[00:00:01] Hi, it’s John here, along with my co-host, Teresa.

[00:00:05] Hey, John, it’s great to be here

[00:00:06] and great to air quotes. See you.

[00:00:09] Likewise. So I have a question for you. Shoot. Do you consider yourself creative?

[00:00:15] Oh, no. That is such a tough question. But you know what? I think all people are creative. We just express it in very different ways. And you know what? We’ve seen that through the pandemic, whether it’s health workers or teachers or creative artists, all connecting with people in very different and difficult but ultimately creative ways.

[00:00:36] Even before the pandemic, the world was grappling with an accelerated digital revolution that was radically altering the way we all live, work and interact. And we’ve been seeing companies completely reinvent themselves and reorient themselves to address the challenges they’re seeing. And a surprising new power still is emerging.

[00:00:56] Creativity is more valued than ever before. It’s the skill that matters. I remember looking at LinkedIn. The number one skill you had to have was creativity.

[00:01:06] That was Richard Florida, the urban theorist whose book The Rise of the Creative Class, predicted this moment way back in 2002. Our team has spent the last several months interviewing experts like Richard about the importance of creativity. We’ve talked to the companies that are harnessing it most effectively and the academics who are teaching it most passionately to create an entire hub of knowledge, advice and examples of creativity.

[00:01:34] Yeah, it’s it’s been a really fun project to get to do. We managed to create our own definition of creativity, and we also explored how that mix up your unleashed bursts of creativity and innovation. We dug into how it manifests in people, organizations and the economy. And we looked at labour market trends, including the demand for it in sectors that have been most disrupted by the pandemic.

[00:01:58] And Teresa, before we go any further, maybe an uncreative question, certainly a one-on-one question, what is creativity?

[00:02:05] So according to our definition, it is novelty plus value.

[00:02:10] So when I stop on the local street to talk to a sidewalk artist about whatever they are drawing on the sidewalk, is that creativity?

[00:02:19] Well, if it is something new, then that is creative. And, you know, even if you don’t particularly find it interesting, but maybe the person behind you does, then that’s valuable.

[00:02:29] And maybe just the fact that we’re talking about it is all the value that sometimes you need. But creativity is about much more than art is about much more than the expression of the human spirit. Through our research at RBC, we are increasingly convinced that creativity is going to be a critical skill through the 20 20s right across Canada. And we think that our economic prosperity may even depend in the coming decades on that very ability to harness creativity. This is Disruptors and RBC podcast, I’m your host, John Stackhouse,

[00:03:13] and I’m Teresa Do RBC’s thought leadership team. And it’s our pleasure to welcome you to the first episode of a special two part series on creativity.

[00:03:29] I’m so excited about some of the guests we’ve lined up, folks from Shopify, Ubisoft and Metalworks to name just a few, but to kick off the series of conversations, it’s a real pleasure to introduce the head of a company that calls creativity its defining ideal

[00:03:45] from set creators and costume designers to choreographers and composers. Cirque du Soleil s headquarters in Montreal is filled with craftspeople and specialists and all sorts of creative fields to research.

[00:03:56] It was such a treat to sit down with Cirque’s CEO, Daniel about twice, actually, since we ran into some tech issues the first time. But as he told us, the show must go on. It takes a creative type to say that, I guess. But when we did get rolling, we began by asking him how he defines creativity and how important it is to what Cirque does not just in the big tent, but as a business every day.

[00:04:26] Yeah, for me, creativity is the ability to make or otherwise bring into existence something new, whether a new solution to a problem, a new methodology or a new device, in our case, a new artistic show. For me, my belief is that there is no commerce without creativity. For an artists, there will be a lot of creativity without commerce. But for a businessperson, if you don’t have any creativity, when is going to happen? One day is that whatever you do would become obsolete. And that’s very, very important that you were able to reinvent yourself with creativity, because if you want to remain relevant, if you want to keep your leadership, it’s very, very important that all the time you bring people, creative people, to reinvent yourself. That’s why it’s so important to invest in research and development. That’s why it’s so important to be on the lookout for new ideas, new concepts, new products

[00:05:33] all the time. That’s a beautiful way of describing it. It’s hard in my mind to imagine a Canadian organization, maybe a global organization that is more creative than Cirque du Soleil. It just embodies creativity in so many different ways. Danielle, give us a sense of how you approach creativity at Cirque.

[00:05:51] First of all, you have to create a creative environment, which means in our case, if you if you walk in the building, you will see a lot of pieces of art. If you walk in our studio, you will see artists rehearsing. It’s very, very important that it doesn’t matter if you work in finance or H.R. If you work at Cirque du Soleil, we want you to remember who you’re working for and what is the purpose of what you do. And I strongly suggest that this formula should apply to any type of industry, that when you work in the building of an organization, it should feel and breed the nature of the business you’re in.

[00:06:37] Cirque du Soleil has been successful for many, many, many years. How is the company been able to sustain that creativity over the decades?

[00:06:46] That’s the daily challenge of an organization like us, because I don’t want people to feel when they will see the next show of Cirque du Soleil that they had seen it before. So the challenge is all the time to be on the lookout for new artists. So casting is very, very important to us. The other thing is we’re always on the lookout for new technologies in order to develop new scenography, new technologies and activities. So all those ideas are coming out from challenging each other about new technologies, new type of new type of music, new type of costume. And that’s how you remain relevant in our world.

[00:07:31] And who I’m curious within the organization contributes to those ideas. Do you solicit them from top all the way down, or how do these ideas get manifested?

[00:07:41] Yeah, I like to think that we have five thousand pair of eyes and ears and we encourage our people to always feed us with something, the discomfort, because sometimes it might be by reading a book, seeing a new movie, a hearing and your piece of music, or just seeing something on YouTube or on social media that could be attractive to us. And that’s why we like to have people challenging each other within the entire organization. Because even if you were in H.R. and Finance again, you might see something on social media that could be very attractive to us. And that’s what we like to do, is to create this environment where people feel legitimate to bring their creative ideas to other people within the organization.

[00:08:41] Cercas always struck me as kind of like the United Nations, it attracts people, creators from every corner of the world. I’m wondering if there are places that tend to develop more creative people than others.

[00:08:53] We like to think that Quebec is definitely a good place because we’re good as inventing new things here. The reality is, to your point about being a United Nation type of cast, I truly believe that’s one of the uniqueness of our organization, because when you walk in the cafeteria, you have the feeling that you are at the United Nations cafeteria, which is great because you have people coming from 50 different nationalities coming here with their own culture, their own ideas, their own backgrounds

[00:09:31] could probably locate itself in any number of different cities, in any number of different places around the world. What is it about Montreal that allows you to flourish? That enables Cirque’s creative dynamism?

