Why Most Bankers Fail at the VP → Director Transition (And How to Get It Right)

Welcome to the Investment Banking Leaders Podcast brought to you by the Investment Banking Leaders Club. Your exclusive access to the industry's most successful leaders. These experts have closed thousands of deals generating hundreds of billions of dollars. And they're here to share their strategies, insights and leadership lessons that can fast track your career. But the learning doesn't stop here. Join the Investment Banking Leaders Club at ibleadersclub.com for even more exclusive insights, leadership frameworks and career accelerating resources and events. Thanks for joining us and best of luck on your growth journey. Today, a guest who has spent more than two decades at William Blair, rising through the ranks to now serving as the head of Investment Banking. Along the way, he's played a pivotal role in expanding the firm's global footprint, particularly across Europe, and building a leadership culture that's rooted in ultra-bronorship, collaboration and deep client relationships. I'm talking, of course, the very only Matt Zimmer. And pumped for today's episode where we're going to explore Matt's journey and investment banking, what it takes to build teams as well as credibility in new markets, how to mentor future leaders, and why staying grounded and optimistic is essential even when those deals do fall apart. I'm sure we're also going to touch on things such as market dynamics, team culture, AI, innovation, and what it means to lead with transparency in a high performance environment. So Matt, thanks for taking the time. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. That was great. Appreciate it. Our pleasure. Matt, why don't you just take us back to the beginning of your journey at William Blair. What brought you into Investment Banking and what's kept you at the same firm, I guess, for over 20 years now? Sure. I got into Investment Banking. I actually started a price waterhouse as a CPA. And I actually did not even know what Investment Banking was when I started. But a friend of mine was over to firm, said, "Did you like to interview?" And I did. And I really was enthusiastic about the deal flow and kind of the dynamic environment that occurs inside of the industry. And I think you are constantly learning about new businesses, you're constantly talking to management teams and entrepreneurs and owners of businesses. And you do it across a broad array of industries and types of personalities. And that fluidity of the market is just something that really appealed to me. Because there's always something going on. And it was highly active and I was really engaged by it. Love that. Fast pace and that variety. I hear that quite a bit as well. And over the time in the business, what key inflection points stand out for you personally and professionally? Sure. So I joined William Blair in 2007. And I was a new entry as an associate on the team. And the financial crisis kicked off. I think about nine months after I joined it, I'm like, I'm definitely getting fired. That's for sure. There was guy in and I remember I went into my to my boss, after a bonus cycle and I called my wife and said, it's possible. I'm not going to have a job at the end of the day because there were massive account reductions everywhere. And I remember him saying, here's your bonus. It's not as much as we'd like to give you. That's a pretty tough market out there. And I was like, man, I am just happy to have a job right now. And so that was my induction into William Blair early on. A couple of other things getting through that was pretty pretty, I think fun and interesting. And then in 2011. So 2007, I started 2011. I moved over to Europe to help really build that team alongside a couple folks that were there. I was there for five years in London. And we had some good success. We built a team from I think 12 people when I went over. There's about 90 when I left. So good growth over that five year period. But that was a real learning experience, where we had a ton of fun or flying around doing transactions, building teams, trying to hire the right people. We had a lot of institutional backing behind us and capable to say, let's go build a transatlantic capability, which was a lot of fun. I came back in 2016 back to Chicago. And at that time, we had built some sector expertise across different verticals. And I ended up running one of our sector teams, which was at the time the services and industrial teams about 45 people. We grew that we were growing all of our teams at that time, but we grew that to about 120 people over a five year period. And that was a great learning experience, different offices across the US and in Europe, different sectors. We launched an aerospace defense team in Charlotte at the time. So those kind of three points were definitely big milestones. I think the biggest was in 2021. I became head of investment banking. And that was for people in the industry. Everyone knows 2021 was a phenomenal year. And I was like, this is the easiest job in the world. Big brothers and promotions. I'm like, what's the hard thing about this job? And then after that, 22, 23, the world changed pretty dramatically. And so for me, that was a real crash course in management and leadership over that period. That to me was the biggest challenge I probably experiences a leader. I was from 21 to 23 and running a team of what was on my started. We were about 100 people at that time. We're about 700. And so trying to work through those dynamics and understand and communicate clearly. It was a real learning for me. What a journey. Thanks for sharing that. And again, those big moments of instability and then how you acted today. And now you pivoted and then obviously still managed