It's a long, long story. How did I get here? How did I get to where I am? You know, I think it's, uh no. For me. It's a lot of it. Is is is my family. Um and a lot of it is extremely hard work. And so my story is actually really interesting, so I am not a, um I wasn't born in this country into this country as refugees. Um, I came when I was eight years old, so therefore no accent. Um, but we came with with absolutely nothing $200 $100 No English, Um, no place toe, no clothes, Nothing. Really, really nothing. And it was really thanks to goodness people God gave us clothing that helped us financially get our thanks to live in apartment three, New Jersey. Um, that set the stage huge in this country. Just way. Wanted really wanted religious freedom. We wanted, you know, freedom to be in freedom to dio we don't. Then my parents gave up every always thinking everything to come to this country. Um, so you know, I think part of part of my resilience, um, comes from my family up fruiting and coming here and nothing to lose eso It's almost easier to be more resilient when you have nothing to lose, right? Eso Yeah, I, you know, have a mother who's very domineering for whom education is the most important thing. And in our culture, if you're not an engineer or a doctor or lawyer, you're pretty much shamed. Shouldn't be anything at all. Um, so you know, she pushed me. She pushed me really, really hard, um, to to study. And my father always encouraged me Thio, you know, to find my own path and to do what I love and the mixture of the both of them, you know, the tough love from my mom being honest with me, no matter how much it hurt on. But comfort of my soft father, um gave me the opportunity to always have, you know, a a set of people that I tremendously toe always be able thio to talk to. I wouldn't get you know, any kind of nicety sandwich from my mom. She waas and is as direct as they come. And my father would always comfort me with words of advice. And, um and that was that was my upbringing that was my upbringing. I had a very small but really, um, strong group of friends who also supported May. And I think one thing throughout my, um throughout my career, I never anticipated to do this. I think the only class I ever dropped out of in college waas marketing ended up doing so much of that. I really wanted to be in theater, not in health care. Um, but I had no talent, so I would never find work on DNA. That's where the practicality of my mother came in to say, Hey, you need to find something that you will have a passion for but also, you know, be able to to find, find yourself and find your your way career wise. So I kind of chose that in between, um and through that, in between that creativity on did and healthcare opportunity, I was very lucky. Tohave mentors and my career. Um and I found them. I actually thought out from early career opportunities. I was able to find mentors within the organization, come to them, ask for their support, asked for their guidance and not just do it as a check box because I wanted Thio advance, but do it as a learning opportunity. So I'm a learner at heart. Um, I continue toe learn every single day and would would never give that up. I think that is the most vital vital thing for anyone who wants to advance is to continue toe learn, continue to be open to different perspectives to different people. Um, two different thoughts, sometimes thoughts that are completely counter to your own because it's only through those types of thoughts on experiences. Can you kind of judge and test yourself and see, um, you know and explore.

eso as the president of the company. Um, the number one thing that I need to look out for is actually I should say two things that I need to look out for our our people to make sure that they wake up everyone in loving what they dio, that they feel supported Andi, that they have a strong offering for us to be able to deliver to clients and number two on the flip side to make sure that our clients and our media partners feel the same way. Eso that is that is art kind of my number. One thing that that I handle overall is the company. Additional things, obviously that are incredibly important to our organization. Is understanding what the future of healthcare media is going to be the future of health care overall and help prepare and steer our organization towards that direction. To see how digital is impacting both health care as well as media and how the two intersect. Um, how patients seek care, how physicians seek information and ultimately bringing those two together a big part of my job also requires mentoring. It requires mentoring people within the organization. Andi also being mentored by others so that I can keep advancing myself. Financial responsibilities and accountabilities, um, also come with the job and are incredibly important to make sure that we are thriving as an organization and continue to give back. Um, innovation, obviously, is an important factor. And and all of these things, um, they make the day go by really fast.um, so you know our priorities. We we follow something, um, that we we way call. Okay, ours objectives and key results. And our priorities are set for for the year. But they do move, and they do shift andare priorities include, you know, top three are people client and growth. So those are the kind of three things that we as an organization within those top priority areas we have the key objectives that each department has we have is an organization than each department has. And it goes all the way down to individuals and how they're contributing to those key results. Um, the hours I've gotten really interesting. So with cove, it, um they've become really, really interesting as home life and and work life kind of blended, blended as one. Um, I'm a workaholic. Um, but with that, I do stress the importance to every single person on our team and their um Now we're nearing 800 number that it's important to have a work life balance. Um, it's important Thio to know when to switch off and how to switch off. That's even more important. And even though for me personally, I love what I dio I you know, tell my team that I'm like a child in a candy store. Every day I wake up and I'm not kidding you. I just love love going toe work and love love doing what I'm doing and I encourage every single person to find their their blended love like that. Um, I do work ungodly hours, but that's not because I have Thio. It's really because I I want Thio and I It's not work for me. Um, even though I I you know, I served as the president of the company leader organization. I'm a data geek at heart. I will always be a data geek. I started, you know, started at C M I. As a data geek. Eso I often will do deep dives for myself. I'll take data, you know, analyze it. I'll look at it, I hypothesize. I get great insights. It actually keeps me really close, um, to the team, to our customers and what they're trying to achieve. So I do that after hours for fun. It's You know, most most people would say like you know Hey, go watch TV. Go watch Netflix or something and you know that's that's more of a passion for May, but within within the weekly work hours. One thing that I have noticed with our team is the commute vanished and people have started toe work earlier. Um, they've also started to extend their work day, and it's it's stressful on. It's something that we really want to discourage. We want people to have their personal time. We want them to have an opportunity to breathe, to eat dinner like a normal human being, um, to go downstairs and have breakfast, even though it's really convenient to have your coffee and your breakfast right at your desk. Eso I wish I could say I was better at it, but I'm a human, so in this particular case, probably don't do what I preach.

So it's one of our biggest challenges is Actually it comes with the opportunity of growth. So people look at growing companies and say, Wow, that's amazing. They're growing. But, you know, within within growth comes immense responsibility and the biggest challenge of that growth. Especially if you are services company, which, you know, we are a technology and data company. That is, um, or a technology and data driven company fueled by incredibly amazing people s o. For us, the biggest challenge is hiring its hiring. Enough enough people. So a, by the way, if you have, you know, if you're interested in a career in healthcare media, please visit our website and see all of our job openings. Um, but that is that is our biggest challenge. It's being able to hire enough people, make sure that we're able to give them not just the appropriate training, but also the appropriate support that once the training is done, because we really do invest a lot in that that they have the hand holding needed to be able to do things differently, we bring them with experience. We bring them is entry level, and we want to make sure that when they come to us that we're building them for success in our unique ways of doing things. And that's that. That takes time. That takes investment that takes oversight. And that is that is currently our biggest challenge is bringing in enough people and then enabling them and empowering them to be ultra successful. Um, we've taken various approaches over the years to help us do that. So we've expanded our search, um, capabilities we brought in in House recruiters. We've developed an incredibly robust training. It used to be that we wanted toe only bring in people that had health care, expertise, healthcare, media expertise. We found that now we're bringing in a broader base of people were putting them through some incredible and unique training that gives them, um, the knowledge that they need and the experience that they need. We're starting to build rotational programs, um, to allow people to learn on the job. And, you know, we are definitely seeing success. I think, uh, this past year alone, we hired 213 people in this environment. You know, with Cove it it's pretty remarkable. Eso thank you to all of our recruiters that air working super hard for us. But that also means that we're interviewing this abundance of people, and that's never easy.