Okay hello, you're listening to Cope in time.

A podcast series on markets and economies from DBS group research.

I'm Tamra Beck chief economist, welcome to our 68th episode, the first one of 2022.

It is tempting to begin the year with global macro and trust me there will be plenty of that in the forthcoming episodes.

But today's episode takes its cue from a couple of riveting conversations I've had with Sarah jane in the past year.

Sarah is the founder of connects SEO a provider of human capital services to organizations across Asia with a key focus on the startup system.

From each of the conversations that I had with sort of over lunch in the last year or so.

I've always come away with the feeling that something really interesting is going on in one particular area of Sarah's focus which is India the country scale entrepreneurial tradition, problem solving culture and just the current global juncture of where markets and geopolitics stand.

Make the startup proposition there a very compelling one.

Sarah jane is a chartered accountant And an alumnus of I am Ahmedabad and Booth School of Business University of Chicago before setting up connections back in 2017.

Sarah spent 12 years at Deutsche Bank where his last role was chief operating officer for a pack corporate finance Sarah, welcome to cope in time.

Thank you very much anymore.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Thank you so much for inviting me

been looking forward to this.

Let's begin by talking about the next show, Tell us a bit more about what it does and why did you set it up?

So um as you mentioned earlier can excuse fundamentally an HR consulting firm with a focus on recruiting and other management consulting activities related to human capital.

Um I set it up in 2017 to help plug gaps in how various human capital-related matters were being attended, to both by large organizations, as well as specifically the startup ecosystem, which back in the day was already starting to starting to grow quite quite rapidly.

Um from from a personal perspective, I've had the good fortune to, to live and work in a number of different geographies, the continent, europe, the America Southeast Asia and India.

And after a corporate career of 15, 16 years, I really wanted to see if I could synthesize some of the experiences that I've had, bring them together and drawn them to help at the executives in the large companies, all founders of the XO CXS in the startup ecosystem to have them solve some of the issues that they were looking for, that that they were addressing.

That was the main reason why I actually said connect you up about almost five years ago

and how has it gone so far?

How has it been running a business based out of Singapore, but with a lens that goes to South Asia and perhaps even beyond.

Yeah, no, you're right about beyond because our gambit has grown, We now cover stuff across ASIA.

So starting with clients in the Middle East through South Asia, Southeast Asia and Hong kong um Being based in Singapore and running a regional business while Singapore is probably the best place to be based in for a variety of infrastructural reasons.

Um and then through covid, like many other, many other organizations, we've learned to adapt, we've learned to use technology, we've learned to uh to build S.

O.

Ps internally.

The key thing that both me and my very high quality management team have focused on is to ensure that execution doesn't miss a beat.

Um And so far I'd like to, I'd like to believe have been fairly successful in that like I said, by using, by using technology to support our business efforts,

but very soon will you start traveling vigorously again

for sure.

100%.

I have already dipped my tour.

I've been fortunate to be able to make a couple of trips recently to the bay Area where many of our investor clients are.

Um and also to, to India.

Um and, and yes, it's it's quite clear that although the future of work, the the nature of the future of work remains uncertain and of course there are evangelists on both sides.

The fact is that people have started engaging again personally, which is definitely critical for the world as it emerges from the pandemic.

So sir, I want to talk to you about the indian ecosystem momentarily.

But since you were talking about the future of work, let me pick your brain a little bit.

So in the process of setting up companies, whether it is in Singapore or in South Asia or elsewhere are employers trying to become more flexible and, and how has that experience been during these two years of covid and by flexible, I mean, you know, work from home sort of thing.

Um, I think it remains an evolving situation.

I think to a large extent the world, the certain parts of the world declared victory once Delta started dying down.

Uh, and then on the economic front came up, I think with omicron, the acceptance that hybrid is here to stay for a while is starting to set in a little bit deeper.

There are people still hesitating to call the complete end of full time work, but at a more kind of grassroots or at a more practical level.

Um, there was definitely a move towards officers opening full time and the expectation that employees would work full time over, let's say late Q two, early, early Q three as the worst of Delta seemed to be behind us in the region in most countries.

But now I think it's, it's, it's fair to say that that's for me in the back seat.

Um, despite the acceptance that omicron may not be as lethal as Delta, I think employers recognize that it's perhaps too early for full time return to work and we're definitely seeing a move back to Italy's hybrid.

And in the case of especially MNCS to return to work from home to some extent.

Okay, so let me one more follow up question Sarah, the idea of remote work is not new.

