Innovating NYC's Nonprofit Sector | Lisette Nieves

Natasha Nuytten: Lisette Nieves is a distinguished academic and educator, a nonprofit leader, public official, and change leader with an impressive educational background, beginning with her undergraduate work at Brooklyn College, leading to being a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, an MPA from Princeton, and getting a doctorate of education with distinction from Penn. And while her academic accomplishments are indeed very impressive, the through line of your career and the accomplishments that you have, I think, is even more and that is your passion, your commitment, and skill at being able to make significant and meaningful and impactful changes. And that's remarkable. So you have been recognized as a social entrepreneur, a private sector leader, policy expert in workforce development education. You've been all over the place. But all of that has been consistently focused on improving opportunities for underserved communities and advancing innovative solutions to social challenges. This is clearly evidencing, in my opinion, the fact that significant social and business impact can, and I would argue, should go hand in hand. So Lisette currently serves as the president of the Fund for the City of New York. And that is where she oversees the organization, which is charged with developing and implementing innovations in policy, programs, practices, and technologies to advance the function of government and nonprofit organizations in the city and well beyond. Under her leadership, the fund's budget has grown to $100 million. The fund's budget has grown to $100 million, and its cash flow loan program, this is amazing, has lent over $1.3 billion with a B in interest-free financing to New York City nonprofits. Absolutely amazing. Talk about impact. Welcome to Human Side Up. I am super, super grateful you are here today. Thank you for making time to speak with me. I'm already in love with your spirit. So before we dive in, I would like to ask you a question. And I'd like to start with something we ask all the guests, which is, what are maybe one or two words that you would use to describe yourself that we might not see on your very impressive CV that helped you become the human you are today? And can you share a bit about how or when you started to own that about yourself? 

Lisette Nieves: I love that question. First of all, Natasha, thanks for inviting me to be part of this conversation. I think we are kindred spirits. And seeing your bio too, I think there are a few things. One is that may not be as explicit in my bio, is that I can ignite strong team energy. And I own it now. I have people who are really willing to follow me. And so I say that because there's something about saying it in your stage by decade in the 50s. But I realized that is something that not everybody has. And our best work is always done through others really at this point. Really, it is collaborative. And so for me to see the power of what the group can do is really powerful. I could see the individuals, but I could see the collective. And I'm really proud of that. And so that's important because I think about the impact to my career. I think about the kind of the cross-sectoral partnerships that have happened. I think people who wouldn't necessarily think they'd be in the same room together. And I realized that I'm a big part of bringing them together. And I guess the last thing I'll say is I think I'm really good at, and I own this, at helping people get out of their way. So activating an energy to move forward on. I had someone tell me the other day, and I was like, oh, I hadn't heard that. I've heard it, but it hit me in a way where I was like, damn, I own that now. It's like you saw something bigger for me than I saw for myself. And isn't that our job? 

Natasha Nuytten: That is amazing. And that is a rare gift, activating others and not focusing on yourself and what you do and bring. The other thing that I think is so beautiful about it is that you own it, right? That's hard. 

Lisette Nieves: Why not? At this stage, that's it, let me tell you, I am, I love my agent stage and I don't apologize for it. I think it's so important for us to always be in cross-generational relationships, truly cross-generational. It drives me nuts when someone always wants to privilege wisdom over energy and youthfulness. No, they're both. It's a both and it's not an either or, right? Like it really is. You need both. And so for me, when I think about this agent stage, there's so many other things we have to deal with. I can't worry about what my strengths are. Those are great. If I'm still wrestling with what my strengths are at this stage, then I'm not giving the world the best I should be given, right? 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah, that is so true, right? Getting out of our own way, as you said, can be really hard. So having someone in our world who can help point the way, yeah, that's amazing. We do. That's amazing. I love it. One of the things in the, when you and I were first meeting here in our intro, we were talking about you having grown up in Brooklyn and, Brooklyn even now is such a specific part of New York, right? But in thinking about this, the birth of hip hop, like there was so much stuff happening there when you were growing up and coming into your own as a young woman. And so I'm really curious about how Brooklyn shaped you as a young person who, ultimately, you volunteered with the City Volunteer Corps and did all these things, early working with AIDS programs in the day. And I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about that. 

