Leaders as Change Agents with Catharine Smith, Executive Director of the Termeer Foundation

You are in for a treat because we just had Katherine Smith on and she is the executive director of the Tremere Foundation. We love the Tremere foundation and we got a little behind the scenes look at what it's really like to be a fellow and all the great things that they do there and also Catherine's career path and her impact there.

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We're your host, Karina and Allison.

Katherine, it is such a pleasure to have you on here. You know, we're huge, huge fans of the term your foundation, but I want to start with you because we'd love to go through your career path a little bit. So what did you want to be when you were seven or thereabouts? What are you now and how did you get there?

Great question. I actually really love asking people this question because I love hearing people's journeys.

Okay, perfect.

So when I was seven years old, I desperately wanted to be a marine biologist, but I had never met a scientist before in my life. I had also never seen the ocean, so I did not make it to marine biology. But you know, when I went into college, I was really focused on doing human rights work. I had done human rights work in Chicago and in Latin America. And right after college was introduced to this concept of healthcare as a human right. And I myself grew up in the Midwest without health insurance, very, very different than the state of Massachusetts today. And, and really watched myself and many of my friends and family members not have the care that they needed to be healthy then and in the future. And so when I was introduced to this concept of health care as a human right, it sounds kind of obvious, but it was really shocking to me and so then embarked on a path to sort of figure out how do we take this really complicated health care system in the United States specifically and pull some levers to make it better for everyone in society. We're all patients at some point in time and in some way. So, you know, how do we pull different levers, whether it's on the policy side or on the delivery side. Now, on the therapeutic side, how do we pull those levers to make the system work better for everybody?

That is amazing. I love that journey. I think it's really interesting, like your background, how you've tied that through to the work you're doing now. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing now?

Sure, yeah. So I'm the executive director of the Tamir foundation. And you know, the Tamir foundation was, was founded by Belinda Tremere and Alan Waltz about five years ago after Henry Tremere passed away. And for those of you who know about Henry, or if you know about Henry, you know, he was the ultimate leader and I think really lived. That value of health care as a human right was really core to the work that he was doing at Genzyme and pioneering the rare disease model and really pioneering a lot of the biotech industry that we see in Massachusetts today. So when I found out about the Tremere foundation and found out that they were recruiting an inaugural executive director, I couldn't resist the opportunity to come in and help the founding board and Belinda really think about how do we infuse biotech with this concept of healthcare as a human right? And so as a foundation we're really focused on how do we build the capacity of early stage and early career biotech leaders to really focus on patients. You know, it's a complex system. Whether you think about the whole of healthcare, whether you think about building a company in biotech, it's extremely complex. But we're all here for patients and we're all here to improve the health and well being of the globe. And so what we're doing as a foundation is really thinking about how do we build the capacity of leaders and help them hold onto that North Star around patient impact.

I think that's such an interesting way of looking at it too. It seems logical, it seems like, duh, of course, that's why we do this work. But I can tell you from coming out of, you know, lab science, basic research, a lot of the scientists there, we love science for science sake. And you see this really interesting thing and yes, it might have an impact on human health, but it's so abstract because we've spent our time in the lab and not actually dealing with patients. So I think it's really great that that is front and center to sort of bring it back, tie it back, bring it home for people as they're founding companies. Because if they don't have that outlook, and we've seen this a lot, they don't have that outlook. They're not thinking about and planning for how to take those drugs into patients. Can you tell us a little bit about how exactly the Tremere does support that early stage, those early stage founders in building these companies with that patient first outlook.

