Podcast: Modernizing Customs and Trade Systems with Cindy Allen

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In this episode, Cindy Allen, CEO and Managing Director of Trade Force Multiplier, joins Host Brian Glick, CEO of Chain.io, discuss:

• Cindy’s journey in the trade industry, from from CJ Tower and DHL, to FedEx Trade Networks and now as founder of Trade Force Multiplier
• Navigating government interactions for a small business
• Prioritizing collaboration between CBP, the trade, and other government agencies
• The importance of mentorship and career support in the supply chain industry

Cindy Allen is an accomplished executive with over 35 years of experience in international trade, showcasing a stellar track record in navigating the complexities of governmental agency liabilities and enhancing customer satisfaction.

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Episode Transcript

Brian Glick  00:04

Welcome to supply chain connections. I'm Brian Glick, founder and CEO at chain IO. On this episode, we're going to speak with Cindy Allen. Cindy has been a rock star in the supply chain sub genre that we all know is customs, which is where I come from. And certainly my background. And Cindy has always been a person that I've looked up to in the industry, we're not going to get too nerdy on customs. In this one, we're going to talk a little bit more about Cindy's journey from working in small businesses to then working for the federal government and then working in large enterprises in how changing culture and how she's had to adapt herself in her style. And also get those organizations to adapt to getting a culture of getting things done. So I hope you enjoy the episode.

Brian Glick  00:58

Cindy, thanks so much for being on the show.

Cindy Allen  01:00

Thanks so much for having me, Brian. I'm a huge follower of yours and excited to be in the conversation today

Brian Glick  01:06

Flattery gets you nowhere with me. But we got two people who are fans of each other here. So why don't you tell everyone else who hasn't followed you for a long time, kind of your background? And why you love this sector? Yeah, sure,

Cindy Allen  01:18

thanks. Yeah, I've been in this business for over 35 years, I started my career on the northern border in 1987. And trade automation was just beginning, I worked for a company called CJ tower, which at that point, was a small regional broker, and had six offices on the northern border. And in subsequent years, it became tower group, which then became FedEx trade networks. And ironically, that was my last job before I started my own consulting firm trade force multiplier. I was the vice president of Regulatory Affairs and compliance at FedEx trade networks. So I like to tell the story that I started at one place and came full circle, and, you know, have started my own consulting firm, because, you know, I've completed that circle, and now on to new challenges. But I've always been really fascinated by the automation. And while I don't have a computer background whatsoever, I always was interested in how trade could be easier for participants how we could transmit entries easier how we could find information easier, how things can be pre populated. So as my career went along, I became more and more involved in automation from the automated broker interface and the AMS systems, the manifest systems. And then, of course, through my foray at CBP, being the executive director of the ACE business office, really defining what the trade needed from that system and what CBP itself needed from the system. So I've kind of done everything around trade other than work at an actual importer itself. So that's kind of my background and where I am today. So

Brian Glick  03:07

let's get some language straight for those listeners who maybe have not been as we had to do this when we had Amy Morgan on as well. But we're maybe not as steeped in in customs and trade issues. So let's just get some basics out of the way that I think we'll talk about as we go through this. What is in was ace, ace

Cindy Allen  03:26

is the automated commercial environment. And it is the system that CBP uses. And actually, the whole US government uses it to collect international trade data from those who import and export into and out of the United States. So everything that you think of that comes from a trade statistic from the government actually comes from the a system. And those are census data saying, Oh, we imported this billions of dollars in this industry sector or this segment, or we exported this amount to that country, in this time period. That data is actually all based in filings that international trade participants actually send to the ACE system at customs. So if you're ordering something online, you go in and say, oh, I want that sweatshirt, with that, you know, cool Christmas saying on it or whatever. And you input that data, well, someone has to report that importation to the government and a half to possibly pay taxes on it or duties on it. And that information is transmitted by customs brokers, who I like to say are kind of the facilitators of the travel of the goods. freight forwarders are the travel agent for the goods a range from the goods to go from one place to another, and in the middle of that our customs brokers who report that filing to the government. So that's one big role that It ace plays. The second role is that it is the system that customs actually works out of itself. So those ecommerce shipments say like that, Cindy Allen, we got to look at her shipment. She's not trustworthy, they have that because they understand and they know what my importing history is. And if I've imported from bad places, or imported bad things, or had some issues, so they use that system to determine what they want to look at, and what they deem as to be probably safe, and that they aren't going to look at, they also use that system to collect the data, they use the system to collect the duties, they use the system to do reporting, through all that data, but also to Congress and also to the Treasury, hey, hey, this is how much duty we've collected, and it goes to the Treasury. That's the second thing. The third thing is it serves as a portal for all the other government agencies that have jurisdiction over import or export, there's around 47 Different agencies, like the FDA, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, they all have a role to ensure that what's being imported is safe, and good for consumers. So that's the third major role that it plays for international trade. So a huge cog in the middle that kind of operate silently in the background. So