to grow. So let's unpack some of that. But before we do. Super interested in your in your growth and the firms growth across Europe. I shared with you that I was bought on an outsham and went on a similar path to grow our footprint across Europe. So I definitely know a bit about it. But I'd love to know more about what you saw as the biggest challenges and lessons from building teams and winning mandates in essentially a brand new market. Yeah. I think the the learning that I took away from Europe and I really tried to translate that back into the US was when you're building a team that's relatively small at the time. Every higher matters. Right. And so we did a lot of work around making sure people we were bringing on to our platform fit kind of culturally and philosophically. That's one. I also think that the diversity of perspectives in London. And truly across Europe is critical. And so by the time we had built the team, I think we spoke something like 12 or 13 different languages in our London office. And what I found was when you have that integrated team of diverse perspectives and backgrounds. You got some really good answers and some really good pitches and some really good client outcomes. Because you were enabling a whole bunch of people from different backgrounds to weigh in. It took a little longer to get to the right answer sometimes. But there was always I think very high quality. And so for me, as we continue to build the team, I think we've been very focused on trying to incorporate diverse perspectives across different backgrounds, different professional backgrounds where they grew up. Because you do get some exceptional outcomes when you enable that kind of perspective to be voiced and heard. Yeah, love that take right at diversity. I've heard about building teams out, but the way you put that is very different to what I've heard from other leaders in the past and that intentionality about bringing in with different cultures and languages and how that can actually aid the outcomes is super interesting. Absolutely. Yeah. And I guess you had to go about establishing that brand credibility into the new market. So how did you go about that? How did you build that client trust in clearly a really competitive region? Yeah, one of the things that we we tried to instill into our team was treat every deal as if it's your last deal. Right. Because premium execution on that transaction will enable us to elevate our brand and establish credibility in a market that is as you describe very competitive. We would talk about not only interacting with the client as if it's your last client, but also every buyer as if you're establishing yourself in the market. And so we worked to say every interaction with a buyer on your son accompany, make sure you are on. And they you stay out in that environment. A big pitch we had and it's still hold today was because we're one income statement. We don't have separate P and L's across the US and Europe by sector team or product team. We were able to say listen, we think we are the best equipped to sell your business because we have the best access into North America. A lot of these folks are hoping to sell to a big trade buyer in the US. We had 400 bankers in the US by the time I left all sector focused and that integrated transatlantic capability to say we're one team and we can access kind of North America, kind of Europe, Asia at the same time and really run a global process, even though we are relatively small at the time was a big differentiator. But I do think we grew, we started to punch up above our weight and started a bigger, bigger deals. We grew with our clients as well. A client would hire us. We would tell them we're going to do this. We would do it. They would appreciate that and they would hire us again. And so you make it the hundred million euro deal to start suddenly you're pitching a 500 million euro deal because they trust you. And that was a big element to our growth across that time. Yeah, love that makes a lot of sense in premium execution as you say and treating that to every deal like it's your last and that collaboration from the global platform obviously makes a lot of sense as well. Yeah, and let's talk a little bit about that because you described William Blair's culture to me as entrepreneurial collaborative client centric. You also talked about scaling and the intention to hire people that fit the philosophy, the culture. So how do you scale that culture while maintaining the quality and the alignment that you need across geographies. Yeah, as you go from 100 people to 700, the entrepreneurial DNA is something you really do not want to lose. And I think it's, it becomes easier and easier to lose that over time. No doubt with scale. There's a certain amount of structure and maybe even bureaucracy that is needed to keep people organized and incentive and aligned in how they are supposed to win business. We've really been intentional by trying to keep our call management layer as lean and as thin as possible to enable decision making. across the teams. I think that's a really important point. When we bring people in, I often tell the story. When I came over, I was talking to a guy that hired me and he said, "We're going to try to build something that's very entrepreneurial. We're going to be here to support you." If you think there's an opportunity to go out and establish the brand and establish your brand in the market, and that motivates you, come on over and we'll be here to help you. And they did. They were there every step of the way. I got out of my skis multiple times and they would ring me in or come to a meeting with me and provide air-car. I never want to lose that entrepreneurial DNA, but also the notion of paying it forward and supporting the next