Our signature program is our Tremere Fellows program focused on first time CEOs and early stage companies. And we're recruiting specifically for those CEOs who sort of already have this intrinsic motivation around patients. Some of them are scientists, some of them come more from a business background or an entrepreneurship background. But really we're trying to find people who are already saying we want to build our company around patients. Obviously the science is core. Without the science, we can't support the people. At the end of the day, the business model is also really core too. Right. People can't get funding without that, so we don't ignore that. But we really try to keep the patients at the center in the way that Henry did in his leadership at Genzyme. And so in order to keep that right, it's really hard. It's sort of easy to set an intention at early in one's career, early in one's company formation, but in order to keep that, we see it as a multimodal thing. So one, it's really elevating those voices and making sure that our fellows who have such great stories and such great whys for why they're doing the work that they're doing, that we elevate those stories through media partners, through events that we put on and events that other partners put on, the other piece is really in the training and support structure that we provide our fellows as they come in. So we look at both what are the technical skills required to, to build a company? Whether that's the HR side or the board management side or, or whatever it is, wherever they are in their journey. And then what are the leadership skills that one requires? You know, we know that for all leaders in biotech and outside of biotech, that concept of resilience and grit, to really hold onto one's authenticity and to hold onto one's core being is, is really challenging. It's, it's easy to say, it's nice to say, but it's really challenging. And so we provide coaching and we provide leadership support for our CEO as they're going through that journey. And the other thing that I'll mention is really the peer support, right? There's nothing like bringing a community of like minded, like values, valued individuals together and allowing them to support each other. And so really those values are Tremere foundation values, which at the core it's really about, it's really about the patient. Right? Our values are really focused on how do we make sure that we're impacting the world and all that we do. Those values are infused in all of the training that we do and all of the community building and all of the coaching that we do. And so at the end of the day, we're really trying to hold onto that North Star with our fellows and as we expand our programs and we think about the other work that we're doing, the infrastructure is the same, you know, providing the support that individual leaders need to really carry their North Star through the work that they do.

I'm so intrigued to hear what your answer is going to be to this question, but can you walk us through a little bit of what your day to day sort of encompasses? I'm sure it changes all the time, but I'd love to hear kind of like what, what in general does a day to day look like in your job?

It's kind of crazy actually. I always, I, I ask my, sometimes my peers or my friends this question, like, what do you do every day? Right? Because it's a little bit, a little bit nebulous unless you're, you're following someone along and shadowing them. So, you know, the Truman foundation is, is relatively young. I've been in this role for three years and, and so in many ways we're a startup. And so as an executive director and I'm very much a generalist, although I think I had a peer say, no, it's not a general Swiss army knife. So depending on the branding, however you want to miss with army knife, right. I love to jump in and do different things and so my, all of my days look like that. So, you know, sometimes it's actually just the practicality of building out a team. We have a team of five now. Most of those people were hired in the last 12 to 14 months. And so all of the day to day that you guys know about, about recruiting and onboarding and really building culture to, to achieve our goals, a lot of what I do is strategy. As a foundation, we're thinking about our ten year strategy. We see 2030 as our ten year anniversary of being a proper organization. And so really thinking about what impact do we want to have in 2030, how can we support our stakeholders? And so that is also very core to my work. It's a lot of work, right, Building strategy, but also really thinking about how do you engage stakeholders and engage their voices in the strategy, which is something cool, I think that nonprofits have the opportunity to do. I mean then the other Piece is the operations stuff, right? We go through audits. We, you know, we have compliance things that we have to do as a nonprofit. So I have great support for all of the, all of that work. Really great partners within my team. So I'm sort of all over the place every day, which I love.

I love the Swiss army knife metaphor. I'm going to be stealing that. That is fantastic. So prior to the Tamir foundation, you were at the Clinton Health Matters initiative, you were the CEO. Now, I'm not really familiar with all the ins and outs in that, but how big was the team over there?

So we were actually a really small team. So there were, let's see, only four of us. We're a very small team. It was similar in the sense, you know, the Clinton foundation has been around for a while, as you can imagine, but one of the things that the Clinton family did and continues to do over time is really foster this entrepreneurial spirit. They have this really cool model of if there's an idea either within the staff or within the President or Chelsea or the secretary, you know, it's really thinking about like they sort of pull out an idea and they try to spin it into either a larger piece of the organization or sometimes it spins out as its own organization. So when I came into the Clinton Health Matters initiative, the team had been doing some community based work focused more broadly on community health, and then decided that they wanted to focus on the opioid crisis. So the work that I was really doing with that team was helping them think through what's the model that that can be deployed and scaled from a public health perspective and from a community engagement perspective to fight it, to try to combat overdose rates and stigma within the opioid crisis space. And it turns out there was an individual there who's still there and running that team who just had such a tremendous idea for how to do this and had started to pilot some models. So I was working with him to help think, you know, how do we build the sustainability of that from a revenue perspective and build consensus within the foundation to do that work? I mean, it really is amazing work. They've just done such cool things. I'm really, really proud of that team there and what they've done. Just like tremendous impact in getting needed naloxone out into the United States and working with faith communities across the southern part of the United States to combat signs. It's really cool work.

