>> The greatest thing about my job is the breath and variety
of companies that I get to work with.
It's amazing really in you know about a ten or so year career how many opportunities I've seen.
How many different company types that I've seen of the ability to get direct access to CEOs
and CFOs of these companies many of which are very successful
and just learn a dramatic amount about various industries.
I've tended to focus a little bit on technology, media, and telecommunications,
but I've also had exposure to other areas of financial services, transportation
and logistics, some consumer services as well, and it's been an amazing learning experience
to really get a chance to look at all the-- how all these companies work.
A lot of us you know interact with companies either in a personal or professional context
where we buy services from companies, or we buy goods from companies,
but we don't really understand how they work underneath it.
We don't understand you know how many employees they have and what those employees do
to make those companies function and work well and be able to deliver the products
and services that you and I purchase.
So it's a really great privilege to be able to see how all that works from the inside out.
The hardest part of the job is probably the fact that it's incredibly competitive.
There are you know lots of capital providers.
There are banks, there are hedge funds, there are private equity funds, there are BDCs,
there are you know various other types of funds out there that are looking to provide capital
to companies, and it's a very competitive and grueling task
to actually find something that works.
You know we may look through dozens or hundreds of opportunities before we find one
that fits just right for both us as well as the company.
So from that standpoint it's incredibly hard work.
You end up working very hard on projects that unfortunately don't go
through even though you may really want them to go through.
Even though they might seem really exciting, even though you feel like it's a good fit,
there might be somebody else out there that's a better fit or offers better terms
to the company, so therefore you know for every you know ten projects you work really hard
on you're lucky if you actually get to execute on one or two of them.
So in the heat of the moment it might feel like it's a waste of time
or your you know spending a lot of energy on things that aren't successful,
and it might feel like a failure, so overcoming that and--
excuse me, overcoming that and realizing that it is a you know, a long-term process;
it's a marathon it's not a race is really the critical component of the job as well.