Sherrese Clarke Soares, founder and CEO of Newark, N.J.-based investment firm HarbourView Equity, explains why she’s motivated to invest in media at a time when the industry’s largest companies are struggling mightily with the transition to streaming. Clarke Soares explains why she sees a right-sizing of the business underway as well as a dawning appreciation for the value of engagement versus mass appeal in entertainment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with
industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My
guest is Scherise Clark Suarez, founder and CEO of Harbor
View Equity. Clark Suarez is a busy investor who is
making interesting bets on music, film and television. She's doing
(00:31):
so at a time of genuine chaos in the traditional business.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
The industry's largest.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Companies are struggling to turn a profit on film and
TV production. So what does she see that others don't.
Clark Suarez has a lot to say about that. In
our wide ranging interview, she explains the motivation behind her
recent investment in Charles Kings Macro and in the production
company Mucho mass Media. She also expects to be busy
(00:56):
in the coming months as the media metamorphosis can continues
and bigger companies let go of interesting assets. Clark Suarez
learned the ropes of private equity, credit markets, and film
financing during her fifteen years at Morgan Stanley. In twenty
twenty one, she planted her flag as harbor View Equity.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
In Newark, New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
She'll explain how the company has made its mark in
just a few years.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Right after this break.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
And we're back with more from harbor View Equity CEO
Sharise Clark Suarez.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
So nice to be with you. Thank you for having
me appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Well, harbor View has been on my radar for a while.
I've seen you've done some deals in the music arena
and I've noted those with interest. And then what really
got all my attention because I am an old TV
geek I have covered television for Variety for a long time,
and I noted with interest that you you made an
investment in an interesting company called Mucho Moss and that
(02:05):
develops a particular kind of content that have After talking
with you, I know that you really have a strong
sense about where the media marketplace is going, where there
are investment opportunities. And so after a few minutes on
the phone, I was like, we have to take this
to the podcast. So I'm so glad, thank you for
making the trek from Newark, where you are based. We
(02:25):
were just talking about lots of good things going on
in Newark, a nice example of civic and public and
private partnership. What a concept. We'll talk a little bit
about Newark at the end, but let me just let's
take the thirty thousand foot view and let me ask you,
as a smaller and independent investment firm. Media companies of
(02:45):
all sizes are struggling to find the path to old
fashioned profits that this business used to be known for.
So what is it that amid all of this chaos
and all of this tummult, what is it that you
see that is driving your investment strategy?
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Absolutely well, listen, I think one of the things that's
central to our value system at Harvard View is really
about honing in on and identifying where audience is. And
I think you and I talked about this a little bit,
but everybody who I talked to the conversation is the same.
(03:20):
We all have lots of music. We're listening to more
music than we ever have in our entire lifetime. We
can all trade notes on all our favorite shows that
we're watching at nauseum over and over and over again.
And so the audience experience and demand for nuanced and
specific content to them for them has not gone away.
(03:44):
It's only gotten enriched as the way that we experience
that content has become more and more decentralized. Right, growing up,
when it was Mussy TV on Thursday night on NBC,
we all sat down at eight o'clock and watched the
series of shows that came one after the other. On
In New York it's NBC Channel four. So that was
(04:07):
much more of a top down push to everybody believing
in and buying into a centralized IP theme. Today, audiences
can make much more nuanced and specific choices based on
the way that technology platforms exist, Its streaming platforms exist,
the way that kids find content through YouTube and other
(04:29):
types of digital platforms, and so that paradigm in that shift,
to me is a fundamental economic infrastructure and scaffolding that
doesn't go away. Right. Storytelling experiencing music is fundamental to
the human condition, and so that is a truth that
(04:53):
stands the test of time, whether it was one hundred
years ago to fifty years in the future. That's a
constant truth. What's also a constant truth is that the
creative spirit reigns stronger and more active than ever. Right,
there's lots of really inspired creatives both in the film
and television world, as well as in the music world
(05:15):
and other types of forms of content. And so that
means that there's an abundance of opportunities to also choose from.
There's a huge economy of people and creators who are
creating really great or ideating really great opportunity sets. What
the chaos is about the large institutional frameworks that were
(05:40):
built for another age.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Built for tune in Thursdays at night.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
They were built at nine and then further built for
you know the cable package, right, the basic cable package,
which were really attractive economics for a very long time
that leaned on you know, ratings that only sampled household
rather that got down to very specific unit by unit
(06:09):
audience engagement. And now with the decentralized ways we experience content,
that whole path to audience has completely unpended. But you
have these large institutional frames that were built for again
a yesteryear. It's almost like we're going through, particularly on
the media landscape. I liken it to two points in
(06:32):
time in the music space. I call this for the
media moment, it's Napster moment. In the industrialized revolution. We're
going from horse and buggy into you know, motorized cars.
But when you have a large institution or several large
institutions that have stables of horses and barnyards of carriages.
(06:58):
It's so hard to just shift done a dime.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And they know how to turn out those buggy whips.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
And they know how to turn out those buggy whips
and get everybody on them and it gets you across.
And it may not be the most efficient, and it's
hell of expensive, but that's kind of what you got.
It's hard to turning that on a dime, and it's disruptive,
and there's a lot of good people with great skill
sets in those organizations, but a lot of that has
to probably be rationalized to meet the moment. So that's
(07:23):
I think the chios that we're feeling. What gives me
excitement is the two pieces that I started with, the
audience and the creator, And so we just got to
figure out how to get the creator to the audience
more efficiently in a way that optimizes for the exact moment.