Brian Glick  06:23

I want to ask you a culture question here. But it's going to be about a case a little bit. You joined customs formally in 2010. Before that you were involved, as you know, representative of the private sector in the participation of all of this, but my recollection, I did some research years ago, the first reference to ace was in like, 1994 or so. Right? So by the time you joined in 2010, it's kind of like the Big Dig in Boston, right? And we all know, we got to finish it, but it's maybe a little bit overdue and a little over budget. What was it like going from having worked in smaller businesses and on the private sector side to then being part of this giant federal machine and trying to drive something to the finish line? Yeah,

Cindy Allen  07:12

it was interesting, I will tell you that I was contacted by CBP and the government can't recruit people that there aren't allowed to do that. But I was highly encouraged to apply for this position. And it took them six months to convince me to actually apply for this position. Because there was a 4 billion with a B billion dollar budget. And something like 3.25%, or 3.2 5 billion of that budget had already been spent, there was something like 30% of the system that had been delivered. So who wants to take that job, right? That's not an exciting job. I had never worked for the government directly. So it took me a while to actually decide, hey, this is something that I might want to do. But, you know, the excitement of doing that kind of one out in the end, and I applied and got it. So I don't know if that was foolish, or, you know, a good career step, I don't know. But it was with the intent that I was expected to kind of turn around the program. At that point in time the Obama administration had come in, they had a technology guru, who said, anything that isn't producing results must stop programming. So we were under a stop program for Ace and with 30%. Done and the whole entire international trade data coming from this future system. It was a precarious position to be in. So I was probably set up in a much different way than most people coming into the government. I had the backing of the Commissioner of customs, who at that time, was acting commissioner Burson, who said, you know, this is extremely important. He always saw CBP as a data agency, not necessarily an enforcement agency. As a matter of fact, I remember sitting around the table, and all these you know, what I called the guns in the badges from CBP and all the trade people. And I remember Commissioner Burson saying, you know, what is this agency? And, you know, there was a lot of well, where, you know, we protect consumers. Yes, we do that we provide enforcement. Yes, we do that. We're the last law enforcement agency in the United States, which is true, yes, we're that. But he said, what we're really as a data agency, we're a data collector. And you could see all everybody kind of frowning. And he said, We don't take any action unless we have the data. We use all of that data to form how we're going to do risk management, both from a people and a goods perspective. And I always appreciated that because he understood that without ace, and without the modernized system, he wasn't going to be able to carry out that enforcement. He wasn't going to be able to perform that screening. He wasn't going to be able to protect the United States. So that was the backing that I had. I also had the very strong backing from customs authorizers on the hill, the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means who I had dealt with in the private sector in support of Ace. And who supported me from that perspective when I was in the government, so I had probably a very strong backing that most people don't have. So I didn't really experience a lot of the bureaucracy that most people feel, and truly that I felt at the end when I left customs. So I was set up for success going in the door. And I was given free rein to do what I needed to do to make this be successful. And kind of the first thing that I did is I did you know, kind of the 90 day approach, I said, What do we got going on here? Because it was the first time that I had seen behind the curtain, right? And that's always exciting to see behind the curtain. It was much less exciting after 90 days when I'm like, oh, geez, what do we got here. And I remember thinking, I need to talk to everybody. So I brought all of the trade together, I brought all the other government agencies together, I brought a lot of people from customs together and said, we really have to do this together, we can't do it separately, we have to do it together. And we prioritized from start to finish what we needed to do. And I think that really was also unique in that I was able to do that with the backing of the trade because I come from the trade with the backing of the hill. So I had, you know, a funding stream with the backing of the agency. So it was kind of this tidal wave momentum to get that going. So

