The #1 Rule for Any Leader: Be the Last to Talk

Sean Weisbrot: Deborah Rosati is the founder and CEO of women get on board a social purpose company that connects, promotes, and empowers women to be on corporate boards. She is also the chairman of the Board of Directors of Profound Impact Corporation, which has an AI powered tool that helps academic and industry researchers find the perfect funding match. I was introduced by Deborah, uh, because of a recent interview I did with Sherry Shannon Vanstone, where we had talked about her time working for the NSA as a cryptographer as well as helping. Uh, the company that created the encryption algorithm that eventually sold to research in motion's Blackberry product. So, when Deborah was introduced to me by Sherry, I was very happy to get to know her. Spent a lot of time talking with her before we did our interview and agreed that we would talk about women and governance. So, in this episode, we talked a little bit about women. In business, but we focused a lot on governance and part of it was what's the difference between how men and women govern their board of directors and how they govern their companies. And a lot more on how you as a founder can get the best of your board, or, um, if you're on a board of directors, how you can be the best director or the best chairperson possible. This was a very interesting conversation, despite being brief. And I know that you'll love Deborah. She's a fantastic person, very inspirational and has a wealth of experience that I know I'll be able to learn from her over and over again as time goes on. So, I enjoyed this conversation with her, and I know you will too. So, let's get to the show. Deborah, you have worked with someone. I recently interviewed Sherry Shannon Vanstone. She was a very interesting person and she spoke very highly of you. She talked about your work in governance boards and fueling women's passion for business and investing in them, and so I knew that I needed to talk with you. Where does the passion for all of this lie?

Deborah Rosati: Well, it started as a young child. Uh, I wanted to be a businessman, just like my father. He went out to work every day. He seemed really important. He was involved in community, and I just loved business. Bus, bus and I, so I went to school. I, you know, studied to become a chartered accountant. I did my business degree, and it's been 40 years plus that I've been in business, doing businesses, advising businesses, investing in businesses. It's all about business.

Sean Weisbrot: Well, you look great for 40 years in, in the doing business. I hope I can too. Kind. Too kind. I hope I can look good at that age. Um, cause I know stress for me has caused me to get a bunch of gray. You may not be able to see it, but I've got it for sure when I get my hair cut. Well, you need

Deborah Rosati: a good colorist. You need a good colorist to, to wash that gray right out. I

Sean Weisbrot: have never colored my hair and, but all I know is when I get my hair cut, half the hair that comes out is gray. Okay, so it's not a good start, not even being 40 yet. So, I'm glad that you had a role model, someone to look up to, like your father. Did you ever get a chance to work with him or to go to work with him or see actually what he did? Or did you just have this idea of like, he's important or he seems important and that was like enough for you, that image?

Deborah Rosati: No, there was a decade starting as, uh, delivering papers. My dad was in the newspaper business, so 10. When I was 10, I was a carrier girl, not a carrier boy. Um, and then I loved on Saturdays going into my dad's office, you know, if he had to do, if I had to do some filing or whatever it was, I was going in with my dad. Um. Part-time jobs throughout, uh, right into university. My dad would always find work for me and I worked for him probably just part-time in different capacities. Um, everything from type, doing the 40 race tracks to running circulation ads to, so for about a decade, uh, I worked with, with my dad for my dad. Um, in that period, that very formative, formative years for myself.

Sean Weisbrot: So, I did something similar with my dad when I was in high school and college, but I never did. I had a desire to start my own business because of that experience, because he was a dentist. So, I also got to see the downsides of it, which were, the insurance companies suck. The, the patients didn't wanna pay. The employee didn't really listen very well at times because he was a great dentist, but not a great business owner. He didn't like conflict and so he struggled to have control over. Everything. And when you're doing a profession, you don't have time to run a business. So, there's a lot of complications and I got to see all of that and go, wow, running a business looks like it sucks. I don't really wanna be a part of that. And I've ended up in it anyways. But at least when I was younger, I got a sense of, of the pluses and the minuses of it all. So. At what point did you realize that you wanted to focus on helping women specifically?

