Topics Discussed:
-Hart’s nonlinear career path from advertising to tech startups to J.P. Morgan and Bessemer Trust, and eventually founding Cloud Capital.
-The philosophy behind Cloud Capital—deep research, client-first service, scalable systems, and building intentionally rather than reacting quickly.
-Leadership lessons on hiring without job postings, aligning values, empowering advisors, and designing a firm where people thrive long-term.
Hiring For Good Website: https://www.hiringforgood.net/
Acumen Executive Search Website: https://www.acumenexecutivesearch.com/
Hart Williams: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hartwilliams/
Suzanne Hanifin: President at Acumen Executive Search LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannehanifin/ Email: su*****@*******************ch.com
Tanis Morris: Business Development Email: ta***@*******************ch.com
Hiring for Good is presented by Acumen Executive Search. Acumen Executive Search is the leading certified woman-owned Executive Search and Advisory Firm on the West Coast. Acumen sources, attracts, and qualifies world-class executive and management talent for organizations to support them in achieving their organizational goals. Due to their focus and local network, which is both broad and deep, we are able to leverage best practices across a broad range of industries. We employ an equity lens throughout the recruitment process.
Hiring for Good Transcript
Tanis Morris: Good morning, and welcome to the Hiring for Good podcast. I am Tanis Morris, and with me, as usual, is my lovely co-host, Suzanne Hanifan, founder and president of Acumen Executive Search, who sponsors this podcast.
Suzanne Hanifin: Good morning, Tanis.
Tanis: Hi, Suzanne. So today we’re very excited to welcome Hart Williams, founder and CEO of Cloud Capital, to our podcast. Hart is an accomplished entrepreneur and investor known for his forward-thinking approach to capital strategy, business growth, and leadership. As the founder of Cloud Capital, a Seattle-based asset management firm serving high-net-worth individuals, Hart helps clients align their financial strategies with their long-term goals, bridging the gap between fiscal stewardship and purpose-driven growth. With a background spanning finance, private equity, and technology ventures, Hart brings a deep understanding of what drives successful teams and enduring businesses. Beyond the numbers, he’s passionate about empowering leaders to make strategic decisions that fuel both financial performance and human potential.
Hart, what a pleasure to have you.
Hart Williams: Thanks for having me. And kudos to whoever wrote that.
Tanis: I can’t take all the credit, but I’ll take a little. Um, yeah. So, I mean, that’s a lot that I just said.
Hart: That is a lot.
Tanis: Why don’t we start with maybe you can give just a few words about what you’re doing now, and then, if you don’t mind, telling us kind of how you got here, and you can take as long as you want. You have a really interesting story.
Hart: Sure. So, I started Cloud Capital in 2022 with two partners, uh, Sean Sternbach and Taylor Heininger. Taylor and I worked together at Bessemer Trust previously, which is a it’s the largest multifamily office in the country. It’s based out of New York. And Sean, I’ve known through my involvement with the Amazon Alexa Fund and Techstars, and he is genuinely the smartest investment mind I have ever been around, and so uh great team, and we built a firm to suit both high growth tech employees and entrepreneurs, and we help them with anything that touches money.
So it’s a full, um, like a full-scale financial services firm. We help people with investment management, obviously, financial planning. We help them, uh, with taxation, although we don’t file returns. We help them connect with trust and estate attorneys, make sure their estate plans are in order, and then anything else that that might touch money for their family.
Um, yeah, to how I got there is kind of an interesting story, I guess. So, prior I was obviously at Bessemer Trust. Uh, that’s where Taylor and I met, and we over the years there, we kind of figured out maybe there was a better way to do this or attack this ideal customer profile, which was the entrepreneur or high-growth tech employee. Um, and prior to that, I was at the JP Morgan private bank, and I was really at at JP to learn right. Like I was coming from starting a tech company into financial management or wealth management.
Tanis: And how, like, talk about that because I think that’s kind of interesting. Do you want to, do you mind sharing that?
Hart: Yeah. So, going to the wayback machine. Um.
Tanis: That’s what we like to do.
Hart: Yeah. I went to undergrad at the University of Puget Sound, and I had a great experience there. It’s a great school. Um, and then after that, I got a job in Salt Lake City working for a CBS television station, and I was selling advertising, and I was like this 21-year-old kid. I knew nothing. Like, I still don’t know very much, but back then, I really knew nothing. And like my mom bought me some suits and I went to work and I I was just like absorbing all of like what these people who had done this thing for years were teaching me.
