2024 CFO Study: A Travelers Special Report

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Travelers Logo
TEXT: 2024 CFO Study, Inside the Minds of CFOs.

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A man stands at a podium on a stage with three empty chairs on it. Behind the chairs is a backdrop that reads, RiskWorld®, Brought to you by RIMS®.
TEXT: Mark Spohn, President, National Accounts, Travelers.

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MARK SPOHN: Good afternoon and welcome. On behalf of Travelers Insurance, Constitution State Services, Travelers Institute, thank you for being with us. We're honored that you're here for today's session. Before we dive in, I'd like to share a quick disclaimer about today's session.

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Slide: About Travelers Institute (registered trademark) Programs.
TEXT: This educational program is presented by Travelers, Constitution State Services and the Travelers Institute, the public policy division of Travelers. This program is offered for informational and educational purposes only. You should consult with your financial, legal, insurance or other advisors about any practices suggested by this program. Please note that this session is being recorded and may be used as Travelers deems appropriate. Logos: Travelers Institute, Travelers.

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I'd also like to take a minute to thank all of our customers in the room. Your presence here today means a lot to us. We're grateful for your business and we appreciate your participation today as well.

So it goes without saying that there's a lot of economic uncertainty and CFOs have a variety of concerns on their mind, from macroeconomic concerns like inflation and current events to internal matters like cyber threats and employee safety. Today, we're going to hear from our esteemed panel on how they're dealing with these complex issues and the key partners that they rely on to help them mitigate these risks.

Specifically, we're going to hear from our panelists on the emotional dimension of a CFO role and its impact on decision-making, how CFOs view talent shortages and retention, as well as post-pandemic workforce dynamics. We'll hear about national trends in hiring CFOs and risk managers, the skills needed today and in the future. And finally, we're going to hear about the important aspect that insurance plays in mitigating those risks, as well as supporting a company's success.

To help lead us through this conversation, I'm thrilled to welcome my colleague Joan Woodward to the stage. Joan is an industry leader in insurance and financial services. She is the president of Travelers Institute and the Travelers Executive Vice President of Public Policy.

She joined the company in 2008 to help establish the Travelers Institute as our thought leadership and public policy platform, converging programs that advance the conversations around the economy, disaster preparedness, auto safety, cybersecurity and so much more. Joan is an economist and she has got a lot of experience on Capitol Hill as well as Wall Street, and she brings a very valuable perspective to the conversation. We're glad that she's here today to help guide us through this moderated panel discussion. Please join me in welcoming Joan to the stage.

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Joan walks up to the stage and takes Mark's place at the podium.
TEXT: Joan K. Woodward, President, Travelers Institute

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JOAN WOODWARD: All right. Thanks, Mark, for that overly generous-- overly generous, it just makes me feel old, you know, and it goes on and on and on. But thank you, all. Thrilled to be here today. As Mark mentioned, we're pleased to release our 2024 CFO study right here at RIMS today. We're going to have a lot of slides, and you can take pictures of those. We'll hand the slides out later, but we're going to go over some of the findings and then we're going to have an amazing panel discussion here with some amazing folks. We're going to learn a lot in the next 40 minutes or so.

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Slide: CFO Study. On the left is the front of the 2024 CFO Study booklet, with a picture of people in suits in a conference room. 
TEXT: 600+ CFOs. 67% have sole responsibility for insurance purchase. A bar chart is titled, Other partners: Risk manager, 60%. CIO, 40%. Insurance Agent/Broker, 40%. Insurance Carrier, 35%. Human Resources, 33%.

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Our study surveyed 610 CFOs and heads of finance at companies with over 500 or more employees, and that, according to the SBA, is no longer considered a small business. If you have 500 or more, that's considered a middle market or, of course, a large business.

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We return to Joan at the podium.

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Really across the mix of industries to get their views on topics ranging from their responsibilities, what is written down versus what they actually do every day, corporate strategy and macroeconomic concerns. We wanted to know what keeps CFOs up at night, how they're dealing with complex risk and who they turn to help manage it.

Our session this afternoon is aimed at getting inside the minds of today's CFOs to help us better manage the risk and prepare our businesses. To kick us off, I'll spend a few minutes going over these topics and I'll welcome our speakers to the stage. So joining us today is Dr. Kory Kantenga, Senior Economist at LinkedIn, and Eric Devilbiss, EVP and CFO of Orgill, the nation's largest independent distributor of hardware, and they'll be up here in a moment.

So with that, let's take a look at our survey study. What did we learn? First, two-thirds of CFOs we talked to have sole responsibility for the insurance purchase. Who helps them proactively manage that risk? The three top responses we received are 60% rely on risk managers, 40% rely on their CIO. Interesting, right? The chief information officer. 40% rely on an insurance agent or broker.

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Slide: CFO Study: Evolving Role.
TEXT: Quote, As I've let go of the accounting nature in my past and really gotten more operational forward thinking, I think that helps propel the organization. It makes me a good partner to my CEO. CFO, Private Healthcare. A chart lists Most Valuable Skills Needed. 62%, Strategic planning for future company success and resiliency. 52%, Ability to manage a complex network of internal & external stakeholder relationships. 52%, Identifying & mitigating various business risks. 48%, Charismatic leadership and strong communication skills. 44%, Use of tools and dashboards for advanced data analytics. 39%, Building advanced technologies for organizational resiliency. 39%, Ability to respond to disruption from technology or other industries. 37%, Staying updated on financial regulations. 36%, Emotional intelligence & experience in people-issues like diversity & wellbeing. 33%, A willingness to champion continuous learning.

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And our survey respondents also told us that their role is changing. CFOs are no longer narrowly focused on just financial planning and reporting. And I think this is really important because the CFO role is now basically taking on the role of a CEO, worried about everything in the ecosystem. Nearly two-thirds of respondents from our survey said that strategic planning for the future of the company was the most valuable skill they needed.

Rounding out the top three, learning how to identify and mitigate business risk, just over half, 52%. And managing the complex set of internal-external relationships, just over 52%.

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We return to Joan at the podium.

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So managing internal and external relationships is not something I would have said would be high on the CFO's mind, to manage what employees are thinking about the company and externally thinking about what our external stakeholders, obviously, the investors.

So I think it's important to know, in Travelers, we actually started a new program where after our earnings call by our CFO and our top people and our CEO, we actually have a say it in English, explaining what our earnings were to employees because not everyone has an MBA. And so we found this tremendously helpful. OK, I just went off script there a minute. But tremendously helpful in your businesses, you should have let's say it in English versus just the analyst day on the investor call.