Lisette Nieves: Yeah, I'm happy to talk about that. I think that there are quite a few things that happened growing up in New York and they became the epicenter of a few things. The AIDS epidemic was one, the crack epidemic is another, right? I grew up in the heart of both of those. And so those did, and then I grew up in the seventies in New York when the New York city government was going bankrupt and it was the greatest level of white flight. And everyone don't go to New York, don't go to New York. And what I saw in New York was an incredible amount of definitely people of color, African-Americans and mostly Puerto Ricans at that time, who were really committed to living and working in the city, right? We're living their lives. And so when I think about how it impacted me, one is anything that you're going to feel, you just are going to feel it so much more in a vertical city, right? With just on top of each other. And there's a beauty in that, right? Someone will say, oh my God, I hate that. I'd rather be isolated and on my own. I don't, I actually like it because you can't opt out, right? You can't opt out, right? You can't self sanitize. And then I, and I mean that in a way, think about the couple of million that ride the subways every day, right? You have every class that rides those subway. It's amazing when you think about it in a way that other people could really isolate behind gates and hide. And I feel like New York, there's this kind of grittiness where you could walk down the street and be next to a millionaire or billionaire and someone who is just trying to make it on, as we say, the least poverty wage imaginable, right? So there's something about what that looks like in the city. Growing up, I would say creatively, artistically, when hip hop was happening, you don't even realize that it's something that's bigger than where you are, right? So like I was saying, it was so common to see young people just pull out a piece of linoleum or cardboard boxes and just do street dancing. Like it wasn't a thing. It was just like you did that. And then you pass the hat and everybody would stop and they would do what they would like. It was just the culture or as Natasha, I joked with you about this too, creatively, you would go to a party and you'd always have a DJ. And the DJ was the person who, they were really revered in a party. They had to bring all their albums. So they had to bring all their cases with them. So it was a physical effort and everybody wanted a good DJ. And the DJ would talk on the mic every now and then, even in a little party, even in a little house party. A little house party is still a lot of people. But they would do references to the local neighborhood, whether it's Flatbush Avenue or whatever. So you had this kind of DJ culture of your local neighborhood. And I was, I went to a party once and said, oh, and this guy who DJs in the Bronx and the party was like boo, because we were we had such affinity to our borough, right? Like it was really funny. But at that time that was a youth culture. It was an underground culture. It was a hood culture. It was all these things that had language of the streets that had creativity. We had visual fashion, a lyrical, it was just, it was really interesting. And being in the heart of that, I think that there was, I'm sure it influenced me in the way of the fact that like, why not own where you're at? Like I always was, was never not proud of being, I was never embarrassed of that, and then we had other times, which was crack. And I will tell you between crack and AIDS, but particularly crack, what a devastation. Everybody knew somebody who fell to crack, everybody. We all knew somebody who died of AIDS as well, too. It was just, it was a moment, if not some, many, it was just a moment in time. And then I guess I'll end on this, particularly with AIDS, I think how that impacted me, because I worked on the first publicly funded long-term AIDS care facility for six months while I was a city volunteer for a year. And I will say this, I then knew I wanted to study this because I understood the politics and policy of it. I never underestimate what the human condition can do. You want to talk about, what does it mean to be human? The absolute level of cross-sectoral support and energy to at least get a recognition that AIDS existed, that we should say it blew me away. We have a lot of differences in this country, but we have to remember the most conservative pastors joined with the gay men's health crisis, joined with hospital leaders. Like, when you understand that it was this collaborative where people understood what crisis meant, like for me, that always reminds me what could be possible. 

