Transcript: M&Awith Jamie Claire Kiser
TZL Open [0:03] Welcome to the Zweig Letter Podcast putting architectural, engineering, planning, and environmental consulting advice and guidance in your ear. Zweig Group's team of experts has spent more than three decades elevating the industry by helping AEP and environmental consulting frms thrive. And these podcasts deliver invaluable management, industry, client marketing, and HR advice directly to you free of charge. The Zweig Letter Podcast elevating the design industry one episode at a time? Randy Wilburn [0:49] Hey folks, and welcome to another episode of The Zweig Letter Podcast. I'm your host, Randy Wilburn and I'm excited to be with you today. I have got my colleague, Jamie Claire Kiser, who is a managing principal at Zweig Group, and just an all-around. Well, I won't say the word but she knows her stuff. And so Jamie Claire, I wrangled her to come on the podcast because I wanted to talk about M&A activity in the design industry. It has gone through the roof. It's gone bonkers is the best way to describe it over the past couple of years. And so Jamie Claire agreed to come on the show today. And just to join me and give us an update from her perspective as somebody that you know, oversees a lot of the M&A activity at Zweig Group, pretty much all of it and she has an amazing team behind her that are really making things happen. But they're moving at such a breakneck pace and I was able to pull her away from the negotiation table to just sit down with us on today's episode of the Zweig Letter Podcast. So without further ado, Jamie Claire Kiser, how are you doing?
Jamie Claire Kiser [1:51] I am doing well. Thank you so much for having me.
Randy Wilburn [1:54] Absolutely. Well, you know, you and I talked earlier this week and I told you, I just wanted to talk about M&A activity and just what's happening in the design industry. It seems like this season that we're in as we come out of the pandemic, the pace of activity, the pace of transactions that are happening in the design industry, are unlike anything that I've ever seen. I've been around the industry, I know I'm dating myself now, but I've been around since 97. But I can't remember back in the day, looking at Mark, or any of the other folks that were working in M&A back then working at the pace that you guys are working at right now. So what's going on?
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Jamie Claire Kiser [2:33] We are in a phase in the AEC industry and the economic cycle that has really set this space up for an insane amount of interest in transactions and in consolidation. There just are a lot of factors that all came together at the same time to create this feeding frenzy within the M&A market in our space.
Randy Wilburn [2:55] And so with this frenzy, I mean, even when you got into this industry was that like maybe 2014-2015 [cross-talking] . But you've seen some distinct differences between those early days and now. I mean, there's just been a lot that has happened.
Jamie Claire Kiser [3:17] It has changed. I mean, this sounds like hyperbole. But truly everything about the M&A space within AEC has changed since I've been here. Almost nothing is the same as it was from the kinds of frms that joined forces to the pacing of a deal and how long it takes to move forward to throwing out and governors on just best practices and things that have held steady with like 30 years of our data backing it up. This isn't just a generalization. This is the way that things traditionally were done, had been thrown completely out of the window. And it's a really interesting opportunity to, I guess it takes best practices from any space and applies them to our industry so that we can be better dealmakers. Randy Wilburn [3:59] I was looking at some statistics as I was reading some old articles from the Zweig Letter and there was one that was just talking about, and this was fairly recent when we went through the Zweig Group’s hot frm list. There were, I think 76 percent of the hot frms grew through M&A. And I saw that and I was like, wow, I can't believe how many people have actually, in my mind, dip their toe in the pool of mergers and acquisitions and grew that way. But then, when you start to think about all the other challenges that this industry is faced with, labor, organic growth, it's not as easy as it used to be. It almost makes sense that frms would have to look at this as an option for a way to grow and a way to continue to remain relevant in the verticals that they serve within this industry.
Jamie Claire Kiser [4:54] Absolutely, and with record backlog as well. It's not possible to just continue to hire one person at a time and to cycle through is just as insane demand for services too. It really is being driven by all facets of the market, from
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hiring to demand services to aging out of the ownership group demographic within our space. Actually, the way that companies are structured in our industry, which is making them very attractive to fnancial buyers, because of the risk aversion and the debt, the fact that there's not a lot of debt on the balance sheet or space to it. There are a lot of things that have come together at this moment and that's really all fueling the M&A pace that we're seeing now. Randy Wilburn [5:35] I'm glad you mentioned that, because I remember how much of a source of pride it was when I would meet with frm owners, and they would mention the fact that they were debt-free. And you know, you don't think of that in this day and age, right, because everybody's taking out loans and doing this and doing that and leveraging the value of their companies. But a lot of design frms, that's never been a real practice of theirs to do that to take on massive debt in any way, shape, or form.
