Beyond the Spreadsheet: How Great Operating Partners Create Value

In this episode of Leadership Quotient, Lindsay Guzowski sits down with Mike Magliochetti, Operating Partner at RS2 Healthcare Partners, to discuss what separates exceptional operating partners from the rest. Drawing on decades of experience as both a CEO and private equity operating partner, Mike explains why trust between sponsors and management teams matters, how operating partners can create tangible value beyond the boardroom, and why helping portfolio companies grow revenue—not simply monitoring performance—is where real value creation begins. The conversation explores leadership in investor-backed companies, founder transitions, building executive teams, operational playbooks, AI adoption across portfolio companies, and the lessons Mike learned moving from CEO to operating partner.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Leadership Quotient, a podcast by the Crucible, where we explore how leadership teams and investor-backed companies are built, aligned, and scaled for impact. I'm your host, Lindsay Gazowski, and in each episode, we'll talk with the people shaping value behind the scenes, from operating partners to investors to advisors to C-suite executives about what it really takes to drive performance through leadership. On today's episode of the Leadership Quotient podcast, I speak with Mike Maglichetti, operating partner at RNS2 Healthcare Partners, about the need for sponsors to add tangible value on revenue, avoiding an us versus them environment between sponsors and portcodes, and serving outcomes, not egos. Mike, welcome to leadership quotient. In order to give some context for the listeners, I'd love for you to share an overview of, you know, your career progression, your business life story, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yeah, sure. You know, I've uh I've been with Riverside Partners as an operating partner now for almost 15 years. It's actually, I catch myself saying that. It's hard to believe. It's the longest I've touched down anywhere. Um my background is very, very different than my partners. I originally trained as a chemical engineer, have my undergraduate and PhD degrees in chemical engineering. And then after my first assignment, I um got sent to get an MBA. And uh my path, my trajectory changed dramatically after that point. I really took a path of more of general management. And over the next 20 years, I was uh fortunate to be blessed to serve as CEO of three companies uh through successful sale transactions, mostly in the medical device diagnostics and service spaces. Um, Eurosurge, which was a urology gynecology business, which we sold to American Medical Systems, um RMH, which was an orthopedics uh company, a bit of a turnaround, actually, family office funded company uh that we grew and eventually sold to the European company, Autobach. And my last company, uh, which was an oncology diagnostics business, Klaros, uh, we sold to the public company Opco Health. It was while I was at Klaros early in my tenure that I met Riverside. A mutual friend introduced me to the managing general partner at Riverside, David Belleck, uh, over coffee. And we clicked right away, which isn't difficult to do with David. And uh after a few meetings, he asked me to serve on Riverside's Healthcare Advisory Board, which is a group of business executives from all different subsectors of healthcare in which Riverside plays, uh, to really help with diligence on opportunities, help maybe serve as an independent board member here and there, deal origination, um, and uh add value wherever possible. And it it didn't seem like too heavy of a lift while I was uh running Klaros there in Boston. I was in Boston, and uh the firm had a tremendous reputation. So I decided to do it. Uh and uh fast forward four years, uh my company was acquired. Uh I stayed on uh to be president of the global diagnostics business for Opco. Um and uh and part of that um was a retention package to stay a year, to stay two years. And and I really enjoyed the role, but I knew it wasn't long term for me. Um uh and uh I had an opportunity, giving you the gory details here. I had the opportunity after about 14 months to um uh to join a neurology uh medical device company, a PE backed neurology company as CEO. And uh they were checking references, darting the I's and crossing the T's on an offer. And um I went to Riverside for a reference. And they didn't realize uh uh that I was going to make a change in my career and kind of stopped me and said, listen, we've been working together for five years. You know, you bring something very, very different to the table based on all your operating experience and your engagement uh with us. Why don't you join us? If you're gonna make a change, why don't you give your career a real dog leg left and join us uh full time? Lindsay, it wasn't even part of my calculus. I just thought, honestly, that whatever I did next, whether it was remain in my current assignment, take this new CEO role, or even go teach somewhere, that Riverside would always have Riverside as an adjacency. Uh and uh, but this made me really step back and reflect on my time with them. Uh and over the course of four or five years, I had seen how they treated each other as partners, but more importantly, how they treated the management teams of the companies they invested in. And and for me, it was very different than what I was used to. Um, I've had, I'm sure you have, your listeners have had some great mentors in their careers. I sure have. I've also had folks I couldn't take another 30 seconds with in a boardroom. I didn't see any of that behavior, any of those shenanigans with Riverside. It was just all about plugging in and adding value to these founder-run uh owned companies and taking them to you know a whole nother level. So I I figured I you know I would give it a year fuse to see if I liked it or not. You know, going from player to coach is a very, very different thing. And and and uh so I I went ahead and did it and and uh picked my head up here 14 years later. And I guess lesson learned is if you like what you do and who you do with uh the time, the time just goes by. So that's a bit of a sorry, an unabridged um uh story of my my my uh my journey.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