So we also heard that CFOs are partners who help the board of directors and CEO broadly manage the business. Now let's shift to their approach to risk management, which is what we wanted to dig deeper on. What is their approach? Think about it. How do they think about risk management?

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Slide: CFO Study: Approach to Risk Management. A diagram of a light bulb with a right arrow pointing to a gear is labeled, 62% of risk management activities are proactive. A diagram of a light bulb and a gear in a cycle is labeled, 38% of risk management is reactive, meaning a new process isn't implemented until after an incident.

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Two-thirds of the risk management activities are proactive, meaning they're seeking out advice, asking for help, while 38% of their activities are reactive. They're reacting to something that may have happened in the marketplace today. Maybe the Federal Reserve is cutting or raising interest rates, or reactive on a geopolitical risk that just hit the front page of the newspapers.

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We return to Joan at the podium.

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70% meet at least weekly with a risk manager or risk management teams as part of their regular work, and 84% indicated their companies have a formal process for reviewing and establishing best practices to manage risk. So what keeps CFOs up at night? What are their greatest concerns?

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Slide: CFO Study: Greatest Factors of Concern.
TEXT: I think the role of CFO will remain a roller-coaster ride so you will have to be able to develop and show a wide variety of skills as well as leadership traits. CFO, Retail. A chart is labeled, Top 10 Factors of Greatest Concern. 33%, Economic uncertainty. 33%, Market competition. 32%, Talent acquisition and retention. 30%, Inflation. 27%, Customer satisfaction slash retention. 26%, Financial stability of your company. 24%, Cybersecurity. 21%, Interest rates. 20%, Public policies & regulatory compliance. 19%, Employee satisfaction & engagement.

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Our study found that CFOs are clearly concerned about near-term macroeconomic risks, inflation and the economic uncertainty. Interest rates are on their mind. Near-term economic risk.

So this shows up several times on their list of top 10 greatest concerns. I'll point out that cybersecurity is the very top worry for 24%, something we've seen consistently over the years.

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We return to Joan at the podium.

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Another threat in their top concerns was talent. Whether that's attracting new talent or retaining the talent you have, it's a really big issue. Today's young folks will go across the street to a competitor for $5,000 or $10,000 raise.

It's not like it used to be where employment was sticky, you stayed with an employer for 40 years and then you retired. Those days are gone, especially since the pandemic. The talent pool is different. So whether that's attracting new talent or retaining the talent you have, it's really become that big issue. As labor market remains tight and unemployment low, it increases pressure on companies to invest in attracting new employees and help current employees develop to retain them.

We see this in our work at Travelers Institute. We host weekly webinars. We invite you all to join them. Our webinars are focused on recruiting and retaining emerging talent, and on demographics. All get huge engagement from our agent and broker audience as well as our customers. One example, we recently had thousands of people dial in for our program Understanding Gen Z, both as a customer and as your newest employee, and they're a very interesting group. Those of you in Gen Z in the room, we focused a lot on you because you're upcoming customers and employees.

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Slide: CFO Study: Approach to Workforce.
TEXT: Quote, Leading financial initiatives has become difficult. It is now mainly a team effort. Trying to navigate economic challenges and the growth of automation and AI has put everyone at unease. CFO, Transportation. A chart is labeled Post Pandemic Workforce Challenges. 44%, Talent retention & acquisition. 43%, Rising cost of labor. 33%, Employee expectations. 33%, Talent Shortage. 32%, Hybrid and remote work environment. 29%, Employee reskilling and upskilling. 26%, Risk management. 22%, Capacity management slash workload. 20%, Wellbeing of employees. 20%, Succession planning.

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All right, now let's talk about workplace challenges. And today, post-pandemic, we found that 44% of CFOs said talent retention and acquisition in today's workforce is a challenge, followed closely by the rising cost of labor, employee expectations, which are always changing, and talent shortages. You know, it used to be where the employer held the leverage in that relationship.

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We return to Joan at the podium.

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Now the employee more and more is saying, I want to work from home these days, I will tell you what I think my compensation will be. So if you're an employer, kind of watch out for this new dynamic, if you haven't already seen it.

32% said that hybrid and remote work environments are concerns they need to manage. We're going to spend time talking about that. Let's also spend a second on M&A. Mergers

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Slide: CFO Study: Impact of M&A.
TEXT: Quote, The process of assessing and managing financial risks became more complex. I had to identify and mitigate potential risks associated with the integration. CFO, Public Healthcare. A chart is labeled, The Impact of M&A on CFO Responsibilities. 12%, No Impact. 18%, Slightly Impacted. 41%, Moderately Impacted. 29%, Highly Impacted.

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and acquisitions activity among businesses we surveyed has been strong and shows little signs of slowing. Well, this is good for business growth. It opens companies up to new risks and new responsibilities for the CFO. The greatest impacts coming from increased workload, integration, involvement and strategic development.

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We return to Joan at the podium.

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Among the concerns, there is definitely bright spots. This blew me away.

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Slide: CFO Study: Feeling Good About 2024.
TEXT: 88% are extremely or very confident their company has taken or is taking necessary strategic actions to remain resilient. Most respondents (53%) said their companies will increase resources for investments in 2024, with another 44% indicating they will maintain current investments. Only 3% said they expect investment resources to decline during the year.

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A resounding 88% of CFOs we spoke to said that they are feeling good about 2024 and they're confident their companies can take the necessary steps to remain resilient and mitigate risk. That's 88% of our CFOs. And that's really, to me, that's amazing.

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We return to Joan at the podium.

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Most said their companies will increase resources for investments in 2024. The greatest factors for optimism. CFOs in our study show optimism about their company's financial strength, their customer base and how technology will bring efficiencies to their business over time.

So these, to me, were quite optimistic, these findings. Clearly there's concerns, but there's a lot of concerns out there that you can't do anything about. The macroeconomic environment, CFOs mostly can't do anything about, geopolitical risk, labor shortages, 10,000 of us baby boomers, yes, I'm one of them, 10,000 of us retire every day. OK, so think about that.

So there's so much more to unpack with our survey, but I'd like to do that with the help of our two experts. I'm pleased to welcome, come on up to the stage, Dr. Kory Kantenga, Senior Economist at LinkedIn. He's a macro and labor economist with a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Kantenga helps LinkedIn members understand what's going on in the world of work.

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He steps up to the podium and sits in the middle chair. He wears a black suit.

