Okay, great question. So it's ah, you know, for me. So I do management consulting, essentially with a focus on marketing strategy, working with Fortune 500 companies. Typically, sometimes some start up, but mostly with larger companies and helping them with making some big and complicated discussions, decisions and marketing, Um, and business strategy as well. So how did I get here? I mean, it's for me. It's been a long path to getting here. I started off in India with an engineering degree from from one of the prominent school, their schools there in felony and after that, actually ended up setting up my own business and eso for for a while I was literally doing, which is something that most entrepreneurs do, which is working from my garage, making microprocessor based controls and things like that for for different companies that needed to solve different problems. And, um, e I did that for a few years, in fact, in India. And then, as I was doing that, I sort of realized that g you know, I am an engineer about training, but I really need business skills to be successful in the kind of work which I was doing, which was having my own small business. So that's when I ended up going to Yale for my business business degree. But that experience was kind of interesting because it's sort of shape shaped me in a in a way that I didn't understand at the time, which was I was you know, I was working on these different problems that companies would come to me with, right, so every problem was different. So it's sort of by default was training me for in a career in consulting, and I grew to enjoy that, which is the whole idea of just taking on the unknown and solving it on DSO. When I finished my business degree from Yale, I was interested in getting into consulting and consulting, as you know, is a very competitive field, and I knew nothing about it. So I didn't succeed on my first try. So I ended up working in industry for a few years, and then I tried to get into consulting again, and so at that point I got into a company that was called Booz Allen at the time, which now it's called strategy and I worked for them for several years and then for McKinsey, put several years and then ended up starting my own company. That was more than 15 years back, and here I am running that company and it's, you know, it's it's been it's been a great right.

sure. Another good question. So when you're running a company, you are effectively, you know, the CEO off it. Um, And when it's a boutique form, which is not like one of those companies with thousands off principles and it and what have you You end up burying many different hats, but the basic things, the basic responsibility for being a leader in the company, uh, that responsible responsibility doesn't go away. And then you might ask the question Well, what does it mean? Right to be a leader in a company, particularly a consulting company. Um, in a consulting company. Um, being a leader first and foremost is around thought leadership, which is really you know, how do you how do you grapple of it? Um, uncommon problems, complex issues because nobody's gonna hire a consultant for something simple. And eso how do you deal with some big unsolved issues and provide ah vision around how those problems can be solved and provide a vision and a path and a level of clarity where other people see insurmountable problems or barriers and what have you So the top leadership is a big component of it. Second thing is that as a leader, you also need to, um, be able to inspire followership. That is, that people should want to work with you on that goes both not only inside the companies with the employees of the company, but also with, uh, toe great degree with with your clients Also, you know, you should you should be able to inspire them. Do want to follow you, not follow you as an you know, like literally do your bidding as such, but want to follow one to follow you. And as in, they wanna work for you. You know, if you said hey or work with you if you said, Hey, I'm in company a today and I'm working on this. They wanna work with you there. If you're a company B, they want to go there. Andi, that's s O that. That idea of followership is, uh, eyes also very strong one. So the leadership peace and the followership, followership, peas both go in hand in hand. And then, of course, any person in a leadership role, you have the responsibility for also developing people, you know, helping to make them and help them be, you know, get to the next step in their own career or in their own development. Most importantly, so that becomes another piece. And then beyond that, of course, everybody has to do the work that needs to be done.um so from a priority perspective, I think priority priority certainly changed. But for me, it has been important to be able to, um, do the work that I like to do. So there's a lot of things you can do in consulting. My particular passion is around helping businesses grow and how to help them really do innovative stuff and marketing, you know, do things that they haven't done before, you know, not just repeat the stuff. So I like to think that every every project that we do for a client over the last decades, every project has had something new that we have done with that line which wasn't a repeat off something that we had done before. So, you know, doing good work, high quality work. Um, that that really engages the clients and fascinates them is one of the top priorities. Second thing is also working with the kind of people that I have fun working with. I think having a good team and being able to really enjoy every moment of what you're doing because you're going to be doing difficult things all the time and hard stuff. So consulting work is hard. You wanted to be enjoyable despite it being hard. So that certainly would be, uh, a second priority and number three. I mean, I think number three is also, I would say, a knopper to nitty for me to have ways to develop myself and, you know, be able to put myself in places and with people were I have an opportunity to grow as well. So that's the other piece, I would say, and working our working hours and consulting can be tough. Sometimes I would say it's, you know, easy, easy to spend 50 hours a week working in consulting. I think younger people when they started, probably spend more on over time. As you get good at what you do, you can spend left time. So you know, when I whenever I've been in consulting, I find that young associates and analysts, when they come in, they work like almost 24 7. They're kind of just going at it and and its most of the time, it's because they're quite driven and they want to learn quickly. They're impatient, they want to know more, and that's great. I was like that, too, and so you and some of them end up working 60 70 hours sometimes. But as you learn more, and as you get more skilled at your work and you know what to do, use you spend, you spend more time walking in a straight line versus walking in a meandering path, which is what younger people do, and therefore you can get from point A to point B a lot faster. So as you get more senior, you can probably get to a point where you're not work. You know you're not working around the clock, so to speak.