Natasha Nuytten: That's it, that's it. That's possible. Yeah. Yeah. Now I, you said, and I'm making this into a sentence, it was two separate ones, but I'm going to make it my own. You said, in a vertical city, you can't opt out. And there's a reality that you're something, it's part of something bigger than yourself. And it is often that energy that comes from young people. Maybe that's where it starts, but it is the coming together of those sort of disparate corners on paper that actually make it possible for things to change. And that is it. We have to link arms around the things that matter and share that notion that we are a part of something not only bigger than ourselves, but that we are responsible to that. That it's not just, Hey, we're part of this big thing, but we are responsible to that big thing so that we can collectively all be better. And all live better. 

Lisette Nieves: Yeah. People could put whatever rhetoric or spin they want on things, but we live in this together. For me, it comes from an anchored faith that I don't wear on my sleeve, but it's just part of my values, which is right. Like we are on this earth, not because there's a scientific one, which is that we're social beings. So there's that, right? True. But there's a spiritual one, which is literally, there is a morality and a humanity that we need to express that is essential to what it means to be sharing, to be living above ground. And so I feel like that is not political. That does not fall into a political camp. That does not fall. That falls into what does it mean to be human? And when you said the human set up and why I was excited about the work that you do is it's really getting up the, what does it really mean to get at the essential roots of where we can be our best people? And why do, and why is it hard? Cause we have to wrestle with those things because there are so many things around us that want to put us into different places. And I feel really strong that what wins is the value, is a conversation around values. And we will always wrestle with who owns those values because they can become bastardized and politicized. And we cannot allow that to happen on any side of the equation here because they should be much more general. Anyway, I don't want to go off on a tangent, but—

Natasha Nuytten: No, that is no tan—no tangent. I have a hundred things I want to talk with you about and you're nailing all of them. So I'll, we'll get to as many as we possibly can. So it, and some of these things I want to touch on some pieces of your career because I feel like again, I'm going to go back to the fact that this through line for you has been this impact work while being great at business. And that's so important. And so one of the things that I think should be really noted is that. Believe it was 2006 that you found the director that you were tearing up New York. 

Lisette Nieves: Yeah. And I would love to talk about it. The founding executive director of Europe, New York. Yes. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yes. Super interesting. And for folks who don't know and you correct me or add to please, but it was really even at its time. And I think still today, it was in an innovative sort of workforce development program. And you grew that from this little baby seed grant of something like 250 K maybe to 6 million, with these amazing corporate partners. So I'm curious that at that point in your life, we're talking about all these sort of catalyst moments. Why then, and why that like, why was workforce development? 

Lisette Nieves: So it was interesting. So I worked in the Bloomberg administration as a chief of staff for the department of youth services. And one of, and this was before Europe. And I always joked that the two times that I worked in government were both for business leaders. So I didn't have your traditional business experience. I worked for Eli Siegel at AmeriCorps under the Clinton administration. He was a very well-known and successful businessman. And then I worked in the Bloomberg administration. We all know Bloomberg wasn't your typical public service. So for me, like working, I was already working with people. I was working for people who already cross sectors or believed in some kind of cross-sectoral energy. So I want to say that piece, cause I think that's important. Nothing wrong with being a careerist. Don't take that away. We need careerists too. But I'm saying what might've been unique in my experience. So when I worked at the department for youth, they were just transitioning, going into outcome-based funding, which was saying, if we're going to fund you to do workforce development, we want to know how many people you're placing into jobs. Now, Natasha, that sounds obvious. Let me tell you, in the 2000s, that wasn't so obvious in the early 2000s. We were funding based on inputs. How many people did we help with a resume? And there was a part of me, which is that really working class Puerto Rican girl growing up in New York was just like, that's not enough, right? That's not enough. I want to know, are they making a difference, right? So it was an interesting thing, I even realized earlier that I was wrestling with this. And some people would probably say politically that's not what you're supposed to be saying. I was like, yeah, I wanted to know the outcome. I just did. So we did outcome-based funding and we saw this real tension in the field, which is you're expecting something else of us. And then there was a part of me, it's yeah, we are. And then I realized that was happening all over. We're expecting the same thing in higher ed. It wasn't just enough to get people in. We have to get them to and through. And that's not a conservative or liberal view. I'm sorry. That's just a view of a return on investment in general. If I'm going to college, I want to know you're invested in seeing me complete too. If I'm going into this program, right? So even the rhetoric changed over time, but at that time, it was pretty radical. And we saw some real shifts happening. And then I had my son, I have a child, who's 19 now. I can't keep calling him a little boy, but whatever. 