[00:09:45] First of all, as you know, there is the influence of the French culture and also the North American culture. They don’t have the feeling that there are Montreal. They have the feeling that, as we said earlier, that there are United Nations. But more importantly, foreigners feel very welcome in Canada. You have a feeling when you come into our creative studio that you’re at home. And that’s one of the big advantage that we have as Canadians. So as we have here in Montreal, having created a very unique artistic infrastructure that brings people from around the world to come and work with Cirque du Soleil because of the approach that we have, but also because of the unique facilities that we have. Hollywood is for movie. Montreal is for circus arts.

[00:10:40] What do you think Canada needs to do to foster more of that creative energy in that artistic spirit over the next decade, especially as we come out of the pandemic?

[00:10:50] I think as a country, we’re still very well-positioned, but we’re very nice. Therefore, we’re too often in the shadow of our, you know, us neighbor. And I think what we will need in the future is to be much more aggressive about affirming our culture, affirming our values and taking a much more leadership role in the world.

[00:11:22] Which countries in the world. Do you think are the most creative? And where does Canada rank among them

[00:11:27] or the best were the best. And thus the way we should be thinking, are we the best? I have nothing to support that. But I think we should say and I think we should affirm that and we should fight for that place. Know we have created in Montreal an event which is called C to Montreal, which is which is a creative event that is happening every year. And I’m one of the founder of that activity. And when we founded C to Montreal, this idea was to become the Davos of creativity. And that’s the way you can brand yourself as a country by doing some statement, creating some event that will confirm your positioning. And I’m a strong believer that we can have the brand. Canada can have the brand of being the the best place in the world for creators.

[00:12:28] So that’s such an inspiring vision. It’s a fantastic start to our series. I like the idea of an acrobat in the lobby. It is what you would expect of a circus, but it also tells you what organizations can do to inspire creativity in their own way, in their own business. But for every employee, doesn’t matter if you’re the bookkeeper or a front line artist or performer walking through that front door, you can’t help but feel creative and probably be inspired through the day.

[00:12:57] Yeah, and it goes to show if you give people permission to be creative, they totally can be

[00:13:02] coloring outside the lines, I think is the expression we all need to do it more.

[00:13:07] What’s next? So Circus, the company that’s embodied creativity from the start. But we also wanted to hear from what you might call a, quote, old economy business. So Kyla Lee is the face of Vancouver’s Acumen Law. She’s a tough talking defense lawyer who specializes in driving related offenses,

[00:13:26] but she’s also young Mayte and author, blogger, podcast, tick talker and singer songwriter. She admits there are some people in her industry and maybe it’s more than some who frown at this approach to social media and other. Content platforms, but she doesn’t see a big difference between creating content and arguing a case in court.

[00:13:47] I think creativity is argument when you’re creating something, when you’re putting a piece of art or a photograph or a video or any type of perspective out there, you’re advocating your position, whether it’s your position about a belief or a feeling or a legal position, and you’re creating an educational video, whatever it is that you’re creating is your argument about the thing that you’re doing, the creative work about. And so I don’t think that there’s any difference between creativity and argument. I see creativity as a form of argument. Kyla, who I honestly consider as a Renaissance woman of sorts, she makes a great case for why more, quote, old economy businesses may want to consider trying to inject a little creativity into their processes.

[00:14:37] Teresa, creativity has always been important. It’s probably how we evolved, but people might wonder why it matters now, maybe more than ever, especially as Canada looks beyond the pandemic and into some exciting and scary decades ahead. To find out more, we reached out to a bona fide expert on innovation.

[00:14:57] Ajay Agarwal is the professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. He also co-founded Next Canada, a support program for the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs, which we featured on this podcast before.

[00:15:11] A is one of those Renaissance people who you were describing. But for this series, Teresa, we’re most interested in his work at the Creative Destruction Lab, which he founded at the U of T in twenty twelve. Welcome to Disruptors.

[00:15:25] Thanks very much, John. It’s a pleasure to be here.

[00:15:28] Let’s start with how you define creativity and how do you teach it in a business school.

[00:15:33] So we think of it as the process of developing solutions to problems that are better than the existing solutions and so better can be defined in a variety of ways. It can be it’s cheaper, it’s faster, it has less environmental impact. It’s more inclusive. There’s all kinds of ways for setting up the parameters for how we measure what good is. But once we set up those parameters that the creation of better solutions to problems. And so my view on creativity, how we teach in the business school is start by what’s the objective, what’s the purpose, what’s the thing we’re trying to do. And so from a creativity perspective is what’s the most efficient way that we can achieve that goal. And so when we work on creativity in the business school, effectively, the very first step is identifying what it is we’re trying to achieve in the first place. And and that sounds really easy and it’s surprisingly hard. Like, in other words, many organizations that I go to meet and tell me about all the innovation programs and I’ll say, what’s the goal? How do you know if you succeed? And you’d be surprised many times. They can’t answer the question

[00:16:41] just to build on that. Do you think that that comes from a problem where creativity is difficult to measure?

[00:16:48] Yes, if you don’t have a goal and that’s one of the reasons I think Terry said that universities are really sort of this very important institution in society because at universities there’s an environment for people to be creative and innovate. With no application in mind, it can be literally their curiosity. So curiosity driven research, which is very, very important for an overall research ecosystem. But to bring that into a commercial setting, it’s really important to have a goal and to have an outcome so that you can basically give creativity, some direction and some guardrails.

[00:17:25] You deal with a lot of tech companies through the creative destruction lab. But I’m curious, is creativity different in tech companies than in other businesses?

[00:17:36] Well, I think the kinds of businesses that I work with, John, they’re usually very small. They’re very often pretty revenue. And so the reason that there are different is that they don’t have all the bureaucracy that a larger organization has. And so they have a little more freedom to explore and they can really be problem focused. The creativity there comes in these small firms in the latitude that they can explore a very wide search space, often without a lot of bureaucratic limitations in terms of the different solution types that you might want to explore to solve the problem, that these smaller tech companies are able to do quite a like a large and unrestrained search.

[00:18:22] That’s so interesting when you think of a large organization that wants to embed more creativity into its culture, it wants to build up more innovations. What are your thoughts on their efforts to replicate that sort of startup like environment that is separate from what some people call corporate antibodies to the creativity process?

[00:18:44] Yeah, that’s a great question. Is so important, I would say so. That’s the number one question that I get when I meet with executives of large organizations. They come and they visit Creative Destruction Lab. They see how works and they say, how can we replicate or get something like this inside organizations? My view is there’s three key things. Thing number one, set a really well-defined target or goal step to give people the the resources that they need in order to explore solutions to the goal. Sometimes that is, you know, people need some time. They need some free time. If they’re kind of expected to keep doing their full time jobs, it’s hard for them to have the kind of mental space they need in order to explore areas outside of what might be their initial domain of expertize. And then third is ways to recognize success along the way.

