raise additional funding rounds, bigger funding rounds, it’s tough. They’re kind of getting squeezed right now, and we’ve seen a lot of layoffs. And so anyways, so he talked about, you know, just what’s different today versus when he was starting out. And also, you know, I think some people will agree with and some people won’t probably, but the fact that there used to be more of a focus on just being an entrepreneur for the sake of innovation and because of people’s curiosities, wanting to kind of build and discover solutions to existing problems. And that he’s seen a lot more fixation on wealth creation these days, probably because a lot of wealth has been created.

Murray: Yeah, well, we know that conversation. That’s the profit versus purpose conversation, but brought to entrepreneurs. So I look forward to hearing it.

Lev-Ram: So, René, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

René Lacerte: Thank you for having me, Michal. Really looking forward to it.

Lev-Ram: Of course. Okay. I want to just start with like total basics. Just what is Bill? What does the company do for those who don’t know?

Lacerte: Yeah, so we automate the financial operations that a business has. And the way I got there is if you think about the finances, there’s a set of processes that underpin every transaction that business does. Those processes involve obviously documents where there might be contracts or bills or invoices going to and from your customers and suppliers, or it could be interactions between your employees departments, it could be interactions with payment systems. All of those processes lead to a transaction. So when you read a PnL, you’re saying, okay, X dollars were spent on Y things. Everything leading up to that is what I want to automate. That was the pain point I felt. I had a prior company called PayCycle that did payroll, online payroll for small businesses, and my parents and grandparents that had lots of businesses. And when I was running the day to day of PayCycle, the pain I felt was the same pain that they had felt 60 years earlier when they started their companies, which was all paper-based filing cabinets, not filed. Well, paper checks, lost checks, payment inquiries, all these things are processes that actually create complexity for businesses, and we just automate all of that. So we automate AP, we automate AR, we automate spend and expense, and we’re now bringing cash flow insights and forecasting into all of that. So a business can have a really strong sense of how their business is running day to day versus having to wait for a panel to look at something.

Lev-Ram: So entrepreneurs often stumble upon their companies because they’re trying to solve something that’s, you know, painful for themselves or for people around them or customers. And it’s interesting that you brought up your kind of your family lineage. I mean, is that how previous generations happened upon their companies as well?

Lacerte: All the businesses since the sixties, I would call fintech, which is kind of interesting because fintech is something we’ve talked about the last ten years. But my parents and grandparents had businesses that were around data processing and working with accountants much the way we work with accountants to then produce the GL (general ledger) because they would take the data in and then process it on the minicomputers, the microcomputers, and so on and so forth. And so the night I was born, my mom was actually sorting punch cards for the largest defense contractor, and it was a payroll job and an AP job that later that night I ended up being born.

So all of them, I did learn a lot from that, but a lot of the other businesses weren’t just around that. My grandfather had general stores in Canada. My grandmother had farms. They did farming equipment. They had an auto dealership. My parents had multiple different payroll companies. Lots of the businesses were focused on helping other small businesses. So I think the kernel that comes through for me is that I just got to see how wonderful small businesses were from an operating perspective. I say SMBs are the glue that bind our society together. That is the fabric of society. But the processes they have are also very interesting. And that’s what I saw growing up. And I saw and it kind of all clicked for me with my first company. It’s like, Oh yeah, this could be automated, because I was now in technology and I was doing things I’d learned from my parents and grandparents, but it wasn’t automated. And so that’s where it all clicked. And that’s when I started on this great, great journey of supporting SMBs and their processes so they can get back to what they love.

Lev-Ram: Okay, so you were literally born into this.

Lacerte: Yeah.

Lev-Ram: But forged your own way. Yeah, it’s a great story. Okay, so take us back to the first company and the origins of that company. And I’m curious to hear, you know, obviously you learned a lot along the way there. Just curious to hear how you’ve applied it to Bill today.