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I'm also pleased to welcome Eric Divelbiss, who serves as Executive Vice President and CFO of Orgill, the nation's largest independent hardware distributor. Eric started at Orgill in 2001. When he began, it was $700 million business. Today, 20-some years later, it's north of $4 billion.

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He steps up to the podium and sits in the right chair. He wears a blue suit.

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So $3.3 billion in 20 years, I will take that all day long. The company's primary business is wholesale distribution with large fleets, including more than 500 trucks nationally.

So with all that as a backdrop, I'm going to turn to Eric first. I'm going to go have a seat over there. Eric, tell us more about Orgill, what the company does, your role as a CFO, what reactions did you have to some of our data I just shared, and your experiences, did that resonate with you.

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Joan sits in the left chair. She wears a white suit. 
TEXT: Eric Divelbiss. -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Orgill.

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ERIC DIVELBISS: Like you mentioned, I've been with Orgill since 2001 and we're a hardware distributor. Our chief competitors are Ace Hardware, True Value, Do It Best and, of course, the big boxes as well. What we're proud of as an organization is that we help the independent hardware channel be successful. We are able to leverage our size, our skew density, our infrastructure to support independent hardware stores across the country, in fact, over 13,000 individual locations that we ship to.

It's been a changing environment over the past 20 years. As she mentioned, I'm an oddity to have been at a company for 23 years. That's not the norm. We've seen that dynamic change over 20 years. We've also seen interest rates, interest rates are basically where they were when I started in '01, they were right around 7% for a mortgage. But we had a sustained period of time where interest rates were at historical low levels, which allowed the housing market and other markets to really thrive during that time.

So you have an entire generation that essentially expects free money, and that has just recently, over the last year, that has turned on its head where mortgage rates are now hitting that 7% level. It's impacted my industry directly, while we benefited heavily during the pandemic. Folks in the United States, when there's trauma, we tend to nest. We saw it in 2001 when the terrorism attacks hit, we saw it in '08 when the housing crisis came in, and we're seeing it again during the pandemic.

Folks went home, they worked on their houses, they repaired stuff, they painted stuff, a lot of DIY. We were growing 20%, 30% a year during the pandemic, but also facing incredible supply chain channels. You couldn't get anything. There was a time when you couldn't buy a rake. They just weren't available. So our company's just now coming out of the back side of that supply chain dynamic.

So here we are, we're growing 30%, but we're servicing our customers at 70%, when normally we're at 96%. So it was just a fraction of the growth we could have had. And then we come out of that and now we're facing higher interest rates as a result of that inflation that impacted our margins. It's one challenge to the next. It's low interest rates today, high interest rates rapidly coming at us.

There was a time when to get a container during the pandemic from China was costing $20,000. That got as low as $2,000 when the supply chain recovered. And now we have a war. We have a war in the Middle East, and we're seeing those prices go back up. So it's this constant swing of challenges, whether it's macroeconomic.

And to your point, we're very optimistic. I'm in that 88%. We expect '24 to be, in our industry, to be kind of a flat, a little bit down year, but are very bullish on what we're going to see in 2025. We know the data shows us that there is pent-up demand in the housing market. People tend to spend money when they get their house ready to sell, they spend money when they move. That benefits our industry.

So we continue to face all of the challenges you had up there. Obviously, I know we're going to get more into attracting talent. The reality in accounting is that not enough people are going into accounting and the wrong people, the wrong people are going into accounting. We're not getting leaders in accounting anymore. My daughter says, I just have a desk job. I don't want to do it. I just want to do that job.

JOAN WOODWARD: I want to spend a minute on supply chain issues because was that a wake-up call for the United States to wake up one day and the pandemic is-- we are so dependent on China and other countries for a lot of our imports. And then they pass the CHIPS Act, so now we're going to have domestic production of semiconductors here in the U.S. more and more, a lot of billions of dollars to subsidize. So was that a concern to you and your business of construction supply materials that were so dependent on the rest of the world, and how do we get out of that?

ERIC DIVELBISS: It's absolutely a challenge and we're starting to work out of it. In fact, our CEO was over in Vietnam just last month. So a lot of production is moving out of China and moving into other countries. I don't think you're going to get around the fact that we're a global economy, and that's going to continue. Production of these types of materials is going to fall where the labor is. So it's a matter of diversification between having factories in China, having factories in Mexico, having factories in Vietnam.

I would love to say that we're going to get back to domestic manufacturing of those types of products, but I don't see that tooling coming back here. But definitely, we realize you can't be reliant on just Ningbo, China. We've got to broaden that in Mexico, Vietnam and some other places have really offered an opportunity to diversify that risk across multiple nations.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Terrific. So, Kory, I want to get to you and talk about your economic outlook for the U.S., but obviously, we're globally intertwined. So unemployment went from 15% during the pandemic down to 3.5%, inflation went up to 9% a year and a half ago, now we're down to about 3%. So what are you seeing inflation and interest rates. The Federal Reserve raised rates 11 times, that's a lot. Are we going to have rate cuts this year? What is your forecast?

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TEXT: Kory Kantenga, Ph.D. -- Head of Economics, Americas, LinkedIn.

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KORY KANTENGA: Yeah. So I think it's helpful to zoom out a little bit when talking about the macro economy. So as hard as it is to know where we're going, it's equally hard to know where we are today. So one thing I like to do to get a sense of where we are today is think about where we thought we would be today about a year ago. And a lot of folks, probably folks in this room, thought that by this time, this day, we might actually be in a recession, maybe a mild recession, nothing particularly serious, something that lasts a few quarters and then goes away. But that's not where we are.

So the U.S. economy in particular has been very resilient. We have seen some stagnation in places like Europe. The data from Europe was actually very positive last week, so they're probably moving out of stagnation, back into growth. But we have seen a very resilient U.S. economy. And there are underlying reasons of what's been driving that, consumer spending, there's been a lot of excess savings from the pandemic, although those are pretty much run down except for the very richest among us. But for a lot of the last two years, we've been expecting a lot more slowdown in the U.S. than we've seen. So the U.S. has been resilient.

And the outlook going forward is that, yes, there's probably going to be some changes that are going to happen because there's a lag to when interest rates are going up. We have a system in the U.S. where we have fixed interest rates, fixed contracts, and it takes a lot of time for interest rates to work their way through the economy. So there's probably a little bit of slowdown still in the pipeline from the Federal Reserve. And that's why they're thinking about now, let's wait and see, let's see how much slowdown is still in the pipeline before we start to cut interest rates, whether that's going to have an impact on inflation or not. And inflation was kind of bad for this first quarter of the year, but not alarmist.