We also, I think, as a community around this space,
as investors in the space, executives in the space, have
(07:43):
to start thinking about.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
How we do.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
More with less. Right like we as technologies has advanced,
you would think the content costs would come down, but
they haven't. But that's again a little bit about how
the business was built and shaped over the last fifteen
or so years. For the you know, the cost plus
model really encourage that. Right, Like, if I'm a producer
making something for one hundred dollars, twenty dollars is more
(08:07):
than and get paid a cost plus fee of twenty percent,
twenty dollars is more than ten dollars if I made
it for fifty dollars, right, So, like we had an
incentive structure that really actually optimized costs to a higher
right to be higher.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
The incentives were aligned, but not in the right direction.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
They were aligned to higher costs. And so now we
see the institutional frame and scaffolding needing to change and
change rapidly. But they're huge, their laryers, they're complex there,
they've got lots of various tentacles. But they also need
to be thinking about how to get to audience faster
and cheaper, but also get to audience in a more
(08:47):
cost effective way. The cost per hour of programming cannot
cost the same as a cost in the last ten
to fifteen.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Years, five million dollars for a half.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Hour show is kind of the a half hour you know, comedy.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Maybe not a not a traditional multi cam sitcom, but
even single camera. And I've had many producers tell me
that this is beyond it's it's profligate in the extreme
because it's people can sense that it's hurt you know,
I think the smart people can sense that this level
of spending is actually hurting the business.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
And the yeah at does right. And you know, I've
had conversations where people are like, well, you know, the
audience deserves one hundred million dollar project. Well, like, the
thing is the ROI to one hundred million dollars project
is proliferation of that project everywhere. Or to your point,
a five million dollar an episode or ten million dollars
(09:40):
per hour let's say, you know, against eight hours of programming,
that's eighty million bucks. Like even and because of how
nuanced our viewership is, it's really hard. Like I could
probably list a show for you today that I think
is amazing. I really enjoyed it. Maybe it cost five
to ten million dollars an episode, maybe let's say five
(10:03):
on the lower end the spectrum, And there's a good
chance you've never even heard of it. But not because
the show isn't good and all the various things, and
so when you add all that up together, like how
do you pencil from just a pure math perspective, an
ROI on a fifty million dollar eight episode opportunity set,
given how decentralized the accesses and my list of things
(10:27):
that I watch and enjoy are probably distinctly different than yours.
Maybe there's one or two things that are overlapped, but
it's distinctly different. And you multiply that by billions of
people and that just continues to happen. So it doesn't
mean that audience doesn't deserve great things. They need to
deserve it at a better price point is sort of
I think what's interesting. So my excitement is that one,
(10:48):
the audience is there and it's enriched. Two technology has
really improved how you can get to audience faster and cheaper.
But then three, from a cost perspective, there's got to
be a way. And there's a lot of creators that
I think are going to come out of this shakedown
with this chaos, who are excited about having more aligned
(11:09):
interests and having more cost effective ways to getting product
to market. But as the institutional scaffolding starts to change
in order to meet the moment. One of the things
that will become more and more critical and may even
become as a consequence, more transparent is data and engaged audiences.
(11:31):
Like last year, as Ray and I did a talk
at Milkan and we were talking about how she had
more visibility and transparency into how her content was performing
when she was on YouTube, because you get really instant feedback,
so you know who your audience was, where you feed them,
how you feed them, how you serve them. In today's environment,
(11:52):
as we start shifting to figure out how do we
find and identify ROI, is some more of that going
to be paid for? From an app perspective, I think
advertisers should, if they aren't, start demanding, you know, real
audience visibility against that and demanding that audience visibility gives
both the brands and the studio systems or the producers
(12:15):
have said content transparency on that audience. But I think
increasingly creators can start to get that same transparency in
the audience engagement. Now that everybody may love what that
audience engagement says and may say nobody's watching right right,
but it can then align reward with where there is
high engagement and high value and then create better alignment
(12:37):
over time. So I'm really excited about that too. I
see that on the horizon, and that continues to make
things more investible. One of the reasons why music became
so investible over the last you know, decade with real
institutional capital and force is that transparency on usage, that
transparency on cash and cash generation and from one channels,
(12:59):
it's model, it's forecastable, and it gives you real currency,
and then that currency became an ability to be a
center point for transaction exchange right between virons. You can
forecast like you said, yeah, I can now see it.
I can tell you how much I'm going to pay
you as a seller. Have that information and then we
can engage across a conversation based on fact versus based
(13:21):
on only feeling. And it's not to say that the
art isn't important, right Like for us as a firm,
we again center audience, but we also center the creator
in a way that the art is super important. But
we believe that the art will drive the science, right Like,
when we can have measurable information, then you can see
(13:42):
if the art will drive the science, and people will
show up and engage.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
I mean, that's certainly what Netflix is doing now, is
that they can see you know, exactly what's percolating under
that well stocked in that well stocked larder.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
That's exactly right. So we think that those two things
are true. I think there's still ill opportunity in the
marketplace to dig deeper in how we get to specific audience,
specifically around film and television. Now we're still I think
because the model has been to spend so much per
hour or per project, that it's always the sense of
(14:21):
whether it's theatrical marketing or marketing for television and film,
to go big broad general audience when your approach to
try to create awareness and also costs a lot of money,
and you're going a mile wide and an inch deep
versus going a mile deep and an inch wide. So
I thinks are and so unapologetically in a way that
(14:48):
doesn't sacrifice the quality of the works, doesn't say anything
about the quality of work, but recognizes that as consumers.
I'm raising my hand and saying, I like, I don't know,
I'll pick up something because I'm streamed. Probably I like
Nordic procedurals. It's crazy and strange, but go talk to
the people who like Nordic procedurals. And then, by the way,
(15:09):
after I do that, I'll start telling you about the
show that I love, and then maybe I'll influence people
who don't have an affinity necessarily for Nordic procedurals, but
could inherit said exactly could inherit. You know that that
love for our engagement for these opportunities, for these types
(15:31):
of things, right, So like talking to audiences unapologetically is
also a big theme for us. It's one of the
reasons we invested in mucha Maas. We just made the investment.