[00:19:37] I imagine some creative types see setting goals as restrictive, even controlling of their creativity, and I think as a Google 20 percent time where the company allows employees to spend 20 percent of their time on almost anything, much of it without goals, can actually be limiting or restrictive to creativity.

[00:19:56] Well, first of all, I would love to see the data on the on the Google 20 percent. I wouldn’t be surprised if the people that have been most successful through that program are ones who set goals for what they were going to do with their 20 percent. I think goals can be a great energizer to creativity because the minute you set constraints now the creative mind gets to work on how do I achieve the goal conditional on these constraints. So right now, for example, we’ve created a not for profit spin from creative destruction left in response to covid-19, which is focused on creating a rapid screening solution.

[00:20:31] But how has the crisis challenge different approaches to creativity and which approaches seem to be excelling in this environment?

[00:20:38] Well, I guess the primary distinction has been not being able to work shoulder to shoulder with people, and a lot of creativity requires collaboration. I’ve done a fair amount of research on the role of collaboration in creativity and innovation and how how collaborations actually become increasingly important over time as fields have become more and more complex than in order to really understand the frontier of the field, you need to collaborate across multiple people who are experts in different areas. It’s very hard to be an expert across multiple areas now, and so the more need for collaboration. So I would say for covid, the biggest thing has been learning to do all this collaboration online, so much going digital. And so for us, that’s been the biggest shift.

[00:21:26] I have one final question before we wrap up. As we come out of the pandemic and look to the years and decades ahead, how do we scale creativity in our workforce and our economy, especially for people who might not think that they’re capable of being creative?

[00:21:42] That’s a great question. So, first of all, I think of creativity as a process and a process requires often a team. And so a team has people with different skills. And so I find that everybody has the potential to play a role in the creative process. It might be a different role, but there is a role for everybody in the creative process. That said, it’s not a free ride. In other words, every role requires developing the muscle to play that role. So think of like anybody can play soccer that maybe they can play at a at an elite level, but they can play. But there’s different positions and you might be more suited to be a defensive player or an offensive player, depending on a variety of characteristics about you. But regardless, even if you have a predisposition to be a defensive player, you still have to develop the muscle, the skill set to play that role. And that’s true. And creativity in the creative process. One of the muscles to develop is the ability to identify what assumptions am I relying on and are those even right. And so that just is a skill. And people with practice learn to do it. And so all of a sudden, somebody who never had really thought of how to identify one of the underlying assumptions and then how do I challenge them with some practice, they start developing the muscle to be able to do that.

[00:23:02] Thanks for being on

[00:23:03] disruptors, John. Thanks for having me. It’s a real pleasure to be here and speak with you and Teresa.

[00:23:10] So, Teresa, as Canadians, I guess we all need to start hitting the mental gym and working out those creative muscles.

[00:23:16] I am so ready. I have been wearing yoga pants for most of the past 12 months anyway. And speaking of which, we’re going to chat with Lululemon in part two of the series. But to follow up on Jay’s thoughts on the role of creativity in a post covid Canada, I want to share something we heard from Sarah Diamond. Right.

[00:23:35] That’s perfect timing. Sarah is president emerita of what’s called Canada’s University of the Imagination, the Ontario College of Art and Design University or Oxford. You in Toronto? We had a great conversation with her about the explosion of creativity we’ve witnessed during the pandemic. But she also pointed out an interesting challenge, namely, it’s one thing to be creative and quite another to get paid for it.

[00:24:02] For me, one of the real fundamentals here is to think through how we ensure that there’s a living wage for artists and how we integrate artists into the strategic thinking of our world. Post covid-19. So the public realm, public space artists should be really part of thinking through that physical world that we’re in. And they should be paid to work with developers, with designers, with architects, with the people creating the virtual infrastructure of cities to to think about what that world can be. I do. I think we’re going to want to be outside, we’re going to want to be in that physical world of contact with each other. So how do we think about enough support for the arts that we have very strong, creative, not for profit environment as well as what I’m sure will be really the growth of for profit cultural enterprises?

[00:25:05] Our next guest knows a lot about the intersection of creativity and business and about the importance of supporting artists. He’s an artist himself, a Canadian musical icon, at least if you’re of a certain age, right?

[00:25:18] John?

[00:25:19] Yeah, Teresa, I am of that age.

[00:25:27] So Gilmore is the drummer and vocalist of Triumph, the Mississauga based power trio founded in 1975. He’s also the founder of Canada’s biggest recording studio and premier entertainment arts for metalworks.

[00:25:40] I met Gil for the first time last fall when I visited metalworks in Mississauga just to the west of Toronto. It’s this incredible hub of creativity. And as Gil and I were walking around the music studio and then the music school and then the production centers where he develops stage concepts, but also these pioneering tech approaches to maybe how we’ll see concerts in the years and decades ahead. It got us both talking about how music and more broadly creativity is not just getting us through the pandemic. It can be a real fuel for the recovery. Gil, it’s great to speak with you again. Welcome to Disruptors.

[00:26:25] Nice to be here, John.

[00:26:26] Gil Teresa has already aged to find herself. So I’m going to take this question on myself and take you back to nineteen eighty one, which I’m proud to remember, and a song called Magic Power, which had some of the most amazing lyrics of that time. It begins with the lines. I’m young, I’m wild, and I’m free. Do you need to be young, wild and free

[00:26:51] to be creative? I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s any any boundaries on creativity age wise. In fact, I feel more creative now than I did when I was younger, if only because I think about things more. So you’re tend to meander in your thoughts down different pathways when you consider things in a more complex way that leads to creativity, I believe. I think it’s a natural creativity when you’re younger, when you’re really, really focused on one thing, you’re seeing kind of the future through a straw. Nothing is bad. I think it’s good. It’s good to really drill down and try to get good at something. Whatever it is could be mathematics. It could be playing hockey. I don’t care what it is. I think it’s terrific to have focus. But I think over time you need to have a bigger lens. I think that broader lens and deeper thought leads to more creativity, although I will say that focus of youth, it leads to sometimes an explosion of ideas in a small area guild.

[00:28:02] Take us back to your youth. When did you realize you were creative?

[00:28:06] I don’t know that I did. I always thought I was pretty slow learner.

[00:28:10] Isn’t that often the case with creative types?