That's amazing. That is really interesting. And it's interesting too that it was a small team There small team at the Tamir and now you work with biotech founders who have small teams. So you really understand what it's like to be resource strapp?

Yeah, absolutely. I think I, you know, I've worked in all, I've never worked in like huge teams. Cause I haven't worked in corporate America. And there, there's a few nonprofits that are very large, but I tend to work more in kind of media, small and medium. That's also real, we'll point that term small and medium nonprofits and community organizations. And I do, there's something really special about being a small team. I also think just for me, as I said, I'm, I'm a Swiss army and I actually like to do a lot of things. I think in my life I've had these pivot moments where I could specialize in one thing or the other and I'm very resistant to it. I really like to kind of be that person that can jump in where there's need in the organization and follow my own curiosity. So I have tended to, to, to align with smaller teams.

Can you walk us through what it looks like for somebody to come into the Tamir foundation as a fellow? What does that life cycle look like? And you know, we've now seen a couple of, we call them classes or cohorts. What's the right terminology there? We've seen those folks come through and exit, but they kind of stay right. It's the community aspect. Can you tell us a little bit about how that looks?

Sure. So one of the things that our founders implemented from day one, which I absolutely love, is the once a fellow, always a fellow model. So it's a little different than if somebody goes in and gets like a master's degree or some of the other models where there's a distinct beginning, middle and end the first year. So when someone comes in as a fellow, the first year is more intensive. So we really focus on cohort community building within the 12 to 17 people that are in any given cohort. We want to make sure that they have that close knit community for peer learning and peer support and peer mentoring, which we know is something that, that our fellows highly value. They told us that. And so the first year is more in person intensive. There's more sort of cool requirements. We ask people as they're applying to commit to doing certain things throughout that first year because it's so critical. And so the first year there's in person trainings. Again those are really focused on both technical skills and personal leadership. Development. There's one on one coaching that's provided in the first year. There's all kinds of networking and community building also with prior year cohorts. Our first co, first fellows Cohort was in 2018. And so then once that first year is over, they kind of graduate from that intense learning community. And then there, there's different learning, both live and digital learning opportunities for people that they have access to forever. Plus all of our networking and all of our other sort of mentoring resources.

How many cohorts are you on? How many have you guys put through already?

So we started in 2018 and we're recruiting for 2024 right now.

Oh, awesome. Okay, so when you're talking to all these people, are there consistent challenges that people are bumping into over and over again that you're like, ah, this is indicative of a first time founder situation and we know where this is going to go. Or some advice we could put out to everyone who's listening to this who might be like, ooh, I too am a first time founder and having some challenges.

Yeah, I mean, fundraising, especially right now, you know, this year we hear more than ever the challenges around fundraising and around capital. And you know, I think we see what we also hear and read out in the market that it's harder for people who are earlier on. So our fellows are between seed and series A. When we recruit them, many of them go past Series A once they're already in our, in our fellows program, but especially for our seed rounds, some of them just really struggle right now in this environment. And so, you know, one of the things that we try to do is facilitate connections, facilitate connections with mentors and advisors and people who can help them think through their strategy for fundraising and really think through how do you, how do you pitch more appropriately? Who do you talk to, how do you communicate? But really thinking around the strategy, around fundraising, but that's really critical. And then the people who are not in a fundraising round, we hear a lot of the stuff that I'm sure this doesn't surprise you. It's human, human related, human resource related. Sometimes it's on the board recruitment and governance side, but sometimes it's just on the day to day. I mean, that's at the end of the day, no matter what you're leading, you're leading people and without those people, you can't succeed and you can't have a healthy organization or company. So a lot of the resources that people ask for are on the human resources side. How do I manage? How do I Create a package that's compelling for a startup. You know, how do I do performance reviews? What does that look like? So we get a lot of requests for that as well, which is like very in the weeds. But also, as you guys know, the day to day of running a company or an organization.