So right now, things are still pretty well on track for the Fed to get inflation down. I think they're taking a longer view. They're not necessarily saying, you know what, if we don't have inflation by 2% in July, we are going to raise interest rates again. Now, I think they're taking a longer view because there are some forces that are generally bringing down inflation, for example, population aging, technological progress.

If you think before the pandemic, it was hard for the Federal Reserve to get inflation up to 2% because there are a lot of forces actually driving inflation down. So I think they're going to be patient, they're going to wait.

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TEXT: Kory Kantenga, Ph.D. -- Head of Economics, Americas, LinkedIn. Eric Divelbiss. -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Orgill.

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Given that we got a jobs report that wasn't particularly strong, it was a solid report, but wasn't particularly strong last month, that alleviated some concerns. We're still probably going to see the Fed cut rates potentially in September, maybe they'll wait later in the year.

But at the moment, it doesn't seem like rate hikes are back on the table, which is good news for businesses who are trying to plan. They're trying to plan what are they going to end up paying towards the end of the year for their mortgage? How much are they going to be able to invest in talent? How much are they going to be able to take advantage of new technologies? They're trying to plan their spend. That's what CFOs are thinking about as well.

And so with interest rates being uncertain, having a little bit more comfort right now around what they expect interest rates to be looking like at the end of the year, that's going to be helpful for a lot of folks for planning. And that's really the challenge in this kind of economic environment. When you don't know what's going to happen, it's very difficult to plan. People tend to freeze up and just do nothing, but that's not really an option.

JOAN WOODWARD: So you mentioned you thought the Fed might cut rates or make a move in September, but we're in an election year. So the Fed doesn't like to look political, but they like to follow the data. And the data is showing rate cuts could be in the cards, assuming inflation is continuing to trickle down, which it has in the first quarter. So do you think the Fed is sensitive to being labeled pro this or pro that in an election year, And do you think they're just going to sit tight until after the election maybe? Do they even think about that?

KORY KANTENGA: Well, I will say I hope that they don't. The Fed is--

ERIC DIVELBISS: I'll agree with that.

KORY KANTENGA: The Fed is an independent organization for a reason, they are not supposed to be political. The Fed is supposed to look at what's going on in the economy and help the economy grow by providing price stability and full employment. Those are the two mandates for the Federal Reserve. Their mandate is not to keep the American people happy. Their mandate is not to fulfill an election promise. So my expectation, both as a citizen under the Fed's purview and also as an economist is that they do their job and they act as an independent organization.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. And the Fed target rate, which has been 2% for a very long time, you said they had a hard time getting it to 2% because we're in a deflationary period because of technology and other things, so do you think they would be happy with making the acceptable level of inflation 3% in your mind? Because that would change the whole dynamic if their target was 3% versus 2%. Is there talk of that?

KORY KANTENGA: So there hasn't been any talk of that, in part because the Federal Reserve was hurt in a broad sort of social political aspect with this inflation episode. There was the expectation that inflation was going to be transitory and that it was going to be--

JOAN WOODWARD: Temporary and transitory.

KORY KANTENGA: --temporary and transitory, and it's going to be in the summer of 2022, and then we'll be fine. It was going to be kind of late 2021 going into summer of 2022, and then we'll be fine. But that's not what happened, we're still sitting here talking about inflation, CFOs are still worried about inflation. So they took a big hit on their credibility from that front. So in that sense, it's unlikely that they're going to be willing to take another hit and then say, well, you know what, 3%, we actually think this is a more appropriate measure for price stability, which may actually be the case.

This 2% rule comes from a very old economic model that may not necessarily have the right calibration at this point in time. It's kind of technical issues for us economists to solve in the back room. But it's going to be very difficult for them to come out and say that. They've already taken a hit on their credibility, I'm not sure they're willing to take another hit because if they do that, they're going to be accused of moving the goalpost during the game.

JOAN WOODWARD: So if you had to pick two or three watchouts for CFOs that might be sitting in this room or risk managers today over the next 12 to 18 months, in your economic outlook, what would you say? What would you say the watchouts would be? Is it supply chain disruption, is it more inflation, is it stagflation, which is worse than inflation? Can you explain stagflation and how we're not in stagflation now for a minute?

KORY KANTENGA: Stagflation is a situation where you don't actually have the economy growing, but prices are still going up. It is the worst of all worlds. Prices are going up, consumers are getting squeezed, and at the same time, there is no growth, there's no activity that's growing, so people aren't getting jobs, unemployment is high and yet prices are high at the same time. So that's kind of the worst of all worlds. And we have seen that before.

We are not in that place, the economy is still growing, we grew last quarter, it was a bit slower than before, but we're still growing. We're still expected to grow throughout the year. We're not even expected to shrink at all this year, the U.S. economy. So we're definitely not in a situation with stagflation, not even close.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, good. All right, Eric, back to you. So you mentioned that, I want to talk about the war on talent. And so how do you compete with your competitors or other businesses that might be located in your town or now it's everything's-- you don't have to have a job in your headquarters there, it could be anywhere, how are you competing for the war on talent and how do you retain and motivate our Gen Z, or Gen Y, or Gen X, everybody who's not a baby boomer in this room? There's a different formula for motivating our younger folks to stay with us and have that sticky employment relationship where they want to stay with your company.

ERIC DIVELBISS: Well, it's absolutely a challenge. And how do we do it? Well, we've actually lost a lot of people that have moved on for various reasons. Some actually are leaving the profession altogether and doing something else, but you're right, they move on a dime and that was accelerated during the pandemic. I've had to become more flexible. I fortunately have very good people working for me that manage. You need to do one-on-ones with your employees all the time. That's not for me unless it's at a bar with a drink.

JOAN WOODWARD: I could do my one-on-one with you at a bar, though, I'd be happy with that.

ERIC DIVELBISS: But it's a different world. So you have to communicate with them directly. They want to be, quote unquote, "trained on everything." If I would have asked my bosses 20 years ago that you didn't train me on that, they'd run me out of their office. It was a world where you figured things out, but you cannot do that. You have to lay everything out.

They want their day laid out, they want their career laid out, they want it all laid out, they want it all defined.

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TEXT: Eric Divelbiss. -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Orgill.

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We didn't have that definition. We waited for my boss to come and say, here's your new title and here's your new business card. Now they want to have a clear path. So we have to do a better job of laying that path out for employees when we get them.