My cousin in san Jose way back in the early 19 nineties, worked for global software development team where some of them were in India, somewhere in East Asia, somewhere in the US across time ones, producing a product that then IBM marketed.

How are How are these things or these recent developments any different from what my cousin used to do 30 years ago?

I think your cousin was then the exception and it's now becoming increasingly the rule.

Um, and the thing is what, what, what we're seeing, especially in the developing countries in the region, is that changing the nature of work isn't just about putting boundaries around how and where you do your work from.

It also means changes in how you live.

It means changes in your domestic infrastructure.

It means sometimes changes in the social dynamics within a family's home.

Um, and in parts of the world like Asia, where there are often multigenerational families living together or there are certain preconceived notions about gender rules, etcetera.

Uh, there are second order 3rd and 3rd order impacts that I think are still being, uh, are still being fleshed out by societies at large.

It's not work from home is not necessarily for all parts of society, the Holy Grail or at least not as consistently or in as wide ranging a manager Manager, wide ranging a manner here in asIA as it might be in certain developed countries.

Makes sense.

Makes sense.

Alright, so much deeper.

Happy to come back for episode 73 to discuss that.

Absolutely.

Okay, let's talk about the middle of our conversation.

So let's get into India, you've spent quite a bit of time in the last few years working across various segments of the indian talent pool.

Um so why don't you get us going by giving us a little bit of idea about the supply of talent, the demand for talent idiosyncrasies around India, the depth of skill that everybody talks about.

So give us get us going with indian town pool.

The indian talent pool as a well known fact is vast.

That's the only word for it's absolutely vast.

Um it's vast, it's wide and I think the most interesting aspect of it is that it keeps auto refreshing.

Um it's very flexible every few years.

People naturally upscale or re skill themselves to make themselves relevant for what is becoming an extremely dynamic, extremely dynamic, dynamic working environment.

I mean tech is probably a great example of that to just a handful of years ago, the bulk of the demand in India was for I.

T.

Services companies, the old major's right, The companies like Tcs were proposed that the mxcl etcetera on which the entire backbone of the indian technology ecosystem has been built and for which the country is going to be eternally grateful.

But if you look at where what's happening nowadays, the technologies that the new startups are looking for um and the kind of skills that they're looking for have evolved because because there is clearly a move from a high degree of demand for service based skills to product company based skills and and things like that are a pretty inexorable change and represent an upscaling of the overall workforce which perhaps for the decade or so before, that hadn't happened.

And as kind of conclusive manner as it has now.

Um in terms of in terms of demand, um I think you'll find that almost any statistic you look at with respect to the startup ecosystem in particular because that's I know what you want to focus on today.

The number of jobs being created is absolutely massive.

Uh If you if you only look at the startups that are registered or within the ambit of government registration, uh there were a few 100,000, a couple of 100,000 jobs created last year.

The true number.

If you talked to any of the founders uh and after you clean out the Raiders probably 4 to 5 times that just just in the last year.

And then if you look at the related uh Ancillary jobs created, You multiply that by another 2 to 3 times.

So you're potentially looking at perhaps as much as a job creation of one million just in the last 12 months by the startup ecosystem.

Um uh Again by government estimates the number of white collar jobs expected to be created in the next year is about again between 150-200,000.

And again this is only by startups that are within the ambit of the government, there would be a whole bunch of other companies that may not be there.

So in terms of both supply and demand, I think we're at a historic juncture um there will always be a degree of distortion.

Sometimes the supplies too much, sometimes the demand is too much.

But in terms of this becoming an ecosystem that is driving economic growth in India this definitely is um is the most important growth factor right now.

Sarah Help me confirm or dispel this notion that I have.

My notion is that in the last 20 years the orientation of the tech service industry in India has been transformed from one that was primarily export oriented.

So the T.

C.

S.

S that you were talking about, it was providing I.

T.

Services to various global MNCs and their investment was also about indians working for an MNC to provide services to their customers in the US europe wherever.

And my notion is that it's changing as we speak and some of the businesses that you're working with, they're actually looking at providing services to indian customers earning revenue in India, is that an accurate notion?

It most certainly is.

Um and I think the second order impact of that also is that the relative attraction of working for the domestic sector as the startup ecosystem becomes more and more mature, it becomes more and more pervasive is becoming stronger and stronger.

Um uh you know, the the traditional concepts of job security et cetera, jobs for life, which mattered so much to people coming to, to to fresh limited employees coming out of uh out of engineering colleges for example, um that's not necessarily as much of a critical factor anymore because the opportunities in the startup ecosystem like you said, where their various servicing the domestic ecosystem are absolutely humongous.