Yeah, those are the essentials. And nobody thinks about that before they start the company.

Well, yeah. Cause it's like, you know, at the end of the day, like, the science is really core, right? To. To starting a biotech company and figuring out how to do that. But the science is not happening without the people.

So, yeah, we talk a lot on this podcast about some of the more obscure things about running a business that people just never think about. And I think, you know, I hope that that's helpful to people to be like, I have this great scientific idea, but really surrounding yourself. What I'm hearing from you is this community aspect, wherever you can get it, is going to set you up to be able to even ask those questions, to learn from others. And maybe even on the funding side, you have some connections, some networking opportunities there that, that can help people out, whether they're in your community or another similar community.

Absolutely. That's our, that's our intent.

Yeah. I love that you are multinational too. Some of the founders we've met have not been. They don't run their company in the US they run their companies outside of the. How does that work? And you know, is the advice you give to them different? Because I've, I've met them, they come to the events. It's really awesome to see them there.

Yeah. I mean, although we started out a little bit more local with our first year, we've always had a pretty global cohort of people from different countries. Some people who are like, have a site here in Massachusetts and some people and then a site someplace else outside the United States. But increasingly, over time, we have founders who are really based outside the United States and we loved that they come here. One of the things that we're hoping to do with future cohorts is to be able to do more travel support so that we can bring in even more companies who may be even more resource restricted or resource restrained in terms of what they're doing. But that's something that's very important to us. I think, you know, one of the things, we do a decent amount of work. Part of this, the works that we do at the Tremere foundation is participate in this transatlantic program of cooperation between the Netherlands and the state of Massachusetts. So we really have quite a few founders in the Netherlands. Some of them are Dutch and some of them are just based in the Netherlands. And so there's a lot of discussion around just the funding environment there, which is like very different. At least in the Netherlands. We talk about the Netherlands being a bit more risk averse, but also the scientific community in the Netherlands is just tremendous. The entrepreneurship community, what's happening within innovation and science in the Netherlands is just so impressive. And so one of the things that's really important to us is that interconnectedness of our fellows. So the, the peer support that they provide each other. But also we have a global set of mentors who work with people because there isn't like a great. Even though there's a lot of commonalities and intersection between our fellows, there's not one path. And so what we try to do, we keep our cohorts small enough that when our cohorts come in, we meet with you, each and every person and ask them what they need and try to pair them with mentors, try to pair them with resources. Because it is, you know, even though there are those commonalities around fundraising or board governance, everybody's kind of in a different place. So we try to provide them with sort of bespoke resources based on where they are.

Hey there. Just a quick break. I wanted to let you know that if you're listening to this podcast because you are exploring careers in biotech, which it turns out quite a few of our listeners actually are, you might be interested in the Biotech Career Coach podcast. It is brought to you by our sister company, the Collaboratory Career Hub, which is our career development community. If you would like actionable tips on job seeking and career development, that is the place for you. It is a companion podcast to our Career Coach column that we write monthly in Biospace. But we go a little more in depth and sometimes we have special workshops and all of that good stuff. So if that sounds interesting, click the link in the show notes or search for the Biotech Career Coach on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts back to the show.

What if someone wants to become a member like a Tamir Fellows? How does this work?

So we have an application period. So all of our, all of our programs have some sort of application period, which we try to keep pretty efficient. We're working with biotech leaders, so we try to keep our applications relatively short. So all of our. So for the term actually just closed our application in January and we're selecting our 2024 cohort now, so our next application will go live towards the end of this year for next year's cohort, so anyone can reach out to us. We love having conversations with interested fellows, people who are interested in joining our network, actually, and people who are interested in being an advisor or fellows or mentors. We love having those conversations throughout the year. But the number one thing for anyone that's involved with the foundation is really a values alignment. So as a foundation, you know, we've created our values along the lines of how Henry built his career and built Genzyme then. But really they're all, again, as I said before, they're really about how does the leader sort of focus on patients? How do they make sure as an individual that they're bringing in thoughts and ideas and wisdom from all walks of life and really living their values through their leadership, both personally and through their company. And so we're looking for people like that. We'd love to have conversations with people like that. Bring them in. We always encourage them to apply.

