um, this is not my first start up. Um, nor is it my first idea. But I would say that the ones that came before it certainly shaped where I am today. I mean, I I used Thio. I came up through the entertainment industry and worked, um, at Miramax Films, which people used to know and love. Um, and now, you know, it's known as a place where love did not exist. S O. E was 25 when I started 24 when I started working there, um and you know, and learned a lot about what people were willing to tolerate, you know, when it came to injustice. And I let that fuel my fire when I left to start. And that agency that, you know at the time was meant thio help entertainment companies grapple with the digital transformation of their business. So, um, you know, if increasingly people were turning to the internet, which sounds very quaint in 2000 and two, um, you know, to make decisions about what movies, they should see what television shows. They should watch what music they should buy when people used to buy music. Um, and you know, It's, um, that that that worked for a while Until, um, you know, again we realized that, uh, and work to a certain extent until, like, bigger brands started wanting what it was that we were doing for them. Um, and a zai started working with bigger companies, bigger brands. Ondas, My own company started getting bigger. I started noticing that ah, lot of large organizations tended to preserve whatever problem that they were the solution for So what I mean by that is, um, that a large company in the consumer packaged goods space or the F G space, whatever anyone wants to call it, um, it could be the largest manufacturer of single use plastics, and they will spend all of their time and money selling you. You know, single use plastic water bottles when there are so many other, like, different solutions for delivering water to people, um, including your own tap water and maybe focusing on filtration and sanitation issues. Right? They built a business around the notion that what well, like people need or want fresh water, fresh water, and it needs to be moved. So let's make it in plastic on. We all know the damage that's done to the global ecosystem at the same time. Um, you know, in, for example, 2014. I was, like, 12 years into building the company were at hundreds of people. Um, you know, the race riots in Ferguson, Missouri, happened, Um, the dawn of the black lives matter movement here in United States, right? And so, like, that is, um, you know, I had we were a very diverse company. I've always been a believer that you need people from all kinds of different backgrounds in order to, you know, be able to appeal to the to the broadest number of people, right and so on. But I'm very aware of that. You know, where culture comes from and it's not from, like, white men. Okay, so So the idea is that, you know, built this diverse organization, but still, what was happening is that people would go home to different communities, right? They come all to the office, but they go home to different life experiences. But half of their life is spent in the office. So they're taking all of the things that affect them at home, bringing it back to the office and it effects camaraderie, productivity, corporate culture like all of that stuff and realized that Wow, like people really don't even understand each other. Like when you hear comments that some people are making that other people are just assumed to go along with. But it looks it doesn't sound anything like the experiences that they've had, and that creates a very, um, not only uncomfortable but unproductive work dynamic. It's not good for business. And so I spent a lot of time talking to experts like and bringing in experts and paying experts. Some, you know, some were great. Some were not about how to deal with all of that. I realized that this was not just a issue for me. It was a systemic issue, like every company deals with this. And then I started realizing this part of like in a week and a head about all of this Is that the companies that these the decisions that these companies make their employees take those decisions home with them? So when you make a decision about parental leave or about health insurance, or about like, you're not just affecting the employees that you have, your affecting their families and their friends here about the decisions that their employer made. They start asking their employer why they don't make the same kinds of decisions. And I realized that Wow, maybe the greatest opportunity for systemic change in this society can actually come from the people creating the economy as opposed to the people regulating it. The government. Right? And so and especially if you look at the rate of decision making, it's it's way faster inside of a business than it is inside of a government. So I decided, you know, that I wanted to build something that could accelerate that change, but also educate a group of people who are in a decision making power or seat inside of the organization to understand that this kind of just general awakening around societal ills, social issues, social impact, purpose, whatever you wanna call it is as disruptive to business as usual as digital was back when I started that agency in 2000 and two. So you know, and when people start thinking about it in that terms, it gets a lot more pragmatic, and you realize that there are actually things that you could do instead of just you know, to help you sleep at night, right? Like in an altruistic vibe, like it's more about, you know, again, like doing what's best for the company and what's best for the company can also align with what's best for society. You just have to make it so and indeed people again in decision making seats who understand that. And it may not be the people who are currently there today. So that means succession planning, right? It means, like making sure that, you know the leaders of today can replace themselves with the leaders of tomorrow or fear getting replaced. And sometimes it's fear that gets you to get out of that seat and actually do something, and hopefully again, that's all part of what we're building inside of this organization. This company that I started called kindred, which is literally meant to build the gap, the bridge, the gap between intent and action, ATTN. Companies around the world, Starting with the leaders who make those decisions on DSO, we basically built, you know, ah support Network A a education platform on bond, a research and content suite of research and content tools to empower these leaders to make decisions that are not only better for their companies, but better for society. And hopefully that could be again like a fly wheel that spins, Um, And as we get bigger Mawr Mawr decision makers, you know, get enlightened on bmore. Great decisions, or at least better decisions, get made for the benefit of both again business and society.

