EmpowHER Women in Leadership Series | Part IV

Also, if you have a question for me or anyone else on the panel, please submit your question in the q and a box on your screen. So I'd love to introduce our panelists here with us today. I mentioned Charly, who is the CEO of Eisner Advisory Group. We also have Cindy Fuller, who is a tax partner with EisnerAmper Yan Zang is a Partner in our professional practice group, and Natalie McVay is a managing director in the Center for Individual and Organizational Performance. So with that, Charly, I'm going to have you kick us off. Charly, you embody the spirit of hospitality as you build relationships throughout your professional services network. One of the individuals who's influenced you, Danny Meyer said, always be connecting the dots. So what does this mean for you in a leader in our space?

Charly Weinstein: Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. And first, let me just thank you for inviting me to join the discussion today. I'm really excited to be with such a wonderful group of people and excited to share my thoughts around networking and whatever else may come up. So you mentioned Danny Meyer. Perhaps if I give a little bit of background on Danny Meyer, it might set the table, so to speak. And Danny Meyer is a very famous restaurateur. He's based in New York City. He runs something called the Union Square Hospitality Group, and he is also the founder of Shake Shack, which has become ubiquitous in many airports and cities across the world. Shake Shack is a public company. We had the privilege of having Danny Meyer come to a partner meeting that we had, I think it was 2017, maybe 2018. And Danny Meyer came to speak with us about his principles around business and how he looks at not just the restaurant business, but every business and some of the precepts that helped him become so successful.

Matter of fact, he wrote a book, it's called Setting the Table. I keep an excerpt of that book on my desktop and refer back to it pretty often. He wrote that book in 2006, and it's as applicable today as ever. And it's all about the concept of hospitality. And as I think about the things that I've learned from Danny and I had the opportunity to actually do a fireside chat with Danny for about an hour and just learn so much from him. But one of the precepts that he has around being successful in business, any business, is this concept of always be collecting dots and always be connecting dots. And for Danny Meyer, this really means try and meet as many people as you can. That's collecting dots. So networking, try and be prolific at it, and then go one step further and always be connecting dots.

So A, B, C, D, always be collecting and connecting dots by that. Danny talked to us about in his restaurants, he would look at the names of the people who had lunch reservations. He would sit a book publisher next to a writer and they'd put their tables kind of next to each other. And Danny, as he would make his rounds through the restaurant, he would introduce the book publisher to the writer. And even though they were with different parties and doing different things, he turned every one of those adventures into a networking exercise and things. We can be very deliberate about networking or sometimes it can just happen in our daily lives. But the one thing that I learned from Danny Mar, I've learned a lot of things from Danny Meyer, but the one thing that I focused in on is this concept of A, B, C, D.

And it has been something that I have tried to think about and be deliberate about throughout my career. You can imagine 46 years in the accounting world, I've interacted with a ton of clients over the years, referral opportunities, business sources. And the one thing that I always keep in mind is how can I connect those dots? Do I have a client that might need a service from another client? And so how do you, one thing is building your network. The other thing is how do you use that network? I could go on for a long, long, long, long time about this. I find the book to be terrific and something that I think about at least once, something in that book is something I think about at least once in the course of every business day. And others will share their thoughts on networking and how you build your networks once you get there. And you have a network, A, B, C, D. So Michelle, I'll turn it back to you.

Michele Martin: That's really pretty stunning, Charly. Just to think that you found something that was so inspirational to you that you'd actually have it at your desk and refer to it every day. That's kind of a driving force. And so with that, Natalie, I'm going to follow up that question for you with your expertise that just one of your many expertise areas of expertise. You have a background in neuroscience, so maybe you can speak to us a little bit about well and a certificate in happiness studies. So neuroscience and happiness studies with that as your lens, how important are professional networks and connecting those dots and creating alliances to an individual's happiness within their career?

Natalie McVeigh: Yeah, Michelle, thanks for asking. And this really builds upon what Charly said. We're literally wired for connection. There's a part of our brain called the temporal proprietor juncture that just wants to know how like you I am. And believe it or not, even though it's scanning for risk, it's much happier when we're alike. So there are kind of three ways we connect with humans. One is intimate. It's built on trust and incredible amounts of reciprocity. And most of us are only fortunate enough to have that with our spouse or a best friend. But believe it or not, if we find a best friend at work, we're much more engaged, we're much happier. But I'm not saying you have to find your best friend at work. If you don't, you can have a relational or more community network at work. And I would say Eisner's a great example of this.