Jamie Claire Kiser [6:02] I think the qualifer of massive is needed.
Randy Wilburn [6:05] That's true. Any debt? I think a lot of these frm leaders in the design industry take the Dave Ramsey approach to debt so that is probably appropriate. So what are some of the other factors and well, I should say this, how did the pandemic that punched us all in the gut at the beginning of 2020? How did that play into the decision-making process of frm leaders to consider M&As?.
Jamie Claire Kiser [6:39] So there's a lot of different ways that this has played out. One of the things though, that I think that is worth mentioning, the cultural kind of things that we saw during COVID are certainly not to skip over. But the infux of PPP funds changed the balance sheets in our space, unlike anything that I've ever seen. All of a sudden companies that had operated on the tiniest margin of working capital possible, but had a balance sheet that looked totally different than it ever has before, with the cash on hand. When you have money in the bank, you have the freedom to decide kind of more of your destiny and some competence to make moves. And you're also able to stabilize and think about how do we grow. And I think that initial PPP investment especially prevented those knee-jerk reactions, that in our space we may have seen a lot of people out of work. If the work dries up, if a project gets put on hold, most companies don't have enough working capital to support extra people on the payroll. And the PPP funds, I think what they were intended to do in that it allowed
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people to keep folks on the payroll. Thank goodness, because work came back roaring, and many companies grew during that period. We may have had to learn how to do some gymnastics, but the demand and the need came right back. But I think for M&A specifcally, though, what it did was clean up things. Companies were able to pay off their equipment, some of their debt, they were may be able to make some investments that will fuel growth. And once you start doing that, it changes how you run your company. And that liquidation that we saw, we're still seeing, I mean, as we get the data from your end for last year, companies are in a really good position and that's when you start getting comfortable making some investments. Randy Wilburn [8:16] When you couple that with the fact that maybe they didn't have some of the burdens that they had and running like a full-blown offce, because a lot of their employees might be working from home and a lot of other factors with remote work and all that it defnitely changed the playing feld for how design frm leaders ran their companies. And so you had to almost be willing to pivot and embrace the differences that came out of the pandemic. Jamie Claire Kiser [8:44] That's right, and the cultural facets too. I skipped over those initially, because I really do think that what gave people the, I guess the comfort in extending themselves more than they may be had, as business owners do stem from a lot of the societal factors that were going on as well. I mean, the great kind of migration, as it's been dubbed, are people moving around during COVID and being able to work from anywhere, if you can get comfortable with people not being in the same offce as you, that is such a game-changer for how you run your business. And once you start realizing just how to communicate and manage and just work across teams and people that aren't in the same offce, all of a sudden you have access to any labor pool that you're comfortable accessing. That is the start of thinking about, do we open an offce like, what do we need an offce for? We need people. Do you want to hire them one at a time? Are we going to bring in a group of people that know how to work together? This is all part of that M&A kind of thought process? Totally agree. Randy Wilburn [9:37] It's exciting. I mean, as I said, you and I have joked and others have said that the constant refrain that we always hear in the design industry spaces. That's not how we've always done things, and nowadays that phrase has been kicked to the curb. It's been thrown out of the window. Firm leaders are just saying, you know what, this is a paradigm shift for us, and we have to think and do differently than we have in the past. And speaking of that, I want to ask you, as you mentioned it and that
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culture is one of the biggest things and when you do an M&A, you're always concerned about the culture ft, right. And so with all of this consolidation M&A activity that we're seeing, has culture taken a backseat to fnancial and geographic considerations?