Lacerte: Yeah, I think there’s a ton of learning and very fortunate that I started that company with a co-founder, a guy named Martin Gates, and we had worked together at Intuit on building payroll solutions for Intuit. And so if you follow Intuit, there is a tremendous amount of success in that payroll business. A lot of that success comes from the products we built when we were at Intuit, which was what we called a do-it-with-you approach to doing payroll. We then went, you know, outside and we built this company PayCycle that was online payroll, which had a little bit more service around it. So kind of crossing into the do-it-for-you aspects of payroll and those two pieces today, you know, drive a big part of that business.

Lev-Ram: You sold it to Intuit, right?

Lacerte: We did, yeah. That was ten years later. Yeah.

Lev-Ram: Went full circle.

Lacerte: Yeah. Yeah. So that was we started in ‘99. And so we built tools for accountants to manage their clients, which by the way, that has come into Bill’s existence. We have a lot of great tools. Over 7,000 firms across the country use our platform to manage all of their client activity, and that’s because of the tools I started learning at with PayCycle. We’ve just augmented those tools here at Bill. So that was an example of learning.

I think the big learning from a technology perspective, we didn’t call this the cloud back in 2002 when things were getting going. We just called it software. And I think the big learning for me was that when you develop software, so much of what you’re doing is creating a platform to collect data and experiences, but you don’t get to see that data, right? But the cloud actually changed everything because now the software companies do get to see the data. We get to see what experiences are working, which ones aren’t working. We get to iterate real time with the customer about how to create a better value system for them. And so all of that learning, you know, it changes how we design the database.

So when I started Bill, we actually thought more about, “Oh, where can this technology go?” Whereas when I started PayCycle was like, “Oh, we need software and yeah, we’ll store the data over here.” The third area of learning is just about management, right? And I think that’s always important. I think one of the things that I learned, you know, from leading the company when Martin and I were doing it, we also had a third person and we became a triumvirate, which was kind of in vogue back in the late nineties, early 2000s. And that led to less accountability across any one individual. And around 2004, the board was struggling with who is accountable here, right? They needed somebody to be accountable. And so we worked on that. We couldn’t get to the answer that the board wanted. And so I end up stepping down and moving into a CFO role, as well as maintaining my board relationship and staying involved. And I did that for about a year while we hired and brought somebody in, and then I left and started Bill in 2006 and then PayCycle sold in 2009.

But the learning there was around accountability. Like Teddy Roosevelt, I think, was the guy that said the buck stops here, right? Having that clarity for yourself, actually not so much for others. I mean, everybody assumes René’s the CEO, of course the buck stops with him. People assume that, right? But it’s important for yourself too. No, no, no, no. I am accountable for this. And that accountability extends not just to the people in the organization that I work with. It extends to the actual organization itself. The organization has its own path, its own journey. And I have to always be thinking about I’m accountable to the success of Bill. And that was a learning I took from PayCycle, one, because I had to step down as a CEO. And then two, when I got to be a board member, I wouldn’t recommend people stepping down from the company. But when you get to be a board member of a company that you started, I had more inside baseball than any board member, right? And so from my perspective, I was able to see if we just did this or we just did this or we just did this, that might be a different outcome. And then I started seeing how the organization wasn’t all accountable to the same thing. And so that sense of accountability has been a part of my leadership since then, and I’ve worked really hard to always bring that authenticity around accountability to every conversation, to every decision, every action that we take. And so, yeah, three big learnings from PayCycle. And, you know, obviously it’s gone on to help me learn more things that Bill.

Lev-Ram: So this is a tough time for founders right now, founders in tech. I just kind of happened upon this conversation on X, or Twitter, recently about the sort of the pros and cons of having cofounders versus being a sole founder. And the argument was really that that was being made was that it’s better to start a company on your own versus having the wrong cofounders. Do you agree with that and what have you learned on the cofounder side over the years?

Lacerte: You know, I think it’s a great question. So the other examples I could point to, not just my own, is that my parents and grandparents. So my mom and dad were equal partners in their businesses. My grandparents were equal partners. They brought my mom and dad into some of their businesses. Right? So that that partnership, you know, I think it can work very well. I think the thing that has to happen is that accountability. And so you have to be clear who is going to be the ultimate decision maker. And that’s something that’s hard sometimes when friends cofound a company. And what happens is the way I’ll explain this is if you only talk about the things that are easy, you’re not going to have a great relationship.