This is not the first time I've talked to most of the people on this panel. We know each other every time, even though it distracts me a little bit from focus when my teams goes off for my colleague to say, what are you working on today? Or how's it going? I get incredibly engaged. And then the last one is a more distant connection that we think of as just kind of casually knowing each other. So if we have any of those in our work life, we're more productive, we're more engaged, we're more willing to take risks. And this is really about the quality of their relationship. It's not the quantity. So when you find your people, really finding ways to connect with them is the most important piece. And believe it or not, the most effective way to do that is to ask for help.

A lot of people think asking for help is going to make someone think you're dumb. In fact, it actually signals the effect of one, you like who I am and you think I have something to offer. So you kind of boost my ego. And then secondarily, when I've taken the time to help you, I'm very invested in your career success. Now, I'm not saying learned helplessness. I'm not saying don't figure out how to do anything yourself, but our intuition to make ourselves look better actually creates more distance. So don't waste your time. Don't spend needless hours twiddling your thumbs and figuring it out. Just go ask someone and then you're going to succeed more effectively and they're going to watch you and champion your success.

Michele Martin: I love that. Just ask, don't assume. Make sure that you're putting yourself out there and trusting your teammates to give you that support. That's really powerful. Natalie, what advice do you have in terms of just cultivating those relationships? And we actually have a question on the chat that I'll even add onto that, which is how do we also think about networking with staff, our colleagues that are working from home?

Natalie McVeigh: The same is true whether you're in person or virtual. As long as you're not distracted, the research says a phone call can be as effective as being in person. Our brain lights up the same way when we're really listening. And what we like to listen to the most is personal stories. There's literally a part of our brain that makes our ears hear differently when we hear a personal story. So one of the things we say is to ask, how are you? And then pause for a minute, lean in and say, really, and this isn't to get the gossip, but this is to open the door to I want to know more about you. And when we open the door to, I want to know more about you. Firstly, everyone's subject is themselves so they can go on forever, right? We've spent our entire life in this body.

I can tell you years and years of stories. But two, then I'm able to find those things that are more similar and then tell you how we're connecting on that. And so we're going to find more and more of that shared experience basis. And right now, Michele, we're actually doing that right now. Some of us can't see ourselves on the screen, so you can cover that up. Some of us feel alone, so put some googly eyes on your screen. But the truth is that every time you're coming together, even if it's a meeting, we love to give time back and say, oh, I took half an hour. I'm going to give you 15 minutes back. Use that other 15 minutes to check in how you're doing to share how you're doing. We just heard on our call as we were prepping that a bunch of people are going on vacation. We have that in common. We just went through a stress busy season. We have a lot more to talk about now going forward.

Michele Martin: That's great. Thank you, Natalie. Just that human connection and sharing stories, hopefully we'll hear more here today with our panel. So Charly, how does this cultivation of a network have an impact on the careers and the success of the professionals in our firm? And is it business development? Is it a different lens, but how do you think about that within Eisner Amper?

Charly Weinstein: That's a great question. And the lens that I look at, lens that I look through as I think about that question, it's a deeply personal lens. And so when I think back on my career, when I first started, there was one thing that made me really uncomfortable networking, and it was very difficult for me. And it was generally in the context of business development. And so you walk into a conference or you'd walk into an event where there was a room full of people and being young and an experienced, I would walk into a room and I would feel really uncomfortable. How do you get a conversation started? How do you create a connection so that you can begin the possibility of collecting a dot or connecting a dot? And it was very, very difficult. And when I think about over the years, how long it took me to get comfortable with this concept of networking, I think about it then in terms of all the colleagues that I work with in Isner.

And I think about how can we make it more comfortable for people to build their networks to walk into a womb full of strangers? How do you always have a smile on your face? How do you try and build just in passing, I think you used the word Michele when you were opening this. You talked about celebrating our humanness. Well, that's something that we can celebrate through this concept of networking. And what I've come to see over the years is perhaps I've gotten a little more comfortable doing this. What I've come to see over the years is that if we all think about when we are doing our networking or when we're in a large room or we're thinking about business development, find the person in the room that looks even more uncomfortable than you do and go and say hello. And networking is such a critical part of everyone's success.