Now, also, I guess with the world becoming a more close place with many, many countries uh forcing or rather encouraging their businesses to hire locally and discouraging offshoring of jobs that in a in a way has also supported the movement of tech talent towards the, towards the startup ecosystem.

Do you see a lot because you said earlier that, you know, you have been to the area as one of your first travel destinations for work.

So there is a lot of indian entrepreneurs who have succeeded in the west and now they're bringing their capital or know how back to India?

Um yes.

Uh there there there is certainly a lot of that happening in in multiple ways.

Uh there are a bunch of entrepreneurs whose businesses are fundamentally maybe us oriented or europe oriented and are therefore not that well known in India would have already set up large tax centers or R and D centers in India because these companies are not household names there perhaps not as well known in India or or they work in fields which are perhaps not very large and not that cologne India.

So there's already a lot of that happening.

But but what we've also seen and what I've personally seen talking to a lot of senior founders and and and C.

X.

O.

S in the west, especially in the tech enabled ecosystem is that Covid has perhaps got many of them to start thinking about some of the longer term life priorities.

And although obviously Covid was a terrible, terrible time for people globally.

And the issues in India are well documented during, during the delta way last year.

Um there's an increasing shift in mindset of people who thought they were going to be living abroad overseas.

And I want to come back to be closer to family, be closer to home.

And also, frankly over the last 2.5, 3 years, just before Covid started and through Covid because the indian ecosystem has been so vibrant.

I mean $25 billion on average of investment coming in every year, which means that a lot of these guys say that, you know, we can build careers in India and be close to our, to our families and to our native ecosystems.

There's a lot of that going on right now.

In fact, we're having multiple conversations with people in the barrier who want to explore opportunities back in India right now.

You know, Sarah, when I was in college in the US, there were always two groups of people you have the southeast asians, the Malaysians, Indonesians thais who had no question of settling in the west for them, they were there to study because they had comfortable lives and capital and job opportunities back home and they were all going to come back.

Whereas those of us from South Asia, we basically had only one thing in mind which is to make the Westar home.

I'm so happy to see what you just described, which is that South Asia is becoming a bit like East Asia that there is enough of an ecosystem that leaving home to go abroad to study does not become a one way destination.

It can be choose to stay there or choose to come back or do both through the course of your life.

Yes.

And what what is also further encouraging is that it's not limited just to people who have a very specific technical skill set like there, you know, the technology professionals, nor is this limited just to people who may be exited a startup and a huge amounts of capital and can financially and not have to think twice about moving back and setting something up.

We're also talking about mid career people who are looking to see if they can transport the skills and the experience that they have back to India.

And to be fair to the indian senior management and founders, um, a lot of them are very open to talking to returning indians to explore if their experiences can be transported back.

So I do think that this is going to become a reasonably uh reasonably well populated pipeline of talent returning indians over the next year or two.

Could you share us with a couple of examples of the scale and dynamics in that we're talking about like when a startup ceo comes to you, Is he or she asking you to help recruit five people, 50 people or more?

And what kind of fields are they hiring and how are they, sort of, how quickly are they moving about?

So, I'm gonna take the second part of that question.

First, speed is the speed at which these guys move is impressive and I'm not suggesting they're moving fast just because they want to break a few things.

Uh, they move fast, but they do fairly, they do good comprehensive evaluations of candidates, but they just move quickly because they just want to get operationalized really quickly.

Uh, they're all under a lot of self, in many cases, self created pressure, but these are all driven people, these are all people who have made commitments to themselves, maybe to the stakeholders that they're going to get to certain points in certain periods of time.

Uh There is increasingly a lot of competitive pressure, any niche that you might be operating in India.

Um so they definitely moved quickly, they move fast, they moved decisively um um in terms of the skill um again, harking back to the data that that that I mentioned earlier, um the average new startup in a year and I'm talking about the entire spectrum from completely bootstrapped ones to others that obviously to others that might, that might have raised a lot of money On average, if you say about 50,000 startups got registered last year, the average hiring per startup is maybe 10-15 in a year.

However, however, The key thing to keep in mind over here is that a lot of these startups are raising between say anything between 2030 million 150 million or even more in some cases of seed capital, which means that on day one they have the ability to have a fully functional organization in place as opposed to an organization that will grow organically over time as they grow.