So, um, I would basically say, like a Sfar as an elevator pitch goes, um, you know that again. The radical transparency, you know, for business has had a very disruptive impact on the way that they go about their business. Andi, they may not have think for a while companies were setting the ground rules for what was transparent and what they could be transparent about what they couldn't be. All bets are off now, right? Everyone is an amateur sleuth can dig into. You know how much palm oil a company is using or, you know, the diversity makeup of their board. It's all out there. Um, so basically, what we do is we are the exoskeleton that fits around and executive toe. Help them be better prepared for what's coming, but also better prepared to deal with what's been happening inside of their organization for the last 20 to 50 years, right? Which is just again like this, this, um uh, like a pressure cooker of sorts. You know that again, because companies air really reflections on on society and in somebody's vice versa. On dso we are building a better generation of executives by exposing them again to the getting out, getting them out of their bubble and exposing them to each other. Toe experts who know how to address a lot of these things and, um can give them perspectives that exist outside their bubbles. Um, and then also access to the tools, information and research they need to help make their, um, you know, decisions easier, um, or, you know, show them that their decisions that they should be making that they haven't even considered yet on dso in that in that regard, it is a professional network for leaders. Um, you know who are committed to bring systemic change, you know, through their organization.

the first few weeks I started building kindred. Um, we were building it. This started in late 2000 and 18 and I was building kindred to be a 3000 person conference about business transformation seen through the lens of social impact. Cross industry again, like bringing 3000 people together. Um, you know, from both for profits and nonprofits, um, aiming to basically reboot davos right in the World Economic Forum around, um, or, like, diversity inclusive group of people. Um, turns out that bring 3000 people together is a very 2019 idea. Um and so we we postponed the event that was supposed to happen in May of 2020 to September of this year. Um, and it should have happened two weeks ago. So back in May, early June, once we did postpone it to September, also started to realize that you know what? September is probably not going to be able to happen either because of Kobe. So not just because of cove, it because of the like, you know, the travel and entertainment budgets of all the companies who are just, you know, again homebound, not office bound. So we decided to pivot the business significantly into a membership network. Um, it was always part of the plan. I had raised money in January of this year of 2020 really under the wire, but raised money for the event. But knowing that the this network idea was going to be the community extension of that event, which all good events, all good content businesses have community at the core. So that was always phase two. Um, it just turned out that phase one couldn't happen at all. So we wound up sleeping right to phase two, obviously having to build it slightly differently. But honestly, over the last three months have been a massive pivot in the organization. We basically built an entirely new company, Um, in the last three months and of taking it to market over the last seven weeks. Onda have you know, 100 now you know, paying customers. Andi, it's a Herculean effort, and my team is honestly, like the best in the world as far as I'm concerned. But I did that with five people. So, um, it is it's a lesson for me in being lean, being efficient, but also not abandoning my values through it all because you could make five people feel like you've got 10 people working for you. But then they wouldn't be sleeping at night, and they, you know, and you talk about them taking their work home. But their home is work now, and their work is at home and some of the kids yet know about So it's just, um, like, what an incredible learning experience. I don't know if even these lessons are applicable until, like, the next pandemic, I forbid. I don't know, but I've learned that you could do a lot with very little, Um, and even though we did raise money, we barely even honestly, like we barely even used any of it on DNA. Now have this company in a position to actually be profitable from almost day one. Ondas just It's just gonna like again. You don't need to lose money in order to grow. Um, you know, and I think again like you don't need thio, abandon your values in order to succeed