Building a network, whether it's for business development, whether it's for personal development, whether it's for professional development, having people that you can call, having people that you can call on when you have questions, that's just so critical to achieving whatever success you're going to achieve in your career is building that support network around you. And one of the things that I always try and keep in mind is, I've been in that person's shoes and so let me go over and smile and say hello. And even if it's just in passing and a conversation is not meant to be, maybe it'll make someone feel a little more comfortable in terms of what's important in terms of developing a network. From my perspective, throughout your career, and as you do different things in your career, you're going to have a different focus on the types of networks that you're developing.

And so the networks that I developed today based on my role in the firm are very different than the networks that I was trying to develop. When I first joined public accounting, I was just trying to figure out where the coffee machine was. And so the person at the desk next to me, that was my network. Those were the days where we had typewriters and there were lots of people doing manual things that very different from today. And so even finding a support network was really critical to me being able to establish a comfort level in what I was doing. And the more comfortable you are, the more confidence you have, the more you're going to achieve. And having a great network of people who can support you will help you achieve a lot more in your career than just trying to go at it alone.

Michele Martin: That's excellent, Charlie. And isn't it amazing too when you think about your network when you just first started and how your peers and the people that you communicated with early in your career advance in their, and pretty soon you look around and you're kind of amazed at, wow, look at all these really amazing people and the success they've attained. It's kind of in some ways a little surprising, right? Because it kind of happens and all of a sudden it's there

Charly Weinstein: It is, it's great. And you bring up extremely valuable aspect of networking is that as you build your network amongst your peers, your peers are also moving forward in their careers same way that you are. And that network stays with you. You are always adding dots, you're always collecting dots and trying to build a big network of colleagues and acquaintances, but really staying connected. And Natalie, you would probably be a great focus to talk about this, but staying connected, not just collecting dots, but staying connected to your network and being present, that's extraordinarily helpful as well. I,

Michele Martin: Natalie,

Natalie McVeigh: You right Charly, go ahead. One of the things when I said learn about the person, my clients, my colleagues, when they've shared a thing that's interesting to them, and this is just relational research in general, but it's great for a meaningful reciprocal relationship is shoot over that email you mentioned you like skiing in Vail and I heard this year it's great skiing, it's even more effective if it's really useful for whatever that problem they were talking about. So you're building that reciprocity based on first listening and because we now have that mutual investment, and so there's not a day that doesn't go by that I'm not shooting out a quick text, an email probably to someone that's reminding me of them. You can't do it for everyone every day. But if you are a big fan of CRM systems and you want to onboard a relationship because when they're distant at first to get them closer, you will want to do it with some regularity. But then you just create that habit of here's the thing I want you to know, and here it goes. And be open for when people send that to you too. Just write a quick thank you note that changed my day. That really made it better in this way,

Michele Martin: Natalie, that's great. If I can expand on that just a little bit. Do you know about resources on really helping people determine the difference between decision-making with men and women from a neuroscientific point? It's a question from our audience. Do you have any suggestions about that or just about the way people process information or make decisions based upon their gender?

Natalie McVeigh: So there's no statistically significant difference between men's and women's brains. We've studied that over every culture. Matriarchal, patriarchal, it doesn't matter, but we are socialized to be different. So there's actually a great quick free quiz you can take called the CEO genome and it talks about how decisive you are because that's one of the best C-suite leadership pieces. But what women tend to do is we tend to ask for permission and we tend to not like being made a mistakes. So Michele, you're going to say something to me, you're going to wait until it's perfect, and that leaves room for everyone else to talk about it. Men tend to be more extroverted, they tend to do their first try and they don't mind being told it's wrong. They don't what's called perseverate. They don't come back and judge themselves about it so much later statistically, but at the end of the day, you are just a decisive. When we pull people, men and women know the decision they want to make. Women are just waiting too long. So if you think it, I'm encouraging you to say it right, because you can always ask for help if you got it wrong later. It's not that scary. It's not that bad.

Michele Martin: Thank

Charly Weinstein: You. I specialize in getting it wrong.