Also, I've learned you've got to hire people for the right things. I think in the past I was guilty of hiring an accountant and then trying to turn them into a risk manager, or hiring an accountant and trying to turn them into a treasury person, when you really need to go out and hire those specific talents or it's just not going to be as successful. Our company's had to change.

We recently added to the EVP level an HR professional and that has been a game-changer. We have a director of compensation, which I never would have thought of 20 years ago. It's constant change. We've had to be flexible with letting people at least have the ability to work from home. I'm an in-the-office guy. It's going to be hard for me to change, but I also understand that I have to be flexible in order to get the right talent.

And I'm hoping that we do a better job in the finance and accounting professional of encouraging the right people to get in the profession. It's not just a bunch of geeks with numbers, it really is a management thing of the company, whether that's risk management, or whether that's managing the finances of the company. So we need to encourage the right people to get in the profession.

JOAN WOODWARD: I think a boss, when I first started my career in the 1980s, said to me, this is like straight out of his mouth, "Suck it up, buttercup." You haven't heard that in the workplace today, telling young folks to suck it up, buttercup, figure it out, don't come to me every five minutes asking me how to do this or what I should do. But I think the older generation, you're not, but we might be, anyone with gray hair in this audience or frankly, no hair, I mean, we have operated in these models. They're old school and we have to shake them, and if we don't shake them, we're in trouble.

As a labor market economist, I want to ask you several questions on the labor market. So blue-collar versus white-collar jobs? Wait, don't answer that yet. U.S. demographics, are they playing a role? And again, talking about generations and how we approach work. So what are you seeing as a labor economist, I'm going to say prior to COVID versus where we are now?

KORY KANTENGA: So where we are now is quite different actually. So a lot of the numbers, you can look at the data and the numbers will sort of-- you'll hear people talking about pre-pandemic, post-pandemic, and the numbers are starting to look more like they did prior to the pandemic. But I can tell you that the way we feel about our jobs, the way we think about our jobs, that's not the same.

If you look at data on LinkedIn and you look at where people are applying to jobs, a lot of them are applying to remote and hybrid jobs. It's about 43% today. The only reason that it's not more than 50% of the applications are to remote is because there aren't enough remote jobs for people to apply to. And prior to the pandemic, that was not even something people really thought very much about. It was this sort of marginalized section of folks who could do calls all day.

JOAN WOODWARD: It was kind of a stigma, wasn't it? There was a stigma for those who wanted to work from home. I felt that way.

KORY KANTENGA: Yeah. And there's definitely not a stigma anymore. And now it's very strong preference that people have realized they have. So we have changed as a result of that experience. Our perceptions of how we can be productive and how we can work, all of those things have changed. We're definitely not where we were and we're not where we were during the last couple of years, where the great reshuffle, where jobs were just in abundance and people were changing jobs left and right. Some people were quitting within six months of having a job.

We're no longer there by any stretch of the imagination. Things have definitely slowed down, hiring has definitely slowed down, but we are definitely in a different place in the labor market. And breaking down some of the things you mentioned, we can start with generations. So what is a generation? So what defines a generation is really the experience that they've had to live through. So most of the time when I'm on a panel and I'm on a panel with folks who are not millennials, there's always folks who are disparaging millennials. And as a millennial, I do not get deeply offended.

JOAN WOODWARD: Did I do that?

KORY KANTENGA: No.

JOAN WOODWARD: They're different.

KORY KANTENGA: We're good today. But as a millennial, you think about what are the experiences that millennials have gone through in the labor market, you think about just not even just in the labor market, but in their lives in their generation. September 11th, the Great Recession, COVID, the Iraq war, if you were in the U.S. All of these experiences actually created a lot of insecurity among millennials. And there was actually a lot of job insecurity when they were entering the labor market.

I remember back when I was in, not dating myself here, but back when I was in undergrad during the Great Recession, a lot of folks who I knew, their offers were rescinded. They were so happy they got their first job offer and their offers were being rescinded left, right and center after Bear Stearns collapsed. So they grew up in a labor market and a world where things were not as secure. Whereas you look at other generations, they may have had more security.

They came into the labor market during a period we called the Great Moderation, when business cycles were no longer as extreme, when monetary policy was regulating business cycles better, and then we had this very extreme event. And it took forever for the labor market to recover. It took like 10 years after the Great Recession. There were no jobs after the Great Recession, in terms of the amount of jobs that we needed to sustain people in the labor market. It took a long time for employment to recover. And for different people, it had different effects. You look at Black unemployment, it took a very long time for that one to recover.

So for a lot of folks in the labor market who were millennials who grew up during that time, job insecurity was a permanent feature. So now as a result, they're probably much more transactional when they think about a job. They think to themselves, well, employers weren't loyal to me during the time when I came on the market, so I'm not going to be loyal back, I'm also going to be very transactional. So the incentives that people have they've been shaped by their experiences. They're also shaped by the labor market today.

If you look at the headlines, layoffs are actually very low in historical terms, but you look at the headlines, you see layoffs every day. So if you were thinking about taking a job and there's a pretty good chance they're going to lay you off within whatever amount of time, you're going to think to yourself, well, if I have other options, I want to know everything about this job. I want to know that you're not going to lay me off in six months. I want to know that I'm going to have a chance for promotion and that I'm not going to get stuck here in three years and then I'm going to have to find somewhere to move.

They want to know everything. They want to know as much information as they can, because historically, information has been very asymmetric between employers and employees. And since employees got a little bit of power during the Great Reshuffle, they want to maintain as much of that power as they can. So there's a big generational element there of the experiences that they've gone through and why they sort of act the way they do now. And we're seeing things different when you look at different sectors as well.

So I don't typically lean too much into the white-collar, blue-collar distinction, in part because if you think about what people do, well, a job is just a bunch of different tasks. You think about a nurse, a nurse does first-line work, a nurse also does cognitive work. So they also have a bit of a, what you say, a desk job, but then they also have a bit of a more blue-collar frontline job. So I don't really make too much of a distinction there. But what we do see is that different industries are having different experiences. Tech had this huge hiring spree during the pandemic, and now they've had this massive correction. And hiring in tech is actually starting to stabilize, it's been stabilizing--

JOAN WOODWARD: Why is that? Why is that? I get why they scaled up during the pandemic, but now they're scaling down. Why is that? Is it AI-related or is it, what is it? Why? Why?

KORY KANTENGA: So tech had this recalibration in part to do with interest rates.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, interest rates.