Deborah Rosati: Well, for me, throughout my career, and I started relatively young, my first tax season, I was 19 years old, and it was all men in the accounting profession, my bosses, my managers. I had no female role models, and pretty much that was throughout till. Probably my late thirties, even to early forties, where, where I worked and who my colleagues were and who my bosses were, were all men. And so, as a professional, I never thought I, I'm a woman. I have to be treated differently. I just have to make sure I show up and do good work and work hard. So really it probably started for me in my, about mid-forties when I was showing up and there wasn't enough women in technology. So, I was on the board of the Canadian Association of Technology Alliance and I joined this board 35-member board, and there was only three women and I, and the chair of the board and the CEO said, okay, you, you are going to work with. This organization called Springboard, but we want you to advance more women in technology. And this was 2003, 2004. I'm like, sure, I'm in. And through that, just that realizing that women need more empowerment, women need more role models, women need support. Um, so I was able to create what we call the Women in Technology Forum through ad. And then from there, I was also advancing my career in governance. I was serving on boards by then, and I, there was not enough women in the boardroom either, so I became, I joined a, a board of an organization called Women in the Lead, and their objective was to advance more women into boardrooms. And so then through time it, it's just evolved. I like it, I. Sort of go, okay, there's a gap. I'm gonna fill the gap. I'm gonna create my own company, which is women get on board and I gotta create a platform to connect, promote and empower women to corporate boards. But they always sort of intuitively came to me because I'm like, well, people are doing things out there, but it's not enough. How can I be an agent of change? And even more recently, I, I am very fortunate, uh, you referenced Sherry Shannon Vanstone. Uh, she, um, is a longtime friend, a colleague. We've co-invested together. We've worked on projects together and her latest, uh, venture, which is, uh, profound impact. She was turning to me for some advice about creating an advisory board. She was going through a financing and my, I love talking about financing. I love talking about business. I loved the work that she was doing. And then next thing you know, it was like, well, why don't you come on the board? And by the way, can you chair the board? And I never, it was never, it was one of those evolutions. But what was so unique about that moment in time, which is 2023, this year was the first time that I joined a board inaugural board where there's only three on the board and there's three women, and it's about the power of three, two. We've just closed a financing and Cherry probably, and it was a women led, so women led, uh, company, profound impact. And the financing was women led. It was predominantly women that invested. And through this period, it's like. First time I got this power of three, uh, three women on the board and then a financing that was, um, funded by predominantly women. And, and so it's just really unique to be in that place and also, um, be able to do good work by showing up. Not because, hey, you're a woman, let's create an all-woman board. It was because you have the skills, the knowledge. And the passion to move it forward.

Sean Weisbrot: What's it like or what's the difference between working with male founders or male board members versus female founders or female board members, and is there a difference at all?

Deborah Rosati: Uh, well, predominantly up till this year, most of the boards I was on, it was typically a chair, a male. The CEO, the founders. So, I come from being in that environment to, this is the first of, of its kind and hope many for me going forward and for generations come up coming. That'll just be the norm for me. I, I would say women by virtue, and I don't want to, I have two amazing sons that are adults and I don't want to characterize that all men are one way and all women or another way. And if you haven't seen the Barbie movie, definitely go see it and come back to that one. Uh, I would say women by virtue, I think have more eq, that just that sensitivity understanding, having more empathy and awareness of others. At least that's how I'm showing up and not all women. Um, necessarily do, but I think more do I think we have more nurturing, that more collaborative approach to, uh, showing up in the work that we do.

Sean Weisbrot: There was a study that I saw of, uh, done, I think it was done by the Australian Stock Exchange, or it was done by someone, and their focus was the A SX. I'm not quite sure. It was a while ago that I read it, but they studied the companies on the exchange over a five-year period. And they found that the ones that had c uh, female CEOs returned 50% more profit over that timeframe than their male counterparts.

Deborah Rosati: And, and what would you attribute, what did the study say? Was there a, a, a particular style approach that gave that those female CEOs? Um, a better I, I guess outcome. Like was there, was it attributed to style? Knowledge, expertise. Did they, through that finding, have there anything that came out of that?

Sean Weisbrot: No, but no. My assumption is it's because women are more collaborative and where men are more like, more like, this is my vision, let's go. Let's do it. Where women are like, yeah, but like what do you think about this? Right? I wanna make sure that you are on board with my vision and the guy's like, this is my vision. Let's go.