Michele Martin: Try and try again, right, Charly? And you're going to get it right eventually. So Cindy, I'm going to switch to you. And we've been talking about internal networks within our companies and you sit on a variety of nonprofit boards. How have those board experiences impacted your perspective on how networking and those networks can impact the success of those organizations and quite frankly, the networks and the individuals that you've met through those associations?

Cyndi Fuller: Yeah, I mean I think this speaks a lot to what Natalie was just talking about because I found that through nonprofit board service, it's so easy to connect with people when we're working collectively toward a common goal. So you won't always agree with everyone around the table, but you're at least starting from common ground on values that are important to you. One of which being community service in general, and back to what Charly was saying, business development and networking isn't about sales, it's about connecting the dots, relationships and community and collectively supporting a cause that you care about is like instant community. It's because it's usually people from really diverse backgrounds and expertise. So when something comes up for myself or a client, I have resources that I can hit up to help. And it's also an opportunity to be that resource to someone else.

I think about just the individuals that I've interacted with on these boards and how brilliant these people are in their fields and industries and just the privilege it is to be able to interact with 'em. I had a fellow board member who, his mom received a terminal diagnosis and I was honored that she trusted me to help her form a team of advisors to navigate that situation. We were able to quickly engage a trust in the state attorney, a financial advisor, so we could collectively guide them through that wealth transfer. And just to be able to be that resource and know that I have those resources out there by having sat on these boards with these diverse individuals is just a really easy way to build a network and connect with people.

Michele Martin: That's great. And serving something that you're passionate about in the process, right?

Cyndi Fuller: Double whammy. Yeah.

Michele Martin: Yeah, yeah. And your role in our firm focuses on really the quality of our audits, something very specific, very technical. Who influenced you to pursue a career in accounting and auditing, and how did you eventually end up in your current role?

Yan Zhang: Thanks, Michele. I think my personal journey to come to this point is probably slightly different. I grew up in another country. I came to the United States when I was in teens, so networking is such a big word, but maybe it is more just talking to people and really catch up on stuff. To me, at the point that I was first come to the country, it was not only important but essential because I felt like I was drowning each and every day pretty much for the first few years of my time here. So talking to people, finding out what I can learn from them, just learning everything and anything from any people that I come across to was essential for literally my survival here in this country. So I come a long way, but it becomes a habit that I always come to, wanted to talk to people, finding out their stories.

And since I felt like I was suffering so early on in my days and always wanted to learn new things or when I face a challenge or problems, I would very much like people to help me. So I want to return the favors to anyone, whether they're clients or teammates or stuff, just to help them out when they're in need. And one of the other things that I really like to do is to help people solve problems. So you asked me how I end up here in my current role as a chief accountant is by to talk to the people, find out what they're frustrated about in their day-to-day work and be able to sit down and brainstorm with them and finding solutions and finding guidance and help them navigate their challenges and at the same time propel my journey in this profession. So I know not everyone here on this calls or accountants or auditors, but I think every career when you are spending enough time in them, you sort of finding your niche or the things they really like to do. And for me is really to find that solutions and helping teams or individuals that I come across to. And that's really been my passion.

Michele Martin: That's just a lovely story and obviously your passion has led you to much succession. So thank you for sharing that with us. Cindy, I'll go back to you and kind of talking about, Jan was talking about her early career experiences and what influenced her early in life and just some of those core principles. You actually teach tax planning and controversy at San Diego State, and you see a lot of people really early in their careers, perhaps they've had an internship or two or trying to decide if public accounting is the right sector for them. What advice do you have for people early in their career, whether it's in accounting or other industries, but what do you think lays a strong foundation for individuals as they're just starting out?

Cyndi Fuller: Yeah. Gosh, I'm going to just echo what Charlie said earlier. Look around at your peers. So when I was early in my career, I thought I should be trying to engage with firm partners and company CEOs to from day one, build this dynamic network while the people sitting next to me were the future partners and company leaders. And so building relationships with my peers has provided me with a network of people who have been in the trenches with me, going through similar experiences in their careers and being able to bond over those shared experiences, learning from each other about what works, what doesn't work. Being vulnerable and honest about failures or learning opportunities is what's really created the foundation of my network today. And it all starts with who's sitting next to you in the classroom or in your cubicles.