Jamie Claire Kiser [10:26] No, not at all. This industry is nothing without people. The culture really is non-negotiable. The hard part is assessing culture. And that is one of the things that was made much, much more diffcult during the pandemic. Doing everything via zoom, instead of being able to get to know people or get to see an offce or get to see how things normally operate. Those casual connections that you make at an event, at a conference, at a trade show, those are really the building blocks of that culture, and not able to see it in action, I think, made it a lot more diffcult for frms in our space, which are very culture focused and relational to get comfortable proceeding. You're only talking to a couple of people at the very top of the frm, throughout most of the M&A process and cutting off even further kind of insight into how the inner workings of the company go. That is a huge risk factor and I'll say, coupling that with kind of the great resignation and huge demand for services, we've seen a resurgence in some of the retention strategies that really I haven't seen retention bonuses at the amounts that I'm seeing in transactions ever. I mean, just in the time that I've been doing this. But they went from something a seeing of retention bonus. So that's a form of consideration paid to a non-owner, non-key employee who's not getting an employment agreement. So usually, those are just reserved for owners, but former owners of the seller, making sure that they're locked in for a number of years. Now we're seeing buyers and sellers negotiate, setting aside a pool of money for either everyone else or a much bigger group of people. And the thought process is, even if they like getting them to commit to another six months or a year post-closing giving them an incentive to do that which gives the buyer the ability to say, let me prove my culture is good. Here's my down payment for the rest of your career. You know, you can trust us. And we've seen a lot of that in deal-making. And I think it's a proxy to the isolation that people may be felt during COVID and then just the risk of turnover too.
RandyWilburn [12:24] Can we call those mini golden handcuffs? Is that a thing?
Jamie Claire Kiser [12:32] Yeah, the key is more accessible.
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Randy Wilburn [12:35] No, absolutely. I appreciate that insight. That was something I was not aware of and I didn't know about those retention bonuses going to non-principal or non-stock shareholding employees. So that's interesting. What are the benefts of M&A is that you get to grow, you get to maybe bring on in one fell swoop a lot of people to join your frm, or to come on to your side of the M&A that most frm owners never consider? Jamie Claire Kiser [13:15] I would say that one of the biggest benefts that don't really get noticed or aren't really advocated for very often, is the power of the mentorship that can come from combining frms with great leadership teams. There are a lot of companies where there's a motivation to sell, for example, maybe there's not a second in command. Maybe we got somebody whose exit is pretty imminent and fguring out how to get the folks below them to a point where they can run the company. You can hire people to do that you can fgure out how you can work on the fnancial aspects. But having someone that you can trust to teach you how to be a good business owner and a good business partner, doesn't come easy. And one of the benefts of joining with a company is just bringing more of those mentors onto the team, and it doesn't just apply to sellers either. Finding those great partnerships that make it less lonely at the top, it can relieve a lot of burden for both sides of the table. Just having other folks who've been in your position, owned a business understand what that's like. We talked to a lot of people again on the buy and sell-side that will talk about having somebody to talk to who's been there and who's on the team. Randy Wilburn [14:20] There was another statistic that I saw that ties into this, which is like 92 percent of non-tech companies are owned by boomers, ages 57 to 72. And a lot of these people are in a position where they hadn't necessarily accounted for what was next. And M&A does provide an option for them to consider as they determine what their next steps are so they don't have to fold up the company. But that they can fnd a suitable suitor that can partner up with them and extend the life of the vision that they had created earlier on in their career. Jamie Claire Kiser [15:01] And do so in a way that creates an opportunity for everyone else in the company. I know in M&A, where I focus is defnitely the people that own the company and are making the buy and sell decisions. But the motivation to enter any of the discussions is almost never just to let me get my money and leave. People are proud of what they've built and they're proud of the people whose careers they are in charge of, and there's a lot of thought process, and how joining a company that can
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preserve the best of the culture helps with that growth, and gets the teams to the next level. That's a huge motivator.