And these kinds of startups are potentially hitting the ground running with, you know, 100 203 100 employees in the first quarter of of operation, which if you think about it, you're going from getting a first dollar into the bank to having a fully functioning revenue generating organization within three months with a couple of 100 people.

That is quite an impressive task.

And are we have founders that we work with are completely up to this challenge?

Uh It's such, such, such impressive people,

sort of, if you have thousands of startups coming to life every year and each trying to hire 10, 20 people leading to hundreds of thousands of people getting employed, that also means there's tremendous competition for talent.

So how are you advising these employers to keep their talents sticky, because I hear a lot about attrition, which is not India specific all over the world, that's an issue.

And so, but how are indian entrepreneurs sort of dealing with this challenge?

The reality is that there's a lot of money chasing a very large talent pool, but there is a lot of money chasing it right now.

Um, so there is always, there is in the current environment going to a higher degree of turn uh than is perhaps ideal for for the ecosystem.

But what I think increasingly, our founders in India have started internalizing is that people don't just leave companies, people often leave their managers.

Um and uh it's really heartening to see that the same ecosystem, which a couple of years would have brushed off any talk about, say, organizational culture or internal processes.

Um, these same founders are now at many times either institutionalizing such things or even when they're starting to build their companies, they actually talked to their investors or two advisors like us for support on how they can start the ball rolling by, by putting a vision statement in place, by putting organizational objectives in place by putting the framework of culture in place.

And the companies that are doing this rather than just growing by throwing money at people and attracting, attracting talent are often being more successful and having a lower johN rate.

I'm not for a moment judging those who, who feel the pressure to hire really quickly, because very often the decisions are driven by all kinds of external factors which are not in your control, but the companies that are able to set a framework in place on day one, in terms of how they want to build their organizations, not just their business, but invariably the ones with materially lower john roots

um, share with us your perspective on some of the fast growing sectors in India where the most amount of capital is going or the most amount of disruption or innovation is taking place, like I have in mind, old economy sectors like health, education, commerce, uh, tell me how those sectors are getting disrupted and if there are other sectors that you find compelling you to share with us that too.

So see the three that you named the three or four most most popular ones that come to mind immediately.

Fintech at tech, health, tech e commerce of course there there, but I think if we, if we dig a little deeper in some of these um what are some of these guys, what are some of the really interesting companies in this space trying to achieve?

And I think that's important because a lot of the work that some of these companies do also helps to give a lot of credibility to the entire ecosystem to show that there's a world beyond just super rich founders and table tennis tables in the offices and things like that right now, if you look at, if you look at Fintech for example, one of the great things that has happened through the entire boom over the last 23 years is the amount of financial includes ability, inclusiveness that has been developed, no credit being made available to people who were until now considered unbanked, kable uh concepts like payday loans now of course they come with their own sets of risks, not denying that for a moment, but the fact that they now exist in the ecosystem conversations they're having about these transactions are happening and the regulators are beginning to wake up and see what they can do to provide a balance between between the demand for such the facade services and the, and the inherent interests that come with them.

The fact that these conversations are happening, these businesses are starting are definitely, it's a force for good for the economy.

Um, just to jump to another sector that you mentioned, um, you you you talked about education, um, now there are the very well known areas over here, you know, areas like test prep, etcetera, which fundamentally are meant to take good students and make them even better.

Uh or or things like academic counseling in terms of providing information and access to students for, you know, based on how they've done, what kind of periods they should choose, etcetera.

But then there are companies that are working at a much more grassroots level, which are not always associated with the startup ecosystem, which is so interesting.

I mean, there's one that I just want to name and talk about.

There's a company called Lead Schools, which is headquartered out of Mumbai.

Uh what these guys do is that they focus on schools and students which either are from either from underprivileged partisan society or from tier to Tier three cities where the access to quality education could potentially be a challenge.

And what these, what what this company, what companies like these do is that and lead as there's a market leader in this space.

They the on board such schools onto their platform, They've unloaded thousands of schools and then they provide a standardized quality of education, holistic academic experience for Children across studies and other things by standard, standardizing the curriculum, standardizing teacher training, providing standardized infrastructure as a result of which kids who otherwise might have struggled to have access to quality education, know that if you know that by going to a certain branded institution, they can have a certain basic quality of education which it was just not available earlier.

The point I'm trying to make over here is that it's not just about big valuations and the stuff that you see on tv every day, there are also companies working to actually make a difference.

And these are the ones that I feel that are really adding validation to the entire startup ecosystem.

