People. It’s all about people.
The Chief of Staff role is one of the most people-centric roles in a company. They don’t always manage a team or have direct reports, but they work across every layer of the business and are tasked with moving through influence, not authority. The only way a Chief of Staff can do this successfully is by creating a high degree of trust, and keeping that trust in every relationship they build.
Our most recent guest on Aspiring Ops, Grace Sutherland, is the Chief of Staff at Yext, and one of our favorite stories from the series.
As a former teacher, Grace wanted to make the transition out of teaching into another field, but initially had trouble sharing how her experience would lend itself to the corporate world. After receiving an opportunity to come on as the Executive Assistant to the CEO at Yext, Grace quickly realized how her experience as a teacher shaped her ability to work with people across every part of the business.
As Grace shares, teachers create the weather of their classrooms, which is exactly what she found herself doing as she transitioned into the Chief of Staff role at Yext. Not just in one specific area, but as a generalist.
On this episode of Aspiring Ops, Grace shares how her background in teaching and founding a school led to her role as the Chief of Staff at Yext. As a larger company, Grace also shares how she’s continued to build out her team and the office of the CEO to amplify their impact across the business.
One question we are often asked is whether we see the Chief of Staff role as a rotational position or a long-term position within a company. And the truthful answer is that it likely depends on the company, as well as the individual in the role.
As Grace shared on this episode of Aspiring Ops, she never saw the position at Yext as a rotational position. From the beginning, Grace was focused on figuring out how she could grow the position and the office of the CEO to be more impactful across the business.
After spending some time in the role, she began to focus on this question, “What are the things that should be living in the office of the CEO, but not directly under the CEO?”
While Yext is a larger company with roughly 1,300 employees, we are seeing more and more individuals stepping into the Chief of Staff role with the intent of staying in the role and building it out within a company. And the most common skills we see of individuals looking to make a home in the Chief of Staff position is a generalist mindset.
A critical question any Chief of Staff should ask themselves in evaluating the position as a long term or short term option is whether they have a desire to work across all areas of the business or if over time they want to specialize in a particular area.
As we’ve seen, the Chief of Staff role can be an incredible opportunity to gain visibility into every part of the business, and for aspiring ops leaders, it may come down to whether you fall in love with one specific area or prefer the context switching in working across all facets of the business.
Interested in learning more about Yext? Check out their site here.
Want to learn more about how Elate is working with other strategy and ops leaders? Request a sneak peek today.
[00:00:00] Brooks Busch: [00:10:00] Hello and welcome. My name is Brooks Bush. I'm glad to have everyone here for another episode of aspiring ops today, I'm joined by grace Sutherland, chief of staff at Yext grace. Thanks for taking the time.
Grace Sutherland: [00:01:04] Thanks, Brooks. I'm super excited to be here.
Brooks Busch: [00:01:06] Yeah, absolutely. So super excited to dive into today's episode as a lot of folks know love it.
When we've got strategy and ops leaders with unique backgrounds and grace from the first conversation that you and I had. I knew immediately your background, your journey into the chief of staff role at Yext was unique. And it was one that we hadn't heard before. So we'd love to maybe just start with a bit about your background, your journey to Yext and what that looked like.
Grace Sutherland: [00:01:34]Yeah! Well, you know, as you mentioned, it's probably a pretty unique one. I haven't met anybody with a similar story to mine, so I actually, before my current, you know, life in the business world was a teacher. After college, Idid a program called teach for America, and I taught for two years in a public school down in Charlotte, North Carolina, teaching middle school science, really, really interesting experience.
And, you know, there were a lot of things that I loved about teaching. So at the end of my two years, I decided I wanted to [00:02:00] comeback up to New York city and teach here, but I wanted to teach at a charter school. So I taught for three years at a charter school out in East New York inBrooklyn was actually part of a founding school team, which was really exciting.
We got to build and grow a school from, from one grade all the way up to. For still middle school. And then in my third year there, I actually stepped out of the classroom and took on some operational type roles within my school, which was really interesting. And I, I realized that that was something that I enjoyed more than teaching, but fundamentally at the end of five years of teaching, I was extremely burned out.
If you know any teachers, it is a. Incredibly hard job. I had, you know, class sizes of 36 kids and there's just, you can never do enough. There's always so much more that you can do and you can give. And so I said to myself, I want a career change. I know I can always go back to teaching if I want to.