KORY KANTENGA: There was a lot of free money out there that was really great for the tech space. A lot of people were working from home, they were buying hardware, and there are limits to hardware purchases, of course. At a certain point, you're going to cycle through a certain amount of hardware. But a lot of it was just that interest rates were low, there was a lot of money out there, a lot of venture capital happening, a lot of IPO.

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TEXT: Joan K. Woodward. President, Travelers Institute.

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JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt you.

KORY KANTENGA: Oh, yeah.

JOAN WOODWARD: So we're going to shift a little bit. And I want to go back to Eric because again, you joined the company and revenues were $700 million and now they're over $4 billion today. So what are the lessons you've learned about scaling a business like you have been a part of? Clearly, part of that was you as the CFO advising the board and others, and attracting and retaining talent? So you want to be joining a ship that's growing, not a ship that's shrinking. So is that an advantage for you with your competitors?

And by the way, while he's answering this question, I want to open it up just to take the pulse of the room. Does anybody have a burning question that they want to ask? Because I've got like 300 right here on my cards so you guys can chime in. We'd like to hear from you. So after Eric answers on how do you grow a business and what lessons you've learned, and maybe some failures along the way because you have to fail fast, and learn from your mistakes. Give us some of your thoughts.

ERIC DIVELBISS: Well, I think our biggest mistake, if we made any mistakes during that period of growth, was not investing enough into our technology. Some people call it a technology debt that we're now coming out of and having to invest more money in people and talent to bring our tech up to current standards. But over those years, we kept growing the infrastructure, we kept growing our physical infrastructure around the country, and we didn't stop. We didn't stop.

There's been one growth project into the next. We're completing another DC, and Tifton, Georgia, this year that's coming online with new technology that we've never done before. And that's kind of been the theme. We've had to do things that we've never done before every single year.

We are doing better as a company of strategic planning out into the future and believe that we can leverage this infrastructure that we have invested so much in the last 20 years so we can take the company from that $4 billion to $6 billion without massive further infrastructure investment. But we had to be willing to continually get better in who we were hiring.

When I was looking to hire accountants, we had to hire stronger, better people. And that's true whether we're talking about our merchandising area, whether we're talking about marketing, tech, HR, across the board and being willing to just not hire the same person, we need to hire stronger, better people all the time and continue that process. So that was what we saw as we grew.

And we did find that growing 5%, 6% a year, that's easy to sustain. When all of a sudden you have a 15%, 20% jump, that becomes much more complicated. And we learned we were not agile enough for that. And we have invested a lot both on the tech and the infrastructure side to be more agile the next time that comes up. Being able to add a second shift to your facility as quickly and not take too long to get that done. Being more agile when a new product hits the market, how quickly can we get that product into our warehouses and out to our customers?

I think we all learn that as an industry that we have to be more agile than we were in order to deal with what he was talking about, where it's constant change, constant change, whether that is interest rates, or whether that's a supply of money. We're also seeing dynamic shift where a lot of money was flowing into our industry during the pandemic and now a lot of that money is in restaurants and cruise boats because those dollars are fungible. Where are they being spent?

Well, right now, if you look at the retail sector, the entertainment sector and that sector is really going. Sadly, we're on the bottom and we're having a little bit of declines. But remember, we had 15%, 20% growth during the pandemic. So a small pullback. We're still way over 2019. 2019 has become a base year. It's--

JOAN WOODWARD: Your base year.

ERIC DIVELBISS: --a base year. Normally, you do a five-year look-back. Well, now we're going to do a six-year look back because that's really what-- we end up going back to 2019 as kind of, that was normal, all of this is not normal. And we're only now in '24 going into '25 being able to talk about, quote unquote, "normal." But even during the pandemic, we opened a warehouse in Rome, a million-square-foot warehouse in Rome, New York, at the same time expanding our Kilgore facility and planning to build our Tifton facility. So it's just a constant move.

JOAN WOODWARD: Wonderful.

ERIC DIVELBISS: It's agility that's important.

JOAN WOODWARD: Do you value bringing people into your organization, whether it's a CFO, or risk management or the insurance purchaser for your company, do you value bringing in people who aren't from your industry that have had other experiences in supply chain and manufacturing, or do you try to stick mostly to your industry?

ERIC DIVELBISS: I don't think necessarily your specific industry, I think talent. I think we're looking much more on just talent. Whether that comes from another industry or not is not important to me. Not that I don't like to see industry experience, but Orgill is a fairly unique-- we have very few peers.

Closest you get is Ace Hardware, but that's a co-op model, they operate differently. We support the independent channel, which means they're all independent businesses with their own computer systems, with their own infrastructure that we have to grow to support them, not have them adopt our tech or our-- we have to go to them and we have to support them.

JOAN WOODWARD: Got it. Any questions? I'm just going to take a pulse of the audience. We can go on and on. I want to talk about AI. I think there's a session next door on AI. But Kory, to you, so you're obviously a tech company at LinkedIn. These emerging technologies. So there's a lot of people in this room, you might not raise your hand on this question, but are afraid of it. They're afraid what it's going to do to disrupt the jobs in your business or disrupt how we think about new products and sales. And we're at the very early stages of AI. So what impacts is it having on the workforce and are you in the camp of believing it is going to displace some workers in the future.

KORY KANTENGA: Well, whether we had AI or not, workers are going to be displaced, that is just the dynamic of our economy. We have new jobs that come on, we have some jobs that become obsolete. That's just been the story of our economy for the last 150 years. So whether it's generative AI or it's something else, there's going to be some changes in the jobs that we're doing. Even prior to this emergence of generative AI in the conversation, at LinkedIn, we expected that the skills you needed for a job were going to change already by about 25% by 2030. Now, of course, that's accelerating because of generative AI.

But there is this process of technological evolution and the skills that you acquire for a job that is not going to be contingent on generative AI, it's going to happen regardless of whether it's this or something else. In terms of generative AI, well, what we see at LinkedIn is that it's actually the employees who are more excited and interested in generative AI. They want to use generative AI to reduce the amount of obnoxious, annoying, perfunctory work that they have to do on a daily basis, writing emails, summarizing meetings, taking notes.

I can tell you as someone who's overly educated that for me in a meeting, there's nothing more degrading than when my manager asks me to take notes during a meeting. I'm just like, could we just record this and have something, write the notes. Is there not a better use of my time? Instead of me trying to remember every single thing that was said, I can actually focus on bringing my ideas, bringing my creativity, bringing my expertise to the table for those meetings.