So, you know, we both have kids, right? If Joyce and I just talk about the things we agree on, how to raise the kids, kids actually get, you know, fine. They get some perspective. The actual real raising of the kids is when Joyce and I debate. Is this how we want to talk to the kids about it? In the personal scenario that accountability is to the kids happiness 50 years from now, and we both have that. So we’re willing to have that debate and no one person has to make a decision. But you will have a healthy debate. In a business, oftentimes what I have seen is that the cofounder relationship, if they’re not clear about who owns the decision, they don’t have the debate and they only talk about the things that are nice because nobody wants a hard conversation, right? Nobody enjoys hard conversations. I don’t enjoy them. I do them, but I do not enjoy them. And so I think that’s one learning.

I think the other learning I would say that was interesting for me and this happened maybe five years into to Bill, maybe 2011, 2012, I had this realization that my title was flipped or needed to be flipped. My title was founder and CEO, and I flipped it then to be CEO and founder. And the reason I flipped that was to remind me every day that my responsibility to the company is as the CEO, the founder status never changes. I am always going to be the founder of Bill, no matter what. The heart, the soul, the culture, that’s the easy part of being a founder. The hard part of executing and leading is actually changing and growing as the leader that the organization needs, and that’s the CEO role. And so you have different stages in a company and you have to actually work on that personal growth to actually say, Okay, well now the CEO needs to do this versus what I was doing before. And so by flipping that order and saying, look, I’m the CEO first, it was just, you know, kind of a trick for me to remind myself that I have to think about my personal growth every day as a leader in this company.

Lev-Ram: Why do you think we have such a different association or aura around founders versus owners of small businesses?

Lacerte: One of the things I love about SMBs and why I serve them is that they are, one they’re taking a tremendous amount of risk. Because you’re saying this is what I think the world needs. And if it does not work and customers do not come and it fails, well then that’s a reflection that your value set of how you dress yourself up for the world isn’t something that the world wants. And so I think it’s a very risky thing. And so I think that’s one reason we admire. I think that’s the right word. I think admire is okay. I would not say idolize. I don’t like the idolization of it, but I think admiring that somebody took the risk, I think that’s good. We should all take risk in our lives and be comfortable with the risks we take, because that’s where I think growth happens and that’s where more gets built whether you’re talking about the social fabric or a product. I think the other thing is that risk leads to innovation. And so I think that innovation combined with the risk and then combined with just that fabric of the community that entrepreneurs and small business owners, I think of them the same, that they bring, like that’s why we’re like, you know what? Let’s celebrate that. You know, they end up being 50% roughly of the jobs in this country, right? I mean, SMBs do drive a tremendous amount of, you know, the economic power of this country. They obviously oftentimes become big companies. And so these are things I think, that are definitely something I respect and something that attracts me to serving them, because the more we can help them, the more, and this is actually a bit of a tangent, the more freedom there is in society. And, you know, if we had more time, we could debate which came first democracy or capitalism. But I think they’re very much intertwined that that freedom of expression to go say, I think this business needs to happen and I’m going to build my company this way that extends to, no, these rights are super important in society. And so that’s, I think it’s something that I just value and that’s why I admire them. Hopefully that’s helpful for your listeners.

(Music starts.)

Murray: Jason Girzadas, the CEO of Deloitte U.S., is the sponsor of this podcast and joins me today. Welcome, Jason.

Jason Girzadas: Thank you, Alan. It’s great to be here.

Murray: Jason, we live in an era of disruption, technology disruption, geopolitical disruption, workplace disruption, and it makes accurate predictions about what’s going to happen in the future more difficult than it has ever been. Yet the polls that we do together with you show that most business leaders largely remain optimistic. Why do you think that is?