[00:28:13] I think that’s all over the map. I think, for example, if you have someone that’s a virtuoso, which I was not, then you can see the explosive growth in their talent. And it is kind of like a natural repository of of creative juice that just flows. They have this mojo that the ninety nine out of one hundred people don’t have. And then you have the rest of us, you know, as Gordon Lightfoot once famously said, you know, it’s it’s ninety five percent perspiration and five percent inspiration. I would find that through repetition and through gaining skills that you’re then able to harness creativity. If you don’t have any skills and you haven’t really harnessed any energy in a certain direction, you can’t be very creative because you’re you’re you’re sort of flummoxed at that point. You’re like, I want to I wish I could have that, you know, but shoulda, woulda, coulda eventually loses out to someone who really, really does the ten thousand hours. And then through that process of the ten thousand hours, this is where the creativity starts to emerge.

[00:29:29] Could you expand on that, Gil? I’m thinking of someone like you who found success with your skills in the broader mainstream market, let’s say, compared to maybe someone with comparable skills, but who ends up being a busker. What’s the difference in how you achieve that success?

[00:29:46] Well, this gets into this interesting conversation about what creativity really is. And if it was just all about creative skills. I’m just talking about music right now. It would be easy to define success because you would be able to look at the performance capabilities. I’ll call them the athletic capabilities that are kind of commodities that you can grade. But that isn’t what happens. What happens is the circumstances, the way the ball bounces, so to speak, come along that have nothing to do with those those skills. And that’s where I think you get the. Opportunities, I think that the music world and I and I really apply this to just about anything is it is a bit of a Snakes and ladders game. So if you are super creative, it might allow you to actually see the ladder, whereas someone is has creative skills in a certain area like, let’s say, musical skills, but they don’t have the creative skills in business to see the difference between a snake and a ladder. So that’s why I think you end up with people that are phenomenally talented, phenomenally creative, that are massive failures, and you also see mediocre talents that don’t seem to have, you know, the eye of the tiger in terms of creativity but are tremendously successful. And then there’s those that seem to have it all.

[00:31:18] What is that secret sauce that makes someone incredibly creative?

[00:31:22] I think determination has a lot to do with it, which is not what most people would say. I don’t think that someone’s creative and they just they just wake up and the sun shines on them. I just don’t believe that’s how it works. I believe that the result of determination and perseverance have a lot more to do with creativity than one might surmise, particularly if somebody is thinks of themselves as not being creative. So they have a job that is really mundane and repetitive. They can be very creative in that job and not even realize that they’re creative because they think of creativity as art, music, some form of the creative arts. That to them is is they’re unfamiliar with it. They feel intimidated by it. Let’s say another example would be I don’t think athletes necessarily think they’re creative. I think athletes are incredibly, incredibly creative people. If you look almost almost anywhere, whether we talk about Tom Brady and you think about those split second decisions that he’s making before he launches his pass, those are creative. Those are subjective decisions. I mean, that requires that visualization, I suppose, of that ball, whatever is in his head at that moment, if he’s visualizing how he releases the ball or how it lands and hits the net, you know, great golfers are like that. They visualize their shots. And so look at look at that through the creative one sports, the business I was reading about Warren Buffett today. What does Warren Buffett know about creativity? Well, I would say he knows a lot. So a lot of people would say, what are you talking about? He’s an investor. Investors aren’t creative. Well, I would say, hell, yeah, they are. You know, the really good ones. I think that knee jerking and quick reactions are lead to failure in life and in business, having patience and being able to listen to others, process the information and then make what I’m going to call a measured response. And by that, I don’t mean slow and I don’t mean becoming bound up and calcifying. I just mean that patience to really digest the information, let it resonate, let it marinate and allow you to make a creative decision.

[00:33:58] Speaking of marinating or stewing, maybe it feels like we’re in my two hundred and forty of the pandemic, which has led to an explosion of creativity and a lot of ways. But it’s also led to a lot of pain. How much of a role do you think pain or hardship place and creativity and what implications does that have for where we are and

[00:34:20] where we’re going? I think pain and hardship lead to creativity. I think fear leads to creativity. I think hardship leads to creativity for different reasons. I think it’s spread into us. You know, it’s it goes back to the flight or or flight response in animals like that is almost has to turn on the creative spigot instantly. Where I think we get into a situation where creativity is extinguished, it’s not in the mode of pain or despair. It’s in the area of anger. And there’s a lot of anger that goes along with a pandemic. People are angry about this and they’re angry about that. I think the minute that the human mind switches into anger mode, that the ability to create goes right out the window. I have never found that if I let emotion, the emotion of anger kick in, that I have anything creative to say or any creative juice whatsoever. At that moment, you just become a cement block.

[00:35:25] So how do you businesses avoid that inertia, especially at a time when, like you said, so many people are feeling frustrated or stuck because of the pandemic?

[00:35:35] I don’t think that businesses, even if they’re creative businesses like metalworks, can remain static. You know, life’s dynamic businesses has to be dynamic. Innovation in everything is the key to moving the needle. So I never feel like, oh, we got it. No, we never we never got it. We’re at a certain base camp on the mountain. There is no God at like the summit of the mountain is still somewhere where we’re headed. We don’t know exactly how we’re going to get there. We hope we know. We think we have a map, you know, oops, we made a wrong turn. These are all the fundamentals of business there. They’re creative necessities of. Business, all businesses, no matter whether what business, RBC and banking, they have to iterate their banking model. And that’s, you know, needs to be powered by creativity for you to read or die. That’s how I see the processes of business

[00:36:34] iterate or die. Spoken like a true rock star. Gil, this has been a great shot. Thanks so much for your time.

[00:36:41] Thank you, John. I enjoyed every minute of it.

[00:36:45] Teresa, we’ve heard more than a few rock stars on disruptors over the years. Granted, most of them are from the tech space. And now we’ve had a real rock star, Gilmore, the drummer of Triumph. I was really struck by what he said about the importance of repetition to creativity. I kind of thought, you know, coming from the music world, he had say that most creative types, certainly musicians are kind of born that way. And he stressed that, no, you practice, practice, practice, and that’s how creative types, they’re not born. They’re made.

[00:37:18] Yeah. That that really resonated with me about the importance of having learned experience and knowledge to be able to generate more complex ideas. And it also reminded me of what AJ said about how collaboration is so important, because you can’t be an expert in multiple areas now like you might have been able to before. And so the need to work with other people, you know, the notion that creativity is a team sport are so fundamental to be able to think about how to embedded into our economy.

[00:37:48] And of course, it’s a real team sport when it comes to the circus. It was fascinating to hear Daniel Lahmar from Cirque du Soleil talk about how they approach creativity. And it surprised me how they see it embedded in every job in the organization, not just the people we see on center stage under the big tent, but the finance. And our teams back at headquarters in Montreal are as much a part of the creative enterprise as the performers. Maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise, but it’s a great message to all of us that creativity is something that exists probably in everyone. And we certainly need to find ways to draw it out from everyone if we’re to thrive as organizations or teams or even as individuals heading out of this pandemic. How we do that is going to be the subject of Episode two in our two part series. Teresa, who do we have lined up for that?