Randy Wilburn [15:31] It sounds like it's safe to say that, you know, I remember back in the day having to get on the phone and make calls to prospective companies to see if they were even remotely interested in considering M&A. That's probably not the case right now, right? I mean, people are open to having these conversations, and if anything, I would probably think that you would suggest that anybody should be open to at least having a conversation to learn more about the process and to learn more about what is possible. Jamie Claire Kiser [15:59] It is actually very diffcult right now to fnd companies to acquire. In the market for M&A, there's so much demand. People are getting call after call after call from people like me and we are heading straight to their delete spam email inboxes. I mean, we're all but getting restraining orders fled against us just to get in front of people to see if they can spare fve minutes out of their busy schedules to hear it out. And I think that if you want to be a buyer in this market, you really have to nail the pitch. You have to treat this like recruiting. This is selling. This is your foot in the door, your elevator pitch, it's a sales process. And if I could give one piece of advice to buyers, it is to dismantle that initial point of contact process and make it really ft their differentiators. You have to stand out in this market because it is very, very crowded. Randy Wilburn [16:51] Yeah, and I might add one piece from a communication standpoint. And this is something that we talk about when we do this leadership training. And some of the other training that Zweig Group offers is that when you think about your audience, you'd never want to create a cookie-cutter approach to how you would talk to recruit somebody to join your team, nor should you do that when you're, as Jamie said, talking to a multitude of different companies because you need to consider your audience and you need to craft your message to meet the needs of that audience. Because a lot of times, you create this, so I've got my elevator pitch, and you just share it with everybody and it falls on deaf ears. Because, you might say one thing to one group that really just doesn't resonate with them, but it might for another. So you really need to consider who your audience is, take time to understand them, then craft your message to make sure that it gets maximum effect when you share it.
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Jamie Claire Kiser [17:48] Oh my gosh. Yes, absolutely. When I talk to frms that want to be buyers and they start kind of giving us you know, here's what we want to make sure that we're positioning ourselves as. You're not going to believe this, but every single frm says their top priority is cultural ft. Every single one, the number one important thing to us is the cultural ft. And that applies to ten 10 person frms, it applies to publicly traded frms, it applies to private equity groups. Everyone's culture is their top priority within their organization. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I guess I think that we don't take it a step further and show it. If culture is your ft, what do you mean by that? What are the aspects of your culture that make you a gem? What are the differentiators for your company? Know who you are and what that basis and that's how you stand out in a crowded feld? Randy Wilburn [18:37] And especially as there are new players that have gotten into the M&A space in our industry, I was hoping you could speak about this a little bit. Private equity has taken note of what's happening in the AEC space when historically when you think of private equity, they were not necessarily interested in professional service frms, but now they are interacting with and doing transactions with AEC frms. And I would love for you may be anecdotal to share some of your experiences as it pertains to private equity getting involved in this space? Jamie Claire Kiser [19:15] Well, I have a lot to say on this topic. [RW - I fgured you did so] and I want to be even-handed. So one of the biggest benefts of having an infux of private equity in our space is that it's forcing us to sit up and run our companies like real businesses. You have to pay attention to your working capital. You have to pay attention to where's the money going. You have to really have a handle on your expenses, your effciency, and the return on the investment. And that doesn't mean it's all about the numbers but our industry is a pretty big gap. I think sometimes between the project works that people want to spend their time on and the things that actually create that long-term value and the infux of private equity and the valuations that we're seeing in those increased numbers. That's great for our industry overall, being an undervalued industry isn't a good thing, if that's what you're going to spend your entire legacy building. I think getting valuations that were closely tied to other types of industries that perform services is a very good thing for the space overall. If we're going to recruit, retain people, you want to see people that are able to achieve great wealth in a space. That's how an industry boom, right? And I think that's really important and it's a very good thing. There are some challenges too, of course. I think that some private equity frms have a bit of a naive view of what you can do with a company that you buy in our space. We've got this record backlog, therefore, all we have to do is hire twice as many people next year, and then we'll achieve this growth
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rate and this proftability. And, as we say in Arkansas, we just want to say bless your heart. Good luck fnding this many people your organic strategy of hiring is that you've got to really be realistic with what the growth rate can be in the space. It's not because we didn't know that we needed to hire. That isn't the challenge, and so I think that diagnosis is important too, and understanding the end markets and the actual risk associated with our space. And there is an educational component to being a good private equity buyer. And there are some private equity frms that do a great job with this and know what they don't know. It's a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet, but in an industry is a much more diffcult thing to wrap your arms around like you and I know. Randy Wilburn [21:32] And a lot of people that come into this industry think it's easy to ramp up and grow a group and get a bunch of people. My gosh, talent acquisition in the design industry, space is about as hard as it comes. It's just fnding good engineers, fnding good architects, great planners, surveyors, great landscape architects. They're out there, but it's not easy to get them. And that's one of the biggest challenges that design frms face right now. Jamie Claire Kiser [22:05] And understanding how different market sectors interact with the designers that are within that space also. I mean, that is a huge quirk of our industry, when you talk to somebody who's a land developer versus a forensic, you know, engineer, and kind of what they do and what their I guess, ability to grow, infuence fees, get their work done faster, change the contract structure. There are a lot of nuances there too. I know that this sounds obvious, and I know that the listeners are like, oh, my gosh, why are you telling me this. But if we're talking to people who don't know our space, and you want to achieve that kind of evaluation that you can get with a private equity partner, then it's mutual education. And it really should be that really came prepared with an explanation of how we do business and kind of what the growth potential is, and what the challenges are to that growth. I think, really, we can help each other kind of get there so that education is happening.