generation. I benefited from it. All the guys, all the leaders on my team benefited from it. I think there's a really entrenched DNA instead of our leadership team to say, "Let's elevate that next generation because we benefited from it." It's a really important piece to our business. Yeah, I can see how that means a lot to you and it's powerful, obviously, for the growth and the engagement of the team. Outside of providing an environment where you need to make more decisions, not having as many leaders, let's say, that are making those for you. Is there any other things within that area that you think can help build entrepreneurial DNA or let it flourish? Yeah, I think our leadership team is probably comprised of a bunch of people who have done a lot of deals over the years. They've been in the trenches a lot of them grew up to the organization. We use the term player coach a lot. They all do deals today. I think the idea of leading by example and working hard at the leadership level and rolling up your sleeves and also being willing to jump on a plan and go support a director that generated a new lead in a pitch and say, "I'm here for you." That empowerment and that leading by example, I think sets a tone across the organization which hopefully is motivating to others and allows them to feel confident and supported to go out in wind business and when clients trust, serve the clients and really grow their career. It's a huge part of our business. Love that. So my next question was going to be about what separates good leadership from great. But you've already given me a bit of that playbook, that player coach, dumping on the plane, being willing to support, pay it back. Is there any other things that you think separates great leadership from good, especially in high-grow, high-pressure environments like we have in investment banking? Yeah, it's a great question. I think the approach, and this is just to me, it's a small thing that really distinguishes and separates someone from being good to great. And honestly, I probably fall down in some of these along the way. I try to live into them, but nobody's perfect. And if you did this all the time, I think it'd be very important. But what I find is recognizing the successes consistently of our team is a really empowering and positive way to establish loyalty and trust and clear communication with people. So I think I'd do it pretty well. Not perfectly, others do it on the team even better, but even taking the one-on-one discussion once a day and calling somebody up, checking in, seeing how they're doing, seeing how their deals go, and checking out their family, establishing that connectivity with, I don't know, 30, 45 minutes a day of calls into people. It goes a long way. It permeates through the organization. They turn around and start doing it to other people and checking in, and it makes people feel like they're part of the team. And so when I think about great leaders, and I've benefited from this again as well, I think about the folks who took time out of their day to focus on you one-on-one. Now, we've got 700 people and stuff to do that with 700 folks, but certainly every day, twice a day, I try to reach out to a couple folks, checking with them, see how their transactions go, and what can I do to help? You need me support. And it instills a pretty good sense of camaraderie. I think the other piece around great leadership, and this is probably not the direction necessarily you want to go, but I think addressing toxicity in the organization, addressing people that aren't living into the culture quickly and decisively, is a real initiative and action that I think establishes very strong leadership. And over the years, I think I've tried different ways to handle those types of situations in our organization, and I think I've learned over those experiences that the quicker you act on some of those types of situations, the better it is for the culture, and the better it is to get alignment across your team. I've seen, it's been amazing to see some certain actions that have been taken over the years, and it's almost instantaneous inside of the culture that things shift and the positivity that comes out of it. You may lose a little revenue when these things happen. If you're talking to maybe separated from a very senior banker, to me, that's very short-lived. The reality is the trajectory of your growth that's a little bit of that line actually accelerates even quicker, because you have a team that is more aligned, and so the economic benefit for me is big. So I think being decisive on actions that you may not want to take, I think that establishes very strong leadership. Yeah, I couldn't agree more of you. I love the recognising the team, and that human approach that you took, it's actually when everyone's busy, take the time to pick up the phone and have a conversation and connect with someone, and no doubt that we'll lead into the collaboration that you want. Obviously they say, "I have slowed fire fast," right? I think that's what we're talking about there with the toxicity and not having a match. I think people are very, understandably, people are very reluctant to move on things like that, because they think leaders can think they can improve the situation, and sometimes you just can't. I think the team around you knows that everything's done in a small team setting. When you get that right and the culture is aligned, the sky's the limit, and I feel like we're in that zone right now with our team, very aligned, moving forward, which is wonderful. Congrats, that's not easy to do, so congrats on that. I've definitely fallen foul of having too much faith in the past, and then I think these are the sorts of things you get that you have to earn the stripes before you really know how to