Brian Glick  11:37

one of the things I remember from back then, because I was on the other side, right, I was working for a customs broker at the time, I was at Vandegrift. And announcements started coming out from customs that said, we are going to take an agile approach, which was a new, very new word back then like, now, it's a business cliche, we're going to be agile, this won't be agile that we're going to, but it had a very specific technical meaning at the time right there, we're going to deliver small batches of features and we're doing on a regular basis, we're going to get them out to what we call the trade what most people would just call the private sector, right? And iterate. And we were part of that as a customs broker. I had a person on my team who was just dedicated to helping customs test FDA filings. Like I remember that being a very big thing. It was iterative, right? And was collaborative. What was it like from the other side of that conversation? Again, like inside of an agency that had just been $3.2 billion, building 30% of a $4 billion system to say, like, were they ready to hear, okay, we have to do this differently? Or did you have to drag them through that

Cindy Allen  12:42

there was a little bit of dragging, there really was before that approach, customs had complete control, even though they had the trade support network, which is the formal body that CBP went to, to say, Hey, give us your ideas, let's prioritize, once they had that, then they would stop and then they would go build a bunch of things. And then they would, you know, throw it over the fence and say, What do you think, and people would say, Oh, here's all the things that's wrong with that, or you didn't really understand what we wanted, you didn't really understand what we needed. And, you know, they throw it back over. So it just made it so much more complicated than what it needed to be. And also, CBP wasn't doing the programming themselves, they were hiring contractors. And they would sometimes hire discrete different companies to build pieces of it. And so it didn't necessarily all go together very well on the back end. And then, you know, on the back end, the folks at CBP and their vendors and programmers were confused about what requirements really meant, you know, you talk about jargon and helping people understand what it means there is a deep divide between what the private sector and trade says and what CVP really understands and hears because most of the folks at CBP had never been in the trade, and vice versa. Most people in the trade didn't understand what CBP was trying to stay. So I think that I saw my role as being a translator, I translated with the trade wanted to CBP. And I translated what CBP wanted to the trade overall. And I think that made it a lot more smooth. And I remember, we had some new leadership on the technology side come in, and the individual came to me and said, Hey, there's this new thing called Agile. And what that means is we're gonna build smaller segments in iterations, but we need the trade to be involved all the way through. I mean, great idea. We had been doing that kind of up to the point where people were programming but what we weren't doing was doing that in small segments. So I found that to be the most exciting idea, and we informally adopted that approach before I left and of course, you know, when I left when Brenda Smith took over that executive director position, they really honed that approach, and really adopted it in a formal manner. But I think what was really crucial during that timeframe was the trades ability and willingness to come in and say, you know, hey, we're gonna spend two weeks out of every, you know, eight weeks in, sit down with you and tell you, this is what we meant, and sit side by side with the programmers. And that's really where a lot of that dragging came in, was, you know, yes, you have to sit down with the trade, yes, you have to sit down with the other government agencies, and there has to be a collaborative approach here are, we're never going to get to that end result, we're going to spend a lot of time throwing things back and forth across the fence, when really, we can just tear that fence down and start, you know, being neighbors, good neighbors, and really working together. So I think it was there was a reluctance to trade in the private sector, we're all for it. Because they were frustrated, you know, with the approach. This is not what we said, we said, 123 program 456, you know, where's step 123. And, you know, there was such a delay, because the programs were so massive, they'd write requirements, and two years later, the programming would come out. So there was a lot of excitement, I think, in the end, in that approach, part of that also came about because the main programmer of ACE, their contract ended, and that major vendor had to be replaced. And it made sense to replace them with smaller companies who could program smaller segments and move forward. So

Brian Glick  16:37

you start with the small companies like you do in the work, you're clearing stuff on the northern border, which is a very fast moving, okay, we're just gonna go get stuff done. Even amongst customs people, the northern border, the truck borders, the northern South, are like just a rapid pace world compared to air and ocean trucks are just constantly moving, you go to government, you know, you're trying to get them to move faster to drive things forward. And then you make the decision to go to two of the largest companies on the planet back to back and DHL and FedEx. So how did you have to evolve and change as you went through those different phases?

Cindy Allen  17:15

I think like anyone, as you move in your career, you start learning more things, you learn how to manage larger and larger teams, you learn, you know, to really build a good direct reporting team that's been really crucial, for me, is the opportunity to build a great team to move things forward. I've seen recently a lot of discussion online, you know, in LinkedIn, and other places about whether you should build a team who doesn't recognize your absence, and whether that no absolves you from responsibility, but I was in

Brian Glick  17:48

that debate yesterday, I know what threads you were talking about.