I want to talk a little bit.

About growing biotechs because we, we hit on this as a pain point before and things that people, you know, have questions around. But we, when we sat down with some of the fellows and we talked about growing their companies, you know, people, human capital, that's always, that's always a, an issue or that's always a pain point. Can you talk about what resources Tamir gives? Because I know you do a lot around hiring practices, equitable hiring practices, thinking about how to grow your company, that sort of thing.

Yeah, that's such a good question. I think the biggest thing that we're doing is bringing in experts like yourself and other HR partners to meet with our fellows directly. There's some general training, I think you, you hit on the majority of them that everybody needs. And then there's this kind of individualized sort of. I have a question about this thing. And we try to make sure that our HR experts or our recruiting experts are available to each of our biotech companies. Some of them are in a place where they can bring on a third party resource to help them hire and some of them aren't. The other thing that we try to do is really leverage our network when people are looking for new people to try to connect and make sure that there's some at least open communication around hiring and recruiting.

It sounds like you do that for a variety of different topics, but, you know, we've particularly seen how you've had an impact there in the hiring. Is there any other area that you want to highlight that you are also really thinking about in terms of growing these companies or helping them succeed. Aside from talent?

Yeah, I guess one thing, and this is actually related to talent, the one thing that we, you know, one of our guiding principles is around the fact that biotech leaders and really the people working within biotech companies, we want those individuals to reflect the patients out there. Part of the reason that we know that, part of the reason we have unmet need is because the people sort of running the processes don't necessarily come from those communities. And so one thing that's really important for us is to bring all different types of people into bio. We're focused on biotech leadership, but I think when we focus on those leaders, we're also focusing on that same discussion with how they're building their companies, providing them resources, whether it's training around deib, whether it's connections to HR partners that are really good at that, on the recruiting from, you know, from beginning to end on recruiting and benefits and really running teams and running culture. But that's something that's really important to us, is that we're bringing all different types of people into biotech and supporting leaders who support cultures that do that. Because we're so focused on the patients, we're really focused. Biotech is focused on meeting unmet need. And we do believe that it's. That the only way that we can do that, that we can drive biotech companies and leaders to meet unmet need, is if people come from those communities and then lead the companies and lead the therapeutics and lead the next stage of initiatives.

You work obviously with getting these biotechs up and running, and they're small and they're private, but you're a nonprofit. So for people who are maybe interested in going the nonprofit route in their career, is there anything that you think people should consider, like maybe they don't know about working in a nonprofit that was surprising to you or that you find surprising that people don't know?

Yeah. So, you know, I love this question because I think people. I noticed this especially here. There. There are these, like, here in Boston, where we're located, there's these like, really specific career paths that people see in corporate America. And those are great. And I think, you know, working in a nonprofit, we talked about this ability to like, play out one's Swiss army knife dreams. You know, a lot of nonprofits have resources. They. Some of them aren't as resourced, some of them are a little more resourced, but you can really play out that like stakeholder engagement strategy, mixing strategy with operations, really thinking about how you do both of those things. Getting a full picture of an organization. There's an ability to come in and really like do a lot of different types of jobs if that's interesting to people and really create a career and a focus even on that. It's not like someone who sort of does everything all the time. That's kind of a different, it's a different ball game. But being someone who says, you know, I love strategy and you know what I love even more is getting the operations team on board with a strategy. Right. Doing that kind of like full picture work. I also think, and this is the thing that people think about, it's a mission driven organization. I love that there are so many for profits now that are self identifying as mission driven. That's the, the wave of the future. Right. But for now a lot of that mission driven work is being done in nonprofits. And so being able to say like I really care, I, I'm passionate about this thing for me, I'm really passionate about leaders as change agents. Right. But there are a whole host of things that people can be passionate about and actually do a job that aligns with that and, and see real impact at the end of the day. That is the thing that drives me. I love that. I think in every job that I've had I've been able to see impact the work that I done and really see what, what actually happens. I do this work every day for a year and I'm able to see like this is actually impacting these people or this group of people at the end of the day. So it's just like it's a level of meaning that I think is really, really critical for a lot of people.