[00:38:43] Oh, we have so many fantastic people lined up. I am really excited to hear from Shopify. You know, they are Canadian, darling, and to be able to talk to one of the key founding members of their exponential growth, that is going to be awesome. How about you?

[00:39:00] I’m keen to hear from Ubisoft, the gaming company. Of course, gaming is all about creativity, but it marries narrative storytelling and technology in ways that I think every sector, every organization should be learning from

[00:39:13] in the 20s. Yeah. So we made a compelling case for creativity in this episode. And then we get to hear the how and different parts of the economy for the next. It’s shaping up to be a real good series.

[00:39:23] Well, as those creative types often say, stay tuned until next time. I’m John Stackhouse

[00:39:29] and I’m Theresa Do. This is Disruptors and RBC podcast. Talk to you soon.

Disruptors and RBC podcast is created by the RBC Thought Leadership Group and does not constitute a recommendation for any organization, product or service, it’s produced and recorded by Jar Audio for more disruptors, content like or subscribe or ever you get your podcasts and visit RBC Dotcom Slash Disruptors.

[00:00:09] Hi, it’s John here. Over the last year, the calls for black inclusion across society reached a remarkable pitch. And while we saw some remarkable change, it wasn’t enough. One sector that was particularly challenged was tech, not just from a representation point of view, but in terms of how technology both drove and stifled progress.

[00:00:33] One reason the murder of George Floyd shook the world the way it did was technology. Passers by were able to live stream police brutality for the whole planet to watch. That wasn’t possible a decade ago. And yet those same platforms that allow us to listen to the world can also silence too many voices.

[00:00:54] The worst thing that someone ever said to me was that no one would take me seriously because I was trying to help black people and no one would take me seriously because I was black, because I was young, because I was a woman.

[00:01:06] That’s Tamar Huggins Grant. She’s the founder and executive director of Tech Spark Canada. We’ll hear more from her later on. But before we get going, I want to put some key questions to you. How can black men and women, and especially youth, see a compelling future in tech, whether it’s in a big company or starting their own?

[00:01:25] How can we ensure tech doesn’t appropriate black culture? How can we ensure innovation is driven by and accountable to all parts of our society? And what are you doing to ensure the change we’re in the midst of is positive.

[00:01:40] It’s Black History Month. And yes, that’s an opportunity to honor the past, but it’s also an opportunity to look ahead, to think deeply about how to ensure a good share of what some people call the fourth industrial revolution is black led. This is Disruptors and RBK podcast. I’m John Stackhouse.

[00:02:10] In order to tackle these big issues, I’m honored to have Michael Carter here as my co-host. Michael is global head of technology investment banking at RBC Capital Markets in New York. He’s a 25 year veteran of Wall Street with leadership stints at Barclays and Lehman Brothers. And he serves on a range of boards encompassing both tech and leadership opportunities for young people, including the Executive Leadership Council, which is a major body in the US, a black business leaders. Michael thought deeply about many of these issues for much of his life, and it’s always a pleasure to speak with him. Michael, welcome to Disruptors. Thanks, John. Glad to be here, Michael.

[00:02:49] The last time you and I spoke on a podcast was last summer, soon after the murder of George Floyd. Sometimes that feels like last week. Sometimes it feels like a decade ago. And I wonder, when you look back over the last six or eight months, what do you think has changed in the larger conversation around black issues?

[00:03:07] Oh, I think one thing that has definitely changed is that people are more engaged. I think business leaders are making some progress and creating equitable work environments.

[00:03:18] It certainly seems there is definitely more interest in doing that. And that you have we have all witnessed many more investments in trying to get progress or moving toward progress. The other area that I see fairly substantial movement is rethinking leadership and what kind of emotional intelligence is required to understand employees and where they are and where folks need to be as a leader around big issues that are impacting society. I think we all know that the millennial generation, a very large part of millennials, make decisions about whether they’re going to work for a company or not. I think the number was something in Washington Post, about 83 percent of gen Zs. As an example, consider what the commitment is to diversity before they join a company. I think the other area is the commitment to being or allowing employees to be more human at work and to bring their whole selves. I’m not sure we’ve met the frontier yet on that on that point, John, but I think certainly there seems to be a greater embrace of the idea. I think the notion of having more diverse teams for innovation, that concept has been out there for a while, but I think we’re seeing a greater commitment to that as people prioritize change. And then lastly, a greater emphasis on focusing on the gaps both in hiring and pay and to some degree position, although we haven’t seen huge movements there. So that’s where I would see some of the conversations have moved in that direction. And I think there’s been some progress.

[00:05:09] I try to think of tech as both a sector and a platform. It’s a sector like any sector employees. Lots of people produces great companies, big companies. But it’s also a platform on which pretty much the whole economy and society now operates. It creates the operating system of our communities as well as our organizations and individual lives. As I’ve been reflecting on tech over the last six or eight months, I’ve been trying to appreciate the differences in progress between tech as a sector and tech as a platform. And there’s lots of talk about what big tech especially is doing as a sector, especially on the employment and leadership front. You know, there’s been some bold ambitions and reality may be a little bit different, but as a platform, I don’t think we’ve been adequately addressing the hidden biases of of tech. I don’t think we understand them. What have you been learning over the last while in terms of tech as a platform and its role in the diversity conversation across society?

[00:06:17] Well, I don’t think tech in particular big tech, has until recently prioritized change in regards to the voices that are heard on these platforms and even the intention of moving things toward a more equitable society, if you will. But I think, as I said earlier, the conversations have begun to take on a slightly different tone. You see it from the top, whether it’s Microsoft, you see it from Google and Apple, et cetera, where there’s a greater commitment toward using their platform for some of that change. And so I think that’s number one is a greater effort to prioritize change because you’re certainly not going to get it if you don’t prioritize it. The thing that tech. Has not really figured out, though, because if you look at the results, it hasn’t been a substantial change in the results. I still believe there’s about black Americans, as an example, represent 14 percent of the economy and most tech companies have. I’ve seen numbers range from less than five to maybe less than seven, depending on what you’re looking at in tech. And so there hasn’t been a huge movement in regards to the outcomes, in terms of employment, in terms of even senior management, the amount of venture capital that is going into black and other minority businesses. But again, the prioritization around doing more is where I see tech moving to what I’d like to see and not so much the technology itself. John, I think technology itself is important, but what I think the CIS tech is one of the higher paying employment sectors. It would be good to see big tech in particular begin to cultivate places that black talent exist for a very, very long time. If you think about where a lot of the technology centers are taking to Silicon Valley, for one, it’s sort of come to Silicon Valley and, you know, you can get involved in some really creative and interesting things. Well, you know, most black Americans live east of the Mississippi, and so perhaps more thought should go into going where the talent is, as opposed to pronouncements about what could happen if the talent came. And so I think of areas like Atlanta, obviously, which is a very large tech entrepreneurship hub. It’s the entrepreneurship hub for black talent that’s just now beginning to see the kind of rapid development that I would expect from technology companies that were truly prioritizing growth and change, particularly as it relates to black employment. We are seeing more engagement in Miami. As an example, there’s been quite a few announcements, which I think is both good for the black community, but definitely for the Latino community as well. So I think that’s a that’s where I’d like to see more. That’s where innovation, higher employment, greater wealth could be built in the communities. And then that kind of builds upon itself. And change begets change at that point in time. But first, you got to go with an attention to where the talent is so that you can start that train moving.