Cindy Allen  17:53

Taking the approach that, you know, I should build my team so that if I move on to the next thing, they won't miss a beat. And I did that, you know, previous to me, going to the government, I did that when I was at the government. You know, a lot of people when I left were like, Oh, my God, it's a you know, it's gonna fall apart. We don't have anyone in there. But I built a team that was fantastic, and was able to just continue to deliver. And so I think going to DHL and FedEx was kind of the next opportunity for a large organization to see what I could do. And DHL at the time I went there, I was the head of us brokerage in the US, they had made a massive change that wasn't necessarily as successful as they hoped it was, you know, had an impact on their bottom line. And, you know, if you're noticing a thread here, there's a problem I come in. To fix it, I'm known as a fixer. So, you know, it was an opportunity to do that on a large scale, where I started, which is in customs brokerage. So I had customs brokerage and compliance and some sales responsibility and consulting. So it was exciting to do that for a larger company. I'd done that previous in my career, you know, for regional and smaller brokers. But it was an exciting opportunity, also for a company that, you know, has the resources to automate to a great degree. So that's really what excited me about that opportunity was, you know, taking on a new challenge in the field that, you know, I'd grown up in my career with more resources to be able to design a program like I wanted to, that was really interesting from that perspective. So

Brian Glick  19:34

I guess all of us fixers and I always kind of considered myself a fixer, even though I'm a founder. Now I had to create something to break and then fix it. But

Cindy Allen  19:42

I know the feeling. You identify that gap in the surface software

Brian Glick  19:46

I got it's right. I'm fixing the whole industry. That's how I'm supposed to say we all end up as consultants at some point, right? Because it's just the ultimate opportunity to go fix a whole bunch of things. So kind of what has you excited about kind of diving back into the consulting world, what kind of customers are you working with? Or what kind of problems do you want to go help people

Cindy Allen  20:05

fix, I was in my last position at FedEx for over seven years. And one of my mentors told me, Cindy, you know, after like three or four years, you either need to change jobs, or you need to move to a new company. So if you look at my employment history, the longest I ever stayed, was at FedEx for over seven years, and previous to that original broker called Wilson International on the Canadian border for six years. And I felt like it was time for change, you know, it solved a lot of problems we got, you know, things moving forward, after about seven years, you need to change your approach anyway, companies need to reinvent themselves. And they were, you know, thinking about that, and I just thought it was a good exit time for me. So I retired, had a great career have nothing bad to say about them at all, they were a great company. And I learned a lot from the individuals there, as well as from the business itself, but I wanted something fresh. So what I love to do like you, I like to identify what a client needs from an automation perspective and help them identify a solution. And an offering that solves that problem companies, you know, customs, brokerage, freight forwarders, even importers, they aren't really great about figuring out what they really need. They see all the new bells and whistles, and they get up pitches from companies and technology, and they don't really know what they need from an objective perspective. So I love to come in and help companies do that. I did that kind of as part of my job at different companies anyway. And so now, that's a service offering that I have, and am excited to offer to, you know, clients of any shape or size. Through my career, I've known a lot of the software, I'm like you very familiar with what's out there, extremely aware of the environment we're in, which is much more enforcement oriented, and understanding, you know, kind of what's next, what's gonna come next in the next three to five years and helping customers understand what that is, I think, is really exciting to me. The other thing is, I've been involved with, you know, the political environment, regulatory affairs at a high level for, you know, a couple of decades now, and helping customers who don't necessarily have the budget for their own lobbyists, right, they aren't going to go out and hire someone, because they don't have a need every day to have representation. That's something I can offer, I can facilitate those communications with the government, I can facilitate meetings and resolution with the government, both at the regulatory agency perspective, but also, you know, with the Hill, I've developed some good relationships with them over the years and continue to work with them on some of the current legislative proposals. So that's something that is fun for me, and has always been a fun part of the job. I don't necessarily want to be a lobbyist directorate to that degree. But you know, facilitating those relationships, is what I like to do. And I like to like I said, in my role at CBP was translating, you know, between the private sector and the government, I'm really good at that. And that's something I enjoy. So that's something I offer as well. And then there's the normal service offerings, and that consultant has from start to finish. And anyone who is interested, my full service offerings are on my website, which is trade force multiplier.com. So