JOAN WOODWARD: And how is that going?

KORY KANTENGA: Well, I haven't taken any notes recently, so.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, good. They stopped asking.

KORY KANTENGA: But this is the opportunity that at least workers see for generative AI. On the employer side, they're all excited about it. Over 40%, we've surveyed executives and they say they're excited about it, but only about 4% have said anything about changing head count. There are also other surveys out there that say maybe 22% over the next five years, they're going to change head count, reduce head count, open head count. But I don't think we're there yet where it's very clear that there's going to be massive workforce reductions or anything of that nature.

Right now, I think the focus is on seeing what the technology is, learning how to use it, if it's helpful, if it's not helpful. And of course, there are going to be jobs that are differentially exposed, and that's what we're actually focused on researching on my team at LinkedIn, to see which jobs are very complimentary to generative AI, that things that generative AI cannot do. So for example, if you're a doctor, if you're a dentist. I don't know about you, I'm not letting a computer get in my mouth or do surgery on me. I am going to let the computer take notes, and write emails, and do all these kind of things.

So if you're doing something that's more in that kind of space, take for example, legal assistant. Legal assistants, a lot of note taking, a lot of summarizing. There's likely to be some impact on that profession because they're highly exposed to the things that generative AI can do well. And there's also a lot of progress that's still to be made with AI. So we talk about generative AI, and what does that mean actually? It just means that we have something that can write in complete sentences.

Because we talk about artificial intelligence, but I don't actually think that's where we are technologically. We're at what we call algorithmic inference. You can use the algorithm to infer. It can infer what you were going to say in this email, it can infer what was going to be said in this meeting or what was said in this meeting, but it's not actually providing intelligence, it's not creative. I mean, it can write these little stories, we've seen that. It can write little stories and kind of do very high-level plagiarism, but at the end of the day, it's really people and the inputs that people provide that even allows this tool to work in the first place.

So I don't think we're necessarily at a point where we have artificial intelligence that's going to completely reshape the world. I think we're at a point where the algorithms are more sophisticated, they're able to infer more things. And we've been using them for a long time. So we talk about it like it's new, it's not. People have been using algorithms for the last 10 years to infer whether you should get a credit card application approved, whether you will be competitive for a grant. We've been using it in various small ways and now it's being scaled up and talked about more.

Employees get that, so they're all putting it on their profiles. Microsoft and LinkedIn are actually releasing an AI report on Wednesday, and I'll give you one spoiler. I think it's something like-- the number of people who have things like ChatGPT and AI on their profile, it's something like over 140 times higher than what it was in the last 12 months or something crazy like that. So people, they recognize there's excitement about it. They don't really know what it is and how to use it. We're all still learning.

And I think, really, people think about AI and the technical talent for AI, that's a hotbed. There's tons of demand for that. But really what folks are trying to figure out is how to be literate. How do you have aptitude? How do you use ChatGPT or Copilot for your daily job to make you more efficient and more productive? And I don't know about you, but we actually have a choice about how we use those savings of time. For some people, they'll probably reallocate that to being more productive. I personally want to reallocate it to have a four-day workweek.

ERIC DIVELBISS: Of course you do.

JOAN WOODWARD: He doesn't like that.

KORY KANTENGA: If you're efficient, why do you need to work five days a week? There's a lot of opportunity there. So there are risks associated with any new technology, and we've seen like in the past when we released these AI bots, they all went left very quickly and very badly and they shut them down. We didn't hear from them for like five years. But now we're at a place where folks are engaging, they're experimenting, there's opportunity there.

So I would just say, let's see what's going on with the opportunity. It's not reshaping the labor market just yet, aside from very strong demand for AI talent, technical AI talent because folks are trying to figure out how they can use it to be more productive and supercharge their businesses. But for the most part, it's not wiping away any jobs, it's not taking-- I mean, you see these extreme stories about people being interviewed by AI, but that is not the norm, and I don't think that will be the norm anytime soon.

JOAN WOODWARD: So a little commercial for Travelers. We just doubled down on our AI and tech investment. We opened an office in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago and we're hiring aggressively in the tech space. We think there's a lot of use cases for AI in the insurance industry. So in claim, you're never going to replace your underwriter and the judgment that underwriter has with that account, but we think there's a lot of use cases and we're experimenting. We hope to fail fast and learn from our mistakes.

All right, Eric, back to you. Let's stay on insurance for a minute. Talk to us, and we have a slide core coming up here. So talk to us for a minute about who you partner with in risk management internally or externally, your agent and broker, or your carrier relationship, or your internal people. Who's at that table when you talk about risk management and insurance? And how has your view of risk management evolved in the last 10 or so years?

ERIC DIVELBISS: Well, first, we rely on all of those people. We rely on our brokers. We're a customer of Travelers and we take advantage of a good bit of the services that you offer. Where we've changed is internally we recognize we need a risk manager.

Unfortunately, due to some of the pandemic turnover, I no longer have a risk manager, and that's fallen to my controller that's had to take up a lot of that slack. But again, we realize at some point down the road, that's a position, that's probably a fairly high-level position that we're going to have to hire and we're going to have to do. That's a change.

Twenty years ago, our renewal, it was an afterthought. You're going to get 2% decrease or a 5% increase, you're going to basically write the same policies. That's not the case anymore. It has to be much more strategic and thought out. It's really a 24-month-- a 12-month a year process. It's not just a two-week throw some data together and give me a quote.

We've had to invest in our safety infrastructure, we've had to invest in our property infrastructure in order to keep up with all the changes. Again, like everything else, it's a constantly changing environment. But as for AI, I would also argue that Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel were probably a bigger impact on my industry. Going back and seeing what it did, it changed the people that were doing the work.

JOAN WOODWARD: Doing that work.

ERIC DIVELBISS: It changed it from bookkeepers to now accountants, and now accountants are evolving into managers.

KORY KANTENGA: Yeah, that's something we also hear at LinkedIn. AI isn't going to steal your job, but someone who knows things about AI might.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. So, Kory, we talked a little bit about M&A. And so, Eric, I know there's some M&A in your business, but it's not the most active sector for M&A. So, Kory, give us a view, kind of a macro view of the M&A market. I know the investment banks focus on this and its slice and dice all the data all the time, but do you view M&A as a good thing? There's a lot of M&A, by the way, in the agent and broker field, especially the mom-and-pops are being gobbled up by a lot of the bigger wholesalers in our industry. But how do you think about M&A? And then, Eric, I'll get to you.