There'll always be a need for teachers, but like what's right for me in this time. But I kind of had two issues and one was that I didn't know what was out there in the business world. I, you know, I didn't even know what would interest me. I didn't [00:03:00] know if I should go into marketing or operations or sales or anything.
Cause I just didn't know what those roles entailed. And thenI also had a really hard time. You know, getting interviews because nobody thinks that teachers have transferable skills to the business world. And at the time I couldn't really articulate what was transferable. Now I can tell you that there's a lot that being a classroom teacher has in common, particularly with the chief of staff role, but at the time I couldn't articulate that.
And so I. Had a lot of frustration trying to find a job. And eventually it was like, you know what? I'm going to look at executive assistant roles. It's not necessarily a job that I want to do long-term but I saw it as a great foot in the door at a company, working for an executive would give me a really high level overview of the business world.
And then I could make a more informed decision about where I might want, I would go after that. And so found my way through college connection to Yext. Started as Howard, our CEO's executive assistant and, you know, quickly realized that the executive assistant role. Didn't love all of the tasks and it [00:04:00] probably wasn't going to be for me long-term but I figured Yext was a great place to be able to grow as quickly growing company.
And that I could find somewhere I'd want to land. What surprised me though, pretty quickly into the role was that I could see that I really loved. First of all working for an exec and with our executive teams.But I also loved that I got to stay in generalist, working for Howard, working for the CEO, and I got to constantly be learning things.
And so I eventually, you know, I set my sights on becoming chief of staff. Cause I was like, there's nowhere else in the company. I'd rather go, I'd rather be able to learn a lot about everything. And so Howard's old chief of staff. Tim, who was awesome, did a two year rotation and basically knew he was going to rotate off.
So I tried, I spent about a year and a half proving toHoward that I had every way that I could, that I would be a great chief of staff. And when Tim decided to rotate off Howard selected me, which was amazing. And so that's kind of how I ended up where I am. And I've been chief of staff for gosh, I guess, almost a year and a half now.
Brooks Busch: [00:04:54]Yeah, and so this is the evolution that you've had at Yext is even a question that [00:05:00] we, we oftentimes get, which is just. The basics of what's the difference between an executive assistant and a chief of staff? Like, what are the responsibilities? Where do they overlap? Where do they differ? You've served in both roles.
So you'd probably be one of the best people to ask. But from your own experience, what is the difference between those two, those two positions?
Grace Sutherland: [00:05:19]Definitely. And, you know, I took on after probably about my first six months,I got an official promotion out of executive assistant into a sort of fake title that we made up for me, um, and is started to take on more of the chief of staff roles, but it was always described to me as like the difference between tactical and strategic.
And that's really what it is. I, by the time I'd spent a year and a half working for Howard. Before I was stepping into the chief of staff role felt pretty confident in my ability to take on the chief of staff role. Having seen Tim do it, having worked really closely with Tim and worked really closely with Howard, but I was actually surprised when I did step into it.
A pretty big mindset shift. I used to be like on top of every single tiny little detail and know every [00:06:00] little detail aboutHoward's schedule and you know, what was going on at Yext, but just knowing the details, not actually, like I did think about the big picture, but that wasn't my main responsibility.
And so that mindset shift. Uh, really like zooming out, I would say, and being like, okay, let's step back. What's you know, what are our big priorities here? Not just like, what meeting do I need to schedule? Or how are we prepping Howard for this? Or like, even like what small project can I take on? But like, what are the real priorities for Yext and the places where I can make an impact?
And I think at least in the way that my chief of staff role is set up at yak, I have some responsibilities that are, you know, structured and predictable and given to me, but I also am responsible for finding a lot of my own work and my own meaning and my own, you know, impact. Right. And that was a big surprise to me too.
It's definitely. Yeah. In the executive assistant role, it's more clear what you have to do to be successful. And I think it's less clear in a chief of staff [00:07:00] role, what your impact can or should be. And you have to spend a lot of time exploring that with your, with your exact thing with your team, but it's a different kind of view.
Brooks Busch: [00:07:09]So even starting to figure out what you wanted to do after teaching, you mentioned the fact that telling that story or painting the narrative for, for folks that you were meeting with and interviewing was a little challenging at the beginning, but once you stepped into that EA role now in your chief of staff role, you see, so clearly a lot of the skillsets that you had as a teacher and what you were doing in the classroom.