Brian Glick  23:30

I'll put a link in for you. Actually, when I say something first, because with other people, we did some interactions with the federal government, as a company and as a kind of younger company. It's a very weird and intimidating thing, until you go do it. And then you realize that most people in government are actually they're wanting to have meaningful conversations, and very thankful to get the perspective that you can bring to them. And very, very collaborative. And it was a big surprise to me as somebody who had never really operated in that space, that when we started working with a consultant, and this was a lot around the port congestion and things that were going on during the pandemic, where I thought that we had some value that we could bring, you know, and we weren't trying to get contracts or anything, we were just trying to talk. Having someone to facilitate and kind of walk through that with us and how to engage in it's almost like going to another country in the sense of like, the cultures are different and the way you go about talking to people and certainly the restrictions on how you, you know what you're ethically allowed to deal with not having a Sherpa through that process. I think it's not as scary as a lot of small companies think it is, you know, and that if you have a guide, it should be much more accessible to the companies that are not FedEx and DHL. That was at least my personal experience was I thought, Oh, God, these people are never gonna talk to us. And then I would walk into the room at the Department of Transportation Department of Commerce, and they'd be like, Thank you for being here. Right was the answer that we got from them? Yeah, I

Cindy Allen  24:58

think you're exactly right. It's just that you don't know, like I said, it's that translator, we need somebody to, you know, kind of be the teacher in the room, you know, coming in helping you know who to talk to and how to talk to them. I was really surprised when I was in the government, how open most agencies are to getting feedback and having involvement from the private sector. I knew that, you know, on ace, that was kind of the blueprint from the beginning was, you know, this was actually pushed by the trade by the private sector. And so that was always a big part of the ACE culture. But I didn't think that was necessarily the culture of the rest of the government. And I was surprised that a lot of the government offices are very receptive to meeting. And I think that's because they don't understand how the private sector works any more than we understand how the government works. So if they're dealing with the private sector, and they're dealing with the trade, it's sometimes easier for them to have somebody who can translate that talk, you know, into, from government to private sector and private sector back to government. So they want to, I think a lot of them just don't know how to talk. It's like, you know, talking Italian and English, you know, that you can communicate with gestures. But you really need that translation tool in the middle to be really successful. And I think that's what, you know, people like me and my service can offer to folks. So

Brian Glick  26:28

I want to wrap with a question, maybe take a step backwards here for a second, because it's just something that fascinates me, we were at an event recently together, and we were both up on the stage for a bit of the event, but prior to either of us was a very senior and, you know, person who has been in government long enough to be considered famous. And I'm not going to call them out, it's not important. But you know, very, very senior person books will be written with his name in it. And I went home that night and said to my wife, it is so cool to me, that I was even on the same physical stages. That person even though it was four hours later, and then I'm sure he had left, but like, just was like, Who the hell am I, the kid that got hired at a customs broker to plug in the wires to get to dumb terminals to talk to them as 400. Now on this stage, that that guy was just thought, but you've like, actually, you know, been on Capitol Hill. So what was it like the first time that you were like, I used to be the import lead for the Kmart account? And now I'm, you know, like sitting on the hill, like, what was that? Like? What did that feel like?