I appreciate that. Um let's talk a little bit about the lessons you learned as a leader, and then we can talk about that transition from player to coach. Because I think to your point, it doesn't always work. Not everyone likes it, and there are actually a fair number of operating partners who long for the days where they can go back into um the businesses themselves. So when you think about some of those great mentors or the lessons you learned from maybe less uh less positive experiences, what were the skills and traits that you needed to develop and refine to be a great CEO in investor-backed companies?

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Yeah, you know, I had this foundation of, you know, this technical foundation, um, you know, this science foundation where I've had folks say to me in the past, you know, you're bilingual in the sense that you can understand and articulate technology down to some very fine levels and you can hold your own in a boardroom. That's, you know, that's an interesting combination, right? So I got there, you know, with the underpinning of having having uh that technical foundation, but having, as I say, terrific mentors and opportunities where I took the path. Uh I early early in my career, I left a uh a uh RD uh management role um to join a venture-backed earlier stage company um as chief technical and operating officer. Big step up for me um uh in a relocation to the Midwest. And but with that came a seasoned CEO that uh that uh he and I really, really uh uh clicked. And he was a true, he was, you know, one of the most incredible mentors I've had in my career. So moving forward with him, he I was by his side in you know every strategic decision, you know, uh, you know, operating strategies, um, every functional area, building out every functional area. I learned so much that I didn't learn in a textbook from an MBA class just by spending the time with him. He eventually retired and I became CEO of the company. Um, but that was a pivotal inflection point in my career, that assignment at Eurosearch. Um and, you know, it it it really kind of, for me, if I if I think about it, you know, the the the work ethic, the commitment. Uh when I entered urology, you know, the urology company, I knew nothing about urology, right? So the ability to go, you know, to go toe-to-toe with a urological surgeon um and articulate a value proposition behind your suite of products, you know, you can't be an inch deep and a mile wide. So for me, I was always deferential to those around me with with lots of experience in the space. I've never let something be said that I didn't understand without asking a question. I'd always think three times before I spoke in in these steep learning curves and completely, completely immerse myself in the business. Uh, for the first six months of the assignment, whether it was a, you know, uh that first uh COO, CTO assignment, or of subsequent CEO assignments, uh, the whole concept of work-life balance was out the window for me, you know, and and you pay it maybe for the entire tenure of the assignment and you pay a price for that. You pay a dear price for that. But but that's what worked for me, you know, and uh and and surrounding myself with people that have, you know, that have you know scaled businesses before, uh not the first time in the seat, um, and just you know, communicate with trust and transparency. Uh that was that was really key for me.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

It sounds like in addition to having great mentors, you know, you were able to build work ethic, commitment, intellectual curiosity, humility, and trust and transparency through that. Um it also sounds like you have pretty solid pattern recognition skills, but that's a uh that that might come from some of your science background as well.

unknown 9:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

When you think about the skills that are needed to be a great operating partner on the flip side, what what's different about being a great operating partner from being a great CEO?