play at the right way. Let's talk a bit about rising talent, then. Loads of leaders listening today, you've already given them a lot of great leadership wisdom, but what advice do you give to VP's directors who are making that leap from execution to regeneration? Yeah, I guess I would imagine every bank kind of approaches that title a little bit differently. We spend a ton of time trying to figure out how to provide confidence into that cohort. I'll give them a clear line of sight of how they can move to the next level. I would argue the director level is probably the trickiest title in investment banking. You've been maybe dissociated, even an analyst associated VP, and suddenly you're being asked to start to go out and win business. You may be the best execution banker in the world, and pivoting and shifting your mindset to say, okay, now I need to go to Stale's Trust with the client, they're going to invest in me to maybe sell their company, take a public, whatever it might be. That's a mindset shift. And our advice, and this has been debated many times across our leadership team, and we're trying to think of the right approach, but I look at execution from an analyst to an associate to maybe even a second year of VP is the best form of origination. As we talked about, every interaction should be considered your last interaction with the client. Every time that VP picks up a phone and talks to a buyer, they need to be on, and they need to be clear, maybe tough, but fair, and also establish credibility. And those experiences, in my view, really establish credibility. They've been in the trenches, they've done, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 transactions over that time, they know what they're talking about, and they just need the confidence to flip the switch and start to get out and talk to people. So when we get to director, maybe even the senior VP level, we start to work with people around, what are you going to go at, what your level of expertise turns out, you are an expert in certain things, you may not know it, but you are. And it's a real thing to tell people, listen, you know what you're doing at this point. You need the confidence. So we start work with them at that level, and then we have a whole program, which we've developed over time, and we love it. It's called, it's a little cheesy, but it's called breakthrough university. And for us, it's shifting your mind from execution to going out and winning the client's trust. We bring in coaches, we bring in presentation training coaches. Even some career coaches along the way, we bring another bankers, we bring clients, and we say, "Here are all the things you need to be ready for." And we start to try to prep them as a first year director. I think we're pretty patient with our directors. A question could be, how do they make the jump to MD after that? I think the journey is very different for everyone. And I think people also should understand that their skill set is their skill set. It's very unique. You don't need to be exactly like that successful MD. You need to have your own voice and be comfortable with your own voice. And that's how people get comfortable and win. And our goal goal is to say, listen, you're an expert. You get a lot of great talent. Let's shape a narrative for you that you're most comfortable with and you can go out of one business. And it's a journey. Some people are going to get promoted in one year. Some people take a few, but we try to be patient and support it along the way. Yeah, thanks for sharing the journey. Great breakthrough university. Congrats on what you're doing there because I've spoken to a lot of VPs and directors in the last three or four months through the IB leaders club and what we're trying to do in community. And there's not enough of these types of programs that are really making a difference. I can grats to you and William Blair for putting that in. There's always room for improvement in it, but I feel like we continue to hone in and people seem to really appreciate it. It definitely seems like you care. And I think that's the main thing. And I love some of what you touch on. We talk a lot about the skills, but I love the mindset piece that you're talking about because that is the shift from being an executor, an originator. And I love the piece about authenticity as well. I actually wrote when newsletter this week on that talking to leaders about finding your own self because you can't imitate to be in a great origin, great in origination. There's many different paths, right? So it's about finding your own as you say. So if you took the most successful MDs or partners across our firm and you looked at how they win business and the clients they was able to trust with, none of them are sick. They all have their own approach. I think they've realized that. And that's the difficulty isn't I guess when you're trying to train people because it's not one size fits all. So I love the mindset and the bringing in the resources and letting people find their path. So it makes a lot of sense. How do you know when it's time to kick someone out of the nest that or putting more support structures to really help them succeed at that level? Yeah, I mean, I think it's I think every, like I said, every person has their own pace and their own journey. We've seen folks really flip the switch and say this is exactly my skill said, "I'm ready to pick up the phone, get on a plane, go meet clients." I think the ones in our world that are the most successful, and this is part of this breakthrough university, training, we have a module on, "Don't be a hero." And it's an important step. Like the directors who say, "I've got a new opportunity, I'm going to bring a managing director with me," or somebody who can help me establish