Natasha Nuytten: You're a mom. 

Lisette Nieves: I'm a mom. But then I was approached by a couple of places where I was thinking about pivoting. I loved my government research, but I wanted to pivot. And I was approached by the CEO who had built it in Boston. And everybody would have thought, and they did, they thought I was crazy. Like, why would you leave this job to do that? Why would you go first? Like any, Natasha, any transition I did, it does not make sense to anybody else. But to me, what is not written is really attractive. Meaning if I, if there has to be breathing room, if you give me a 10 page description of my role somewhere, I'll fall asleep. That's not, where's the room? Where's the breathing room? Yeah. So in this case, he was like we can give you a seed grant, but you have to build partners and you have to. And I just believed I could do it. I just believed I could do it. It sounds crazy. I believed I could do it. I felt the field was ready for it. I, at the time, in particular most of the jobs were looking at the nonprofit sector or filling in lower income jobs. Not that those are bad jobs. I was interested in what could be those private sector jobs that particularly 18 to 24 year olds who are not in school, not working after they were trained with us could take advantage of. And I will tell you probably one of the best things I did in my life, what a great team we were able to build. We built 26 different partners. And in five years, we moved to 6 million. And I was really excited by it because what it said was that A, everyone, any smart leader or good leader is interested in talent and is always obsessed with talent. That's it. You have to be obsessed with talent. You just have to, because if it's just about the imperial eye and you are missing that talent doesn't make you look well or do well, you've lost the race already, right? Like you've lost it. Then just talk about yourself and be about yourself. But if I talk to a leader and I never hear

Lisette Nieves: Anyone talk about their team, it tells me a lot about them, right? So what I was able to do is realize and through the support of the headquarters and the founder nation of Europe, was just that, just talking about talent, finding out where people's pain points were, where the churn was. People, it doesn't matter, there's some things that are sector agnostic. Like everybody, they have a pain point, and you know this from your career. And I was like we could fill that pain point. So this was at a time where, I'll just say this, I wanna give this cool example, where BlackBerrys, remember BlackBerrys, you remember this, oh yes, right? And all of these financial service companies had all these BlackBerrys, like overnight, think about this as gone from beeper to BlackBerry, right? It was like nuts, right? And all of these engineers, tech engineers who were dealing with their mainframes became the default people to set up BlackBerrys. Could you imagine how miserable they were doing that? That was just not what they were. This was not, we could train young people and they could do it, and it completely could change. So it's like seeing where the gap was, helping people really see that, and then most importantly, understanding what were the pain points and what is the resistance for thinking through potential new talent options. We realized if we had them with us for, so a couple of things, one is a two month internship is not enough, it was six months, made all the difference. I love that our young people could be there when they weren't there with other people, right? That's a competitive advantage. Second thing we know, if the stipend is processed through us, we cover insurance. They don't have to worry and stress about if it doesn't work out, we take care of that, right? That's another pain point. There you go, remove that pain point. Three, we have a point person that will always be there supporting the young person remotely, back then, even think about that. But we'll get feedback, we bring them in weekly. So there's always someone there, always some kind of conversation or communication happening. And so we were able to keep at least three quarters of our young people, and then they were all at that time, starting at jobs and 30K. Natasha, there was a time before the pandemic and everything where I could walk down Wall Street and I would at least run into one alum. And I will tell you like that was, people will send you pictures of their first home. I love it when they would call me and say, can you tell me who from the alum services I could talk to? This is the first lease on site. Like things that other people might take for granted that you're really, like for me, really seeing economic mobility. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yes. 