[00:09:53] That’s a really interesting idea, Michael, to take opportunity to where people are rather than expect market forces to draw them to the opportunity. But it was more than creating a Google office in Miami. As you know, there’s a whole ecosystem that needs to be built, including research centers, great learning centers, universities, venture capital and customers. That’s in some ways why Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley. How do you create that kind of ecosystem in Atlanta or Miami or here in Toronto or let’s say, Montreal?

[00:10:29] Well, first of all, I think we’ve learned that nearly 60 percent I think it’s a little short of that of US citizens as an example, can work remotely. And so the pandemic, you know, suggests that geography is not necessarily the challenge for creating the type of centers that we’re talking about.

[00:10:49] I mean, we’ve now been able to advance vaccines within two years. I think we can figure out how to advance technology by using remote capability and other technologies to involve people and to incorporate more activity outside of Silicon Valley. But to be very specific with what you were saying in regards to more of the physical side of infrastructure, creating sort of that DNA of creativity and innovation, which I think is really what Silicon Valley is about. I mean, to some extent, Silicon Valley is less of a place than it is sort of an ecosystem or an idea of how innovation gets permeated with throughout the economy. Geography should not be a barrier for expanding the tech ethos. It should not be a barrier for moving into geographies where you find greater African-American talent. As an example, I actually believe that the pandemic for all of the horrible things that the pandemic has has brought upon us. I do believe that it has taught us all that we can live in other places and still offer up great opportunity and innovation. And I think that’s. Rate for the black community, majority of the black community does live east of the Mississippi.

[00:12:16] Michael, I love that idea of thinking beyond geography and that concept of expanding the tech ethos, whatever the barriers may be, it’s not unlike what Tamar Huggins Grant, who we heard from at the start of the episode, has been trying to do since she founded Tech Smart Canada in 2015.

[00:12:34] My focus was really about how can we get students of color? How can we get young girls involved in technology at a younger age? How can we present, you know, coding and UX design, robotics, A.I., VR gaming to them in a space that’s that’s fun. But that’s also intentional in the sense that we are giving them opportunities and opening up their minds to thinking, hey, you know what? I can be a developer. I can, you know, be a coder, I can be a game developer. I can be anything. I really wanted young people to see reflections of themselves in the space. And so we worked really hard to bring educators and technical mentors that looked like and come from the communities that we serve, not about excluding others because of race. It’s about making those who have felt excluded because of race being included in a space that has excluded them for so long. That is that is what I’m here to do, is to make the tech sector equitable. It’s not going to be a comfortable journey. It hasn’t been comfortable. And that’s fine, because whenever we expect change, there has to be some level of discomfort.

[00:13:57] Coming up, we’ll welcome another voice to the conversation, a man on a mission to promote diversity in tech.

[00:14:15] You’re listening to Disrupters, an ABC podcast. I’m John Stackhouse. What in the world is going on when it comes to disruption and what does it mean for you? That’s what we try to tackle in every episode. We break things down to the bottom line so that you can respond quickly to a quickly changing world. Listen back to our episode about EA Sports to get truly game changing insights. And while you’re at it, subscribe so that you don’t miss out on our upcoming two part series on creativity as a key tool in business. And we want to hear from you about topics you want to hear about. So please email us at disruptors at Wrbican.

[00:14:56] Michael Carter from RBC Capital Markets in the U.S. is my co-host today. Michael, let’s bring DAX DaSilva into this. He’s the CEO of Light Speed, a terrific Montreal company which sets up seamless retail point of sale systems using cloud technology. The company has more than a thousand employees in offices around the world and light speeds clientele now spans 100 countries. DAX, welcome back to Disruptors. Thanks for having me, John. It’s always great to speak to you about tech as well as diversity and inclusion, because you are such a leader in so many conversations and doing really interesting things at light speed as an employer.

[00:15:37] And you’ve also got an incredible background on your own. And we really wanted you to be part of this conversation because of the stand you took on Black Lives Matter last year. We’re keen to get your thoughts on how things have evolved since then, especially with respect to representation in tech. But maybe we can start with your own story. Your family is, I believe, South Asian and immigrated to Canada from Uganda in East Africa.

[00:16:05] Was there one specific thing that sparked your interest in diversity, particularly when it comes to black representation in tech?

[00:16:13] Yes, as you mentioned, South Asian background. Also, I’m a member of the LGBTQ community. So there’s there’s some intersectionality with my own personal identity, the origins of the company Lightspeed. You know, a lot of our original team were all members of the LGBTQ community. So light skinned has has roots in believing that our differences can really be a teacher being a member of the BIPAC community. Also, it’s important that we’re an engaged company in in these communities because, you know, one hundred and fifteen thousand customers all around the world that are that are retail and hospitality diversity is represented in our customer base. And that should be reflected in our company and should be reflected in how we operate and how we envision the company growing.

[00:16:58] Can you tell us a bit about how diversity has helped you through the crisis? Because when this hit, I remember hearing people asking questions about all sorts of firms. But, you know, lightspeed seemed deeply challenged, given that you are principally dealing with a lot of retailers and restaurateurs who are clobbered by this. And yet you’ve you’ve you’ve excelled through the crisis. You’re growing incredibly internationally. What role did diversity and inclusion play in your transition strategically through the past year?

[00:17:29] Yeah, I think it has had some intersections with how we’ve been able to weather this pandemic. You know, around the around the same time as the pandemic set in, we did do a diversity inclusion survey across the company and we began a new way of communicating with the company because everybody was working virtually and working remotes. You know, some of the things that really struck me as we looked at the statistics and the company was that 83 percent of viewers felt that they could be their authentic selves in the workplace. You know, nine out of 10 felt comfortable talking about their culture and background with their with their colleagues and nearly 17 percent identified as LGBTQ plus globally. And as I spoke to many employees across the company, it kind of surprised by some of these these numbers. I realized a lot of people worked at Lightspeed because of what it believed in, what it represented, what it stood for, for them.