better credibility. The ones that are open to that collaboration, I think, accelerate faster in our business, in our team. The ones that kind of say, "I'm going to go prove myself," and I'm going to do this on my own in a solo act. I found that they don't get as much success as quickly, and ultimately they come to that realization. So in our world, this notion of collaboration, it's a very overused turn in investment banking. I would argue. Everybody says they collaborate, but that world of collaboration right there is, it's a real element to driving success. So that's a big factor that we consider. Others could say, "Look, I was a great execution VP. This is a little uncomfortable for me, but I'm willing to dive in and try." We say, "Great. We're not in one year and you're out. We'll figure this out." Along the way. Now, there are others that say, "I understand the role. I understand what's required. I mean, this isn't for me." And we say, "We understand. And we'll help you transition to some area in financial services somewhere else and try to support you along the way." But to me, that director level is really the moment where there's a realization you're going to thrive. I mean, a little more time, or maybe this next step isn't for you. Yeah, perfect. Thanks for sharing. And I guess I'm interested. That poll you mentioned about knowing when to bring in the seniors to help you versus trying to go at alone. Do you see things that make VPs or directors go that way versus the collaborative way? I'm just thinking we've got a lot that are listening. So I think that's a really important point. I'm the one that how we can help them to lean into the support that have more versus. Yeah, I mean, that's not a unique thing to Blair. I think it's pervasive across the industry. And look, I think everyone in this industry is pretty competitive. And I think everyone wants to show that they can be successful. And the definition of success, I think, is the biggest criteria that I consider. Right? No doubt people want to go out and say, I won this piece of business. I secured the mandate and I closed it and it was 100% me. That's what everyone wants to say. I think people that try to do that, the pace of which they're successful is just slower. Right? And so I would really urge folks to be open to collaboration, open to bringing in resources to help you along the way. The people that are relaxed about the credit, the revenue comes. I think that's a big factor in our business. Yeah. More wins make them shared and move quicker. So I hope the audience take that on board. So I think it is a really key point. And we hear a lot about that at the club. I want to take it step back again and go back to the downturn in 2022. As you shared, you had a head of investment banking. You had an incredible year. Market. I was very happy from 22. Yeah, really. The market turned hard. You built this big team for execution. Suddenly you're faced with tough calls. So how did you stay grounded and lead through that volatility, Matt? Yeah. So that was it was definitely a crash course in leadership. And I probably stumbled a few times through that experience as well, but you learned as you go. The things that I thought really established alignment across our team in a chaotic and challenging situation. The whole industry was facing at that time. It was transparency. Optimism for sure, but I think optimism with a level of sobriety tied to it. And to me, that sobriety and the transparency comes through a very clear communication sitting down and talking to people and saying, this is what's going on in our business. These are the areas that we need to address. We're going to address them because we are highly profitable, successful investment bank, and we're going to maintain that, right? Laying out the facts and the basis as to why we were acting. Also, laying out the outlook and just being transparent and say we've got a great team. Our clients trust us. The market is challenged right now. And we're going to take some actions across the firm to make sure we're the best spot ever to emerge from this. And I found that the, yes, you want to be optimistic. It's not so humor actually helps when the moment is right, not all the time, but certainly there are moments when they can crack a joke here or there if it's the right environment. But just being straight with people as to the situation you're confronted with and the actions you're taking, I think it really helped establish alignment around the actions and why. And people felt informed about what was going on. And you got to come out the other side of that. And that was a tough world at that point. Coming out the other side of that, I would argue we are stronger or more aligned as a leadership team. Those types of situations certainly make it closer across the leadership team. And so I have 13 or 14 folks that run teams and they report to me. And we're extremely tight now having gone through that experience. We didn't agree on everything. When there was straight communication around actions that we would take, some people would voice their concern. So I think clear communication drove alignment and solidarity across our team. The other thing that I think my learned is that when I was listening to voices, these guys are all smart people. They know financial analysis, they know our industry. And sometimes they would have an opinion and they would say, have we thought about this or that. And I'm usually sitting with more data and more information than anyone. But honestly, some of the observations that came up, I was like, do I have a blind spot here? Should I listen to it and dig into it? And some of the things that we did to really drive our productivity, they weren't my ideas. There are someone else's. And I said, that's a