Lisette Nieves: And the importance of that and dignity of that is man. It was wonderful.

Natasha Nuytten: I love that. I love that story because it's rooted in real humans, working with real humans to just make today better than yesterday. To solve a problem where we're all better on the other side of the solution and everyone wins. Like life does not need to be a zero sum game. 

Lisette Nieves: No, it doesn't. So that's— 

Natasha Nuytten: fantastic. 

Lisette Nieves: —And also, through Europe, it was always good for us to figure out who in that company had a year up, right? So this is some of the strategy in the work, meaning, I'm not Lizette today because it wasn't people. I've had many years, right? There have been many people who said, I'm gonna give you the chance. There's probably people who've given you the chance Natasha, right? Yes. Didn't mean that you weren't prepared, didn't mean that, but really took a chance on you. And when you find that person, particularly at the executive level, some magic can happen. If you have all the appropriate supports underneath that. Yeah. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah, I'd love that. So we spend a lot of time talking about critical thinking, learning agility, and actually what we define as distance traveled, which is grit and resourcefulness and self-efficacy. Like we talk so often about, those are such critical elements to a person's potential success that aren't currently measured, right? In most organizations. And if you could just—

Lisette Nieves: Natasha, I have the best story for you. I have the best story for you. I'm not gonna say the name of one of the firms, but I'm gonna use that because it's an interesting one. This person, so you have, you're managing direct, you mean, you already know the whole private sector, particularly in banking and how big a managing director is compared to others, right? Executive level. There was a huge snowstorm in New York. When we're saying a snowstorm in New York, I don't understand, like that could be 30 inches. It's rare, but when it happens, the trains were down or it might've even been the blackout that had happened. We had our young people. I didn't even know this, there were three of them who walked from upper Manhattan all the way to lower Manhattan and got into work. When none of the folks from Long Island, from New Jersey, from the others would come in. And when the big boss got in and saw just a handful of people and the three that stood out within a year, he was like, who are these people? They were from Europe. He was blown away. Had a meeting the next day with his whole team. And he said, they got here and you didn't? And that's all I know. Yep, that's it. And it was a moment. And it was a moment of wait a minute, like it was a moment of really understanding what does opportunity mean here? What, how that these young people are putting up a mirror to us around, A, what are our blessings? What are our opportunities? But most importantly hey, we have to model too. Absolutely. And that was a great piece, right? Like you said, it was just…

Natasha Nuytten:  I love that. Okay. So side note here is in thinking about those value add, like there is no doubt that having those types of traits and abilities is valuable in a path. How, I know I have my opinion because I talk about this stuff all the time, but from your perspective, what are the business benefits of thinking about critical thinking, learning agility, those distance traveled constructs at the outset as you're building your teams for success? 

Lisette Nieves: Yeah. I always think about it as both and, that teaching on competencies needs to go with the acknowledgement of distance travel, right? That so often we want to play one off of each other. This person is an excellent engineer, but doesn't have the social or professional or soft skills. And I think they're both. And I think we need to see them as both and. I often think particularly around how we prepare, even with, some would say what are you training folks to do most at Year Up? And I would joke about this with the founder, Gerald Tatarian, but we both agreed on this. We're training learners. That's what we are. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yes. 

Lisette Nieves: We're training learners. The end of the day, like really, A, reminding people, and I think we don't realize this, is that we throw around a lot of language around, you could do X, but people don't actually know what their strengths are. So introducing them to different lenses or frameworks to understand their strengths, to have a conversation around their strengths, to own their strengths, right? Can completely change the confidence of someone. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yes. 