And even in founding a school that were translatable into.The position you have at Yext, what has been some of that overlap? What were those skillsets that are just really clear that this is, this is what you were doing in that past life?
Grace Sutherland: [00:07:50]The biggest one for me is people, right? And when you're a teacher, you are responsible.
There's a, there's a. Saying with teachers that you set the weather in your classroom, you know, [00:08:00] just experience it. Like you determine what the weather is, you know, you are responsible for, in my case,36 kids for 45 minute period and their experience, and more importantly, getting them to do what they need to do and what they should be doing.
And having them be invested in the work that they're doing.And that is incredibly. Similar to working with employees. And honestly, sometimes I joke to working with exactly. It's like having another batch of middle schoolers that I'm just like cajoling into doing things and figuring out how to make them be the most successful.
And you know, so that to me is really the biggest. The biggest thing is it's all people management and figuring out what makes people tick and how to get them to do what needs to be done. And particularly the chief of staff role. It's really that behind the scenes influence, because I try never to go to somebody and say, here's what you have to do.
I'm not going to mandate that. That's not what I see my role as, but it's like, okay, what. What should we be doing? What's the right thing to do here? How can we solve these problems? And so it's that influence behind the scenes.
[00:09:00] Brooks Busch: [00:09:00]Yeah. And that reminds me of a quote that a past guest, Steph Shaun said of moving through influence, not authority, right?
Because you don't always in the chief of staff role, have any, anyone that you actually manage, you're working across teams in an influencer way where you've got to establish trust. And help folks understand the bigger picture as to how, what they're working on, ties into that. And so just diving into that, tactically, how have you gone about at Yext establishing that trust working across those departments being super intentional about the relationships you're building.
Grace Sutherland: [00:09:31]Yeah. I mean, it helps that I'm a big extrovert and a big people person in general. So I just love spending time with people and getting to know people and talking to people. And that's obviously a huge first step, but I think you have to. Especially in the chief of staff role. And especially if you're chief of staff to the CEO, people can sometimes assume that you are taking everything back to your CEO and that you are just like everything that's said to you is it goes straight to the CEO.
And I feel that's [00:10:00] not how I operate and that's not how I should operate. I am able to be, you know, Oftentimes in the middle of, of Howard or of execs or of different teams who need things. And it is up to me to take all the information and distill it into what the important points and takeaways are without breaking anyone's trust.
And so, yeah. Very early on. I tried to establish like, nothing that you say to me is going to Howard, unless you ask me to tell Howard with your name on it, I may give him the information in a like anonymized way, because I may think that it's important, but you can trust anything that you say to me is our relationship.
And it's not all just a pass through to the CEO. And, you know, saying that to people is not the same as them seeing it happen, you know?And so just the more that you can do that and you have to be very, very careful. Cause there will be times when you have to break that trust. Right.And when any to be just like upfront with somebody and be like, look, this thing that you told me was important enough that I have.
I have to go to Howard and say it right. [00:11:00] Or I have to go to the right person and say it. And so, by being honest and those moments as well, you also continue to build their trust.
Brooks Busch: [00:11:07]Yeah. It's, it's the fine balance of, look, you need to be able to work across different teams to build that trust. But at the same time, part of the role is serving as an extension of leadership.
And understanding when it's relevant. And a lot of times it's look, we need to surface this so we can help remove barriers that might be in the way from you being successful or bring together other teams create that alignment. Because obviously there's a disconnect that's taking place right now. And I think so often, like that plays out in the long-term of look, this is how all of this came together.
We're going to be super transparent and upfront at the frontend. But also it helps when teams understand here's the end goal that we're all trying to reach, which is that alignment piece of it, which is something grace that you and I had talked about, our first conversation of how does Yext go about just creating that sense of alignment from the leadership down through every employee.
And a lot of [00:12:00] times the chief of staff is that connective tissue. They're the ones that are flexing between that. So. It would be really curious what your role looks like when it comes to things like goal setting, things like strategic planning and serving in that capacity.
Grace Sutherland: [00:12:11]Yeah, you know, we do a quarterly goal setting and a yearly goal setting process, but I honestly, it can't just be that it can't just happen in those like quarterly moments.
It's something that's ongoing. Right. And that alignment in particular is. So so important. And it's interesting, you know, coming off of the pandemic and working remotely, it was a lot harder. We used to all be in the office and communications to happen much more organically and serendipitously. And so you didn't have to work as hard to make sure that alignment was there.