great idea. Let's dig into it. I think so listening is an important factor. You're never going to lead by consensus in those situations. Everyone's going to have a differing view. But I think taking the time to listen and then making the call and executing on that call and then moving on is really important. People felt like they had a voice. They understood why I wouldn't say yes or no to that. But then we would make a call and move. And I think that's a really important kind of element to driving consistency in alignment across the team as to why things are going to whether gone. Yeah, thanks for sharing. I can clearly see why you're such a great leader. And that transparency that clear comes communicating often when the challenges are there and to me, but realistic. And I felt the same without you, actually, in terms of like after COVID coming out of it, how galvanized the team were with much more business than William Blair. But you feel that because you feel like you've gone through something together. You have belief of the leadership team more, I think. So yeah, definitely makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and a forum where people can talk straight with each other and get past the hurt feelings because you're communicating in an environment that's trying to make the team better. And if everyone's coming from that mindset, then everyone has a voice. And if you're able to have those communications back and forth with each other and be straight with each other, that is the best environment of management leadership you can get into. Yeah, definitely hear that openness again. And the trust that you built must have been great. So thanks for sharing. If we think about AI, this is what I get asked a lot. And when you speak into your next guest, could you get some insights for us, Pete? And I, William Blair's been looking at machine learning and building AI tools for a while now. What excites you most about the role of tech in support in bankists today? Oh, it's evolving so quickly right now that it's, it's almost hard to grasp what the impact can be. We hired a number of data scientists, I think about five years ago. And these guys are real smart. Very smart. And because I came up through the organization, I think we were talking about this one time before. I was an analyst, associate VP, I played every role in this organization. And there's always these constraints and bottlenecks that each title feels due to technology constraints. And for years, you'd say, boy, wouldn't it be great if we could do X and you couldn't do X. And I think it varies by title and varies by what people want. And we can talk about that in a second. But when we developed this competency, I'd sit with them and say, here's what I think a bottleneck is at the associate level. And this can really improve productivity. It can improve their work life balance. It can improve their work experience. And I'd be like, we can't do that. And we can do that. Oh my what? And I'd spend really cool to see a lot of these things launch. We did partner with this recently with a new outsourced service provider that's focused on machine learning and AI and MML. And they have been incredible so far in coming on. They've been on site for six months. And the tools that they're launching right now across our organization, the adoption across our team is very high. That's my biggest concern is we launch all these tools. A lot of anchors say that's cool, but I'm not going to use it. The adoption has been very high. People are lining up and lining up to get access to this. And we're learning as we go. So I think there's a ton of opportunity for efficiency across the organization. I do think one of the things we learned over the last four years is there's a lot of great ideas that could create it. The adoption of those ideas, well, it looks awesome on paper. It could be great, but nobody uses it. You need to kill it. And you need to move on. And so we've been very disciplined lately of saying let's launch two to three new initiatives, not 10. Let's find out which ones move the needle most effectively for our team. And then let's execute on adoption around those and the ones that are cool, but they're not working or people who start using them, stop using them, right? Because you can just launch 15 different things in a year and not all will stick. I do think the benefit of efficiency and productivity at the junior level is pretty pronounced right now. And what we're working on now and have been pretty successful at is how do we get more lead generation for our senior bankers using different data feeds and tools. And so it's almost like efficiency on one side revenue generation on the other. And if you get the revenue generation lead generation element correct, this guy is the limit. And we're seeing early stages of that, which is really promising some of the tools we put in place to allow people to target more effectively and understand different businesses more quickly. And that's been a big driver at the senior level as well as trying to accelerate our revenue growth through some of this technology. Yeah, I really like that where that's going at that senior level and imagine how easy it's to target. And then you can really put your focus on the relationship building that's needed versus burning the time, finding and understanding who those relationships are. So I can definitely see that and how that's going to have an impact. Anything you've learned from adoption, 'cause I think a lot of listeners might be struggling with that, understood, picking the initiatives that you feel are gonna move the needle most and therefore natural adoption happens. But are you using any other ways do you help drive adoption? - Yeah, so we built a customer, I think it's called customer