KORY KANTENGA: Yes. So we've seen a big slowdown in-- we saw a big slowdown in 2023 in mergers and acquisitions. And there are a lot of reasons for that. Part of it is there's been a regulatory crackdown. In Europe, for example, they've designated the major tech companies as gatekeepers, and so anything that they do, they're going to be monitoring that closely. They want to monitor how they use people's data.

You also have the FTC looking into theories of harm around what are called killer acquisitions. You're acquiring a company because it's a nascent competitor just to kill it. And I used to work as a competition economist before working at LinkedIn. So that was--

JOAN WOODWARD: What is your view of that? Because we had the Biden administration stop some M&A, big M&A deals, especially in our industry.

KORY KANTENGA: So at the moment there's a very aggressive FTC chair, so there's part of that. Competition has been one of the things that they're looking to enforce and pursue. I'm not going to provide an opinion on any specific case that they've done. But what I will say is that antitrust kind of was in a deep freeze for quite a while. And in the last, I'd say two to three years, it's really come to life and been very active and being used as a tool to ensure that there is competition in U.S. markets. Which actually a lot of voters, this was a survey, a survey that was actually done, I think it was reported by the Financial Times, a lot of voters actually blamed companies and markups for inflation. Not so much the government.

JOAN WOODWARD: Of course they do. In the most recent Gallup poll, big business and corporations, like the trust to do the right thing for you and your family was like some crazy low amount. Well, who do they think is creating jobs in this country?

KORY KANTENGA: Well, actually, small businesses create--

JOAN WOODWARD: Small businesses, but that's still considered business, the business community. OK. Eric, do you have a thought on M&A?

ERIC DIVELBISS: Well, our M&A is what I would call micro M&A compared to, it is not getting involved in antitrust, but we do face a reality in our industry. The customers that we support, a lot of them were formed right after World War II and we're coming into third and fourth generations. So we found the need actually to set up a retail entity that does just that, that is out there to provide liquidity.

We feel that's something that as part of our mission to support our customers, that might be to actually buy them in the right circumstances, and also to support the consolidators out there like US LBM that's out there consolidating. So we feel like we can both be a matchmaker to line up the consolidators with the sellers because that keeps the business with us. So we've had to do that both by having a retail arm that can actually get in those deals and provide liquidity. And sometimes we'll keep the people that were running that.

We have a great example up in Minnesota of our Frattallone's Hardware, 30-some-odd stores, and Mike Frattallone continues to run it, we run it under his brand. We just took the Ace sign down and gave the business to Orgill. So it was just an outstanding way for us to grow and just another way to do that. So again, we do it that way. And we also try to play matchmaker and we believe that's part of our role of making our customers successful.

JOAN WOODWARD: So very strategic, thoughtful, not rushed.

ERIC DIVELBISS: Targeted.

JOAN WOODWARD: Targeted.

ERIC DIVELBISS: Targeted.

KORY KANTENGA: And there's a lot of money actually sitting on the sidelines right now. I think there was about $2 trillion in undeployed capital. Now the cost of capital right now is high, and it costs money to do mergers and acquisitions, and so that's what's been keeping that tapered down. But there's still a lot of money sitting on the sidelines that hasn't been deployed. So the outlook, I think people have a pretty optimistic outlook for M&A in the future.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Questions from the audience, any topic, the economy, labor markets? All crystal clear. Exactly what's going to happen in your businesses. Anyone at all? I have a more personal question for Kory here. So I'm a big LinkedIn user-- oh, by the way, we have a podcast. If you enjoyed today's session, we have a podcast. We have a bunch of webinars on the insurance industry and others.

But so talk to us just for a minute maybe about our personal lives on LinkedIn. How should we be more active in a business capacity? Should we be very active on it, sharing, reposting, liking? It seems like a lot of work and a lot of time for business owners and others who have real jobs. But it does seem that LinkedIn has become the platform for the business community. So give us a few tips or pointers about what businesses can do, business owners or employees.

KORY KANTENGA: Sure. So there are a lot of things you can do on LinkedIn. So if you are interested in finding customers, you can use LinkedIn exclusively for finding customers, they even have a product for it, but you can just do that in general. So you can focus on that, and that probably has to do a lot with engaging with their content. So if you're looking for someone to buy your product, you're looking to sell to someone, really engaging with their product, engaging with their content on their page, on their company page is probably going to be helpful.

Connecting with someone there, if you have a connection with someone at a business, you're more likely to get a job there, you're more likely to be able to make a sale there. And also LinkedIn will help you figure out who are the right people to connect with. So it's not just the case of oh, yes, I met someone from this company. Like the other day, someone contacted me about pricing for a recruiter. I was like, I can't help you. I'm the wrong person for that. I'm a researcher.

So connecting with the right people, understanding what content they're putting out, what's useful, that's a great way to use LinkedIn. It doesn't require you to post every day, you don't even necessarily have to post at all, but just kind of follow the things that are of interest to you for your business interests or possibly for your own interests outside of work as well. So I'd say that's one way to use LinkedIn.

If you are interested in being a creator or to be someone who wants to grow an audience on LinkedIn, the key I found to that is really just being consistent. So posting on a regular basis, posting things that are of interest and knowing who your audience is, finding your audience on LinkedIn. Who are the people who are interested in the things that you're interested in? What kind of content you want to create together? And another way also to use LinkedIn is LinkedIn is actually a really great repository of knowledge.

People have no reservedness of showing off what they know on LinkedIn. They're very happy to tell you that they know things. And that can be obnoxious, but it can also be very useful because you can run through a lot of content and a lot of summaries in a short amount of time without having to read someone's book or read their blog post, or you can just get a lot of information in a compressed way. And that can help you just throughout your daily life with your job or thinking about other opportunities in the future, whether they're business or whether they're your own career. So LinkedIn is just a big wealth repository of knowledge. You can also think about it that way. So it's just a case of how you want to use it.

JOAN WOODWARD: Thank you. Thank you. The one thing we didn't really get a chance to talk about is cybersecurity, which is a big concern among businesses. We at the Travelers Institute are on a cybersecurity tour around the country. So here are some of our stops if you're in any of these cities.

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She gestures to a screen beside her that we cannot see.

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Also, we've had a number of webinars on cybersecurity. We have a partnership with the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the Small Business Administration at Travelers, and we do a lot of educational and informational about cyber threats. So, listen, time is up for us, they opened the doors on us. This has been amazing. And please join me and thank our terrific panelists, Eric and Kory.

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