Randy Wilburn [22:56] Now with everything that we've just said and we've kind of painted a picture of what the M&A landscape looks like right now in the design industry space. Can you think of any reasons not to do an M&A at this point in time?
Jamie Claire Kiser [23:10] Well, yes. We talked to a lot of companies that maybe aren't. They need to navigate what they're selling versus the risk tolerance, right? Like, if you're going to come to the table with a huge backlog and great projections to justify a
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higher valuation, but you're not able to offer a contingent payment for achieving those numbers, then you're not going to achieve the highest value, perhaps by selling. You really have to, I guess, couple, where you are in your own kind of energy space, with how long of an off-ramp you're going to need to achieve the numbers that you're looking for. There are a lot of companies that are better served by an internal ownership transition than an external one for various cultural reasons. I mean, just for all kinds of other reasons too. But I think a lot of sellers are a bit naive with how quickly they'll actually be able to remove themselves from the business. And even if you've got your head on straight with that topic, once you start presenting numbers about the future and started talking about that, that kind of can change the conversation a little bit. And I guess the advice would just be to make sure that we're selling, we're willing to commit, or else you're not going to get that off-ramp that you were looking for, and maybe your time and your retirement was a little bit more valuable than winning at the negotiation table.
Randy Wilburn [24:31] Yeah. Now that you say that, it makes me think. I hope anybody listening to this understands that Zweig Group offers a wide variety of services in this area but if you must, the M&A Group ended up handing off a lot of clients that would probably be better suited working with the OT Group, the Ownership Transition Advisory Group there at Zweig. Is that the case?
Jamie Claire Kiser [24:55] Absolutely. We work back and forth on projects all the time or we go down one route as far as we can, and then we realize there's another opportunity that presents itself. But we defnitely go across the table on those transactions for internal and external ownership transitions. Defnitely. And also strategic planning too. Developing a long-term growth strategy with an end in mind. What are we trying to get to? Randy Wilburn 25:19] Yeah, which really leads me to realize that a lot of times when you say to a potential client that maybe now's not the best time. All that means is that it's not no for good, it's just right now, maybe you need to do some of these other things to sure up what you're doing and tighten up the infrastructure of your organization frst before you put it out on the block, and try to try to fnd the highest bidder. Because, again, people want companies that have mission vision values, have a goal, have a plan and that's why strategic planning is so important. I can see somebody being told no, not right now. It's just not no, forever, it's just not right now. And I think that's good to hear, as well, for some frm leaders that maybe it's time for them to kind
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of corral the groups and go back to the drawing board and fne-tune some things that they need to do internally for their organization so that they can come out the other side even stronger.