Cindy Allen  27:34

I think it's a little bit of a, you know, you pinch yourself, you're like, who am I? Because I remember, you know, in the early days, when I was first starting out in this industry, and I answered an ad, in the paper, I had no idea what it I had no idea what it was, I didn't even know it was a field. So I had absolutely no awareness of what this was. And to go from that, to, you know, meeting at the White House for supply chain issues and meeting on the Hill to be considered an expert in testifying before Congress. I think after each one of those events, I look at myself and think, who am I? You know, I'm the Cindy. I grew up in Indiana. But no, oh, my gosh, you know, but also, I noticed that people listen, and I think it's scary and a big responsibility at the same time, you know, because I'm considered an expert, as are you, you know, we are asked to talk regularly, we were asked to, you know, give advice and give awareness of what's going on in the industry. And I don't know, if there's any secret to you know, what happened, or how I got here. Other than, you know, I asked a lot of questions, and I loved learning about the business. And to me, you know, this is a business that you either love it or you hate it, and I've loved it from, you know, the second day that I actually figured out what I was doing on the northern border, you know, clearing customs entries, I've loved it. And I just think it's fascinating. I'll tell you a quick story. You know, I'm a part of a lot of different associations, and getting involved, you know, at a local level was really important to me, which I did, and that led to involvement in the national level, which was also important to me. And I remember thinking, there were three individuals and I thought, if I can impress them, and let them know that I am I a knowledgeable person in this area, I will have made it right. And they were giants in the industry, who everyone looked up to and everyone in our industry knows to this day, their names, and I remember sitting around with some of my friends a couple of years ago, and we have this tight group of friends, you know, girlfriends that you know, talk about challenges of a woman and really what was a male dominated industry for a long time. And I remember Number looking, you know, one of them was the chairman of the ncbfaa. One is the president of the ncbfaa. You know, one is the president of an another well known association, very accomplished women. And I looked at them and said, Oh, my gosh, we are the people that the newbies work up to how did that happen? Are we? Sorry, I think it's really shocking to me on some level, it's also a huge responsibility, I think, to be in that role. And also, you know, I feel like I'm giving back to the industry overall. But it's also why I take time to meet and try to mentor people who are just starting out in our industry, because I was lucky enough to have a couple of folks say, hey, Cindy, you know, I think you have a future, let me help you realize that future. And so I think it's really important that we all do that now, and mentor those who are new and take time to sit down and answer questions, and talk to them about what's going on, and how you developed your point of view in what you do to be successful and how you take all the information in to really formulate what's going on in the industry, and then help companies and individuals determine what their next step should be. So I think part of it's just the love of the industry that's come through and part of it's just dumb luck, that right people, those

Brian Glick  31:30

women at that table, you know, I'm about 10 years behind you and career path are the people who became my mentors, right. And it is always interesting to me, specifically, on the customer side, this is different in logistics, but in customs. So many of my mentors were women, that it was I actually had to learn that the rest of supply chain was not a women dominated industry, because it was the Mary Jo's of the world, that Maureen Gray's of the world that like these were the people who taught me as business. So you know, I think what you all did, and was, you know, I know, a lot of the people who probably were in that room, you know, certainly are incredibly successful at creating a mentoring culture for those of us who are a few years younger. Yeah, so thank you for that.

Cindy Allen  32:20

Thank you, thank you for recognizing, you know, the those fabulous women are at the table, and I think a lot of it was deliberate, you know, we would have conversations about Okay, who's next? Who do we bring into the fold? Who is, you know, new and smart and exciting, has great ideas to bring forward? And how can we help them get there. And I think that's, you know, part of the responsibility of being, you know, seen as a leader in the industry is really, you know, okay, if I'm going to accept that role, then it comes with a lot of other responsibilities that I now have to deliver, even on a personal side, you know, had leadership roles and companies, but when you're kind of seen as an industry leader, it has a whole nother meaning that you don't really recognize, first, you know, it's kind of thrust upon you, you know, with success. And a lot of that, you know, as jokingly said, There's Dunlop, but a lot of it is just, you know, getting out meeting people, I think that's also been a huge part of my success is getting involved, no matter where that is, and what industry it is, and what Association it is, the getting involved, letting your voice be heard and meeting people, you know, introduce yourself go up, you know, exchanged business cards. That's how I did a lot of it in the beginning, because I didn't necessarily have huge mentors in Detroit. So you know, when I became involved on a national level, I had to take matters in my own hands and find a mentor. So if anyone is looking at that challenge, I would say become involved in Introduce yourself. Well,

Brian Glick  33:57

I think that is an awesome place for us to wrap up as I do with every one of these interviews. I wish we could do another hour. But let's pause there. And I'm sure next time we're in person, we'll have to continue this conversation. But thank you so much for taking the time today.

Cindy Allen  34:12

Oh, thanks so much for having me on, Brian. I really appreciate and I look forward to those conversations as always.

Brian Glick  34:24

Well, thanks again to Cindy. As always, you know, I couldn't have any more fun than I do recording these episodes and getting to talk to people that I've looked up to in the industry and I'm sure that came through in that interview. We'll have links in the show notes to Sidney if you want to reach out to her for mentorship or for the consulting opportunities get could not recommend her more as far as someone to help guide you in your business or in your career. So again, thanks to Cindy and we look forward to speaking with you next time.

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