Meanwhile, I have always been kind of interested in technology, and I was the first person on that sales team to, like, really adopt mobile, right? Like, do you guys remember the Palm Trio? Palm Trio was sweet. It had, like, a stylus in it, right? But I bought one. It was the first one that was like on our sales team, and I was like getting my emails and answering my emails from my Palm Trio.
And like a light bulb went off, and I was like, “Holy cow, like, this is, like, this trend is not going to stop.” And pretty soon, this thing is going to have video on it. And I was kind of looking around, going, “What are these broadcast TV stations doing about this?” like, this is coming, right? And that kind of spawned me to start looking at interesting upstart technology companies as places to go and work and work on, like, developing new ideas.
So I went to work for one which failed miserably, as a lot of startups do, and then I went to work at another one that was actually, like, pretty far down the path. Um, but it was private equity funded, and, like, they were chugging, and I had a great experience.
And that really prompted me to say, like, I think I can do one of these, like, I think I can start one. So we um, I got together with some guys and we started a company, and at the time I was kind of also going through business school, and that was enlightening, and I put a lot of their processes into kind of like how we build it, and we ended up building a software solution for vacation rental managers. Um, so like not Airbnb or VRBO, those are distribution channels from our perspective, but we built software for vacation rental managers managing 10 to 70 or 80 properties, right?
And it was like a centralized hub where they could manage rates, manage images for their websites, connect to the distribution centers like booking.com, HomeAway, Airbnb, those types of things, and spin up their own thematic website.
And we grew it for six or seven years and sold it. And after that, I had no idea what was next. So, uh, we had this crazy 90-day period. Like, the business was transacting. My wife was graduating with her business degree, and we got an unsolicited offer on our house, and we had a six-month-old baby.
Tanis: Oh my god.
Hart: So, I was like, well, there’s nothing really tying us to anything right now. Where do we want to raise kids? Like, where do we want to have a family? And we’d been coming, uh, at the time we were living in Denver, Colorado. We were coming up here during the summers because my parents had a place up here, and we loved it. And I was like, well, you know, let’s kind of create some criteria by which we want to, like, live our life. Like, what does that look like?
And so, we kind of searched the West Coast from, you know, San Diego to Vancouver, Canada. I was like, we wanted to be in a growing and developing business community. We wanted to be near an international airport. We wanted to be close to family. That was huge because, like, you get fewer at-bats and time with them as you age. And the big one was when we got home, it had to feel like we were on vacation.
Tanis: Oh.
Suzanne: Oh. That’s an interesting…yeah.
Hart: So those were the qualifiers, and like fast forward, it was very quickly like where we landed, Bainbridge Island, Washington. So we landed there. Uh, the business had sold. I was kind of consulting for another company at the time.
My wife was in transition with her work, and um, I actually hired a career coach to help me figure out what the heck was next, and I thought it was going to be, it like happened at, like, a dinner conversation, you know, like, “Oh, I’m a career coach.” And I was like, “Yeah, yeah, I’ve done the Myers-Briggs thing, all that stuff.” I was like, “Yeah, sure. Let’s try it.” And she made me work my tail off. And it was like really enlightening.
And we did all these sessions, and she’s like, “Here are the things that I’m hearing from you, and here’s what you’re showing me, and here’s like the areas that you’re not addressing.” And she’s like, “I think you need to spend time, more time in this investment space.” She’s like, “That has lit your fire for a long time, and you’ve been focused on technology, but like the investment side of technology and you’re interested in helping people and all this stuff.” She’s like, “Go talk to—” she gave me a task to go out and do informational interviews. And she’s like, “You can’t have another meeting with me until you hit 45 informational interviews.”
Suzanne: Wow. That’s a lot.
Hart: Yeah. I did it. Ninety days. It was like a grind. And I would like, get up, I’d get my clothes on, I’d go on the ferry, and I’d just like, network.
Tanis: Yeah, wow.
Hart: And in that process, I kicked up some job offers.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: And people are like, “What are you doing?” I’m like, “Yeah, I’m just trying to talk to 45 different people that work in the investment space in the city of Seattle.” And after that, but it was it was a wonderful exercise because after it, I understood what the landscape was, right?
And like what the different players are and kind of the roles that they filled and where the opportunity was, and I could start to see kind of how the tides were moving. So that’s when I went to JP Morgan, and I was like, regardless of what I do beyond JP Morgan, I could stay there. That’s an option. But like this is a great foundational place to learn about investments at a massive institution.