And so one of the first films is this movie,
The Long Game, which.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Is getting got a very strong review from Variety.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Ready to see, completely coincidental from our.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Conversations, great little movie. I think that we could have
gone deeper in our specific audience, right, and we weren't
necessarily control of that, but you know, we look forward
to doing that on the next project. But that's I
think the kind of thing you have, great movie. It
resonates with the poor audience. Just go tell them. You
(16:14):
may catch everybody else on top of it, but if
you go tell them that, that's what they should be
seeing and looking at and not be afraid to do
that right Like I think the old model of trying
to be everything to all people, it dilutes the It
dilutes the audience experience, and also you potentially, I mean
it's great now that content creators can get this specific
(16:36):
so you get this really great you know, engaged authentic storytelling.
We have to make sure that the way that we
get to audience matches and mirrors the way the content is.
The vision for the content is.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
That, of course, YouTube is a you know, a fairly
democrat platform.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
You can get up there and you know there is
a there, there is a there is a mechanism for
getting paid, which is definitely better. There is some that
still don't, but it is your model is success in
your model still accessing what we would consider the more
mainstream lanes of NBC, ABC, who lose you know, studios,
(17:14):
if it's movies that can distribute around the world, is there.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I think it's all of it. I think it's really
embracing the fact that finding and seeing how and when
people show up is I think really important. One of
the things on the theatrical side is that obviously so
many of the later stage windows are still keyed off
of what happens doing a theatrical window, and so that's
(17:38):
still sort of a legacy, you know, like scaffolding, if
you will, in the businesses. So there's some of that
that you can never kind of really ignore. But sorting
your way through how do you get to audience most
efficiently in democratized formats is a big piece of everything
that we look at. Any kind of investment opportunity they're
(17:59):
looking at is really around Okay, well, what do we
think the path the audience is right if we found
people who tell great stories, have great businesses and great infrastructures. Okay,
But the key thing, because that's how we get our
money back, candidly, is like, how do we get to
audience and how do we know where those are? And
how do we track and use data to help us
to manage and monitor that and optimize that for the outcome?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
No problem just finding great content. Let me ask you
step back a bit, what was it about mucho maas
that said? I want to said to you, I want
to be in business with these guys. There's a lot
of different people putting out very creative things, but there
must have been something that sparked.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
You, so absolutely so much of Moss is our second
investment in the film Intellivision Space. Our first is Macromedia
with Charles King and the team right and Muchams is
our second. I think listen identifying partners that I'm in
the good human business. So the first my first actually
test is is it a good human? Can I work
with them? Do they have good values? But the second is,
(19:00):
particularly as we're watching this moment, can we think about
how to identify really great, high quality outcomes? With Roi
in mind and Javier Chotboss and the team was really
focused on doing that, and we sort of liked that.
We sort of really wanted to lean into that model
of identifying highly engaged, high quality content but done at
(19:25):
the right price, or done that at the price that
we think was really interesting. So that's one of the
reasons why we spent more time with that team. And
we've got a lot of other things in the pipeline that,
you know, we think are very similarly suited high quality delivery.
You know, people who have done really great work over
the years, but kindilly haven't had a partner to create
(19:46):
the type of independence that they needed to be able
to build projects efficiently without worry and take them to
take them to an audience. And so that's what was
really exciting about Avier and the team. Group of people
focused on a set of you know, a parameter set
that they could deliver against a track record of doing
(20:06):
projects at a cost, great references from the marketplace. So
that was what was really attractive to us.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more from
harbor View Equity CEO charissee Clerk Suarez. And we're back
with more from harbor View Equity CEO charissee Clerk Suarez.
Let me set back again and ask you about harbor
(20:33):
View Equity. Do you see yourself as mostly an investment
firm or do you function as a holding company for
some of your investments.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah, no, we see ourselves as an investment firm first
and foremost. But I will tell you like in comparison
to let's call them and many of these firms are
partners of ours. So I say this with great care
and respect. We are not all things to all people.
(21:00):
We are specifically focused on our niche of sports, media
and entertainment. We're building a firm with investment products around
delivering to our investors expertise around those segments of the industries,
creating a value proposition on how we create value in
the investments that we've made, whether they're assets like just
music assets, or whether they're value to the operating companies
(21:25):
that we invest in. That's really sort of our focus.
When we talk to entrepreneurs and operators. You know, what's
really interesting for them about us is that we actually
do feel more strategic. So we sort of sit and
we like sitting in this middle zone of being great
translators for the creative ecosystem, allowing them to feel like
(21:49):
they have a partner that understands creative businesses, the creative process,
respects the work that they're doing, but translates the investment
process to them. And then similarly, we're like the translation
leaders for investors. We get the access to this marketplace,
we demonstrated a track record of delivering returns, and we
basically can be good translators to them about the space too.
(22:11):
But we are we function and we've had many operators
and many creators tell us that it feels more like
a strategic relationship than it does just a purely financial
relationship and that's intentional on our part because of the
opportunity that we see in this lane to be a
scaled investor in this space. There just aren't that many
(22:35):
investors who've chosen this lane at scale as a place
that is not one that is, you know, on their
bucket list as a tourist spot or tourification right, we
are residents of this business and we want to be here,
you know, for the long term, and and so we
(22:56):
take up space, we get points of view, our team
or a deep industry experts around this stuff and continue
to develop and scale or acumen around having a point
of view around this business, this business opportunity set. So
we're decidedly an investment firm around the sports being entertainment practice,
but we are very focused on feeling and being strategic
(23:19):
to our partners, whether they're musicians, whether they're artists, whether
they're you know, producers, filmmakers, directors, whether they're CEOs or
operating companies.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Charles King is an alumnus of this podcast. He came
out right around the time that Judas and the Black
Messiah came out from a good conversation. But to be
somebody that can instigate from the greed. You know, from
the planting that seed, that money is still you know,
still even in the way that the businesses for twenty years,
nobody has spent their own money. But Charles is somebody
(23:49):
you know who came into the business obviously and realized
the need. But from your perspective, what is you know,
economics one on one tells us that a marketplace dominated
by a handful of giants is not going to be
a vibrant marketplace.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
What have you found in coming in here?
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah, I think you know, what we found is tremendous opportunity.