Michele Martin: That's great. And what do you teach? Is it

Cyndi Fuller: I teach tax planning, individual tax planning?

Michele Martin: It is tax

Cyndi Fuller: Planning.

Michele Martin: Okay.

Cyndi Fuller: Yeah, it's so fun. Yeah, these students are so hungry for knowledge in accounting, but also about this topic, how do I build my career? How do I build my network? And again, they're looking for how do I go out to these formal networking events and jump into these conversations cult. And it's such a difficult skill to learn, and it's not as important as maybe we put it out to be. It's more about just building the relationships with the people next to you.

Michele Martin: Jan, would you like to add to that or anyone else in terms of just how did you navigate throughout your career and what suggestions would you give others?

Yan Zhang: Sure. I think one of my main takeaway is always remain curious. So it doesn't matter which career path you choose, but if you remain curious and have an open mind and always learning and absorbing new things, when I think about when I first started my career, I was probably packing audit trunks and taking blue and red color pencils and red papers. Obviously these days are long gong, but have an open mind and learning the new skills and learning new knowledge will always be essential. I think as far as in public accounting, I feel like I'm still learning a lot of new things every day from clients and colleagues, anywhere from how to recycle batteries to how to turn animal waste into useful energies in our day-to-day life. So having these dialogues and open up yourself to new items, new technologies and new ideas, I think that's really the key to a success in any career.

Natalie McVeigh: Anyone else

Michele Martin: From any of those?

Natalie McVeigh: Yeah, I think I want to tag onto what Cindy said because she said something really important about that vulnerability. Yes, there's the great part of that shared service that can create a generosity spiral when you're on a board together, but we tend to think that trust is earned, right? You have to do X amount of things for me to open up my hands and trust you. But the research on this is completely opposite to that is people become more trustworthy as they get trusted. And so a lot of us, when we think about careers, we think of them sometimes as adversarial and competitive, and then we wonder why we get that behavior in kind. And so I'm not saying to open up to your colleagues about your marital problems or any of that because it is still a workplace. But what I am saying is that you might have to be the first person who says, okay, I'm going to take this deeper.

I'm going to build our trust by giving you trust. And most of time, again, if we're treated as though we're trustworthy, that trust is taken in kind those building blocks. Again, if you're transitioning out of your job or starting your own company or whatever you're doing, once you've set that up for so long and we've already packaged it with early on in your career, showing them that you thought about them, cared about them and been useful to them, you're going to have those people to rely on to get you to where you want to go. But it's not going to feel one dimensional. It's not going to feel like you're using them, it's going to feel like they want to help you just like you have helped them over the years. And that's where true connection, those collecting and connecting dots, as Charly said, happened through our work interactions. We spent a third of our life sleeping a third of our life working and a third of our life doing anything else. So imagine half of our life that's not in bed is actually with these people we work with. We should ideally care about them and demonstrate that pretty regularly and they will the same towards us.

Charly Weinstein: Natalie, that is so much representative of my own experience over my career, and when I think about the strongest relationships that I have in my professional network, it's with the leaders of other large accounting firms just like EisnerAmper and this concept of giving to get, share information freely, share information and try and help each other or try and help someone else with sharing information. And I've found over the years that it has come back and in spades always that seems to be the concept. The more you give, the more you get back and it has created, for me, the role of CEO is it is not an everyday role and it's not for everybody and it's kind of a lonely position in many ways. Having a professional network or having a network of others who face the same issues that I face who sit in the same chair that I sit in has been so invaluable to me.

And I think the word happiness came up more than once in our discussion today. And when I think about how I've been able to really enjoy all these years essentially doing the exact same thing and how I've been able to enjoy that, it's because I feel like I can share a lot of the experiences that I've had over the years with people that I know and that I've met, and I'm happy to share because I know I'll get back much more in return. And that's why I enjoy this job so much, right? It's because I enjoy what I do every day and being able to have interactions with people, with colleagues on our staff, with clients, with others in the business community. And then when I go home for that other eight hours, I go home with a smile on my face and you bring that home with you, I guess you attract what you radiate.