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yeah, you know, you think about it, you reflect on the operating partner role. And when I first got offered the job, I thought that, you know, this was more for folks in the twilight of their career, maybe be a pseudo-consultant, sitting on the bench. And maybe for some PE firms that's the case. I still had, and I still do today, have a ton of fuel in the tank, and that's not what I wanted. So Riverside gave me the opportunity, the autonomy to really work elbow to elbow with the GPs on deals. Um, everything from deal origination to diligence, board roles afterwards. But if you really think about it, the operating partner role role exists to really build outsized value. You know, these companies have to be better off by having you involved than not, right? So uh I think a key underpinning of that is is as I come back to transparency and trust. And you don't get the latter without the former. So being that trusted confidant to the CEO, the executive leadership team uh members, and I kind of look at it in two buckets or two verticals, if you will. One is more of a subtle, nuanced component, and the other is more uh objective uh and roll up your sleeves. On the on the subjective side, you know, there's there's not too many landmines that I haven't stepped on in the lower middle market in every functional area of a business, right? So I try to build a relationship very early on, even pre pre-closing with the CEO, with the founder, with the executive leadership team, where they can feel comfortable to come with me, come to me with issues and problems that they're facing. And I'm not going to wave the red flag to my partners and say the sky is falling and have that whole knee-jerk reactionary scenario. If it's a major crisis, of course, we're going to circle the wagons. But, you know, I I try to have them come to me with these issues. And more often than not, it's organizational behavior issues, client issues. And, you know, you can navigate through it together, you know, and and uh part of it is playing psychiatrist, you know, organizational psychiatrist in the role, having been there and done it and and kind of um coach from experience. Um, and and it's it takes time, it's baby steps oftentimes to build that trust. But uh, I can tell you, I I really try to, and I the same as a CEO, you know, it should never be an us versus them mentality with PE Firm and Portfolio Company. You know, them should be the cloud, them should be the competition, right? And and there's egos involved in every case, right? When you've got founders that have owned a company for a while and now they're rolling into a different role, and but you have to stay entirely focused. I try to keep focus on the investment thesis and serving that investment thesis and serving outcomes and not egos. It's it's so important. And then when you cross over to you know, more of you know, the objective side and adding value and playing that operating partner role. For me specifically, in my sliver of private equity, I love, I've always loved the business development side, the go-to-market strategies. So um I often I'm invited to our portfolio company weekly or bi-weekly business development team meetings. And um, during those meetings, we interrogate the pipeline, either you know, Salesforce or HubSpot or and any opportunities that I think are real, you know, um have high potential, you know, high value opportunities, I'll tend to uh come in over the top with my own 30, 35 years of experience and network and those of our healthcare advisory board, which I was I mentioned I was part of for four or five years. I now chair that group, and I have over, I have 30 individuals, operating advisors as part of that group today. I leverage them and their connections to have, you know, to advocate for our company, our companies, in a particular case, C-level, um uh C-level um uh interactions, uh, and even come in over the top for new logos to provide introductions to uh uh warm introductions to potential clients. Lindsay, I can point to tens of millions of dollars of new business that have been won in this fashion for our portfolio companies over the years. And and you want to build uh trans, you want to build trust and camaraderie, move the needle on revenue. You know, take your nose out of an Excel spreadsheet and add value, add tangible revenue value there. That that makes a difference. And I I get that same adrenaline rush working with our portfolio companies as I did as a CEO. Uh and that's I think for me, you know, I kind of bring that in the fact that with every one of these companies, whether we're doing diligence for a new investment opportunity or an existing company, I always find myself learning something new and coming away with it. And it's sort of a uh, you know, it goes both ways where I'm learning and I'm also uh trying to add value.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Great. And I think that that point about sponsors adding tangible value on the revenue side is often lost when people are considering working with given private equity funds or sponsors across the board. But a lot of people emphasize the partnership and all of those aspects and the playbooks and some of those things. But it sounds like you're really thinking past well, past the spreadsheets, past the relationship, and past the exit value.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Absolutely. And I'll tell you, you know, um we look at 300 opportunities a year, 300 investment opportunities for platform investments. Maybe in a good year, we'll do two, we'll make two or three investments. Right. But during during diligence, I always always try to find a way, you know, to connect with the founder, because that's all we do for the most part is founder-run companies in the executive leadership team. Because for them, they're in a process where it may be an investment banker-led process where they're meeting, you know, 10 to 12 private equity firms having these management meetings. And I kind of liken it to if we're looking for a house, you know, if you're looking for a house on a weekend and cramming through 10, 11, 12 houses, by the time you get to the, you know, the 10th or 11th house, you've forgotten the first few, right? Uh so as a, you know, I can guarantee you, if I can get in front of the management team, spend time with them, share with them my journey, value creation levers that that we bring to the table. Um, by the time they get to the 9th, 10th, 11th private equity firm, they're not going to forget us. Um and sometimes we'll win deals, not because we're the highest bidder, but because, you know, uh the founders and the executive leadership team realize who they want to be in the foxhole with, who they're going to perhaps enjoy being with over the next four or five, six years and where they can get that second bite out of the apple, perhaps the highest, the highest value in that second liquidity event, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

And speaking of these founders and the executive teams, in a lot of the businesses that you guys buy and in that space in general, these teams aren't always fully fleshed out for where they need to be at exit. How do you help the founders build robust, fulsome teams that can add value and not just find, you know, the best available guy that the recruiting firm shows you?