Girzadas: I think optimism is a result of the fact that we’ve been through an incredibly tumultuous three years. And so I think business leaders realize that they’ve built resiliency into their organizations. The prospect of even more disruption isn’t as foreign of a concept, and I think there’s more confidence in their ability to adapt and to be agile. Secondarily, there’s been tremendous investment in technology and new capabilities that client organizations and executives broadly are optimistic about those creating more value and more opportunity. So it’s a function of what we’ve been through, as well as the investments that have been made that give a sense of optimism despite some of the headwinds.

Murray: And what’s your advice to companies that are struggling with the potential disruption in the future?

Girzadas: Well, disruption is the new normal. I don’t think there’s any placid water on the horizon or calmness that we can predict. So it’s a function of getting accustomed to the discontinuities that are ahead of us, whether it’s around technology or geopolitical change or workplace changes associated with the future of work or the demands of the talent workforce. Change is the new normal. As a result, it is requiring executive teams to actually look holistically at those challenges, be facile with doing scenario planning, and being on the lookout for where and how to capitalize on disruption versus being concerned by it or seen as a barrier to their success.

Murray: Jason, thanks for your perspective and thanks for sponsoring Leadership Next.

Girzadas: Thank you.

(Music ends.)

Lev-Ram: You have been a founder and a CEO through other challenging times, both in the tech industry and the economy at large. Do you think that it’s different today or we’re just going through another tough period where, you know, the funding landscape is not as fertile as it was a couple of years back? Or are there other unique challenges to being an entrepreneur today?

Lacerte: I think there are a couple of unique challenges right now. I think we’ve been in limbo for more time than any of us are comfortable with. And the limbo started with COVID. But then you know, went through an election, through fires in California, through other natural disasters, through all sorts of supply chain, stimulant over stimulus, a threat of a recession for over a year and a half now. The limbo makes it challenging because it’s hard to know how to plan. If we were kind of just, you know, Steady Eddie, so to speak, well, then you can plan. When you don’t know if a shoe is going to drop, that actually creates, you know, a lot of challenge for the investment community. And so I think as an entrepreneur, you’re trying to balance in the valley especially, you’re trying to balance how do you raise capital, and right now, the investment community is kind of waiting to see what’s going to happen. You know, unfortunately, you know, it could be that with an election year here, we might be having to wait through, you know, that economy is kind of just wait in these types of periods. Right, so. So I think that’s one area of limbo that makes it harder.

I think another thing that I would love for there to be more conversation around is why I came to Silicon Valley is because of innovation. It wasn’t because of the opportunity to make money, right. It was the opportunity to actually go solve problems for people that I cared about. And I think sometimes because of the success of the Valley and because of the wealth creation, there’s just a lot more focus on the wealth creation part than is healthy. And we could dissect that a lot. It’s just something that I think is not helpful for society. It’s not helpful for entrepreneurs that are starting. Like I’ve always been very focused on every decision I make, I’m going to make sure 50 years from now I feel good about that decision and it’s not going to matter whether I made money or not. It turns out that I’ve done okay, but the focus wasn’t. I’m just going to do whatever it takes so I can go buy that house in the hills. Right? And so I think there’s something that’s different right now just in the ecosystem that I think is less healthy and it’s better when people come to innovate and then they get to make money. That’s great. Don’t come here to make money. Come here to innovate and solve problems.

Lev-Ram: Is there something that you would put out there as sort of as a tip for founders today who are getting started just in kind of now or last few years that you either did or wish you had done early on when you were starting out as a founder?

Lacerte: I place a lot of focus on where I want to be in the future and a long time in the future. So the intentionality, whether it’s around the platform that we’ve built and how it can continue to scale as long as it has or the culture—that’s super important. And so I don’t have things that I wish I had done differently. I have things that I’m very glad I did and maybe I could have done more of. So when I started the first company, we had values. But then what I found was in in using the values to operate the company, it wasn’t helpful. Because values, oftentimes companies put values together that are, you know, somewhat aspirational. They’re behaviors they want people to do. They might say we’re customer driven. That’s a behavior. Or customer obsessed. They might say this is a behavior they want their employees to have. And I wanted to get to the derivative.