[00:18:18] Michael, jump into the conversation because you deal with entrepreneurs all over the map. And I’m curious what kind of conversations or how your conversations have changed with those entrepreneurs and leaders like DAX over the last year?

[00:18:32] Well, first of all, just congratulations to DAX and just all the success that he and lightspeed have had. And you are you are a hero, not just in Canada. You’re a hero, period. So thank you.

[00:18:46] I guess one of the things that I see is that entrepreneurs like DAX are leading the charge. They’re closer to their people.

[00:18:55] You just heard DAX has a pretty good sense of what to do in a very authentic way and true to entrepreneurism and what entrepreneurs do. They get it done by acting. If it’s the right thing to do, they do it. The second thing is we talked about this earlier is just prioritizing change and embracing it. I think people like to accept the opportunity and the luxury to be close to the center of change every day and are not afraid of it.

[00:19:25] But one of the things I would ask you seem to have figured out a formula that that works and you’ve obviously embraced diversity for so many reasons, all the reasons you mentioned.

[00:19:37] But it seems like tech overall still struggles. The numbers are just still incredibly low when it comes to black and Latino in particular, which together are 28 to 30 percent in the US. I’m not sure what it is exactly in Canada, but what do you think, really? Tributes to that, why is it still so difficult for many tech companies to really get their arms around this? And what would you say to them, to CIOs, about trying to to change the equation?

[00:20:08] You know, I think we have an interesting perspective, because our last two acquisitions were acquisitions, 10 and 11 for Lightspeed. So we’ve brought a lot of smaller tech companies that maybe grew with a very different perspective and different ethos. And there’s maybe less diversity in some of the acquired companies. But I mean, all of them have believed in the vision and the value of diversity and inclusion. We have integrated companies where we’ve had to introduce, I think, new ways to how you interview for new employees, how we roll out unconscious bias training across the company so that we do bring more diversity into those parts of the company. So I think it’s not something that that happens automatically and it’s not something that just continues automatically either. As we continue our journey, we are continuously having to reflect on are we living up to our ideals? When George Floyd happened, I made statements immediately. It was such a visceral reaction for me. But what was the company going to do? What are the abilities of your company, your tech company? What can it offer to some of these communities so that it starts to invite people into the conversation? And you are a brand tech brand that starts attracting employees or attracting candidates, and your interview process in your circle of interviewing becomes larger and larger and then you actually change the composition of the company and that’s ultimately so enriching. So that’s I think those are some of the steps that have to be contemplated. And it’s a journey and it’s something that almost never completed. It’s a drive towards more representation. And and then once once you have the representation, you have to actually create the seats at the table where the decisions are made. That’s important, too, because that’s also how material change happens.

[00:21:50] It’s interesting that you say that one of my favorite quotes is Shirley Chisholm said if they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. Right. And I think you you just you just stated that quite clearly.

[00:22:03] DAX, I love how you’re trying to avoid committee culture and wish you well on that on that journey. But as tech companies grow, it must become harder to maintain the culture, especially of a culture built on diversity and inclusion. What have you learned through lightspeed rapid growth in terms of protecting, but maybe even developing your culture through through growth?

[00:22:28] So company culture and tone certainly comes from the top. As a leader, I think you have to you know, I know a lot of a lot of companies have a chief diversity officer that has to be, I think you first and foremost, you could have a team in the committee and we’re building out a committee that represents people from around the world since we’ve become so global. But you have to embody and you have to you have to be watchful for things that are happening throughout the company and the opportunities for going deeper. I do think that the buck stops with, you know, with the CEO. A true leader creates leaders. Right? So you create leaders that believe in this as much as you do. You create diversity in your leadership team and in your board. You set a standard that people throughout the company try to work towards. And then you have to be open to hearing that you’re not living up to that standard when you’re not. That’s a culture of listening and a culture of accessibility that has to also be built so that you can keep the standard that you’ve that that you’re aspiring for.

[00:23:26] Michael, you deal with a range of companies. And I’m curious what you’ve learned and seen from the more successful ones addressing these issues over the past year.

[00:23:34] Folks have taken different paths, if you will, around the subject of the blend of diversity in general, some have resorted to investing in the community through other means of participation. Many of them have really made a real effort by bringing a few more folding chairs, if you will, to the table. Not as many as probably is needed for sure.

[00:24:03] If you look at the broader universe of companies, we’re down to one black CEO of a Fortune 500 company, which tells you a lot about where we’re going. From the leadership perspective, the middle management piece has seemingly has broadened and we see a lot of the companies really expanding aggressively there. I know Microsoft has put a five year plan together to nearly double the number of diverse participants in senior positions in the company. And those are all very big pronouncements. What we haven’t seen as much is more of kind of closing the wealth gap. I think the companies that are really investing with a longer term mindset have really begun to look at how do we participate in closing the gap. I think Kinzie said that by twenty twenty eight, it’s going to cost a trillion to. Trillion, trillion, five to deal with the ever widening gap between black and white and this country, and so being able to be a participant there, whether it’s Softbank has a has a hundred million dollar fund, other companies that PayPal is investing in black and brown businesses as well. I think all of that is a very good, good start. And it’s smart to do because at the end of the day, if you have wealth, you can sustain some of the problems that we had we’ve seen through the pandemic where you started with, you know. Fifty nine percent of black owned businesses were already struggling and that was before the pandemic. I can only imagine what the final number is going to be when we do the tally this year about how many have survived. And so without some wealth, you’re basically going from hand to mouth or you just go completely out of business. And so I think that recognition by some of these companies I think has been huge. But we need a lot more because a trillion dollars is a huge gap and it’s not going to be closed overnight.

[00:25:59] How how are you thinking about the investment challenge? Michael and I were talking earlier about the need for a lot more investment capital for black entrepreneurs. A lot has been committed or pledged over the last year, but it remains insufficient. You’ve raised a lot of money over your your career. Maybe share some insights into the challenges you’ve faced at light speed and how you’ve overcome them, but also what challenges may lie ahead for others?

[00:26:25] Yeah, I think our tech ecosystem is is rapidly developing in Canada. I think there’s lots of opportunities for there to be funds that are sub funds of bigger funds now that we’re at the level that that we’re at.

[00:26:38] I think that there’s more development to go where we’re not Silicon Valley yet. But I think that what’s interesting about Canada is that there’s no denying that systemic racism exists in the country. But at the same time, we do have some wins on diversity and inclusion. And I think that we can be a model. And I think it should start with things like investing in diverse communities. That’s a place where we can really shine.

[00:26:59] Michael, what do you think we’re we’re missing that maybe we can take on across the tech ecosystem in the year or years ahead?