Deborah Rosati: So, yeah, so the collaboration and what I would say, however, there's an offset to it to be too collaborative and never come to an informed decision, right? So Sure. We run, um, through women get on board, we do a chairs forum and we have about 10 women. Um, we get together once a quarter and it's more an interactive, facilitative conversation about it. You know, you are a chair of a board. How are you facilitating decisions? How are you having conversations? And I always say in the boardroom, there's three, um. Three different time periods within a boardroom. There's the pre-meeting, so I’m getting ready for the meeting. You can have conversations before the actual board meeting. There's a board meeting to have conversations then, and then there's after the board, um, meeting to say, Hey, you know, Sean, I noticed that you were a little tired. Is everything okay? Uh, this is like after, um, as an example, or Sean, I saw that you were really, um, adamant about this particular topic and maybe people didn't hear you well, your voice wasn't heard. Um, how can I help you? How can I support you? So, I feel like as women, and I've seen this, where sometimes people just show up and their voice is only in the boardroom, in the board meeting. And I find from a leadership style, and I have been there where I can get sometimes the best conversations outside the boardroom.

Sean Weisbrot: Hmm. I feel like a male chairman would probably not think like, if someone doesn't, you know, participate, maybe they just didn't feel like participating, you know?

Deborah Rosati: But I think that to, to be an effective chair and to be an effective leader. You have to look around the room and notice maybe Sean's always talking and maybe it's a conversation. Sorry, just cause we're talking, I'm using your name. But that could be an example or, you know, there's this one element, um, and women, you know, you hear about it is speak up and make sure your voice is heard. And if you're very cognizant that that particular voice isn't being heard. As a chair, as a leader, you can call them out and not call them out, but just say, Hey, we haven't heard from you, Sean, do you have some comments? And, and that's a real skill to do that. Um, and I can tell you with this, women get on board chairs forum that we have, the women are learning from each other. They, they go in, they've got style, they know how to facilitate conversation, and it's so powerful to learn from each other, to, to, to, to, to, to share and, and they want to share with each other. It's peer to peer, right?

Sean Weisbrot: Mm-hmm. It's, it's interesting advice. There's this, uh, board game I play that, it made me think of it when you were talking about that, and, uh, excuse the name. It's called Secret Hitler. And the goal of the game is you're, you're either on a team of liberals or a team of fascists. If you're a, a liberal, your goal is to identify who Hitler is and kill them at the right time, or, or to pass five liberal laws. If you're a fascist, your goal is to protect Hitler and eventually elect Hitler as chancellor during the right period of time in the game and make the liberals think that you're a liberal. So, it's a lot of intrigue and manipulation. And the interesting thing is when new people go to play, we try to train them to go, look, if you're liberal, be honest. If you're a fascist, say whatever you want, but just make it seem as if you're honest, right? Maybe it's not a great allegory or, or great for compared to the boardroom, but what's interesting is the path that I chose with this game to play was when I'm a liberal, to be vocal and to call out the fascists what ends up happening. Is that oftentimes my partners, the liberals, I don't know who they are, I have to figure out who they are. They tend to think I'm a fascist, which means they don't wanna work with me because they don't trust me. And when I'm a fascist, I don't really say too much because I already know everything that's going on. cause when you're a fascist, you know who everybody is before the game starts. That's one of the differences between the two. So, I feel as if I were liberal to. Ask people what they thought more rather than insinuate my own understanding of the game that maybe they will learn to trust me and wanna work with me and let me know more. Are you a fascist or a liberal Since, I don't know. So, it's, it’s an interesting, strange, perpendicular kind of an argument, but, um, but still something I heard, nonetheless.

Deborah Rosati: Well, maybe I could follow up on that, uh, in sort of how, you know, you would bring that to a boardroom is. Um, so you go in and you're a new board member, let's say, okay, you're new and you don't know the existing relationships, you don't know the past history, but you're coming in and you're like, oh, okay. Why, why are those two? You know? And so, I think that there's this element of getting to know, just to, to build that trust. You can't just show up on, on your first meeting and go, Hey, trust me. Right? You've gotta build that trust. And so. There are a few different ways. One they'll say is, you know, make sure you're getting to know each other to your respective board members, your colleagues, um, not just in the boardroom, outside the boardroom. So having a coffee, you know, a virtual chat with 'em, you know, meeting them for a drink or going out for dinner. Like making sure that you get to know who they are as a person, because then you can be very effective. cause at the end of the day. I always say that being on board is a team sport, right? You're not making the decision for yourself. You're making it in the best interests of the company or the stakeholders. So, to me, getting to know each other and knowing their styles, but they always say one tip for a chair of a board is to be last to talk.