And so what it looks like now we are returning to normal and we're a lot of us working from the office, but even still we're a more distributed than we used to be. We have weekly check-ins with the various functional areas of the business, which include like, Howard and the exec and some of the key leadership people from that [00:13:00] org.
And so we make sure we're very well aligned there, but then there's also a piece that I take on as chief of staff, which is having an ear to the ground and listening to what I'm hearing throughout Yext and making sure that what's bubbling up from the bottom mirrors, what we are trying to work on.From the top down.
And so it's cool. I try to have a lot of relationships and interactions with people across yaks at all different levels so that I can be hearing where that alignment is happening or where it's not happening. And thenI can surface those things and we can address them.
Brooks Busch: [00:13:33]That's a great point. And it even reminds me, or connects to something you mentioned earlier, which is you're responsible for finding.
Your own work, your own projects that you're taking on. AndI feel like so often finding that work or that portfolio of projects often comes from having as many conversations as possible. It's look, if I can create as large of a top of funnel of information coming in. That allows me to[00:14:00] process what's going on.
How is it interconnected throughout the business and what are the things that leadership might not be seeing that is an opportunity for us to press in or at least explore further. And I'd be curious if that actually is a little bit of an overlap of just let's let's get as much of a funnel as we can to that information.
Grace Sutherland: [00:14:16]Yeah, the more you hear, the more you're able to see, the more you are able to know. Right. It's actually interesting. Howard has this, we'd call them. He has a whole list of like Jedi mind tricks that he does, but he has, it's really interesting. One to be called Teddy Roosevelt meetings. And they're basically five minute meetings back to back with everyone.
And sometimes we cut it by departments and it was, we cut it by levels. Sometimes it's totally randomized, but you know, you cut out all the small talk and the. Fluff and you just listen to the person for five minutes. I never do much speaking in the middle of I'm taking a lot of notes and you, it's a really interesting way to see trends and to gather in a short amount of time, a huge amount of information.
That's very transactional. I also do a lot of just like,1520 minute [00:15:00] one-on-ones with random people across the org. Like literally I have a randomized list of the whole company. I usually am doing a couple of those a week where I just ping someone. I'm like, I'm doing my random chats. Do you want to talk to me?
And it helps me be more informed about the business, which is cause I didn't, you know, a lot of other people and chief of staff roles have come from different departments and have that experience. I never did. I only ever worked. Howard. So I get to learn about what everyone does, but I also get to hear and gather that information. And it's really important.
Brooks Busch: [00:15:27]Yeah. That's, that's actually something that's super interesting about your background, because you knew from your experience teaching that you loved being somewhat of a generalist or putting, playing a role in a lot of different areas. And so you didn't have the trajectory of.
Just going up the marketing chain or the sales chain or the product chain instead, it was look, I know how to solve problems in a generalist capacity, work across a lot of different people in different areas. And so I'm even curious just as you were making the shift from teaching into, into Yext, if you had to say, or [00:16:00] just.
Outline some of the things that were surprising to you or that you were looking back saying these are the things I wish I knew stepping into that EA role, stepping into that chief of staff role, what would some of those areas?
Grace Sutherland: [00:16:13]Yeah. You know, it's interesting. There's not a lot. Because I get this question sometimes from people who are stepping into a chief of staff role and they're like, what should I learn before I come in?
And I'm like, to be honest, there's not a lot you can learn before you come in, but you need to be really intentional about learning as much as possible, as quickly as possible. And for me not coming from, you know,Back when I actually did this, when I came in as an EA, not even as a chief, didn't wait till I was a chief of staff, but I basically sat down with what I saw as like the, and what Howard helps me figure out is that 20, 30 key people across the organization and was like, just tell me what you do.
How does your, you know, how does it work in our growth marketing department? Like, what are your priorities? What does this really mean? Because otherwise you don't have the [00:17:00] information to even be able to understand. Stand the conversations that are being, having had at the exact level. And so like, as I developed more of an understanding of how the company works and how the different departments function, I was able to actually not just like listen to the conversations that I was in, all of our exact meetings and everything, but actually absorb them and then start to formulate my own opinions on them, which I would usually gut check with Howard before kind of bringing them up there for us.
But it, but you can't walk in and say, Assume that you knowhow to find the answer or solve a problem if you don't really understand what's going on currently.