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Yeah, and it kind of goes to the companies that we invest in. It's a great question, right over the plate. You know, these are companies where they're good companies. That uh they'd be good companies whether or not they met us. But the founder is at a point where um they may have a good deal of sweat equity tied up into the company, a good deal, their net worth concentrated in the company, and want to take some liquidity and partner with partner with someone that to take the company to a whole nother level. Uh, and they're typically generating revenues. This is textbook lower middle market, maybe ultra lower middle market for us, you know, generating revenues that yield EBITDA between, say, three and 10 million in that range. We can go above or slightly below that, but that's our strike zone. So these companies often come to us with, you know, just grassroots value creation opportunities, you know. I I can tell you, Lindsay, more often than not, you know, a founder will come to us and we play in, you know, it's healthcare, uh, healthcare services. You know, for example, a founder will come to us and say, listen, Mike, you know, I'm a PhD biochemist. I've I've taken this company to 30 million in revenue. I know what it should look like, but I don't know how to get it to 130 million. Um, and uh um, you know, for us, we have a 37-year playbook. Um, and so more often than not, you know, they we ask them right out of the gate, what do you really enjoy doing? What what what would you like to do moving forward? Sometimes they want to remain a CEO, but more often than not, it's you know, they want to be chief innovation officer, they want to be out there, you know, as a brand ambassador, scientist to scientist, or, you know, of course, on the board of directors. And so I'll work very closely with them in bringing on uh a new CEO and hiring a new CEO. And they're an integral part of that process. Um, uh, you know, oftentimes, you know, I'll just share with you, you know, we like to have a professional CFO in these companies, you know, and oftentimes the the founder will say to us, why do we need a CFO? I I um, you know, what is a CFO going to do that we're not already doing? And um, they have their, you know, their cousin is a part-time accountant managing a five million dollar EBITDA business on QuickBooks. So if we once we bring in a CEO, a CFO with private equity experience, experience with leverage, six months later, inevitably the founder will come to us and say, I can't imagine I ran my business without this person, you know, the KPIs, the metrics. I've never looked at my business in this way before. So that's a process, it's an evolution of thinking here. But um, oftentimes, Lindsay, these companies are growing at 5, 10, 15% a year with no formal business development function, maybe a few people manning the phones. Um, and and so, you know, I I this is an area I love to engage. You know, we'll bring in a chief commercial officer, uh, you know, uh build out the function inside sales, field sales, account management, hunters, and then of course, layering on the systems and processes, which may seem very simple to your listeners here, but for us, again, in this in this sliver of of private equity, you know, implementing a CRM system like HubSpot or Salesforce, depending on the business, an ERP system, Net Suite, or and then again, depending on the business, a limb system like Thermo Fisher's uh uh sample manager, you know, really professionalizing uh the organization, the systems and processes. And once we feel good about that, then we'll look to do add-on acquisitions to get the business into different geographies, different technologies, you know, diversification of clients and services. Um, that's all part of sort of the you know, uh the growth, the growth thesis for us. And I'm I'm just hitting the tips of the waves on value uh creation for these companies, but it's you mentioned pattern recognition. This is uh you know, this is you know, time and time again, we're we're executing that drill.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yeah, and I think that that's that execution repeated. I don't want to call it a playbook, but it's you know you see these drills over and over again because a lot of these companies end up in the same Early stage that needs to go from point A to point B. There are a lot of ways that they got to point A and a lot of ways you could get to point B, but having that plan and having that focus, I think can help a lot of these founders realize that second bit of the apple. And also, if they're not the ones who are going to take this going forward, help the companies they built preserve their legacy in that process. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Absolutely. And I'll tell you this this pattern recognition, this almost rinse and repeat as an operating partner. What I've done over the years is I've had sales summits because this go-to-market drill, as we say, is very, very common for each company, and we're reinventing the wheel. So I had a sales summit last year where I brought in all of our chief commercial officers, all of our leaders of uh marketing for our portfolio companies, where we spent a day together, you know, just kind of going through, you know, each company presenting on what they do. There were opportunities for you know cross-communication and um collaboration. But we we we talked about best practices, you know, best practices for inside sales, for for um, for field sales, um, uh AI tools, um, account management, key accounts. Um, and it was really an eye-opener for these earlier stage, or earlier stage in terms of our investment uh time uh with the companies who we've been with for a while that are seasoned and more mature and operating on all cylinders, um, to have these companies together and just the lesson learned, lessons learned and the the connections made, uh, it was really invaluable. I've done the same thing with our HR team. I had an HR summit, um, and I also had an AI summit recently, um, bringing together all of our chief technology and and and and uh science officers.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

And so speaking of AI and some of the forward-looking advancements, um, which are significantly impactful for the healthcare space, certainly. What do you see as the differences in the skills and traits that are going to be needed for leadership in this next wave of value creation, whether that's inside the companies or from the operating partner level?