And so just being able to be happy in your professional life in the eight hours a day could be more than eight hours a day that we spend working. It enables you to have a much more balanced and well-rounded life as well. So I think your network in every aspect of your life helps you bring happiness to the other things that you do. And I love when I get random emails from people that it's been a long time since we've connected together and Natalie, I don't have the same technical aspects that you have around this, but it lights up your brain and that's a really good thing. So the importance of networking to just satisfaction, I just connect those two in so many different ways.

Michele Martin: Charly, I would share with you, I'm part of a group, we call it a study group, and it's a group of individuals who actually run wealth management practices inside accounting firms. We came together about five years ago and it really is a study group. And at first it was a little bit of, okay, what do we share? How do we do this? But I'll tell you that it's just been invaluable to have that peer conversation because it advances things so quickly. And I'm sure that's kind of what you're alluding to with other leaders of accounting firms and other CEOs is you may have a question that someone else has been grappling with as well. Just getting that piece of advice or a direction to a software or a technology or something that can really solve things in such short order is so incredibly valuable. So I love it.

Charly Weinstein: I would offer up one other thing that has had a, I'll call it a belated and positive impact on how effective, how I can do my job more effectively and others should think about this or might want to think about this without waiting so long. I've become an avid reader of books like Setting the Table and there are many good books that I find have added to the business knowledge that I've been able to accumulate over the years. And so I think about that as another form of networking. And had I read Danny Meyer's book without having had the opportunity to actually interact with him personally, well that's a way to network without actually having to meet everybody and sort of being an avid reader and just trying to, I pick up so many books and I'll read the first 15 or 20 pages and then I just put 'em down and I'm unable to finish them. And yet there are lots of other books that I pick up and I get absorbed and it's less than a human connection, but it's an indirect way of networking and learning from others.

Michele Martin: That's excellent. Do you ever do an audio

Cyndi Fuller: Reading list?

Michele Martin: Yeah, maybe we can have Astrid share your reading list of your top five or five. We'll do top five.

Charly Weinstein: Be happy to

Natalie McVeigh: Charly. That's actually how I got to know you a little better. When I came in in 2019, there was an extra copy of setting the table and I read it and I love to do that for people. Michele, to your point, I have a study group as well for family advisors in the world of advising high net worth people, and I hosted that study group in person in Boston a couple of years ago, and I gave out my favorite book at the time that dealt with why belonging is so important and how it can be challenging. And to this day, we'll be on the calls and people will pick up, remember, remember when you gave me this book? And so I think it's those things that are meaningful for us to just take a moment to be able to share that in a tangible way. Yes, a reading list is interesting, but if you spend the $7 and email that book with a handwritten note in there, it's going to go a lot further.

Michele Martin: Absolutely. Thank you. So we've got just a few more minutes and I had love for maybe to do a round robin or maybe if you have something that's specifically close to your heart, would you be willing to share any of you a pivotal moment in your career where a mentor or someone in your alliance or your group truly made a difference in your career and you'd actually get bonus points thinking about it is, was it the right thing to do? Were you feeling like you had a sense of what the outcome would be? It's kind of that whole idea of what Charly mentioned about walking into that room and being vulnerable and going to that other vulnerable post person in the room. But does anyone have a story or something really pivotable that just was a game changer for you?

Cyndi Fuller: I mean, I'll jump in because I think that I'm just going to reiterate something that three of you already said. I have a friend that forced me to join a women's peer coaching circle, and I thought it was going to be for client referrals. And it turned out to be so much more than that to sit in this room of professional women and have this honest sounding board with these diverse perspectives over the last 10 years has really helped me navigate so many professional issues throughout my career. And it's really taught me that a network isn't about surrounding yourself with yes men or yes women. It's about engaging with mutual respect to just give rise the opportunity to challenge assumptions and collectively tackle issues. So this joining this group, it wasn't like this pivotal moment, but it was something unexpected in my networking journey.

Michele Martin: Thanks, Cindy.

Charly Weinstein: I would share a story from very early in my career, and Michelle, you mentioned a mentor as part of your question. And when I think about over the years, all the great mentors that I've had in my career, I think about the first one. And so I was a senior accountant at the time, and to us that means you have two or three years of experience. And I went out to a client, my lack of experience really showed and I made some mistakes. And the controller at this client, her name was Ann Baitz, but everyone called her Ms. BI had made a mistake in a calculation. And back then we were using pencils with erasers. And so you'd have to erase your spread. It wasn't a spreadsheet actually, it was just a 14 column piece of paper, but you'd have to erase the numbers and put in different numbers.

