So it's a good question. I get asked a lot. You know what brought you to where you are today? And, you know, even even now it's It's kind of amazing to look back and see the different trajectories that got you where your are. Um, from the very beginning, Even as a young kid, I remember being fascinated by design and creativity, and that was in music or painting or anything. I was just always awestruck by even before I knew what to call it. Um, I didn't know it was designed. I didn't know it was art. I was really drawn to it. And so, um you know, early on I was fascinated with all different types. I had a teacher one time that did some self portrait's and hand illustrations, and she took me is her subject in front of my whole class. And she drew my portrait, and I was totally blown away at how realistic it turned out. And I thought, Wow, there's really something magical here. I need to do something like this. And so those little moments early on, or what kind of formed where I ended up today. But you know, once I got into toward my schooling and higher education and things like that, I realized it was designed that I wanted to get into, You know, I really loved illustration and I thought, you know, at the very least, I wanted, like, illustrate Children's books or something like that. I didn't care about the money. It wasn't about the money or anything. It was all about the creativity. And so that was really the fuel to get me started. And, you know, I turned on my first Macintosh my very first day of college. So it had been it had been a while. And, uh, you know, once I saw the avenue and the new, um, ways that computers were affecting creative in the design world. I mean, it just opened up a whole new world. So So that was really good for me, too.

cool. Yeah, this varies from creatively to created lead, and everyone has a different answer. But I think some days my job is just to be a therapist and wait, listen to people's problems that feel like, um, but now I mean, it's really about understanding the partners and the stakeholders that you work with in an organization. I think developing relationships with those people is one of the best things that I can do is a leader for my team. Once those relationships are established than you can build that trust with creative and with, you know, people's programs and the things that they're putting their name against. I need to have that trust built so that you know, they learn to know what they can expect from you and the team. They know whether or not you can deliver. All of those things are very, very important. I do have a pretty large team at work front. There's about 11 of us and they range from you know, I have a copy writing leave, and so the voice and tone of the company falls within my team. I have a video components. I've got video producers and video motion graphic artists. That's a big components. It's a huge demand on creative teams. Thes days Is this video everyone? Everyone's a little piece of it and any more so now than ever, simply because of the nature of the world. Right now, you know everything very virtual and you know those kinds of things. So and then I've got a really strong design component to So I've kind of divvied up my team in the three different buckets, and it's copied the design and video so everyone has their own kind of responsibilities there. And I think one thing that I found in dealing with creatives is that it's really important to understand their personalities. Um, most creative teams and people on my creative teams are very introverted, and they love to, like, be in their cave. They love to find their sand and their flow and you know, things like over burning them with meetings. And you know, too much stimulation with other people can really hurt that creativity. So my job is a leader is to try and create a safe place, both psychologically and creatively for my team so they can i d eight. They compare together and collaborate and really come up with the solution ing that are stakeholders on our partners that we work with need.sure that's good. Um, it's different in every organization. So I spent some time in the dhobi, and they have a really great work life balance there, and they really care about their employees. So, um, pretty good balance in that organization, I think overall, um, the balance has been good enough where it doesn't get to encumbered. You know, there's not a lot of overnighters actually wouldn't allow myself to do an overnighter and then unless it was just like a super big emergency for the company. Um, I just don't think it's smart. I don't think there's a lot of value in killing yourself to try and do something that may or may not work anyway on. So I'm very cognisant, very particular about where I put my time where I put my efforts. So, um, currently, right now, where Front has a really great work life balance, I rarely see emails past six oclock. I don't ever hear from people over the weekend generally, and so I really appreciate that, and I think that's really important to have that out. So part of that is just keeping creativity, keeping your your well being in a good place, so that you can do your job. Well, creative people that I see that get really strung out on Dover worked. Uh, it burns out, burns out really quickly. It gets really tough. So and then travel to weigh are a global organization. I do have a member of my team in Poland, and we also have an Armenian office, and we have a UK office. And so funny story of March 13th was the last day that we were told that we could be in the office, uh, this year and I was scheduled to fly to London that that next Monday on the 16. And so I was all set for that trip and it all got shut down because of a pendant breaks up. But generally I only fly about once 1/4. I would say it's not a lot of travel for me right now in other organizations has been a little bit more travel. But right now I'd say about once 1/4 it's, you know, a California trip, or maybe New York or London. Something like that

uh, when you start talking about challenges and creative, I don't know where you start. There's so many. But, um, I would say the biggest career challenge is trying to get the right information up front before working on a project, and you can align that Teoh a creative brief or whatever you want to call it. But I'm a big believer in having that documentation upfront, whether it isn't a brief or other other format or in a, um, work management application, like work front or right or whatever you're using. That information is so critical toe have up front, and because of the nature of humans and and and that hard work to get all the requirements and all the information up front, Uh, no one wants to do that hard work because it it's tough. But that, for me, is probably My biggest challenge is trying to show why that information is needed and why it's critical for us to do our solution ing um, you know, with that information