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Yeah, um, a couple things. Um one is I just formed uh over the past quarter, uh, because we recognize it across every one of our portfolio companies, an AI advisory board uh with uh folks from different subsectors of healthcare, um seasoned uh technical leaders to really be a you know serve as a uh as a uh um a set of resources for our uh portfolio companies. And we're getting that off the ground right now. We just actually had our our first meeting. But something I noticed um early on was that at each one of our board meetings, we would always talk about AI, you know, our portfolio company board meetings, we always talk about AI. You know, is it a is it a is it a threat? You know, in um um when and how and and and and uh um is it a friend or foe, you know, and uh our our chief technology officers or chief uh uh uh information officers were always sort of, I felt, in a vacuum. You know, they were they felt like they were in an island because we talk about it in a strategy session, but you know, we kind of leave it on their shoulders. So I mentioned this this AI summit. So I brought together all of our CTOs, all of our CIOs for a day at some guest speakers, and I had companies present a SWOT analysis on where they were with implementing AI in different pockets of the business, how they were doing it, who they were partnering with, what vendors they were using from the outside. And some companies were much further along than others, but it was a it was a terrific day to kind of for a number of reasons. One, to get these CTOs to realize that there is others in their port our portfolio that they can speak to, that they can get advice from, and just to also um hear um you know uh how AI is being implemented across the portfolio with different different companies. So I think for me, it's it's been honestly kind of learning through a fire hose, right? Um uh with a lot of this. But it's something that you know we can't ignore. We have a company, every one of our companies is using is using AI, either homegrown or uh third-party um um um uh applications. Uh even as a firm, we're using AI for deal origination and for diligence. And um, so I'm not sure if that answered your question, but it's a it's a it's a real common denominator across both our companies and within us within our firm as a partnership.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

So I'm gonna pivot here a bit. Um You know, you've been successful across being an operating partner and a CEO, and now you're a successful author as well. Um Mike, what made you want to write a book and why specifically dancing between the toes of elephants?