Our pipeline is robust. We have me and I'm talking
from again, you know, award winning you know, in every category,
high quality, great human beings. We have a really robust
(24:24):
opportunity set. I think what people are craving for, and
this moment I think exacerbates it is a way to
create long standing value for themselves, for their teams, for
their legacy. And the business over the last fifteen years
really changed into you know, effectively people being work for hire,
(24:48):
which was very lucrative.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
From an upfront business, from a back end business to
an upfront business. And people are recognizing the limits of
that even.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Though those big checks up front at the start.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yes, so so one, I think that moment creates so
this moment creates a lot of opportunity, and the recognition
of this moment changing creates a ton of opportunity. But
then two, I believe that there My ministry has never
been in front of the camera. You know, I was
(25:22):
a child actor. I like, you know, I was in
some movie as an extra with all my friend from
high school. I played lassical piano like I was on
the dance scene. But it was never gonna be my ministry.
My ministry was always going to be in investing in
transactional work. And so it felt really important to me
(25:44):
to bring that lens to this space because also, again Barnun,
there really is not that many people that have dedicated
efforts everybody, you know, obviously with the bidding wars, in
the most recent saga around all Things paramount, there are
multiple people who are pitting for that, But there isn't,
(26:06):
you know, sort of a lot of scaled institutional dollars
that are really thinking about this day and day out
with an intention and a focus solely focused on this space.
And so when we see these big, major media companies
which for a long time, for lack of a better word,
have been content investors. That's really what they I mean,
they also like, you know, develop things and et cetera,
but they've been content investors. It's too few hands to
(26:26):
actually really create the right incentive structure, I think, and
create and partner with creators to create long term alignment.
And I do think also in this moment, which will
be really interesting, is that a lot of those companies
now trying to figure out how to move from the
industrial revolution into you know, into motorized vehicles, are going
(26:50):
to be looking for our partners to come together in
more innovative structures. So I think that's what's really exciting.
I'm excited to basically continue to have capital in this
moment for the next twelve to eighteen to twenty four months.
Around this space, I think there's gonna be a lot
of really great opportunities in ways that we think can
(27:11):
empower the creative community, maybe helped to balance the balance
the scales a little bit for creators too, while also
creating alignment and then ultimately hopefully creating you know, real
great returns for our stakeholders and maybe also shifting the
landscape of then what we see.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Was it your familiarity with the space? What was it
that led you to music? Was kind of the origins
for your company? You know?
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Some of it is I kind of look back on
the journey that we've been here and people are like, oh,
my goodness, your company's done so much in three years,
and I'm like, it's the classic line of overnight success
twenty years in the making. You know. I spent a
lot of time. I wrote a business school essay to
go to be accepted to EAHBS about how I wanted
to invest in content over the long haul. I had
no idea how I was going to get there, that
(28:00):
I was going to start like taking away. And again
after business school, I went and worked at CIT right
around the corner from here, and focused mostly on film,
mostly film. Television Really wasn't they weren't television slates in
the early two thousands.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Definitely still the not fair haired child, Yes, industry for sure.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah that's changed. Yes, it's changed, yes, but mostly film
financing and film structured investing, et cetera. And then when
I got back to Morgan Stanley in two thousand and nine,
after the global financial crisis, I helped to lead our credit,
our corporate credit business across all industries, which was really
fascinating because it really continued to expand my ability to
(28:44):
really think around how to deploy capital invest capital across
a variety of different circumstances. But about in two thousand
and sixteen, a colleague of mine at Morgan Stanley came
to me and said, in our wealth management business, we've
started this entertainment and media focus and sports focused wealth
(29:08):
management practice, and we have all of these clients that
are looking for working capital or looking to monetize working
capital to create new projects. They're looking for capital to
capitalize their operating companies. They're looking for to monetize libraries
of content that they had, whether it's film or music
or otherwise, and they're like, how should we do something.
(29:30):
I was like, great, I know, good, I think, I know,
I know, I know. There isn't institutionally skilled capital focused
on this marketplace. We should go figure that out. So
long story Shore we went to go figure this out
and it ended up with first It also intersected really
nicely in twenty sixteen with the reemergence of the music
(29:51):
business a little bit go again. They went through their
napster a moment which is again the chaos I think
that we're seeing practically a decade later in the film
and television business. But you started to see this emergence,
this light a day around digital consumption and helping to
resurrect the music business, make it visible and give real investibility.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
And taking away borders. Yes, that allows a pistel pluma
and an estrap on our monitor.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Correct removing the borders, removing a centralized purveyor of culture
from the equation so that now audience can just connect
with what they think is interesting. And so you saw
that starting to emerge. And as you know, as we
were sort of trying to figure out the right way
to take a product to market, and we heard investors
(30:37):
again having this like, ah, I'm going to lose all
my money. We lose all my money and lose my right.
The nice thing that we saw emerging from the from
this revolution in the music space was visibility of cash flow.
And that visibility of cash flow was easier to understand
for investors. It was visible, it was underwritable, and so
(31:00):
it made it easier to start with music. It caused
me to start my first company, which was Temple Music.
I ultimately resigned from that platform in the end of
December of twenty twenty because if I'm candid, I just
didn't own enough of it, and so I decided to
erect harbor View and I saw an opportunity to do
a little bit more broader. But Temple was the result
(31:22):
of the work. I started out doing it more than Stanley.
So we started with music because of just where the
marketplace was. After I did Temple, launch harbor View and
then leaned into my most recent track record started with
a music launch. Continue to deploy capital and music every day.
We just closed a deal last week, probably closed you know,
a bunch of deals a month. But saw this as
(31:45):
a really a vessel to really start thinking through and
talking to the marketplace.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
What was it like for you when you went on
on your own and it wrote that first check for
your first deal.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Oh my goodness, it's still satisfying.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
It Was it scary? Was it invigorating?