Brooks Busch: [00:17:35]Yeah, it's almost setting the stage at the beginning of as much as you might want to just jump in and sprinting in the role. The reality is if you take your time at the beginning, get as much information as much context as you can to the business.
It's going to serve you in the long run because you have that foundational understanding. And so that makes a ton of sense. And I love just sitting down, meeting with as many folks at the beginning as you[00:18:00] can. But one of the things that I always love to press into is just how individuals themselves grow with the company, because grace you've been with X for three years.
And for any high growth company, company, Yext is a publicly traded company, roughly 1,300 employees or so. There's obviously a lot of growth. That's just organically happening through the organization. And that, that a lot of times puts pressure on individuals to continue to scale with the company. So how have you been able to make sure you're leveling up developing your skillset and the ways that the business needs you to that your leadership team needs you to outside of just the internal conversations?
Grace Sutherland: [00:18:40]What I try to do is I try to find places to step into where I can like actually take on a responsibility, whether for whether it's for a short amount of time or whether it's like something that it hasn't been being done yet. But I really think that by doing a job, you can learn a lot about. About it.
And so for me, that's looked recently, [00:19:00] like we had our head of recruiting obstacle and maternity leave. And so I've taken on a lot of her responsibilities. So I have like learned a ton about our people organization and how it works. And also through that are like our finance team.I've worked really closely with them around like the cost of head count and, you know, Comp and benefits and all that kind of stuff.
And so that's been really interesting to try to find areas where I can target a specific skill or piece of knowledge that I don't have yet. But I also think like for me, in my, because of my trajectory at yak, starting working for Howard and continuing to work for Howard, my biggest development that I am focused on right now is growing my own voice and being my own leader that is.
Separate from Howard. There's always going to be a part of my role where I'm an extension of Howard, but by being my own leader and not being able to make decisions and having things that I'm responsible for and having my own voice as like grace, the chief of. Staff, not grace, the extension of Howard [00:20:00] within the company, I can actually accomplish a whole lot more.
And that is like a real multiplier for Howard because he then has a whole other person who he, I mean, he trusts me, we've worked so closely together and he's like, great. You can go do these things. I don't even need to be involved in them anymore. And so that for me is what I'm really focusing on this year.
And you know, how do I become my own. Leader in the company, not just Howard exemption.
Brooks Busch: [00:20:26]I think that's, that's actually something where, you know, whether it's past guests, whether it's folks that we work with here late, there is a struggle sometimes for chiefs of staff to. Not just distinguish their voice from the CEO or from leadership, but also continue to stay focused on their own development as a leader of the company, not just an extension of leadership, doing the work, bringing it back to them.
And it's kind of an element of just confidence and conviction and saying, okay, I am a leader within this organization. And I think [00:21:00] that's really important for this role. Like it, it feels as though the chief of staff role to be set up for the most success within a company. Having that mentality of being a leader at the table is really something that's important to develop early on.
Grace Sutherland: [00:21:13]Another thing that's that I think about that's maybe different in different chiefs of staff roles or experiences. So Tim Howard's chief of staff before me and then the chief of staff before him were both what I would consider to belike rotational chief of staff. They came from it within Yext. They did about two years and they've since moved into other positions within Yext.
And they are now leaders in their own right. In those roles.And I never really saw this as a rotational position and, and Howard knows that, and we've talked about that. And so for me, it's like, how can I grow the chief of staff role? And then the office of the CEO into something that's more impactful than it is currently, that is, you know, for awhile it was just kind of me.
And now I have an analyst and she's great. And I'm working really closely with our internal comms person and sort of what are the things that should be [00:22:00] living. In the office of the CEO. But not directly under the CEO himself, and that's kind of the realm of the chief of staff. And soI see this as a position.
I don't have an intention of rotating off in six months when my two years are up, you know, cause I don't see it as a rotational program. I see it as a, as a role that can grow. And part of that is that Yext is now large enough that we can have a more robust organization under the CEO, you know? And that's so I'm lucky in that sense.
But it's a really cool opportunity for me as a leader, to be able to kind of build something and grow something.
Brooks Busch: [00:22:33]And I really appreciate you pressing into that because so often there's this conversation when someone's stepping into the chief of staff role of, is this a two or three-year stint and it's designed to be rotational and we're going to, we’re going to focus on the chief of staff role for this period of time. And then we're going to transition to another area of the business, or am I focused on growing as the chief of staff and making this a longterm, not just position, but to an extent a [00:23:00] team. And I think a lot of companies are even.