Jamie Claire Kiser [26:21] Absolutely. And, you know, the last point on this one that I think is important to make is that there can be absolutely no relation whatsoever between somebody's ownership concentration and their importance to the organization. And that is not going to work in M&A, you know, buying a company from the people that own it. And it really ties the hands of a buyer when the person who owns the company isn't the one that we need to incentivize right to continue growing to do the work. The one that's actually adding that the longer-term value post-closing may not be the one who owns the company or the group of folks that own the company. And that disconnect if there's not a good overlap in leadership and ownership and kind of the cultural piece to right, like the heart of the company that can cause a real challenge. Randy Wilburn [27:02] So as we wind up here, I certainly wanted to ask you because as I get the emails, and I look at a lot of the posts on LinkedIn when you guys are congratulating frms that have come together in a holy merger, matrimony, are there any examples that you can point to, and I'm using air quotes here, a good M&A transaction that serves the model that you guys are trying to implement at Zweig Group that you guys are really excited to talk about, that you can’t talk about at least? Jamie Claire Kiser [27:35] I’m about to get a bunch of emails that were talking about me. But you know, off we go. One example, I guess, a really cool transaction that I just love the way that it came together was a company that had a family ownership group. The parents and actually one of their children were the owners of the company, and the parents were ready to exit and that was really the driver of the external sale and, the son obviously had a different timeline for the exit strategy. Through the transaction through the courtship process, getting the son in front of the prospective buyer early on, and building that relationship, now has this person who is going to be very likely a successor to the CEO of a company that's 10, 20 times the size they were when they sold. It is a really cool story of somebody's ability to change their career trajectory by selling which is counterintuitive. We think about it being an exit and an ending, but just watching this company continue to grow, and like the clear, I guess,
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things that they're doing together, it's really cool to me to see. That's what we hope for winning companies together.
Randy Wilburn [28:44] Well, I would imagine that stories like that are kind of what gets you up every morning, because you're like, well, what's next? Can we do this again, you know, wash, rinse and repeat.
Jamie Claire Kiser [28:53] What gets me up every morning is deal closings, but what warms my heart at the end of the day?
Randy Wilburn [29:00] Oh, man, that's funny. Well, Jamie, Claire, this has been great. I do want to ask you this because I mean, again, nobody knows what the future holds for us and there are a lot of unknowns. There's a lot of money that's about to food the market from the infrastructure program, I hope, and that's going to impact the design industry quite a bit, and we'll see if it is the accelerant that people think it will be and I'm speaking of the infrastructure money that's going to hit the marketplace. But I'm curious to know, what are your thoughts on the M&A landscape over the next few years? Are you bullish about things? Are you kind of just reserving comments, because you're not quite sure what direction things are going to go? How do you feel about the next two to three years? I don't even want to look beyond that. Jamie Claire Kiser [29:45] Yeah, well I mean, certainly in the next two to three years, absolutely this space is going to have to continue. When we look at the industry forecasts and long-term trends, it's much more driven by market data than demographics and I really want people to focus on the fact that I mean, the statistic you shared about the ownership concentration and the Asian group of owners within our industry. There's going to be just literally a need, no matter what the market looks like, whether we say that the valuation stays where they're at or change at all, for folks to offoad their ownership period. You just have to accept that as a fact of our space. And that coupled with the fact that it's tough to bring people in, and the outlook for folks entering your industry in the next few years isn't great, either. This is going to have to be a talent strategy but it's also potentially an ownership concentration strategy response too. I guess, a concentration of ownership and an aging group of owners. And I think that what we'll see in the next few years, because it's hard to fnd companies in our space, right, because there's a lot of transactions going on. They're consolidating companies that are pretty quick. The next thing that's going to happen is
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a technology investment. We're going to see more M&A of AEC frms investing in technology and technology frms investing in AEC. That's defnitely going to be part of the landscape in the near term and we're already seeing it by the way. There have been several notable transactions in the last few weeks announced, of acquiring companies that have just smart building technology, or some piece of what they do, that can really make the work more effcient in our space. And once we become anything close to the tech industry, that's when things are bad, then we can really buckle up. Randy Wilburn [31:21] Yeah, that's exciting, though. Yeah, I mean, I think we are seeing that migration of the way that design frms are running and operating. And it's not so much the old wineskin approach to design it. They are merging technology with a lot of the things that they do at the drafting table at the design table, so it's going to be interesting to see what happens. And then, of course, new things are being developed every day. It's defnitely going to make for an interesting landscape for sure. Jamie Claire Kiser [31:51] The other thing I want to point out too, is that I don't think it’s talked about a lot. And this is a feature of private equity entering the space, whether you're looking to be acquired by private equity, or just functioning within the same ecosystem, which we all are now. But fnancial buyers often have corporate social responsibility, obligations, and diversity, expectations within their company, or the funds that they're using may have certain expectations for the companies they will invest in and what that criteria looks like. And I think that what may be, I don't know, perhaps an ironic outcome of this change in the investor profle. The folks from private equity might end up being what gets us to actually embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion in our space, which is, I think, something that people aren't really may be paying attention to. But the requirements for board composition and just a diversity of ownership and leadership that come from some of the larger fnancial institutions and those investment platforms, there are requirements there that our industry hasn't really gotten to yet. And I think that it's something worth talking about.