We're seeing that that is a non negotiable for candidates these days. It is something that companies need to lead with and I don't. I think you're right. There are some that are starting to and, and especially these smaller biotechs. But we're seeing it from the small biotechs they're leading from sort of mission driven, you know, put your culture out there type of organization. I think there's not enough companies doing it. So if you are somebody listening to this and you do really want that mission driven feeling and that sense of accomplishment in your work, maybe nonprofit's a great place to look.

Yeah, I completely agree. I certainly wouldn't discount it for people. It's a good conversation to have and actually I see the same thing with my friends that are thinking about more mission driven work. You know, some of them are shifting from, for example, consulting to biotech, because biotech, so many biotechs, you're right, especially the smaller ones, they're really articulating. We're working on this platform to focus on all of these disease states, or we're focusing on this specific disease. And it's so meaningful because you can really see at every stage of the way how that's going to impact patients. But I also have a lot of friends who are like, they get to a certain point where they're like, I just, I want to know why I'm doing this thing. And I really want to explore a career in nonprofit. I have a lot of these conversations with people. I've always been a nonprofit, but I got my MBA where almost everybody was for profit. So people, a lot of. I have those conversations and I love having those conversations with people about people who are thinking about switching back and forth.

What about mentorship in your own career? Have you had some excellent mentors who kind of steered you into nonprofit or maybe just guided you along the way?

The, the shift into nonprofit for me was really an individual who's still a close friend of mine and somebody that I went to undergrad with. So she was really a peer mentor and still is like a guiding light in my life. She's the one who sort of involved me early on in human rights work and just has such a beautiful North Star for the work that she's doing. Both it's based both on her personal experience and on just knowing how to sort of bring people along and make real community impact. And so she was an early mentor for me. And then I've been so lucky my entire life to have different mentors all along the way. I've always really valued peer mentors and people who are further along in their career to really help me think through the next step. I'm that person that calls someone to say, hey, this job is on the table, should I consider it? And I've had jobs on the table. When I moved, I moved from Philadelphia to Boston. My boss in Philadelphia was and continues to be a mentor. I still think about the things that he said to me. And I was considering a job that would have been a really big job here in Boston. And I told him about it and he said, you know, look, I'm supportive, I'll be a reference. I'll tell them to hire you, but you should not take that job. And I didn't take the job. And he was so right. And if I hadn't had that conversation with him, you know, that's like a real relationship of trust between a mentor and a mentee, you know, to be able to say, don't take that job, you know, and for me to not get offended or for him to not be offended if I ignored his advice, turns out I didn't. Some of the best advice I've gotten, because it set me on a completely different trajectory, which was better for me. So even things like that, I. I've just really. I've leaned on that. And obviously my career growth in huge part is due to that particular mentor and boss in Philadelphia. I would not be here without him. And I can say that about a lot of people, individuals in my life.

That's fantastic. I think that's an amazing story. And I think that really speaks to the. The value of mentors, peer mentors and mentors who have maybe gone before us is that they. Sometimes people look at you with a lens that you can't see yourself. Right. So I think it's that kind of mirror image. And if you do have that level of trust where someone can say, like, hey, I see something in this that, like, you maybe don't see because you're so in it, that is just so incredibly valuable.

It's so valuable. Yeah. I mean, I think for me, a true mentor is someone who will just tell me what I need to hear regardless. And for me, I always try, try, although not always succeed, be that person that anybody can say anything to me, and then I'll just absorb it, even if I don't agree with it or act differently because of that information. I think it's been really critical to my career to just be an open book to all different types of advice. And thank God, because I think I'm here in part because of that, because people have been willing to tell me what I needed to hear, and you've.

Been willing to listen. So it goes both ways. I love Adam Grant. I don't know if you're familiar with Adam Grant's work, but he was saying that to receive feedback, if you get bad feedback, maybe the feedback is like a 3 out of 10, you know, on a something you've done a talk, whatever he said, I value more my ability to say, like, the second score is, how did I take the feedback? So I want a 10 out of 10 on how I took that feedback, even if the feedback was low. Isn't that great?