Sean Weisbrot: Hey, just gimme 10 seconds of your time. I really appreciate you listening to the episode so far, and I hope you're loving it. And if you are, I would love to ask you to subscribe to the channel because what we do is a lot of we're, and every week we you a new guest and a new story. And what we do requires so much love that we can bring you something amazing. And every week we try really hard to get better guests. That have better stories and improve our ability to tell their stories. So, your subscription lets the algorithm know that what we're doing is fantastic and has no commitment. It's free to do. And if you don't like what we're doing later on, you can always unsubscribe. And either way, we would love a, like if you don't feel like subscribing at this time. Thank you very much and we'll take you back to the show now. Hmm. Why is that?

Deborah Rosati: Because you don't want to sit, so if you're trying to get dialogue going and you start off with how you feel about it, you kind of, people look to you, you default and they're like, oh, if the chair's thinking that, you know, maybe I shouldn't comment. So, your job as a chair or as a leader is to facilitate conversations, but if you put your bias in there. It may shut down the conversation. So, they always say, as a chair, the best thing to do is to go last in your in, in how your viewpoint is.

Sean Weisbrot: I was taught that as a leader, and maybe I'm wrong, so that's why I'm saying it out loud. I was taught as a leader to have an opinion and that opinion should be firm, but then to elicit from other people what they think and be open to changing your opinion. So how, how do you do that? So, you just like hold onto your opinion. You just go, look, I know what I want. And then, but just don't keep, just keep it to yourself in the beginning.

Deborah Rosati: Well, I think I, I think you, there's no, it's not a hard, fast rule. It's not okay. Be the last to speak always, but you might lead the conversation, say, Hey, we've got a challenging, um, issue to get through. Um, I know everyone's coming with their opinions and their views. Um, and, and you could start off and go, Hey, you know what? I, I think that we're not gonna, you may even prejudice and go, I don't think we're gonna come to a decision in this meeting, but let's start the conversation. Right? So right away you're saying, oh, we won't have enough time. If, you know, uh, two, you could go, okay, I know that, um, we're gonna have this conversation. We've had these conversations, I've. I've spoken to the, you know, our stakeholders, I've spoken to the CEO. Here's what I'm thinking at this time, but I'm gonna open it up to discussion cause I wanna hear from you. I wanna be open. So, I'm not saying it's one way or the other, but there's different ways you can get into that, right? And so, you wanna set the stage first. You wanna set the stage, you want it to be open and collaborative. Um, and if you think that your view is really critical to maybe give context so. I would've given context that, listen, we've spoken to the government, we've spoken to the stakeholders, spoken to the CEO, here's kind of what, what I'm hearing. Um, but I wanna hear from you as well.

Sean Weisbrot: So, when do you decide, or, how do you decide which of those two approaches to take and are? Is there a third approach or fourth approach as well?

Deborah Rosati: Uh, there's a multitude of, uh, approaches. Uh, so. First of all, agenda setting. So, you know, as chair of the board, I don't wanna get into all governance, but we seem to be in that conversation. If as chair of the board, you're setting the agenda with typically the corporate secretary, general counsel, and also, uh, the CE, you're like, okay, what do we wanna cover? What do we want? What are the decisions? What are the information pieces? What do we want? I always kind of go in, what do we want out of this board? What do we want out of this meeting? And that agenda setting is really, really important. So, if you've got a topic that's gonna be contentious or you need a certain, you wanna make sure you're allocating the time, right? And if you don't allocate enough time, that's also people will get annoyed. It's like, wait a sec, we didn't have enough time and now you're calling it for, we gotta make a decision. So, I guess it really depends on the issue, the scope, um, the history, the players at the table. Uh, and, and that's a lot of eq. I would say there's the IQ because you need to know, you have to be knowledgeable about it, but it's how to facilitate it and when to show up with your viewpoint, but not to dissuade anyone else's conversation.

Sean Weisbrot: Definitely a lot of factors to consider.

Deborah Rosati: I, you know, that's 40 years, you know, I'd like to put it in one, one easy tip, but I think it's really knowing. When to speak and when not to speak.

Sean Weisbrot: So, there's this understanding that the board should have a quarterly meeting. Is that mandatory?