Okay, so one of the major challenges and pain points in a job. I think, uh, the interesting thing about consulting is that it's a very experiential profession. You to truly master it. Um it's like what? You know, people calling apprenticeship you to truly master it. You need a lot of practice. You can read about it. You can, you know you can You can see good output and so on. But you really have to do it yourself, uh, to learn it. So I think that is that is the major challenge and going in consulting that. How do you actually practice it? It's kind of like any kind of support or any kind of musical instrument you can, you know, you can hear perfectly produced musical piece. You can see a piano, you can see where all the keys are all those things. And you would say, Hey, wait a minute, where do I read the book on playing a piano. But you really have to play the piano, you know, and you have to play it for a long time to be able to produce those beautiful music pieces that you see. Andi Consulting is and I would have still many other professions. But particularly consulting is exactly like that. You have to play it for you have to play that piano for a long time before you can get before you can produce good pieces that people want to hear. Eso that's that's a challenge. The second challenge, as you might imagine, is also on the people's side of it. Eso, as I said, one of the most important things you do is to help other people develop their skills. Um, a same time, you know, it's ah, it's It's not necessarily a profession that is for everybody, But not everybody knows that when they get into it and which is okay. I mean, I think even when I was at McKinsey on booze, uh, it's pretty common for, you know, 30% off the bird relief, the farm. And at each stage, more and more people leave now, mind you, many of those people intended to do that in the first instance. Their their intention, you know, they come and do bulls and McKinsey and so on in these places as a stepping stone to something else, there aren't necessarily coming there to becoming consultant, which is okay, um, but nonetheless, for those that do want to stand consulting, it is a great place, but nonetheless, it's not an easy place. And not everyone has the patients, um, or the skills necessary for each level. So they may do well at one level, but not at the 2nd 2nd level again. So training people and assembling that right instead of people who can do the work as well as their fun to work with is you know, is a big challenge. So you have to you have to work on that and then finally, um, in any business, ultimately you have to have clients. You have to have customers, and that can be a and that's not an easy thing. You know, going out to somebody and going and telling, you know, asking them to not a lot of money for essentially your services as an advisor is not an easy thing. You know, on day, sometimes people ask me like, Hey, what do you actually do? And it's hard to explain it to people because people are paying you money for your advice and everybody says, Well, what's you know, what's so great about that. I can also give advice, but it is a difficult thing. And it's a very difficult thing when someone at some places willing to say, Hey, I'm going to give you money for for the kind of advice and services you're going to provide and knowing fully well that none of our contracts are non cancel herbal. So that means that if you don't like what we're doing you Even if the contract was for three months, you could come in tomorrow after a month and say, You know what? Thanks, but no thanks. So So you have to in consulting earn your keep every day. People look at you every day and say, Hey, and I getting value out of this person. If I'm not, then I am. You know that I'm just going to cancel the contract and you will accept that. So I think building those client relationships getting, uh, you know, getting new work is is a big challenge these days, Um, given the level off pressure that businesses are under and they have, you know, their own cost cutting objectives. Ah, lot of times when you goto businesses, their bosses may, you know If you're going to a general manager to sell your services, the boss of the general manager of the president of the company may ask. Hey, why do you need a consultant? Why can't you do this? Work yourself, You know, why did I make you a general manager? If you can't do this, work yourself. And why do you need it? Someone else who advise you. So you have to sort of navigate your way around those things. And it's a I wouldn't call it a paid pain point, but I would call it a challenge.