Folks sitting in that chief of staff role, struggled to think about what does that look like? Long-term for this chief of staff role to continue to grow within the company. And so you mentioned that you have an individual on your team. You work really closely with internal communications, but there is an element of the chief of staff can kind of have its own office or its own team that's designed to.
Again, amplify the voice of the CEO, not report directly to them, but help make sure that the vision for the company is being communicated.Make sure that opportunities within the business are being surfaced. So I love diving into it and how it looks at Yext today.
Grace Sutherland: [00:23:38]You know, it's really interesting cause I hadn't, I, when I, before I was in the chief of staff role, um, but sure, only shortly before, as I knew I was going to be stepping into it, I had the opportunity to, to meet the, uh, Marc Benioff's chief of staff at Salesforce.
And he was telling me about his organization. I think he has said he has like a 15 person organization. That's like the office of the CEO she doesn't have. [00:24:00] And that was the first time when I really said to myself, okay, wow, there's a world in which you can build this into its own organization. And that was really an eye-opening for me, because until that point, you know, it was that rotational chief of staff.
Viewpoint. And that, wasn't what I wanted because maybe it was a fear of not knowing what I would do after it, but it was also just that I loved the generalist, you know, all of that.
Brooks Busch: [00:24:22]Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the point of it is a lot of folks that step into the chief of staff role do so because they want visibility into a lot of different areas and they want to serve in that generalist capacity.
They don't necessarily want to transition into leading a specific subset of the organization. So all that being said, if you're thinking about where the chief of staff role, even as evolved over the last couple of years, where it's going, some of the trends that you see. Would be really curious to just hear some of the things that are top of mind for you, as you think about 20, 21 and beyond, as you continue to build out the roles, you continue to build out the team.
Grace Sutherland: [00:24:59]So, I [00:25:00] For me specifically, it's how do we build back some of the things that took a hit in the pandemic, you know, and whether that is like our.Culture, whether that's our communication patterns, our processes, all of that.I see this year as a springboard for improvement and to really kind of bounce back after that.
Um, but it's also a unique situation coming off of the heels of a pandemic. So, you know, as I think about the chief of staff more broadly, there's always going to be more tools and more technology and more ways to do your job, but fundamentally the thing that. She used, the staff are most valuable for is like creativity, building relationships, deep thought that only humans can really do.
And so it's this, how do you set yourself up so that you can use these tools and these technologies to take some of the lower level work off of your plate or to streamline some things that are repeated tasks or whatever, and free up the space to think, [00:26:00] and to be strategic so often in. I mean in my role, I'm just in my life.
It's like, go, go, go, do, do new. And you don't stop to think about, okay, is this what we should be doing? You know, what's the big picture here. And as a chief of staff, it's really important. Not only that you do that, but that you enable your. Exactly or your team or whoever you're supporting to have that space as well.
And so for case staff in the next, you know, five or so years, kind of like a late, I imagine there's going to be a lots and lots of tools and technologies, but you can't get bogged down in all of the doing. You have to use those to free up space to think, and to be strategic.
Brooks Busch: [00:26:37]It's funny, you mentioned this because as you were.
We talked about at the beginning of this it's you've got togo out and search for opportunities or projects to take on. The only way you do that is by getting a lot of information, then being able to process it, giving yourself the space to do so. And it's, it's funny, just a lot of times the, theCEO and the company is pushed to do that because they're the ones that are supposed to be [00:27:00] thinking three, five, 10 years down the road.
And it's just as applicable to the chief of staff. That's not only aligning with that long-term vision, but then trying to distill, what does that actually look like from a day to day, quarter to quarter, year to year perspective, because I've got to figure out how I communicate or bridge the gap between that long-term with the here and now.
And that's just not something that you can do if you're just constantly bogged down with the here and now of this is what we have to get done today. Again, it's what makes the chief of staff role so unique, but the necessity to flex between long-term and short-term is a requirement. And that's exactly kind of what you're pressing into there, which is again, what is needed of a leader at a company versus maybe someone who's just focused on the day-to-day tasks that fall to their plate.
Awesome. Well, grace, thank you so much for taking the time loved having you on here and your story you made. Honestly, it sounds like quite the jump, but so much translated [00:28:00] over. Really appreciate it.Yeah.
Grace Sutherland: [00:28:02]Thanks Brooks. It was a pleasure.