Deborah Rosati: So, so first of all, if you're a publicly listed company, you have quarterly financials, you, and they have to be approved by the board before those financial results, press release goes out. So, by minimum, you minimum you have to have a quarterly meeting because the committee meets, and then the committee has to make recommendation and the board has to make that final approval. And it's in the mandates of, of any of the committee work. Uh, the board has a mandate or a charter. So, if you're a public company, quarterly is a minimum, right? It is a minimum. But you have this kind of, I call those the perfunctory uh, responsibilities where you have to approve these financial statements, but you should always be having conversations on strategy. And so. It is good discipline. If you're in business, you should be reviewing your, your financials. You should be looking at how do we perform, where are we going? So as a minimum, whether you're a private company, public company, a not-for-profit, a public sector, uh, organization, uh, you should as a minimum be doing, having quarterly meetings. Now, there's gonna be a multitude of different areas and challenges if you're in the middle of a transaction. I've been, uh, where you formed a special committee because of a transaction, if it's an m and a, um, it can, those, that, that activity and that work is pretty, uh, timely, time sensitive and you really gotta lean in. So, typically. The, the board would form a special committee. The special committee would have a mandate to review, evaluate this transaction, et cetera. Um, and that goes way beyond a quarterly meeting, right? So, um, it's not hard fast rules, but so minimum quarterly, uh, then you usually have a strategy, one- or two-day strategy session. Uh, there could be information sessions. Uh, just think about it, if you think that there's two 2000 hours. In a year, give or take, you know, that's assuming a 37-and-a-half-hour work week, but you as management, you're working two, 2000 to 3000 hours. Um, a year. A board on average is probably putting in 200 to 300 hours of, for that particular company. That's less than 10% of what you manage. So, if you think about it, there's this huge information gap between what management knows and does. And what the board does. So, in order to be effective and make those informed decisions, you have to understand the issues and the challenges and the opportunities that companies facing. So quarterly is minimum.

Sean Weisbrot: So, if there's such a large gap in information, how do you help the board members know what they need to know in that kind of timeframe?

Deborah Rosati: Well, it depends on the cycle and where you are in your fiscal year, but I would say, you know. Good practice, good governance practice is definitely that, uh, the board should be weighing in providing input on the strategy and where the company or organization is going, and that you just don't show up in a meeting. There's a lot of pre-meetings. There's pre, there's materials you have to read, there's ongoing discussion. Um, you, you wanna make sure that there's enough discussion around. Opportunities and challenges that that company is facing. So, you, you've gotta, you gotta assess it, um, based on, or it could be that you're going through, uh, a transformation or a restructuring, um, and some and or a new CEO. So, you've got a forming committee. So, there's all these difference, um. Times within a company's growth to where you've gotta lean in more based on situation. CEO, you gotta fire the CEO, you gotta replace the CEO. That's a, that's a heavy lean in period. You've going through a special investigation, there is a special investigation going on, and that you don't want it to show up on headlines. So, you've gotta deal with crisis communication. Um, you're going, you're in a transaction that's not public, so you gotta keep. So there, there's, I always say that you, when you join a board yeah, there's the perfunctory corporate calendar and you know when your meetings are. It's all the other things that you've gotta be prepared for.

Sean Weisbrot: What are the reasons that someone would join a board beyond just investing and having a specific amount of equity?

Deborah Rosati: That's probably not the right reason to join a board, to be honest. Uh, because if you depend on your stake, I don't. You know, if you're an investor, I've been in venture capital and we would invest in a portfolio company, we would have a seat at the table because it, it would be in the shareholders' agreement because of the sizable investment we would make. But you know, if you are, um, a company and you have, uh, um, angel investors coming in, not all of them can go on your board. Right? That would be unruly to manage. So. And also you're conflicted. There were times when I was in venture capital where we'd be making investment decisions, but I'd be conflicted as the board member representing the fund on certain decisions because you know, I, you know, let's say we put in a million dollars and the next round, because of circumstances was gonna be a down round and the valuation was down. I think we might, as, from an investment perspective, what was good for the company might not have been good for the fund. And so, there's conflicts there. And I think what's important and, and then there's independence issues, right? So, if you've got your money and you're not necessarily independent to some of those decisions. So, I always, to me, when I'm thinking about in an ideal world, when you're setting up a board or creating a board. Or adding to the board independence is so, so important. And so, you just wanna make sure that you've got enough independence, like true independent, independent minded, independent financial, um, you know, conflicts. So, it, it's important. Um, and you asked, I think the question, if I go back to the question is, why would someone want to join a board? Was that, that was the question. It could be for many reasons. So, if it's not-for-profit. And you know, somebody in your family, um, you know, has disabilities or you love animals. So, whatever the cause is, you might get behind that board because you believe in the cause, you believe in the higher purpose and you believe I wanna get back. So that could be the reason. Uh, if it was a corporate board, it could be you really love the industry. You know, you've got the knowledge, you've got the skills. And I'll use myself as an example. I spent 20 plus years in the tech sector in Ottawa. So, for me, my first board opportunities, and I was a CFO of an early-stage technology company and took it from ground zero to an exit, a very successful exit. I had that in the trenches experience. And so, the first boards that I ended up serving on were early-stage technology companies because. I'd been there, I had done it. Then my board journey evolved to public companies, different industries. So, but for me, what I love is you, you have to get your, first of all, the most important thing is when you do join a board, it is that you're not there to manage day to day. And that transition in that shift is so, so important. And if you wanna be an operator, then uh, it'll be challenging for you to be on board and be independent minded. cause you wanna go do management's job. And as a board member, you have an oversight and there's a saying that is nose and fingers out.