So for me, the second derivative of values that lead to behaviors is who are the people that we hire? And so for our company, our values are we have people that are passionate about what they do and how they do it. We have people that are authentic. We have people that are humble. We have people that are accountable and they like to have fun together. And when you pull those together, it’s pretty easy for me to say we’re customer obsessed. But the behavior that I’m looking for is, are you going to have those five qualities? So the tip I would have for founders is to really think about the culture that’s going to give them energy for their journey and that sounds a little bit selfish, but when you are the founder, you’re the first person there and you never, ever want to say, I don’t want to go to work today. And I’ve never had a day where I said, I don’t want to go to work and I work really hard and I love it. And it’s because of the people I get to work with every day and because of the culture that we have and the customers we serve. And so the values are what make all the hard stuff worth doing. And I think sometimes people forget that. So the tip would be like, just focus, make sure you know what’s good for you. And that’s something that will actually carry you for many, many cycles in the future.

Lev-Ram: I want to ask you about some of the challenges of being a publicly, leading up a publicly-traded company. And I know your stock has struggled a bit. How do you keep everybody focused during times that are a little bit tougher? And what else has changed for you now that the company is public and has been for a while, I know?

Lacerte: It’s been a phenomenal journey and growth which I’ve talked about. I enjoy the growth. Doesn’t mean that there aren’t hard days, and I think the part that I love about being public is also sometimes one of things that makes it difficult, investors are super smart, but they’re not always able to get into all the details. So the reason I kind of bring those two together is like, I just was doing a bunch of investor meetings this week, got asked a lot of great questions about the business, and that helps me think about the business I very much value. That also got asked a lot of questions that actually were very superficial and not really what drives the business. And so that creates sometimes confusion in the market. And so we’re going through a period of rapid growth and change in the business. And so my job is to make sure everybody has the same information. That means just because the complexity of the business, I can’t give everybody all the information just would take too much time. It would be too hard to figure out how to explain it to people. So we have to give the best transparency we can and sometimes that means it’s not enough for some people to fully understand. Right? And so that’s part that can be challenging because when I look inside what we’re doing every day and what I see the teams doing, it’s, you know, I’m more excited and motivated every day than I was yesterday. And that’s something I try to share with investors but it’s intangible. You can’t really describe it other than to say that’s the way René feels. Like it’s happening. And so how do you motivate employees? We always stay focused on our mission, which is helping SMBs. We are financial operations. We automate the processes, we get businesses back to what they love and you you talk to customers, you spend the time talking to customers, listening to them. That gets people motivated. You talk about how as a team, we’re growing and changing. You are transparent about that change.

Every year I pick a theme for the company. This year’s theme, when I picked it was metamorphosis. And we have a picture. I can show you here a picture of the Blue Morpho butterfly and what I love about this butterfly, so you see how beautiful that is on that side? This is the back. And so the reason, the butterfly, my interpretation of the reason the butterfly is this way is that when it’s flying in the sky is the blue, so the birds from above can’t, you know, come and get it. And when it’s on the ground it’s brown. So the birds below can’t figure out if it’s a leaf or a brown. Right? Change though, and the reason I pick the butterfly, is that change is a part of life and you have to embrace it. And so what I was going to say that one things I’ve learned and how we keep employees motivated, we acknowledge this.

So, you know, if you think back a year roughly ago, I was thinking this is going to be a big year for Bill. Could I have told you all the ways we’ve changed, all the products, all the challenges, all the opportunities? No. I just could sense that this was going to be an important year. We’d cross a billion in revenue. We’re thinking about how do we get to 10 billion? These are all things that are super important for the business. And if you don’t embrace the change and you don’t tell people, Hey, we’re going to change right now, well then yeah, they get scared. But when they understand, like we’re on this journey together, then they can embrace it and they can have fun with it too. Like it is a lot of fun to grow together. And that’s the best way to grow is to grow together with people instead of just grow individually.

Lev-Ram: Okay, well, listeners who could not see the butterfly will have to use their imagination. Blue on one side, bright blue on one side, and brown on the other, and a very visual representation of what you’re talking about.