Randy Wilburn [32:53] I agree with you 100%. Because to be quite honest with you, I'd never pursued my lips to talk about diversity, equity and inclusion until after George Floyd. And we did a bunch of episodes on it here on the Zweig Letter podcast. But I mean, I always say better late than never, and if that's what it will mean for private equity to be involved in this space. I’d say, I’d have at it because it's been a long enough
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journey for us to have that conversation. And I think it will make for a richer design industry environment across the board.
Jamie Claire Kiser [33:33] Of course it will, and it will start infuencing our clients within the space by services. It will spur the conversations that you hope happen as an outcome of something like this and just needed to respond to an economy that says we need to look different than we do today.
Randy Wilburn 33:48] Absolutely. This has been good. You've dropped some nuggets across the bow, Jamie Claire if I can use that expression. It's been really good. Now, I do want to mention this because if you're listening to this before the end of April of 2022, you guys at Zweig Group are doing an M&A next symposium in Charleston, South Carolina. Is that still happening? [JCK - It sure is]. And what is the goal of that event?
Jamie Claire Kiser [34:17] The goal of that event is just to get back out there and talk about M&A with our industry. It's been a long couple of years, Randy. We're sick of zooms over here.
Randy Wilburn [34:27] Oh, my gosh, you and me both, but I mean, Charleston, South Carolina is going to be such a great backdrop of a city to go visit. You've got the ordinary you've got some outstanding restaurants that are there.
Jamie Claire Kiser [34:39] My agenda is packed. It has nothing to do with M&A.
Randy Wilburn [34:42] I'm sure, but I would encourage anybody listening to this if you want to go spend a couple of days with Jamie Claire Kiser and Chad Clinehens and the rest of the outstanding advisory team at Zweig Group. You really should make it a point to visit with them on April 28 and 29th down in Charleston, South Carolina. If you're listening to this post of that date, then never fear you can always reach out to Jamie Claire. What's the best way for people to reach out and contact you?
The Zweig Letter Podcast – www.TheZweigLetter.com
Jamie Claire Kiser [35:08] The best way for people to contact me is by emailing me and I bet that can be put in the Episode Notes. You can reach out to me on LinkedIn. You can call me. You can get in touch with me any way that you would like and if you want restaurant recommendations for Charleston, you got it. You want to talk about buying, selling anything related to driving long-term value in your company, give me a call.
Randy Wilburn [35:28] That's it. Well, Jamie Claire Kiser, thank you so much for joining us on the Zweig Letter Podcast. These get-togethers are too infrequent, we've got to do it more often. But I really appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to do this. And I'm sure there are going to be some great questions that will arise out of this particular episode. So thank you so much.
Jamie Claire Kiser [35:48] Thank you for having me.
Randy Wilburn [35:51] Well folks, that's another episode of the Zweig Letter Podcast. To learn more about one of the oldest newsletters in the design industry, please visit zweiggroup.com. You can read articles online, listen to this podcast, sign up for a free subscription to the newsletter and have it delivered right into your email inbox every Monday morning. Sign up today. And remember, all the show notes from everything that we discussed on this episode of the Zweig Letter Podcast will be available online at zweiggroup.com so I encourage you to visit there. For more information about Zweig Group's advisory services, or any of Zweig Group’s publications, visit zweiggroup.com. You can subscribe again to the Zweig Letter Podcast, wherever you listen to it, and please consider rating and reviewing us on the Apple podcast. I'm your host RandyWilburn, and we'll see you soon. Peace. TZL Open [36:42] Thanks for tuning in to the Zweig Letter Podcast. We hope that you can be part of elevating the industry and that you can apply our advice and information to your daily professional life. For a free digital subscription to the Zweig letter, please visit the zweigletter.com/subscribe to gain more wisdom and inspiration in addition to information about leadership, fnance, HR, and marketing your frm. Subscribe today.
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