I completely agree with that. I completely. I Wish everyone could follow that. It's really not necessary to act on all feedback and some feedback is actually really not helpful. Right. It's race with bias or whatever. I think it's critical to say that, especially as a woman leader. Right. It's really critical to say that a lot of feedback that we get is race with bias. And. And it's really important to get a 10 out of 10 on receiving that feedback, whatever that looks like for each person's, you know, leadership authenticity. I completely agree.

Absolutely. I love your communication style and I can imagine working for and with you would be a joy. Some of the things I've heard you say in this, you've taken the and approach. You've said a thing. There are many people would say.

But.

And you've said and. And I really value that. I think that's a fantastic communication quality. So I just wanted to point that out.

Thank you. Thank you for that feedback.

There's some feedback.

10, 10 on that feedback. Thank you.

What is. What is next for you? What does 10 years from now look like for you? I know you're planning the T's 10 years, but what is that for you?

Oh, my gosh. You know, I'm. I am always thinking about this. I'm definitely one of these people that chooses where I am every day based on what impact I'm having, you know, on the world and on the team and actually have made most of my career switches because I have said, like, I'm not having the impact that I want to have here, either my work on the community or within the organization. And so my hope and dream and aspiration would be that 10 years from now I am continue to be in a place where I'm having impact on the world, but I don't know where that will be. I. I think that it sounds kind of crazy, right, Because I think a lot of people do have sort of like visuals onto where they want to be in their life. I have really let the river take me downstream for better, for worse. I'm very happy with that. But also, I haven't been super deliberate, so I can't be deliberate. I don't think in the next 10 years either. But if we're talking 10 years from now, I hope that I can say to you that I'm having impact on the people around me in some way. Positive impact. Let's be clear. Positive impact.

That is a fantastic answer. I love that I am also someone who kind of has let the river take me. And I find that question I'm Always like, oh, I have just no idea. It's great to think about, but couldn't give you a solid answer. What I am curious about is what is a nonfiction or fiction book that you have read recently that you think everybody should read?

Oh, yeah. So fiction. Abraham Verghese. I just read the Covenant of Water, which is his new book. He also wrote Cutting for Stone, which is a beautiful. He's one of the most beautiful writers I have ever read in my entire life. I read actually a lot of science fiction and Abraham Versi is not science fiction. And so for me to shift over into something that is like so poignant in real life, it takes like a beautiful. He's just a gorgeous writer. And you know, the Covenant of Water, it's about a family, multiple generations of a family, but at its core it's about disease and a multi generational search for preventing death. And it's just like beautiful. I don't wanna, I don't wanna give anything away, but it's so beautifully written. The way he ties in the health and wellness theme is just. It's beautiful. So I always recommend any of his books. And then on the nonfiction side, obviously I read a lot of leadership stuff and so I think a lot of that is really great. But I think the book that has stuck with me the most is Malcolm X's autobiography. It's one of those that I read. Someone suggested it and I just wasn't sure that I would connect in with it because of the time period. It's very long. I was obsessed. I couldn't stop reading it. I can't stop thinking about it. I think obviously Malcolm X was a tremendously interesting and impactful human on our world. And what I really liked about that book is it reframed how I thought about history and how I thought about how people talk about history. And so I just loved it and highly recommend it.

Okay. I am so excited to read both of those books and if I ever start a book podcast, you have to come on it because I like the way you describe books. Those were both me synopsis that like I have to go out right now and get these books because they both sound so great. Katherine, this has been so fun. It's such a delight chatting with you. If people want to connect with you, what is the best way for them to do so?

LinkedIn. Obviously, the Tamir foundation has a website, but we love our LinkedIn as a Tamir foundation. I love LinkedIn. It's my favorite way to communicate with people and I always love meeting new people and chatting with them. So I would love for people to connect with me or the foundation on LinkedIn.

Amazing. We'll put both of those in the show notes so people can click through. Thank you so much. This was so fun.

Thank you guys. This was a blast.

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