I’ve got one more question for you, and it’s hopefully more of a fun one. You’ve been at this for a while and have learned some some lessons along the way, and I’m wondering if you have any takeaways for just how to, we’re not going to use the word balance, but just how to take care of yourself because you’re an entrepreneur, you’re a CEO, and I think a lot of your peers struggle with this. So I know you’re really into cycling. What else do you do? How do you I mean, it’s funny, your mom was like working when she basically gave birth. So, you know, what have you learned over the years about how to just take care of yourself as you’re pursuing your professional life and your company and doing all the things you need to be doing?

Lacerte: Yeah, I mean, the first thing I would say is you have to take care of yourself. And I’ll give a short metaphor story that somebody told me a long time ago. Imagine we’re at Caltech and a professor walks in and we’re all engineering students. Professor walks in with a vase and puts a bunch of big rocks in the vase. And asks the class, Is the vase full? And the class says, Yes, It’s full, professor. And then the professor adds a bunch of little pebbles and asks is it full? Yes, it’s full. Then the professor adds sand. Is it full? Yes, it’s full. Then the professor adds water. And the lesson is that if you take care of the big rocks, you can get a lot more stuff in there, right? But you have to know those big rocks.

And for me, those big rocks have been my family. I’ve always been home for dinner unless I’m traveling. I’m fortunate. Our business does not require as much travel as other entrepreneurs have to do. But, you know, maybe I’m on 15, 20 business trips a year. That’s not that much when it’s just for a couple of nights. So I’m almost always home for dinner. We always go on vacation together, and oftentimes I’m planning those vacations. A lot of times it’s outdoors. We always appreciate the sunset. You know, we have these conversations, that’s the big buckets. But if you think about that, that’s always going to be everybody is always going to say families, top bucket, right? One of the big rocks.

I don’t get to be a good father or good leader unless I’m healthy. So I exercise every day. I also don’t get to be a good father, good leader, unless my mind has good, positive energy. Well, music’s a part of that for me. So I will sit and I will listen. I’ve gotten into vinyl recently because of Cat Stevens 50th anniversary of Tea for the Tillerman. I got that for Christmas and had to get a turntable. Anyway, so it’s just fun to just sit and pause. Right? So if you do those things, what that leads to and this is what I would encourage entrepreneurs and founders to understand is, understand those rocks, because as soon as you get those in place, you got all the time in the world to do what you want with your business.

And so I do work a lot. I don’t feel bad about it. I actually am pretty excited about I have a lot of time with my family. I’m very happy with where we are as a family. Have enough time for myself and I have a lot of time for the business. It is still where I spend most of my time, but I don’t regret it anymore. And there was a a moment in, you know, I had a coach. I’ve always had a coach from before since Bill started where I talked about this this balance question. Like almost every month I would meet with him, like, I’m not having enough balance. My kids were young. And anyways, one day I walked in and I said, Hey, Richard, I figured it out. So he said what did you figure out? I figured out how to get the monkey off my back, because that’s what we call it, the monkey. So what did you do? I said I changed my definition of fun to include work. Like work is like a massive chess game to me. And I like puzzles. It’s just a massive game. So it’s like I had enough time for those big rocks. So all the regret was like, Well, other people are watching Game of Thrones. I don’t like Game of Thrones. I don’t need to watch it. I actually would rather go solve a problem for my customers and for my employees. Right? So anyways, shifting the metaphor can often help and hopefully mean less regrets. But take care of those big rocks.

Lev-Ram: And don’t watch Game of Thrones. Or whatever your thing is. Well, René, thank you so much. Really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us on the podcast.

Lacerte: You bet. Well, thank you, Michal. It’s always great to talk to you. Great questions. I enjoy the podcast. I’m glad I got a chance to be on it.

Lev-Ram: Thank you.

Murray: Leadership Next is edited by Nicole Vergara.

Michal Lev-Ram: Our executive producer is Chris Joslin.

Murray: Our theme is by Jason Snell.

Lev-Ram: Leadership Next is a production of Fortune Media.

Murray: Leadership Next episodes are produced by Fortune’s editorial team. The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Deloitte or its personnel. Nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.