experience, small team. And the customer is actually the banker. And these folks that we are from big four accounting firms, they're consultants, and their job is to sit with small groups and articulate these tools and show how it can make their lives better. We had to have that because if you're sending an email out and saying, "Hey, we got a new tool, have at it," people just delete the email. That's pervasive in the industry. I do think adoption across the kind of analyst associate and even VP level is just much higher. I think they're quicker to look at technology, they've been around technology and these innovations and how quickly it's moving more than some of our senior bankers. And so we are seeing very strong adoption across some of these tools at that level, at the senior level, I think it's sitting down and saying, "Here's how you generate more revenue and make more money." And they're kind of like, "Oh, that works for me." But we're getting into kind of hand-to-hand combat with folks to be like, "We need you to understand this." And it's almost more on one type discussions with both people. - Okay, like that, thanks. And I'm sure as you say, we don't know the full impact yet, but I know it's gonna continue this year at a pretty rapid rate. So excited to see how things shake out. - Well, I touch a little bit on client relationships. So you've talked about the importance of straight talk, being available, always giving the best advice, seeing the deal was the last. How do you build and maintain long-term, trusted relationships with clients, Matt? In today's fast-moving and also transactional world. - Yeah, I think the biggest thing, if I think about even my own clients and some of my team's clients who have been repeat clients time after time, I do think two things. I think the execution on their transaction is critical. They wanna know that you're focused on it. They wanna know your responsive, and they wanna know you're committed to that success. If you go through a process and you wrap that process up, there's obstacles the entire time through a process. There's bumps in the road everywhere, right? How you handle those unforeseen obstacles that occur in communication with your client is critical. And I always say, give 'em your best advice, right? You have the facts, you've got a lot of deals. They make shoes not to take your advice, but you give them your best advice. And they may not wanna hear what you're gonna say. And I think that is the biggest thing for me that I've learned over the years is they're hiring you to give them advice, give it. And if it's even something that they don't wanna hear, give it, they can choose to ignore you, they can choose to go another way. But I think there's a real value in establishing trust and loyalty over years when you're speaking very plainly to clients around the success of that deal and what you're trying to do to get it to the end. There could be times when you say, don't take the offer, right? It's not good. Hold the business. That's a revenue implication for you personally in the firm, but certainly in those situations, you establish a lot of trust and loyalty and they often come back and they appreciate it. They may not like to hear it right in the moment if it's a very heated element in the moment in a deal, but I think you can stay at all and say you give them your best advice based on the facts you have and ultimately people appreciate that. I guess I can see how that would build long-term trust, especially once maybe the heats come out the situation and again, focused, responsive, committed, all makes it a lot of sense. So yeah, again, thanks for sharing that. If we just look ahead a little bit, as you look ahead, what are the trends or dynamics you're most focused on, whether in the market or with William Blair? Yeah, I guess our business is M&A, equity capital markets, we have a little bit of leverage finance. Now we're in the second area's business, we've got a fund placement team, so we've built out a private capital advisory team as well. From an M&A perspective, it feels like the market has all the elements for a good year right now. As we all know, there's a gigantic inventory of private equity owned assets sitting there the whole period, six and a half years, it used to be four, 30,000 portfolio companies out there. That private equity inventory is going to have to unlock. At some point, they need to get liquidity back to their LPs. So that feels positive. Interest rates, they will come down, feels like. The speed at which they come down will see. But even a gradually declining and straight environment is very positive for M&A and also for the equity capital markets business. And we're seeing it right now, we're seeing our EZM capabilities, really the IPO markets open and open. It's actually not opening up, it's open right now. And it's fun to see. So all the elements are in place, I think, for a good year. I think that the challenge is, there's just a lot of unknowns that occur in the year right now. If you think about last year, we had tariffs that were very splashy, but ultimately settled at a place which was manageable. We had doge come in and really impact parts of our business that are serving the government. We had a government shutdown. We have another partial one right now. And so these elements are just out of our control. And I think the ability to be agile and responsive to these things as they come up, understand what the implications are and move quickly to address them. It's going to be really important. Because I think the one known is there's going to be a lot of unknowns right now. But all that said, there's a lot going on. I think generally speaking, the optimism is there. The sentiment is high across the industry. We're seeing it already