Sean Weisbrot: So, you're saying it's difficult to be an executive and be a member of the board.

Deborah Rosati: So typically, you usually have the CEO. So, in the case of profound impact, Sherry's, you know, significant funder. She is the CEO. But what she wanted to do was she didn't wanna be the chair and the CEO, so she asked. Would I consider being the chair? And that's good practice to have that independent chair to seal. So, you're inevitably gonna have at least one member of the executive team on board. Um, now if you're an executive for a company and you are serving on another board, you wanna make sure there's no conflicts. And it could be great, um, to have this knowledge of another industry. Uh, so it, I guess it really depends on stage of where you are in your career. What your motivations are and really more importantly, that you have the time to commit to it.

Sean Weisbrot: You mentioned, um, being a CFO, random side question for you. Totally off topic, potentially. I, I've spoken to OA few other CFOs in the past and asked them kind of what their roles were and, and how they saw themselves and all that. Recently I've become curious about cost optimization. Is that something that A CFO would do?

Deborah Rosati: Absolutely. cause if you're not doing it, you're not doing your job.

Sean Weisbrot: Okay. So, you would look deep into, like for example, you'd go through the last 12 months expenses and go, this was unnecessary. We need to make sure that doesn't happen again. Like do you go that deep? Or,

Deborah Rosati: well, what you would do is you have a budget. You, you're going into the year with a budget, okay? And let's say you’re operating, uh, expenses are gonna be $2 million. Okay? But you know your, but you also know you wanna expand. You want to make some investment. And if it's outside that like you're managing to the budget, but there's circumstances, so you're not gonna go, you're not gonna go, Hey, you had too many coffees. I, I noticed a line item on coffee. There's a lot of coffee. Or, oh, you, I saw a lot of drinking going on in that dinner. Um, if, you know, you make the commitment, you have an operating plan that you're working towards, things change throughout the year. You're looking at, there's always, there's a material guideline, right? It's like, is it material enough? Is it. 10 to 20% overspend. Well then maybe you would, maybe there's an area that you would drill down into, um, when you know your numbers, like I'm a numbers girl, so when you know your numbers, you're like, I can, I can spot, I can literally look at financials. Something will stick out because it's not consistent or it's con consistently over or under their, the, those are variances. So, when you asked the question, I noticed our spend in this area. It is a lot higher cause you'll do comparatives, right? Higher. So, and then if you know you're running out of funding, you're gonna say, well wait a sec, we're not even gonna get to the next 12 months. In this current state of spending and current plan we have, we may have to do, we may have to do some cost restructuring. So, it really depends on what growth and what stage you are in. If you're in high growth, do you have the investment to support that growth? Two, if you're. Don't have the investment, then maybe you're in a restructure. So, optimization should always be key.

Sean Weisbrot: So, is there anything we haven't really touched upon yet that you'd like to?

Deborah Rosati: I would say, you know, like anything you do in life, I think you have to show up with passion and you have to be really driven by purpose. And I say that my creating women get on board is a social purpose company. I'm passionate every day. The work I do to get more women on boards. And so that's what drives me. And I think for anyone that's in business, anyone that's investing, you know, you have to have a purpose and, but not only the purpose, but you have to have passion in what you do.

Sean Weisbrot: So, would you say that's the most important thing you've learned or is there something else that you think is more important than that?

Deborah Rosati: You have to earn that trust. Um, so building trust and really building relationships that are meaningful and impactful, make, make the world of difference.