Hi, everyone. My name is Howard, she and the chief financial officer for the San Francisco Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. So most people know is as the S p c A. Um, we are, you know, 100 and 53 year old organization based on the West Coast. And so definitely not a traditional experience of being a nonprofit and kind of sticking along to the career definitely was not the case. I started my career back in 1999 in financial services in the for profit sector, and so I started off as a marketing intern working my way up through the ranks, you know, cut my teeth there for close to eight years. Learning the business, understanding it. Things were great in financial services was climbing the corporate ladder. By year eight, I was director of operations for all of Northern California. Life was and, uh, you know, as most things go as life is being great, I get a phone call and that phone call is from administration, and I have just learned that our CEO had passed away unexpectedly from a rare lung condition. It was a very sad moment and We also heard that a spouse would be taking over the organization and leading the company from that point on. So I had a choice to make right financial services, climbed the corporate ladder very long time, and that was time. This was a calling, right? Life is short on. So this was one of those things that kind of was a wake up call and said, You know what? It's time to do something that's meaningful for me something I want to dio. And so I decided to jump into the nonprofit sector. And so I found an organization here on the West Coast in California called Very Community Services, which was based in Oakland, California I was born and raised in North Oakland, California and those of you know it is a very It's a challenging place, right? Many years ago was the challenge now gentrified. Everybody wants to be here, but growing up here was it was a different story, and so, knowing that I wanted to do something here. So I found an organization, 65 year old nonprofit that was had a great mission, helping you know, homeless individuals as well as behavioral health care a swell as a senior services great mission, but they were losing significant amount of revenue every single year. They were dropping about 30 percent, and so they were looking for a chief financial officer for them to really kind of help the organization kind of get back on its feet. At that time, I decided to take on the challenge, really loved that mission and decided on that journey for the nonprofit side so fast forward, you know, 36 months later, I was able to turn that small organization and grew it about 500% and so was able to really taken organization that was struggling financially and enhance its mission and get it financially stable. So really dining, Thank you. And then, at that time, a current board member reached out to me and she happened to be on another nonprofit, which was related thio Animal Welfare. And she mentioned to me that she could really use some help in this other non profit to be able to help guide them kind of similar to what we did at this Bayer of Community services organization. So it's it. Absolutely. Let me go in, see what I could Dio. So I was able to take that same organization and then grow it threefold this belt. And so I'm like, Wow, Okay, things were good, you know, using some of these kind of core principles Thio really helped take a nonprofit to the next level are really working right along that same time I get another call and that call is from my current organization, the San Francisco S P. C. A. Again, a very similar situation. Great mission, but, you know, could use some help on the finance side. And so it was able to go in. And now I'm here today. This is my third year at the organization, and that's what brought me here. Now, you know, growing up, I always wanted to do something with animals, right? Since five years old, going to my first Seaworld and seeing Shamu the whale. I mean, I Well, I I love animals and always wanted to do something in the animal space. But growing up as an Asian American here on the West Coast, you know, being a zookeeper wasn't exactly among the list of, you know, acceptable career path according to family. And so But I'm happy that that passion has kind of, you know, completely came around. And now I'm in an industry that I absolutely love. It aligns with my strengths. And so that's why I'm here today, Definitely not your normal route.

So I think that, you know, there's a couple of transitions here. So the first big one for me was right non for profit to nonprofit, right from highly structured, you know, financial services, you know, incredibly regulated industry into a nonprofit which was struggling. And so there was a lot of lack of process. There was no clear lines of definition for roles. There was people may wearing many hats and not a really kind of defined, guided, process oriented place. And so definitely I was a fish out of water, so going in and seeing kind of not having process in place and knowing that that's how I kind of progress. Through my career, I really wanted to instill a sense of structure. And so some of my first kind of pieces was, Look, let's get in there. Let's let's help educate staff a little bit about some of the benefits of having a process and clear defined roles, and so, within a matter of months, were able to kind of get a formalized structure in place, obviously ongoing. But that was really the start to that transition in kind of where a man today, and it's similar for all the other nonprofits that I've worked with, It's, you know, you have a lot of amazing people that are so passionate about the mission. However, a lot of times they might not have maybe the technical skills or experience that maybe are necessary to be able to do those specific roles, at least at at the best level possible. And so that's definitely some of the biggest challenges.

I would have to say the first thing is always about assessment, right? There's nothing, I think, worse than someone coming into an organization, especially leader coming in and saying Oh, wait, everything is wrong. Please change it. Fix this, fix that. I think it's important. Thio, listen first and so really listening Thio What's happening with the organization understanding its people, understanding the business at its core before then applying your own experiences and a technical skills to be able to help make that recommendation. So yes, it definitely starting their Andi Um, you know, you need a lot of great individuals and let's be honest, you know, you know, people really join nonprofits a lot of time. Not exactly because they want to become wealthy, right? They join a nonprofit because they come in and they want to do something that's bigger than them. Something impactful, Yeah, and so their passion leads the way. And when When that happens, a lot of times they may not have the background experience the technical knowledge necessary. So, um, but listening to them became a really important part. Right? Is understanding who these people were and then creating a very guided structured process as well as understanding our future vision in the goal right, having a clearly defined path of where we're going and where the bus is headed. And, you know, candidly, there are some individuals that now all of a sudden, instead of not having structure suddenly having structure, people didn't like that. So there was, you know, individuals that did decide to get off the bus, and that's natural. But many decided to stay and kind of go on that course and how we got that Teoh have individuals, you know, Stay on. That course was through coaching was through mentoring. Was finding individual strengths. Being ableto really communicate and listen to each individual and be able to kind of create their own development plans that align with the organization, uh, to us to get to that next spot. So lots of listening lots of coaching to be able to get to that area