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Was it all of that all at once? It's it's
scary and invigorating and all of it at once. I mean,
I think the scary part is, you know, there's just
not a lot of women in private equity, and particularly
black women in private equity. So pinch me. This is
what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
This is what I do every day. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcasts
and Amazon Music. We love to hear from listeners. Please
go to Variety dot com and sign up for the
free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to tune
in next week for another episode of Strictly Business
Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with
industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My
guest is Scherise Clark Suarez, founder and CEO of Harbor
View Equity. Clark Suarez is a busy investor who is
making interesting bets on music, film and television. She's doing
(00:31):
so at a time of genuine chaos in the traditional business.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
The industry's largest.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Companies are struggling to turn a profit on film and
TV production. So what does she see that others don't.
Clark Suarez has a lot to say about that. In
our wide ranging interview, she explains the motivation behind her
recent investment in Charles Kings Macro and in the production
company Mucho mass Media. She also expects to be busy
(00:56):
in the coming months as the media metamorphosis can continues
and bigger companies let go of interesting assets. Clark Suarez
learned the ropes of private equity, credit markets, and film
financing during her fifteen years at Morgan Stanley. In twenty
twenty one, she planted her flag as harbor View Equity.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
In Newark, New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
She'll explain how the company has made its mark in
just a few years.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Right after this break.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
And we're back with more from harbor View Equity CEO
Sharise Clark Suarez.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
So nice to be with you. Thank you for having
me appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Well, harbor View has been on my radar for a while.
I've seen you've done some deals in the music arena
and I've noted those with interest. And then what really
got all my attention because I am an old TV
geek I have covered television for Variety for a long time,
and I noted with interest that you you made an
investment in an interesting company called Mucho Moss and that
(02:05):
develops a particular kind of content that have After talking
with you, I know that you really have a strong
sense about where the media marketplace is going, where there
are investment opportunities. And so after a few minutes on
the phone, I was like, we have to take this
to the podcast. So I'm so glad, thank you for
making the trek from Newark, where you are based. We
(02:25):
were just talking about lots of good things going on
in Newark, a nice example of civic and public and
private partnership. What a concept. We'll talk a little bit
about Newark at the end, but let me just let's
take the thirty thousand foot view and let me ask you,
as a smaller and independent investment firm. Media companies of
(02:45):
all sizes are struggling to find the path to old
fashioned profits that this business used to be known for.
So what is it that amid all of this chaos
and all of this tummult, what is it that you
see that is driving your investment strategy?
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Absolutely well, listen, I think one of the things that's
central to our value system at Harvard View is really
about honing in on and identifying where audience is. And
I think you and I talked about this a little bit,
but everybody who I talked to the conversation is the same.
(03:20):
We all have lots of music. We're listening to more
music than we ever have in our entire lifetime. We
can all trade notes on all our favorite shows that
we're watching at nauseum over and over and over again.
And so the audience experience and demand for nuanced and
specific content to them for them has not gone away.
(03:44):
It's only gotten enriched as the way that we experience
that content has become more and more decentralized. Right, growing up,
when it was Mussy TV on Thursday night on NBC,
we all sat down at eight o'clock and watched the
series of shows that came one after the other. On
In New York it's NBC Channel four. So that was
(04:07):
much more of a top down push to everybody believing
in and buying into a centralized IP theme. Today, audiences
can make much more nuanced and specific choices based on
the way that technology platforms exist, Its streaming platforms exist,
the way that kids find content through YouTube and other
(04:29):
types of digital platforms, and so that paradigm in that shift,
to me is a fundamental economic infrastructure and scaffolding that
doesn't go away. Right. Storytelling experiencing music is fundamental to
the human condition, and so that is a truth that
(04:53):
stands the test of time, whether it was one hundred
years ago to fifty years in the future. That's a
constant truth. What's also a constant truth is that the
creative spirit reigns stronger and more active than ever. Right,
there's lots of really inspired creatives both in the film
and television world, as well as in the music world
(05:15):
and other types of forms of content. And so that
means that there's an abundance of opportunities to also choose from.
There's a huge economy of people and creators who are
creating really great or ideating really great opportunity sets. What
the chaos is about the large institutional frameworks that were
(05:40):
built for another age.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Built for tune in Thursdays at night.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
They were built at nine and then further built for
you know the cable package, right, the basic cable package,
which were really attractive economics for a very long time
that leaned on you know, ratings that only sampled household
rather that got down to very specific unit by unit
(06:09):
audience engagement. And now with the decentralized ways we experience content,
that whole path to audience has completely unpended. But you
have these large institutional frames that were built for again
a yesteryear. It's almost like we're going through, particularly on
the media landscape. I liken it to two points in
(06:32):
time in the music space. I call this for the
media moment, it's Napster moment. In the industrialized revolution. We're
going from horse and buggy into you know, motorized cars.
But when you have a large institution or several large
institutions that have stables of horses and barnyards of carriages.
(06:58):
It's so hard to just shift done a dime.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And they know how to turn out those buggy whips.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
And they know how to turn out those buggy whips
and get everybody on them and it gets you across.
And it may not be the most efficient, and it's
hell of expensive, but that's kind of what you got.
It's hard to turning that on a dime, and it's disruptive,
and there's a lot of good people with great skill
sets in those organizations, but a lot of that has
to probably be rationalized to meet the moment. So that's
(07:23):
I think the chios that we're feeling. What gives me
excitement is the two pieces that I started with, the
audience and the creator, And so we just got to
figure out how to get the creator to the audience
more efficiently in a way that optimizes for the exact moment.