Lisette Nieves: And then they perform in a group or in a team or perform individually. And then, once we have that, then we also build on the competencies, but reminding them that they're lifelong learners. If you get that, and then for some of our young people, like you're doing the translation work. Distance travel, we could all talk about distance travel, and I love how you use that, so I'm gonna use that too, but people might oversimplify it to see it as just one. No, we actually, there are many parallels, distance travel. We need translators that can remind people that your distance travel can actually go on that pavement too. And someone, so- That's right. So what we did, and what I feel I do with even executive leaders now that I work with, is to do the translation work around how their assets and distance travel can work in this new environment. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah, plus one, as the kids say. Yeah, I think so. On that, because it really is, when we think about, it is looking at where you are versus your relative starting point, but it's also thinking about the distance between, that delta between your potential, your actual and realized potential, right? Yes. Because how many of us don't have Elisette who's standing there saying, hey, I see this in you, right? How many of those folks, like me, had an opportunity to say, just give you a chance that you maybe wouldn't have had? And so there is that, how do we leverage that? So I'm really curious if we could get practical here for just a minute, like how do you encourage leaders to, in their organizations, help folks close that delta? 

Lisette Nieves: So that's great, one is I do use the Clifton Strength Finders. I do  use that as a base. Because there are many different ones, I'm familiar with Myers-Briggs, all of them done them all. What I like particularly, and I just say this, it's important to use a lens because whatever lens you use, it's a common language. What people, if I hear one more person say, oh, it's just culture. No, what does culture mean? Is it the culture that is set in values and artifacts? Or is it the culture that, you get the idea of variety, the three, I like particularly looking at the three levels of culture. Anyway, I could go on and on. But one is being intentional with language, so having a common language, right? So then we could say, so if we're using the strength language, then yes, we all agree that everyone comes with strengths that has potential. We have to invest in that. Potential will get us to the actual realization of their strengths. If we do that, then what I do is I hold folks accountable to what their investment has been in that person. Have you invested in that, seeing that come through? An investment is not like this. It could be up and down, meaning how the experience is. And someone once joked to me and said, if we always thought of talent looking like Michael Jordan, it's actually talent might look a little bit more like the two other players that made Michael Jordan, which is not what we always think about. That's exactly right. And so I feel like that we have to understand that and take risks, but risks that are also very calculated and focused. So having the lens, I think the other is for leaders to know themselves. It's, you have to be really self-aware. And that takes work. And I would say this too, like I have to be very comfortable with what I know are gonna be my blind spots and not be threatened by the fact that someone, I expect that person to say, we are going too fast. I expect that person, if I don't hear someone say, we're going too fast, then I don't have the team because I go fast. So I need someone who feels comfortable saying that kind of stuff to me. That's actually important. And so for folks to get used to that, not to be threatened by that language, but then to also know, when do I pivot? When do I say, yes, I know I am, but this time I need you to be on the journey with me. What's the communication? There are all these natural tensions that are going to happen with having what I call a diverse set of intellectual interests at a table that you need to, as a leader, you need to be well-versed in how to communicate across those tensions. And a top-down leader is not well-versed in that. They're used to thinking power and authority are the same thing and that they're gonna get everything they want. The truth is, if you accept this interdependence and you accept that at the same time, too, you have power, but as Linda Hill says in Becoming the Boss, that your team is exactly the group that can get you fired tomorrow, right? Think about it, right? If you understand that you're constantly in this dance and this tension, you have to find a level of comfort, but a constant translation around that. So anyway, I threw a lot there. I hope that was coherent in some way.

Natasha Nuytten: That's exactly right

Lisette Nieves: If you understand that you're constantly in this dance and this tension, you have to find a level of comfort, but a constant translation around that. So anyway, I threw a lot there. I hope that was coherent in some 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah, no, that was fantastic. I want six more hours because I wanna ask you about each one of those, which I will not do to you. But I am curious, I have two more questions before we wrap. And one is, in thinking about that sort of dance you've played between public and private sector, I'm really curious if you could talk to me a little bit about the intersection of responsible policy with the balance of the wide range of humans for whom we are responsible. And so that's public policy all over the country, but it's not that much different than in an organization. We have to be responsible for the people for whom we are responsible. 