[00:27:07] Well, I do believe the pandemic is an opportunity to expand participation in technology, employment and also perhaps in entrepreneurism itself by recognizing that geography is not a barrier and we can invest where the talent is. I’m actually quite excited about the opportunity to do more for more because not every one is or should be in tech associated with just Silicon Valley. I think DACS is a it’s a great proof that Silicon Valley does not have a lock on innovation and great minds. You know, there is a lot of places that can take more investment.

[00:27:49] And I think it’s a great way for us to close that wealth gap and also to expand on really creating innovation, because talent does breed innovation and we need to be where the talent is. And I think that’s quite exciting.

[00:28:07] As we move towards close, I wonder what advice you both might have for black entrepreneurs who are listening as well as their allies, whether they be employees, business partners, investors or neighbors, what they might be thinking about as they think towards the economic recovery and the opportunities that will emerge in the months and years ahead.

[00:28:29] I think that entrepreneurs, especially entrepreneurs that are in racial minorities or gender diverse minorities, have a real opportunity in the new economy.

[00:28:39] There is going to be completely new business models, completely new ways of approaching business. That is something that we’re seeing as we see reopenings happening around the world in countries like like Australia, for example. It would be an amazing moment to capitalize on these opportunities for fresh thinking and to bring the value that each one of those communities can bring in such a unique way.

[00:29:01] I think this is the time I agree with that. And I do think, at least from the American standpoint, I would say that I look forward to seeing more African-American businesses, a stretch of the imagination of the possibility of where they can pursue business opportunities. Right now, only five industries represent most of the employment that black Americans are a part of. I mean, 74 percent of black women and 62 percent of black male owners are only in five industries. Nothing wrong with those businesses. They’re important. But there are so many other businesses as well that we have the right to. And we have the talent and especially on the back of a more digital economy. It’s open to us. And what I’d like to encourage others is that that’s an opportunity to invest in minority businesses do quite well. The statistics are quite supportive of returns. So I think that those two converging ideas can create some really unique opportunities and just bend the curve. Again, I’m very focused on that wealth gap and I think this is another opportunity to close that gap as well.

[00:30:08] We’re still in the middle of the pandemic, of course, and that’s probably first and foremost on people’s minds. I suppose there’s a risk that we forget about these challenges or at least that they fall down the list of priorities. How do we keep the challenges that the world seem to come to an awareness of last summer? How do we maintain that in the front of our minds?

[00:30:29] I think that we we need to keep our focus on justice, economic justice as it pertains to racial justice. That’s, I think, a way for us to emerge from this current crisis as a more connected community is as a better society. We’ve had time to reflect. We’ve had some very difficult moments through this past year, crystallized in what what happened with George Floyd.

[00:30:52] And I think that coming out of this, we should be much more thoughtful in our approach. This is a moment where as we come out of this, we’re actively supporting new opportunities for communities that haven’t had them. That would be my hope.

[00:31:06] I think that’s such a great way of framing attacks that economic justice and racial justice are really interlinked. And we often kind of think too narrowly of racial justice as being about representation, about hiring, about numbers. And we forget other really critical aspects, including the economic aspects that, Michael, you’ve been talking about in terms of the wealth gap. We’ve seen greater divisions, greater disparities through this crisis. How, Michael, can we think about narrowing those gaps a little more quickly than markets might do on their own?

[00:31:42] Well, I think we’ve seen it in a few ways. You know, RBC, as an example, has a program called Access Capital, where we allow companies to invest in bonds and other securities that would help small businesses. It could be to banks as an example, to free up liquidity so that they can make more loans into the same communities that are the target of help. It could be, you know, supporting government issue for opportunities in struggling neighborhoods, etc.. I also think, though, we have to pay a lot of attention to the fact that not everyone is able to work from home and safe and as connected as some of the some of the folks on this particular podcast. And we have to make sure that health care, child care, wage disparities, all of those things are also tended to as well.

[00:32:35] And you’re seeing some of that. But we still have a long way to go. And so I think those are some of the core places that we have to focus on.

[00:32:43] And then I have to say always and it’s always going to be front and center as a component, which is education. But I think education, not only on things like the economic side of business, is poor and learning how to be an entrepreneur, et cetera. But I also think we have to spend time on making sure that mental health is also being spoken to about and invested in as well, because there is going to be continued carnage coming out of the pandemic. And I don’t think we’ve only seen very small aspects of that. And I do worry about what the totality is, particularly for communities that have struggled so, so much and so often.

[00:33:26] You know, those are some such important insights. The vaccines, no matter how successful, don’t don’t end the problems that we’ve been talking about before. You go, I wonder if you might shed light on the year ahead and what you most hope to see in the year ahead.

[00:33:44] I’m optimistic that we’re going to see more opportunity created for all as we see the the economies reopen. Given what we’ve learned regarding racial justice and then and other other important social topics and our relationships with one another, the understandings that have been built, that that that reopening can be more equitable.

[00:34:05] That’s a great message. It’s always great to have you on the podcast. I always learn something when I when I get to talk to you. So thank you. Stay well and look forward to continuing the conversation. Thanks for having me. I wonder, Michael, as we wrap up how hopeful you’re feeling about these challenges in our collective ability to really come to grips with them? You know what? I’m actually feeling quite hopeful.

[00:34:26] I do believe in humanity. I believe in the human spirit of engagement. And one of the things that is so important, it’s come out of what we saw in twenty twenty is just all the engagement, not only about the issues, but also about strategies and tactics in which to solve the problem.

[00:34:49] We’re beginning to get bigger and bigger mines associated with trying to tackle the issues and people are beginning to really speak up. They’re using their voice. They’re letting their voice be the latter. I’m sure, John, given that you’re quite well read that you’re familiar with the author of the bestselling book Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson. But he said it best.

[00:35:11] And I think this is what we’re really looking for from people, because change comes as a as as a result of engagement. Said somebody has to stand when other people are sitting, somebody has to speak when other people are quiet. And we’re getting that there are less people that are sitting and there are a lot less people that are quiet.

[00:35:33] And that encourages me.

[00:35:36] Those are the perfect words to end on. Michael, thank you for taking a stand. Thank you for your ongoing leadership. It’s it’s really inspiring, but also essential. Michael, thank you so much for being my co-host for the special episode of Disrupters. Thank you for having me. Michael Carter is the global head of technology investment banking at RBC Capital Markets. We’d both like to thank our special guest, DAX de Silva, the CEO of Lightspeed. I’d also like to thank Tamar Huggins Grant from Texas, Canada. I’m John Stackhouse and this is Disruptors and RBC Podcast. Tune in next time and the time beyond that for our two part series on creativity and why it’s the right skill in the coming recovery. Talk to you soon.

[00:36:31] Disruptors and RBC podcast is created by the RBC Thought Leadership Group and does not constitute a recommendation for any organization, product or service, it’s produced and recorded by Jar Audio for more disruptors, content like or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and visit Ask.com slash disruptors.