We also, I think, as a community around this space,
as investors in the space, executives in the space, have
(07:43):
to start thinking about.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
How we do.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
More with less. Right like we as technologies has advanced,
you would think the content costs would come down, but
they haven't. But that's again a little bit about how
the business was built and shaped over the last fifteen
or so years. For the you know, the cost plus
model really encourage that. Right, Like, if I'm a producer
making something for one hundred dollars, twenty dollars is more
(08:07):
than and get paid a cost plus fee of twenty percent,
twenty dollars is more than ten dollars if I made
it for fifty dollars, right, So, like we had an
incentive structure that really actually optimized costs to a higher
right to be higher.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
The incentives were aligned, but not in the right direction.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
They were aligned to higher costs. And so now we
see the institutional frame and scaffolding needing to change and
change rapidly. But they're huge, their laryers, they're complex there,
they've got lots of various tentacles. But they also need
to be thinking about how to get to audience faster
and cheaper, but also get to audience in a more
(08:47):
cost effective way. The cost per hour of programming cannot
cost the same as a cost in the last ten
to fifteen.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Years, five million dollars for a half.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Hour show is kind of the a half hour you know, comedy.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Maybe not a not a traditional multi cam sitcom, but
even single camera. And I've had many producers tell me
that this is beyond it's it's profligate in the extreme
because it's people can sense that it's hurt you know,
I think the smart people can sense that this level
of spending is actually hurting the business.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
And the yeah at does right. And you know, I've
had conversations where people are like, well, you know, the
audience deserves one hundred million dollar project. Well, like, the
thing is the ROI to one hundred million dollars project
is proliferation of that project everywhere. Or to your point,
a five million dollar an episode or ten million dollars
(09:40):
per hour let's say, you know, against eight hours of programming,
that's eighty million bucks. Like even and because of how
nuanced our viewership is, it's really hard. Like I could
probably list a show for you today that I think
is amazing. I really enjoyed it. Maybe it cost five
to ten million dollars an episode, maybe let's say five
(10:03):
on the lower end the spectrum, And there's a good
chance you've never even heard of it. But not because
the show isn't good and all the various things, and
so when you add all that up together, like how
do you pencil from just a pure math perspective, an
ROI on a fifty million dollar eight episode opportunity set,
given how decentralized the accesses and my list of things
(10:27):
that I watch and enjoy are probably distinctly different than yours.
Maybe there's one or two things that are overlapped, but
it's distinctly different. And you multiply that by billions of
people and that just continues to happen. So it doesn't
mean that audience doesn't deserve great things. They need to
deserve it at a better price point is sort of
I think what's interesting. So my excitement is that one,
(10:48):
the audience is there and it's enriched. Two technology has
really improved how you can get to audience faster and cheaper.
But then three, from a cost perspective, there's got to
be a way. And there's a lot of creators that
I think are going to come out of this shakedown
with this chaos, who are excited about having more aligned
(11:09):
interests and having more cost effective ways to getting product
to market. But as the institutional scaffolding starts to change
in order to meet the moment. One of the things
that will become more and more critical and may even
become as a consequence, more transparent is data and engaged audiences.
(11:31):
Like last year, as Ray and I did a talk
at Milkan and we were talking about how she had
more visibility and transparency into how her content was performing
when she was on YouTube, because you get really instant feedback,
so you know who your audience was, where you feed them,
how you feed them, how you serve them. In today's environment,
(11:52):
as we start shifting to figure out how do we
find and identify ROI, is some more of that going
to be paid for? From an app perspective, I think
advertisers should, if they aren't, start demanding, you know, real
audience visibility against that and demanding that audience visibility gives
both the brands and the studio systems or the producers
(12:15):
have said content transparency on that audience. But I think
increasingly creators can start to get that same transparency in
the audience engagement. Now that everybody may love what that
audience engagement says and may say nobody's watching right right,
but it can then align reward with where there is
high engagement and high value and then create better alignment
(12:37):
over time. So I'm really excited about that too. I
see that on the horizon, and that continues to make
things more investible. One of the reasons why music became
so investible over the last you know, decade with real
institutional capital and force is that transparency on usage, that
transparency on cash and cash generation and from one channels,
(12:59):
it's model, it's forecastable, and it gives you real currency,
and then that currency became an ability to be a
center point for transaction exchange right between virons. You can
forecast like you said, yeah, I can now see it.
I can tell you how much I'm going to pay
you as a seller. Have that information and then we
can engage across a conversation based on fact versus based
(13:21):
on only feeling. And it's not to say that the
art isn't important, right Like for us as a firm,
we again center audience, but we also center the creator
in a way that the art is super important. But
we believe that the art will drive the science, right Like,
when we can have measurable information, then you can see
(13:42):
if the art will drive the science, and people will
show up and engage.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
I mean, that's certainly what Netflix is doing now, is
that they can see you know, exactly what's percolating under
that well stocked in that well stocked larder.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
That's exactly right. So we think that those two things
are true. I think there's still ill opportunity in the
marketplace to dig deeper in how we get to specific audience,
specifically around film and television. Now we're still I think
because the model has been to spend so much per
hour or per project, that it's always the sense of
(14:21):
whether it's theatrical marketing or marketing for television and film,
to go big broad general audience when your approach to
try to create awareness and also costs a lot of money,
and you're going a mile wide and an inch deep
versus going a mile deep and an inch wide. So
I thinks are and so unapologetically in a way that
(14:48):
doesn't sacrifice the quality of the works, doesn't say anything
about the quality of work, but recognizes that as consumers.
I'm raising my hand and saying, I like, I don't know,
I'll pick up something because I'm streamed. Probably I like
Nordic procedurals. It's crazy and strange, but go talk to
the people who like Nordic procedurals. And then, by the way,
(15:09):
after I do that, I'll start telling you about the
show that I love, and then maybe I'll influence people
who don't have an affinity necessarily for Nordic procedurals, but
could inherit said exactly could inherit. You know that that
love for our engagement for these opportunities, for these types
(15:31):
of things, right, So like talking to audiences unapologetically is
also a big theme for us. It's one of the
reasons we invested in mucha Maas. We just made the investment.
And so one of the first films is this movie,
The Long Game, which.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Is getting got a very strong review from Variety.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Ready to see, completely coincidental from our.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Conversations, great little movie. I think that we could have
gone deeper in our specific audience, right, and we weren't
necessarily control of that, but you know, we look forward
to doing that on the next project. But that's I
think the kind of thing you have, great movie. It
resonates with the poor audience. Just go tell them. You
(16:14):
may catch everybody else on top of it, but if
you go tell them that, that's what they should be
seeing and looking at and not be afraid to do
that right Like I think the old model of trying
to be everything to all people, it dilutes the It
dilutes the audience experience, and also you potentially, I mean
it's great now that content creators can get this specific
(16:36):
so you get this really great you know, engaged authentic storytelling.