coming out of the bags. It's now February. It's been very robust already on both that recap of markets, secondary funds placement and M&A. So it's setting up for what could be very positive kind of a couple of years. Yeah, it's great to hear you're taking, yeah, certainly for the portfolio companies you mentioned, the need to unlock that's certainly going to be a driver. And I hear so much from leaders now that those stable times that slow bottom left, bottom left, growth is not really happening much these days. We're much more executing in the volatile time. And then agile was you say, he's really cold. It is. All the things that occurred last year, even the government shut down definitely heard the IPO market in the fourth quarter, even the FTC and some approvals on some of these bigger deals for HSR purposes that was got held up a little bit. The reality is like the tariffs ultimately settled the place that was not nearly as chaotic as was first thought. It just took a while for it to process through. Those, there was a lot of activity that occurred. That has settled down. It's certainly the unknowns. They're so jarring when they occur. But the reality is when everything settles down, it's something people can manage through. And I think that's where we are. I guess the more you earn your stripes in the volatility and having to be agile, the better we're going to get it. So that's the plus, right? We'll have to take that away and use that experience. Whatever the next unknown is that comes to your mind. Exactly. Believe it or not, we're coming towards the end of the episode. Couple of questions to wrap, I guess. All my listeners know that I believe leaders are readers. Obviously, it's not just books these days. There's podcasts. There's a ton of other materials out there. But which resources do you recommend have had a big impact on you and your career? Yeah, I can't. So I have readers now. So I don't really bring books around anymore. It's hard for me to read. But I do listen to Audible all the time. Yeah. But I don't depend on where you are in your career. I've read a lot of capital markets books over the years or my career. I'm a student of the Fed. I'm in a big way. So economics is really fascinating. I mean, there's book out there. Is it okay to reference books? Yeah, yeah. 20th century monetary policy. It's my chicken on vacation. My wife was like, I cannot believe you're reading that book on big day. It's a good idea. I'm reading with a pop towel. OK. Ben Bernanke wrote it. It's a great book. It gives you a lot of education on that. So there's certainly capital markets piece. But where I am in my life, I've really gotten into Tick-N-Hon, who was a Buddhist monk. Very helpful to read his books during the 2022 and 2023 timeframe, as you can imagine. Excellent books around just the way you think about managing and talking to people and like, appreciating the culture you're in. And then I also dive into just a lot of history books, like War Generals. I've just finished the biography of Elyseus S. Grant as an example. A lot to learn from that. Next step back, and I was thinking about that. Why am I very different types of books and why am I reading them? But I do think there's this element of leadership and how you can be as a person in a leadership role that you can take away from all those different types of books. I just finished 1929 as well, which was a great book. Everybody's probably reading that one as well. So definitely. We'll put some leads into the show notes. And the listeners always keen to understand what great leaders are picking up at and what they're learning from it. And hear a lot about the biographies, Napoleon and Churchill and lots of other types come up. So that's great. Final question, before I let you get back to it. If you could go back to Matt Zimmer in his younger days, starting out in the industry, knowing everything you know now, what's the one piece advice you'd give to yourself? Yeah, I guess I would probably say, don't try not to hold yourself to such a standard that impacts the way you think about in your work life balance. I think people get into this gig and they want to succeed and they want to differentiate and they want to be the rock star. And that's OK. It's a very competitive environment. But people get to that path and that outcome in very different ways. And so being able to calibrate on where you are in your career, it's a marathon, not a sprint, and handling challenges that come up in ways that are healthy and you get through them. And you appreciate the challenges and roadblocks along the way. Just be more balanced in the way you think about this job. Because to be at it for 20 years, you need to balance along the way. And if you're trying to overperform and over succeed every day, you're out there, I think you'll get burned out. No, but also in ways to finish the episode. Matt, this has been a masterclass in leadership, team building, navigating complexity. So again, thanks for joining us. Thanks for being open and sharing your story. And giving our audience a look behind the curtain. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. My pleasure. You take care. This episode of The Podcast was bought to you by the Investment Banking Leaders Club. And to keep leveling up your career, join the club at ibledersclub.com for exclusive insights, leadership strategies, and career growth resources. straight from the industry's top professionals. I want to say thanks to our key partner, Outram, the global leader in financial deal gifts, awards and recognition, for their ongoing support about mission, to empower both aspiring and senior investment banking leaders. I really hope you enjoyed today's episode. Thanks for tuning in and until next time, best of luck on your growth journey.