Lisette Nieves: Yeah, it's so fascinating. We have different accounting standards for the for-profit and nonprofit. Think about all these things. But I also say at the same time, too, what both share is a profit and loss statement. That's what functionally it is, right? They have to, right? Let's just talk about that. The leaders of these organizations recognize that they may not be the only one who could bring down an organization. They can disproportionately impact it because of hierarchy, how well or how poorly you will do, right? That's just the truth. That's what your position is. So you're very conscious of the fact that how many people's families that you are making sure get paid, right? Like you can't ignore that. And I think that is something that is, for what I think strong leaders in both sectors will think about that. Now, what does return on investment mean? That's where it's gonna vary, right? It's just gonna vary, right? What shareholders want versus what maybe a community wants. That's where there may be differences. But all our managing constituents have expectations of them that are more than just one piece of their role. And so I think that's where, so when we bring executives, particularly we typically will bring some executives together overseas for a few reasons. We bring them cross-sectorally. It's related to this, Natasha, which is because sometimes executives within their field are so well-known in their field already that almost their role in their field becomes performative. And we know that when it's performative, your learning is flatlined, right? Which just stops. That's it. When you're putting people in a cross-sectoral group, there's something about opening up and allowing a new level of learning and self-examination to happen, why it's important to be doing that in the 50s. More training for executives in single sectors later in their career, I don't understand why. I just don't. They, we know who the heads are already, right? It's just it's, so there's, if we want to remove performative, if we want to remind people that leadership is about the self-examination to get the most then out of the team, then we have to accept that the way of doing that, for me, my value base says it's cross-sectoral. And I've seen that. I've seen that. You've got a VP of a bank next to a VP of someone who's managing 20 sites of a workforce development program. You better believe that they're going to have much more robust discussions in ways. Absolutely. And a lot of it starts with talent. How are they managing talent? That's really interesting. 

Natasha Nuytten: That's it. People are at the center of everything. So I'm going to restrain myself and not ask the other 300 questions that have now come up, but I am going to ask you the last one, which is given the conversation we've had today, is there something we should have talked about that we haven't yet? 

Lisette Nieves: I think that there was something real prescient or ordained about having this conversation before the new year. 2025 is going to be one where it's going to be very visible, and it's going to be hyper-media-ized in the media, the differences in this country and the differences that people feel. And I would say as leaders, that is actually in the workplace, that we have the most diverse sets of people politically, intellectually, racially, gender-wise and others. And it is probably one of the few places that we can decide and we can inform the kinds of strategies to have a healthy culture that allows people to be reminded that they can work together across all those lines. So I actually think work is much more important now than ever. I think faith is important, but sometimes our faith has also been isolated politically or racially or class or any of those things. But work, we could do something different. I think leaders need to think a little bit broader and say, I get to model by being the best workplace ever. How all this difference feel that they're working towards one goal when everything outside is saying you can't. So that's what I've been thinking about.

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah, that's amazing. And a perfect place to wrap this conversation for everyone. So thank you so much for everything you have shared with me today, with everybody else who's listening. I have so many thoughts that have been sparked, so many notions that I'm gonna need to chew on, right? As my girl would say, chew on it. And a couple of things I'm gonna stick on the wall, right? You can't opt out in a vertical space, you can't opt out. So thank you very much, Lisette. And I'm really pleased and grateful. So thank you so much for your time. 

Lisette Nieves: And thank you for your time and all that you do, Natasha. 

Natasha Nuytten: Absolutely. I think it's fair to say that Lisette is amazing. She's clearly an experienced social entrepreneur and literally working toward equity of access and opportunity from every angle, nonprofit, public sector policy, education, workforce development, talent recruitment and retention, leadership development, organizational change. There is not a box that she's not touching and that's because they all matter, right? It's incredible. She has focused on growth and her own as well as that of others and what a gift for her time. So thank you all for your time. We're gonna link to her information in the show notes. So if you have any questions for her, wanna reach out to her directly, you can do that. If you have any thoughts or comments for us, please feel free to reach out to us too. And in the meantime, hope that you keep the human side up. 

Thank you.