We have to make sure that the way that we
get to audience matches and mirrors the way the content is.
The vision for the content is.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
That, of course, YouTube is a you know, a fairly
democrat platform.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
You can get up there and you know there is
a there, there is a there is a mechanism for
getting paid, which is definitely better. There is some that
still don't, but it is your model is success in
your model still accessing what we would consider the more
mainstream lanes of NBC, ABC, who lose you know, studios,
(17:14):
if it's movies that can distribute around the world, is there.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I think it's all of it. I think it's really
embracing the fact that finding and seeing how and when
people show up is I think really important. One of
the things on the theatrical side is that obviously so
many of the later stage windows are still keyed off
of what happens doing a theatrical window, and so that's
(17:38):
still sort of a legacy, you know, like scaffolding, if
you will, in the businesses. So there's some of that
that you can never kind of really ignore. But sorting
your way through how do you get to audience most
efficiently in democratized formats is a big piece of everything
that we look at. Any kind of investment opportunity they're
(17:59):
looking at is really around Okay, well, what do we
think the path the audience is right if we found
people who tell great stories, have great businesses and great infrastructures. Okay,
But the key thing, because that's how we get our
money back, candidly, is like, how do we get to
audience and how do we know where those are? And
how do we track and use data to help us
to manage and monitor that and optimize that for the outcome?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
No problem just finding great content. Let me ask you
step back a bit, what was it about mucho maas
that said? I want to said to you, I want
to be in business with these guys. There's a lot
of different people putting out very creative things, but there
must have been something that sparked.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
You, so absolutely so much of Moss is our second
investment in the film Intellivision Space. Our first is Macromedia
with Charles King and the team right and Muchams is
our second. I think listen identifying partners that I'm in
the good human business. So the first my first actually
test is is it a good human? Can I work
with them? Do they have good values? But the second is,
(19:00):
particularly as we're watching this moment, can we think about
how to identify really great, high quality outcomes? With Roi
in mind and Javier Chotboss and the team was really
focused on doing that, and we sort of liked that.
We sort of really wanted to lean into that model
of identifying highly engaged, high quality content but done at
(19:25):
the right price, or done that at the price that
we think was really interesting. So that's one of the
reasons why we spent more time with that team. And
we've got a lot of other things in the pipeline that,
you know, we think are very similarly suited high quality delivery.
You know, people who have done really great work over
the years, but kindilly haven't had a partner to create
(19:46):
the type of independence that they needed to be able
to build projects efficiently without worry and take them to
take them to an audience. And so that's what was
really exciting about Avier and the team. Group of people
focused on a set of you know, a parameter set
that they could deliver against a track record of doing
(20:06):
projects at a cost, great references from the marketplace. So
that was what was really attractive to us.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more from
harbor View Equity CEO charissee Clerk Suarez. And we're back
with more from harbor View Equity CEO charissee Clerk Suarez.
Let me set back again and ask you about harbor
(20:33):
View Equity. Do you see yourself as mostly an investment
firm or do you function as a holding company for
some of your investments.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah, no, we see ourselves as an investment firm first
and foremost. But I will tell you like in comparison
to let's call them and many of these firms are
partners of ours. So I say this with great care
and respect. We are not all things to all people.
(21:00):
We are specifically focused on our niche of sports, media
and entertainment. We're building a firm with investment products around
delivering to our investors expertise around those segments of the industries,
creating a value proposition on how we create value in
the investments that we've made, whether they're assets like just
music assets, or whether they're value to the operating companies
(21:25):
that we invest in. That's really sort of our focus.
When we talk to entrepreneurs and operators. You know, what's
really interesting for them about us is that we actually
do feel more strategic. So we sort of sit and
we like sitting in this middle zone of being great
translators for the creative ecosystem, allowing them to feel like
(21:49):
they have a partner that understands creative businesses, the creative process,
respects the work that they're doing, but translates the investment
process to them. And then similarly, we're like the translation
leaders for investors. We get the access to this marketplace,
we demonstrated a track record of delivering returns, and we
basically can be good translators to them about the space too.
(22:11):
But we are we function and we've had many operators
and many creators tell us that it feels more like
a strategic relationship than it does just a purely financial
relationship and that's intentional on our part because of the
opportunity that we see in this lane to be a
scaled investor in this space. There just aren't that many
(22:35):
investors who've chosen this lane at scale as a place
that is not one that is, you know, on their
bucket list as a tourist spot or tourification right, we
are residents of this business and we want to be here,
you know, for the long term, and and so we
(22:56):
take up space, we get points of view, our team
or a deep industry experts around this stuff and continue
to develop and scale or acumen around having a point
of view around this business, this business opportunity set. So
we're decidedly an investment firm around the sports being entertainment practice,
but we are very focused on feeling and being strategic
(23:19):
to our partners, whether they're musicians, whether they're artists, whether
they're you know, producers, filmmakers, directors, whether they're CEOs or
operating companies.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Charles King is an alumnus of this podcast. He came
out right around the time that Judas and the Black
Messiah came out from a good conversation. But to be
somebody that can instigate from the greed. You know, from
the planting that seed, that money is still you know,
still even in the way that the businesses for twenty years,
nobody has spent their own money. But Charles is somebody
(23:49):
you know who came into the business obviously and realized
the need. But from your perspective, what is you know,
economics one on one tells us that a marketplace dominated
by a handful of giants is not going to be
a vibrant marketplace.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
What have you found in coming in here?
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah, I think you know, what we found is tremendous opportunity.