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Yeah, no, thanks. Um I mentioned this learning curve uh in each one of the CEO assignments that I had, you know, in urology and orthopedics in in oncology, um, and uh, you know, that process that I used as a new CEO in coming up to speed that learning curve. When I made the transition to private equity to Riverside, even though I had had, you know, PE investors, venture investors, family office investors, an MBA, uh I've been an advisor to Riverside for four or five years before I joined, it was just as steep of a learning curve making that move into private equity. You're you're going into an ecosystem where this is all these people have ever done for the most part, you know, my partners. And so I used that same process as I did as a new CEO, but I did something a little bit different this time. Uh I kept a journal. And anytime one of my colleagues used a phrase that I didn't quite understand or an idiom that I thought was really unique and clever, I wrote it down. I wrote down what it meant, how it was used, and and uh a little bit of a blurb about it. Uh and I kept that journal sort of as a pet project over the years, as a living document. You know, meeting with other PE firms, investment bankers, uh RLP investors, going to conferences. I'd always come back with entries to my my journal. And over the years, I've been fortunate to be invited to different colleges and universities to speak on my kind of crazy path into private equity and entrepreneurship, business development. And I was speaking to, I was uh I was at Columbia and uh one of the professors there asked me, you know, about this transition into private equity and how the heck, you know, did I did a PhD chemical engineer ever land in private equity? And, you know, why don't I have tenure somewhere at a university on cruise control at this point in my career? Um and I shared with him this my journey, um, like I'm sharing with your listeners here. And and when I mentioned this journal and how it was such an important tool for me, he stopped me in my tracks and he said, Listen, many of my students here, uh uh, they're mired in business and finance and accounting texts. Many of them will work for private equity and venture capital firms someday, or work for companies that are funded by private equity and venture capital. You should really think about turning that journal into a manuscript for a book that really has, you know, it's no one's ever done something like that before. It would be, it would add a lot of value. So, you know, this was late 2021. And on the train ride back to Boston that evening, I I couldn't stop thinking about it. And rounding the corner on 2022, I uh for my New Year's resolution, I uh I said, you know, I said, I'm gonna I'm gonna take a run at this. My kids are all grown and gone, nobody needs me anymore. Um, I I not that I have a lot of time, but after dinner every night, I spent an hour or so instead of reading, writing, going from you know, paper to word document. And I picked my head up two years later and I had 350 pages. Um and uh through uh make a long story short, through um uh our superpower of networking, which we all have, right? It I managed to connect with uh a few literary agents, uh, and uh one of whom really um uh thought this had legs and took me on. And uh the book was published last fall, late last fall. And through the process, um I was able to, you know, last summer, going through the editing process with the publisher, and um I was able to uh get in front of some influencers. I use Lindsay, I use LinkedIn like everybody else uses LinkedIn, you know, and and but as far as social media, you know, not tremendously active. But I I got connected with their help to folks in venture, in private equity, in academia with 200,000 connections, 150,000 connections. You know, I have a at the time I had a couple thousand connections, I thought I was doing well. Um, and reached out to them and uh they um agreed to advocate. They thought it was a great idea. The book was a great idea to advocate for me once the book was launched. Uh and within a week after launch, the book hit number one bestseller in three business, Amazon uh number one bestseller in three business finance categories private equity, uh, venture capital, and professional career development. And it's been really a whirlwind since. Um just the people that I'm meeting, doing these podcasts, webinars, fireside chats at conferences. Um, Boston Business Journal at the end of last year's selected my book as one of the most notable business books of 2025. Crazy. Um, but it's reaching folks. Um I just the LinkedIn connections, folks reaching out to me, sharing that the book meant something to them. That means the world to me. So uh there were many times when I was writing, spending the time, thinking about the opportunity cost, and then am I really just wasting my time? But it's been a really pleasant experience, uh, uh a terrific, no pun intended, chapter in my in my professional life um with this book. Thanks for asking, by the way. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

With the process of writing the book and the engagement with people thereafter, what have you learned that you've been able to take back into your operating partner role?

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Ah, wow, that's a that's a great question. That's a great question. I'll tell you um, you know, uh uh a couple things. One is, you know, I've done a lot of presentations at universities and colleges, and inevitably students will ask me, what do I have to do to get into venture capital or private equity? What, you know, and and I oh I'm I just got I'm partial, but I think rather than you know jumping into an MBA program right away or um, you know, uh you know, taking that traditional path, you know, I I kind of always advise them to go get some real experience, you know, to work for a company, whether the segment, if you're interested in healthcare, if you're interested in energy, uh aerospace, find, you know, dedicate, dedicate the effort to work for a company, maybe in business development, maybe in product management, corporate development, understand why and how decisions are made. Um, before you and bring that to an MBA program, bring that to a private equity firm uh as an as an associate or analyst and have that background. That's something that, you know, uh just it it really shined a light on it for me, um, getting in front of these students. Um as far as as far as um you know taking it to my day-to-day operating operating partner role, um, it's been amazing. First of all, it's been amazing. Riverside has been, you know, my partners have been completely supportive of this effort and the time it's opened doors for Riverside. We're now in the process of raising our next fund. We've over 37 years, we've had six funds, um, have about a billion two under management today, and we've um it's opened up doors I never imagined um in that regard. But, you know, for me, our portfolio companies, um, uh the CEOs, the executive leadership team members who've read the book, it's kind of a field guide to optimize that bridge between what they do on a day-to-day basis and and uh and our firm. Uh really just pulling the curtain back on the nuanced language that's used, uh, the circumstances encountered, and the decisions are made and why I kind of un I kind of really unveil in the book, but in a tongue-in-cheek way. You know, I try to make it fun um with these real-world anecdotes. Um, so I've been I've been really pleasantly surprised by that type of feedback too.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

I'll have to add it to the top of my to be red list. Well, Mike, thank you for sharing sharing all these insights today.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Oh, thank you for having me. I enjoyed it. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

And that wraps up another inspiring episode of Leadership Quotient. Many thanks to Mike for sharing his experience and informed perspective. To our listeners, if you found this conversation valuable, be sure to subscribe to Leadership Quotient wherever you get your podcasts. You can also learn more about The Crucible and how we're helping investor-backed companies align leadership teams for scale at thecrucible.com. We'll see you next time for more real conversations on leadership, talent, and value creation.