uh, you know, my story is, grew up in Southern California. Went to college in the States on the East Coast, and my first job out of college, which was on campus recruiting, was an investment banking, uh, in the late 19 nineties, so that dates myself. But that was really the start of the career. Um uh, in finance. And, um, I was very important decision because, you know, one led to the next professional opportunity leads to the next to the next. Um, also helped, uh, help to learn what you would want to be doing and not doing, which is a good takeaways for many. Job, eh? So I started in investment banking and technology, which led me to my next job, which was in technology investing. So many of our clients in investment banking were technology companies and that were invested in by venture capital firms. Um and and I would say, just, you know, really formative first few years, learning the industry once again, learning what I enjoy doing and not enjoy doing, Aziz said, each also being mentored a big part of it early on, and eso those were my first two jobs. And that's everything else since followed naturally from one to the other

the the the As the saying goes, It's like drinking from the fire host. So if it's roles like strategy consulting, um, you know generally have very robust training programs right there fundamentally in the people business. And as they say, all the assets of these firms walking out of the doors every day. It's the people not, you know, capital equipment or manufacturing lines. It's all the brains of humans on DSO. I would say the first few weeks in a role like that, just consuming an incredible amount of information. But you know, also incredibly inspiring because you're also surrounded by a bunch of other you, like, you know, smart, driven, hardworking folks on DSO the first few weeks was just trying to take it all in. Uh, it's also the first time you know. Now I think more and more folks they're doing internships in the summers, whether it's high school or secondary school, university, college. But it's really that first time where you are no longer a student, you are now full fledged in the workforce and so it's kind of that that changed mentality of going to classes and taking exams, Thio learning and, um, on starting to produce for business outcomethe months to come. Aziz, you are really understanding the mechanics of the business. As you're kind of understanding the lingo on the terminology and the acronyms, you get more and more comfortable also understanding how toe work in in working groups and also starting to get up to speed and conversing and, you know, in our office structure and, uh, you know, reporting chains and, um on dare I say politics, Aziz. Well, depending on the size of the firm that you may find yourself at all of those things air in existence to varying degrees. Ah!

today which to pick up on my background, as I mentioned, you know, work in banking and venture capital investing and then in corporate development, uh, which is, you know, working for larger companies, helping them think through strategy. And as that strategy may involve acquisitions of smaller companies as well. Um, and that led me to Silicon Foundry, which, uh, just to share our business. We consult with large, largely Fortune 2000 companies helping them navigate the startup ecosystem. So you see all of these, these household name household brand companies recognizing the innovation so much of it nowadays is coming externally from startups and these companies, these Fortune 2000 around the world, every different industry. But there's no industry left, you know, un impacted. Today on day, we're all trying to understand there's so much noise and so much activity of startups from around the world. Whether we're talking Silicon Valley, New York, London, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Bangalore, Shanghai, you name it. So what my firm does today is we help those large companies navigate through all that noise and figure out. Here's what's happening relevant for you. And here are the emerging companies here. The startups that you should be engaging as a big company either because you should use their service platform product solution in your shopping mall, at your retail bank branch in your mining operations and your telecommunications network on DSO. That's the profile of our companies. Um, the kind of projects that we handle really fit within that. So here's all this noise. There's 500 companies, emerging companies and 20 incumbents existing larger companies all have solution to try and solve. Whatever is the problem or the need you have on our job is to whittle that down and say, Yes, there's 500 startups, but here's the five that really matter and here, and you should be talking to them and engaging them again. Because either you should be a partner. You should be a customer of them or a partner. Or in some cases, these large corporations are looking to make strategic investments to complement, working with the company's stay and day out or acquisitions. So the kind of projects we handle is I didn't you know, insights and intelligence recommendations on how to engage making those targeted introductions on Ben helping facilitate wherever those conversations can and should and will lead Thio. Uh, we on the consulting side way impact strategy. So rather than being strategy consultants in the classic sense of the term, we influence strategy by the insects and intelligence we bring to the table right now and especially as a sui stand here in the fall of 2020 a z, we continue to be knee deep and cove it for all of us globally. You know this idea? Businesses are transforming faster than ever by necessity things idea of digital transformation on dso What we do in the projects that we handle are bringing the specific solutions to make that transformed transformation happen explicitly happen. Not conceptually on. Everyone knows we need Thio innovate the manufacturing line. We'll hear the 10 solutions that actually achieve that, um, the skills needed for our type of work. Um, you need to be able to synthesize. And I'd say this is probably true of the vast majority of consulting need to be able to synthesize large amounts of information. Right, That kind of goes back to that. That metaphor of, you know, navigating the noise. There's tons of noise out there. Lots of information out there But how do you synthesize to the the core elements thio those that are, uh, most important takeaways to then take action on, um, for our work, you need to also be able to diligence companies. And that means if you see 500 companies having that skill set of, Well, how do you narrow it down to? These are the five that you you know, Fortune 2000 companies should bet on, should work with, should invest in, should adopt their solutions. Um and so that kind of synthesis, the filtering and the ability to pick apart a company and say, Well, is this a good company, Great company or a week company? Um, I would say on Certainly this is a universal trait. Your skill that's needed is Thio communications, right. Articulate, be articulated and delivery of your synthesis and your recommendations and why s so I think, you know, again stating the very obvious, but, uh, in any role. And it's it's certainly something that you you it's a skill set to be built. It's a skill set. Thio also learn through osmosis and mentorship and seeing how the senior folks at a firm or a company do it. But that communication you can have incredible work done. But if you can't communicate it the right way, you know it falls flat, right?