And I was kind of really upset that I had, that had messed up and that none of my numbers actually worked. And she was a controller and she came to me, she saw how upset I was and she came to me, she said, Hey kid, everyone makes mistakes. Get over it. And just from that point on until she retired, she was a client for 15 years. So I went through the ranks and became the partner from being the senior accountant and her mentoring just always just, she took me under her wing and she was the first really important professional networking relationship that I had and always have fun thoughts for that relationship for Ms B and developed into a long-term personal relationship as well. And if everyone should be so fortunate as to relationship with a mentor at any stage in their career, they'll be far better off for it.

Michele Martin: That's great. Charly, thank you for sharing that. I have a story to tell that I think is really interesting, and it leads back to the whole idea of being open and going back to those relationships that maybe have aren't front and center aren't people you see every day. About a decade ago, I was looking at making a change from a large financial institution and was actually looking at going to work with families and clients in the high net worth space thinking really more family office type. And so I met with someone named Beth Leonard who actually leads our practice. She's our managing partner here in Minneapolis. And I met with her, we had coughs that we had shared over the years together. And so I was actually specifically targeting talking to her about some of those clients. I got a call the next morning at seven 30 and she said, Hey, we have something to talk to you about.

We've been thinking about wealth management for over a decade and we haven't known who to trust. It really was quite an honor to have that conversation. And here we are over a decade later where we started a wealth management practice here in Minneapolis. But it really speaks to being open to those conversations, touching base on something that is completely unexpected and completely changed the trajectory of what I am doing. And that indirectly answers the question that we have from the q and a, is that, so I've been with a legacy firm to EisnerAmper for a decade with EisnerAmper actually for the last three years. And the question from the audience was, so I think is aside from Natalie. Natalie, you mentioned just briefly, you joined in 2019, are all the panelists here? How long have you been with EisnerAmper? Do we have lifers here with Eisner?

Yan Zhang: I actually started with another firm in Houston, Texas, so no, as I looking back to the question you asked Michele, I was thinking throughout the career about a decade or so ago, one of my mentor actually suggested me to take an oversee international assignments. At the time, I was really nervous, but he did say something's like Y, since you're coming from a diverse background, it'll be also to embrace that in your career. So I was really nervous having to leave everything sort of behind and then check on that three year assignments overseas, but it turns out to be the most rewarding experience I have both personally and then professionally. So I think it comes full circle, but I've now been here with Eisner for almost a decade or so, 12, 13 years. So it's been a rewarding journey.

Michele Martin: That's great. Thank you. Charlie, how many years have you been at Eisner or legacy firm of Eisner?

Charly Weinstein: I graduated college in May of 1978. So in a couple of weeks I will have 47 years in the accounting world. And I spent my first year at what I would consider to be a small firm. We were maybe 15 people enjoyed that first year very, very much. I felt that the world was a bigger place and I wanted to see some of it. So I joined another firm about a year and a half in, I was there for a little more than eight years before I joined Eisner. So I joined Eisner on January 16th, 1989, and that's 36 years and

Michele Martin: Amazing.

Charly Weinstein: It feels like I've had five or six different jobs since I've been here. The firm has changed so, so much over these years. A couple of things have stayed pretty steady. Our culture, our collegiality amongst our colleagues, the collaborative spirit that we have, that we carry that through, all of these 30 plus years that I've been with the firm and everything else has changed everything.

Michele Martin: That's great. Thank you for sharing. Well, we're getting close to our time and I want to be respectful of everyone that's joined here. Just I want to thank you all, what an energizing conversation and thanks for sharing your stories and to all of you who have invested your time to spend with us today, we really appreciate it. So this is really the end of our series. We hope you've enjoyed this four-part series on the Female Alliance, and all the sessions are recorded and available for you. If you weren't able to make a previous session, please feel free to go to the eisneramper.com website and you'll be able to find them there. That along with any materials that we've referenced, are available on our website. And then you can expect this recording to be out there in about a week. So thanks again. And with that, Astrid, I'll turn it over to you.

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