If you look at abby text, that's another area that doesn't get talked about a lot, but it's becoming more and more important, there are companies currently that are working and removing various disruptions and various intermediary layers at various points of the value chain in agriculture, making it easier for farmers to go to market, making it cheaper for them and removing various inefficiencies in the marketplace.

Right.

But these are again not necessarily companies that that that that get a lot of bandwidth but but they make a huge difference in parts of India that that that really need this

uh and on the health side, any interesting developments you're seeing.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

I mean of late a lot of the developments, a lot of it has been about creating access, right?

I mean the number of people who have used these services um uh the health tech services in the last year in India to access very specific uh, components of care, be it ambulances, beit, beit telehealth, be it advice on, on, on covid related issues that's just off the charts.

But then you what this ecosystem is also a lot of people to do is is medical health professionals like scientists, for example, who want to, who have an idea about developing a very specific say cancer market test, which uh, in isolation if it developed and used correctly, can either significantly reduce the cost of testing that a patient might need to might need to undergo otherwise or maybe even change the entire route, the, the entire treatment route in terms of making it clear whether surgery is needed or not needed, etcetera.

Things like this are also coming up all the time right now.

And it's very good to see, you know, some of the traditional investors, the big name VC firms are also investing very heavily in this kind of space, which is again, I know from having worked with some of these companies making a huge difference in the lives of cancer patients

in this two year Covid pandemic saga.

Are there any major examples of the entrepreneurs in India coming together with the government and helping solve some of the problems that have being posed by this pandemic.

Um, yeah, for sure.

And, and again, you know, you talked about scale and dynamics him earlier and I think it's such a huge validation of the kind of contribution um this ecosystem is making, you know, for example, when, when arrogance say to the, the indian test and trace app uh was created um I think it must have been about 1.5 or close to two years ago, a bunch of India's leading uh startup founders got together with various government arms to brainstorm and help you build this app out.

So there's been a huge contribution from, from the ecosystem from from the startup founders uh to to that.

And it's just supposed to show you know, what used to be perhaps thought of as a bunch of bunch of college kids just going down a rabbit hole.

The same ecosystem now has a seat at the table and increasingly, you know, they are being consulted in matters of policy uh in in in in all kinds of issues that are coming up at a state or central government level which you can't ignore them anymore.

Really fascinating.

I just want to go back to a very personal context of yours.

So you went to, I am ahmedabad, I'm pretty sure from your graduating class majority of the students went overseas to pursue a career initially, whether they came back or not is a different story.

Do you think that dynamic Zim is changing because of the activity that you're sort of alluding to that even for an I am glad there is a job that is interesting enough that has remuneration substantial enough to remain in India,

I think there's, I think there's, there's another angle to it as well.

I think when you're talking about an earlier generation of students, um, I think the West was seen as relatively inaccessible and therefore very aspirational.

Um, as you mentioned earlier as well, people from Southeast Asia, we're going there to just to study people from South Asia, we're usually going there to try and move.

I think increasingly, what we're seeing is even kids who do want to go abroad, I want to go back and more for the experience and the exposure, but are not necessarily treating the West as the holy grail of, you know, once I go there, there's no way I'm coming back.

Um, and in addition to some constraints that have been imposed by developing countries in terms of immigration, etcetera, I think the bulk of it boils down to the ecosystem that has been brought back home exactly as you were saying.

Um, if you can be part of a growth story in an exciting startup set up by people that you can relate to who might be four or five years senior to you have a similar background as yours.

Um, and can intellectually stimulate you to the same degree.

Uh, And if the growth that you can now see in your career is no different from the growth that you would have in a barrier startup and you're working in your native ecosystem.

Um it's not obvious anymore at all that you should live for, you know, 10,000 miles away from home.

Speaking of the ecosystem.

Right?

Absolutely.

So speaking of that ecosystem, how open is that ecosystem to skilled professionals from overseas?

Very open, very open.

Uh like like I was saying earlier, there is increasing interest in coming back to India for mid and late career processions um, and finding and, and and founders or cXs in India are always open to you to having conversations with people who want to come back to India to see if the exposure, they have had the experience, they've had the skills they've built up would be value additive to their to their companies in India.

We haven't had, I think even a single instance of somebody who's interested in coming back to India and hasn't been able to have really interesting and informed conversations with potential employers in India.

Um in fact, in fact if, if I may want to just take this opportunity to also flip this around a little bit, a lot of stock, a lot is said about returning south asians, but what interestingly we've also started seeing that within the region there is now interestingly increasing demand for South asian startup professionals from companies outside of India, like in Southeast asia or um or in the Middle East as those started because systems start growing rapidly.