Our pipeline is robust. We have me and I'm talking
from again, you know, award winning you know, in every category,
high quality, great human beings. We have a really robust
(24:24):
opportunity set. I think what people are craving for, and
this moment I think exacerbates it is a way to
create long standing value for themselves, for their teams, for
their legacy. And the business over the last fifteen years
really changed into you know, effectively people being work for hire,
(24:48):
which was very lucrative.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
From an upfront business, from a back end business to
an upfront business. And people are recognizing the limits of
that even.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Though those big checks up front at the start.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yes, so so one, I think that moment creates so
this moment creates a lot of opportunity, and the recognition
of this moment changing creates a ton of opportunity. But
then two, I believe that there My ministry has never
been in front of the camera. You know, I was
(25:22):
a child actor. I like, you know, I was in
some movie as an extra with all my friend from
high school. I played lassical piano like I was on
the dance scene. But it was never gonna be my ministry.
My ministry was always going to be in investing in
transactional work. And so it felt really important to me
(25:44):
to bring that lens to this space because also, again Barnun,
there really is not that many people that have dedicated
efforts everybody, you know, obviously with the bidding wars, in
the most recent saga around all Things paramount, there are
multiple people who are pitting for that, But there isn't,
(26:06):
you know, sort of a lot of scaled institutional dollars
that are really thinking about this day and day out
with an intention and a focus solely focused on this space.
And so when we see these big, major media companies
which for a long time, for lack of a better word,
have been content investors. That's really what they I mean,
they also like, you know, develop things and et cetera,
but they've been content investors. It's too few hands to
(26:26):
actually really create the right incentive structure, I think, and
create and partner with creators to create long term alignment.
And I do think also in this moment, which will
be really interesting, is that a lot of those companies
now trying to figure out how to move from the
industrial revolution into you know, into motorized vehicles, are going
(26:50):
to be looking for our partners to come together in
more innovative structures. So I think that's what's really exciting.
I'm excited to basically continue to have capital in this
moment for the next twelve to eighteen to twenty four months.
Around this space, I think there's gonna be a lot
of really great opportunities in ways that we think can
(27:11):
empower the creative community, maybe helped to balance the balance
the scales a little bit for creators too, while also
creating alignment and then ultimately hopefully creating you know, real
great returns for our stakeholders and maybe also shifting the
landscape of then what we see.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Was it your familiarity with the space? What was it
that led you to music? Was kind of the origins
for your company? You know?
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Some of it is I kind of look back on
the journey that we've been here and people are like, oh,
my goodness, your company's done so much in three years,
and I'm like, it's the classic line of overnight success
twenty years in the making. You know. I spent a
lot of time. I wrote a business school essay to
go to be accepted to EAHBS about how I wanted
to invest in content over the long haul. I had
no idea how I was going to get there, that
(28:00):
I was going to start like taking away. And again
after business school, I went and worked at CIT right
around the corner from here, and focused mostly on film,
mostly film. Television Really wasn't they weren't television slates in
the early two thousands.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Definitely still the not fair haired child, Yes, industry for sure.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah that's changed. Yes, it's changed, yes, but mostly film
financing and film structured investing, et cetera. And then when
I got back to Morgan Stanley in two thousand and nine,
after the global financial crisis, I helped to lead our credit,
our corporate credit business across all industries, which was really
fascinating because it really continued to expand my ability to
(28:44):
really think around how to deploy capital invest capital across
a variety of different circumstances. But about in two thousand
and sixteen, a colleague of mine at Morgan Stanley came
to me and said, in our wealth management business, we've
started this entertainment and media focus and sports focused wealth
(29:08):
management practice, and we have all of these clients that
are looking for working capital or looking to monetize working
capital to create new projects. They're looking for capital to
capitalize their operating companies. They're looking for to monetize libraries
of content that they had, whether it's film or music
or otherwise, and they're like, how should we do something.
(29:30):
I was like, great, I know, good, I think, I know,
I know, I know. There isn't institutionally skilled capital focused
on this marketplace. We should go figure that out. So
long story Shore we went to go figure this out
and it ended up with first It also intersected really
nicely in twenty sixteen with the reemergence of the music
(29:51):
business a little bit go again. They went through their
napster a moment which is again the chaos I think
that we're seeing practically a decade later in the film
and television business. But you started to see this emergence,
this light a day around digital consumption and helping to
resurrect the music business, make it visible and give real investibility.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
And taking away borders. Yes, that allows a pistel pluma
and an estrap on our monitor.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Correct removing the borders, removing a centralized purveyor of culture
from the equation so that now audience can just connect
with what they think is interesting. And so you saw
that starting to emerge. And as you know, as we
were sort of trying to figure out the right way
to take a product to market, and we heard investors
(30:37):
again having this like, ah, I'm going to lose all
my money. We lose all my money and lose my right.
The nice thing that we saw emerging from the from
this revolution in the music space was visibility of cash flow.
And that visibility of cash flow was easier to understand
for investors. It was visible, it was underwritable, and so
(31:00):
it made it easier to start with music. It caused
me to start my first company, which was Temple Music.
I ultimately resigned from that platform in the end of
December of twenty twenty because if I'm candid, I just
didn't own enough of it, and so I decided to
erect harbor View and I saw an opportunity to do
a little bit more broader. But Temple was the result
(31:22):
of the work. I started out doing it more than Stanley.
So we started with music because of just where the
marketplace was. After I did Temple, launch harbor View and
then leaned into my most recent track record started with
a music launch. Continue to deploy capital and music every day.
We just closed a deal last week, probably closed you know,
a bunch of deals a month. But saw this as
(31:45):
a really a vessel to really start thinking through and
talking to the marketplace.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
What was it like for you when you went on
on your own and it wrote that first check for
your first deal.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Oh my goodness, it's still satisfying.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
It Was it scary? Was it invigorating?
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Was it all of that all at once? It's it's
scary and invigorating and all of it at once. I mean,
I think the scary part is, you know, there's just
not a lot of women in private equity, and particularly
black women in private equity. So pinch me. This is
what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
This is what I do every day. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcasts
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