Well Indonesia has been growing rapidly for a while, but as they start catching up with India and they start solving more and more of the same problems that people solved in India they want to talk to and potentially employ people from India to see if they can help them solve the same problems outside.

Uh and this is not related to just take talent.

This is also people from marketing, growth finance, investor relations, all of that.

So I think it's a, it's a true validation of how well the ecosystem has grown in that there's returning talent from overseas, but it's also exporting a lot of talent overseas now.

And what about non indians?

Are they also showing up more and more by that.

I mean our indian startups or even like more advanced companies subjecting their top leadership to sort of global competition.

Um, there is definitely interest in that, especially at the complete top end of the unicorn list.

Uh Covid has definitely thrown a spanner in that at least for the time being, because global mobility has in general been a little been a little limited.

But um, as we emerged from the pandemic, I'm already seeing the first stirrings of interest in that again from indian companies.

Uh and I'm reasonably confident that that comes back, but there is definitely openness.

I think, I think you have to say that about the indian ecosystem.

They are open to all kinds of ideas and thoughts.

They don't have, they're typically not constrained by things like the degree or years of experience or any of the other usual filters that are applied in traditional recruitment situations.

Uh they're far more open, far more flexible and they look for the value that an individual can add as opposed to necessarily what letters he has next to his name.

Sort of the Indian markets, private or public have gone through an extraordinary boom in the last 18 months or so.

So it's a strange juxtaposition.

We have the pain inflicted by the pandemic, but we also have a record liquidity record investment coming in and you know, the record number of unicorns, uh you know, taking place in India last year 2020 is very likely to be characterized by higher interest rates and less liquidity.

And in the first few weeks of the year we've already seen whether it is in India or in the US significant market volatility.

So what kind of risks do you see in the horizon as this era of cheap cash starts coming to an end?

Um I think if you're talking about India in particular India benefits a little bit by the fact that it already has a very well developed platform.

The ecosystem has already been validated by the amount of success, it's had 70, 80 unicorns and how many times that number in the 500 million to $1 billion dollar bracket.

So in terms of international investors and and the number of alternatives um are perhaps not not that high because there have been disruptions in various countries where when money also used to flow over the last couple of years, such as china, so interest rates going up to the extent that that will cause a little bit of liquidity.

That caused a significant liquidity crunch in general.

I'm not sure that that makes a huge impact yet on the indian startup ecosystem, because the indian indian started because system is getting very integrated into the fabric of daily society.

It's like we were talking earlier, you know, things like healthcare, things like education, things like financial inclusion, these are undergoing complete transformations because of the force for good that the indian startup ecosystem has fundamentally become and which is why it's growth is fundamentally, I think not going to be altered by normal economic cycles, of course it will be impacted to some extent.

But when people talk of risks in the context of the startup ecosystem, they are looking for 199, style internet bust where the ecosystem was ravaged completely ravaged what the companies in India are doing in terms of solving fundamental issues of access of of infrastructure, of democratizing things like quality and education, these, I don't think are going to get slowed down because of economic cycles, but when you talk of risks, if I may um what I talk about with some of my founder friends is that the risks might be as much as much internal as as as external.

Um you know, one of the closest parallels I can think of is around the GFC when a number of financial institutions were completely uh completely transformed as a result of the actions before the GFC.

Now, if you heartburn hindsight is always 2020 and without pointing any fingers at any individuals or any institutions, the fact is that if you look through all the literature or, and there's been plenty written about what happened during that period.

If you, if you kind of deep dive into it, a lot of it boils down to two things, hubris and lack of internal controls a week into look influence and that's what I think our founders are external stakeholders only to keep an eye out for to make sure that hubris doesn't get ahead of itself or doesn't doesn't impact how the companies are being organized, how they're performing and very importantly, not handing over internal controls as somebody else's problem within the company, making how you look at your control framework as something very fundamental to how you do business.

If you have these two things in check.

I think internally most problems should most of the key risks should get taken care of.

So I think those two factors apply both at the micro as well as the macro national level.

So I think your, your point is very, very well taken Sarah, thank you so much for your time and insight.

This was really, really interesting.

Thank you very much more uh pleasure being over here.

Look forward to catching up soon.

Absolutely.

And let me thank also our listeners Kobe time was produced by martin, tacky daisy Sharma and violently provided additional assistance.

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