Suzanne: Right.
Hart: And how they do it.
And you know I implemented some like, hacker hustler strategies from the tech world, and you know it worked out. It was a good experience there, and I still maintain a relationship with a lot of people that work there. They’re great guys in the Seattle office, and, and, girls and I think very highly of them.
But I had got hired away at Bessemer to work for a guy that I really liked and respected. His name was Steve. And we had a good thing going, and then Covid happened, and he ended up moving to LA with his partner, and um, you know, I started talking to Taylor more and more, and we kind of identified this thing and that’s how it happened. So that is a long-winded story.
Tanis: No, actually.
Suzanne: No.
Tanis: I think it’s wonderful, honestly. I like, I think everything that comes it’s it’s helpful to hear the journey, and we we really like a…
Suzanne: Well, and it always amazes me that very few people’s journeys are a straight line.
Hart: Yeah. It’s rare.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Hart: Especially in the entrepreneurial space. Right.
Suzanne: Exactly. Left and right. And so share with us some of these formative experiences whether it’s with a mentor or again, that’s big, just moving without a job and..but has there been others that you can share with us that kind of led you down this path?
Hart: Uh, moving without a job is attributed to one person, and he lives in Vail, Colorado. His name’s Kelly. Um, and we went to business school together, and he is like one of the most grounded, awesome people I’ve spent time with. And he told me, I was like, “How is it in Vail like running, having a career, and living in a ski town?”
Suzanne: Yeah.
Hart: Like what’s that like? He’s like, “You got to live where you want to live first.” He’s like, “The rest.” He’s like, “That changes your whole perspective on the rest of things.”
Tanis: Huh.
Hart: Right. I was like, “Okay, that’s interesting.” He’s like, “Yeah, like I have a great job now because I lived where I wanted to live first and I was happy waking up every morning and then I could go kind of chase the thing that I was really interested in.”
And then, lo and behold, years later, he was the COO or CEO, something something, chief at like a huge orthopedic venture institute based in Vail.
Tanis: Wow.
Hart: And so that one stuck with me. That was a good one. Um, I mean, there’s so many lessons along the way. Like I have made so many mistakes, and so you learn a lot from that. My wife’s also really good about like pointing out some of those mistakes. Not in a sense of like you screwed this up, but in a sense of like I think we’ve learned this before.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: Right. And that’s super helpful. I think the first, um, the name of the company that we started was the tech company was One Rooftop, and part of that career coaching session that I did after that was a little bit of a post-mortem on One Rooftop. And a lot of it was like, what would you do differently? How would you change your process? Like, how would you, what have you learned not to do?
Suzanne: Yeah.
Hart: Right. And I think that was a really really fascinating experience. Just like, I had no job, I had kids and wife, but I had time on my hands, and I was like in a totally reflective state about the thing that just ended, and so I had a lot of time to think about it.
Suzanne: So, I have to ask, you know, we talked about falling forward in other other episodes, but what what was the big takeaway? What what would you have done differently?
Hart: Yeah. So there’s um a lot of things I wouldn’t have done differently. Like the people that I worked with were outstanding, and I wouldn’t have changed that. Um, I think the timing was okay, and we, you can’t control timing, but I think we were in the right place in the right time for some things. Um, the thing that I would have changed is I would have spent more time uh, less time building in the beginning and more time researching.
And what I mean by that is like we would often build to test new things whether they were products or solutions or you know finding, we’re searching diligently for like that product market fit and like instead of like we would build and see if it was closer and then like change and rebuild and see if it was closer and like the iterative process that we were operating did not have enough time for research and that’s what I would change.
Tanis: Yeah
Hart: So when…the other thing that was challenging in in that space is um, you know, in 2025, like I I don’t think there are a lot of undefined product categories. Like products have been developed at this point and now we have the capability to spin up an app for anything using artificial intelligence almost instantly.
Hart: So there’s not a lot of things that aren’t already built yet, which is a power, right? Like, now I can go buy something for a fifth of the cost that already works, right? Like that’s pretty powerful. So, um, I think changing that iterative process, understanding a customer in way more detail, and then like to use the Amazon thing like obsessing over that detail to get it right. And like we really have implemented those things at Cloud, and it made a massive difference. Like we studied clients for almost nine months, I believe on the way in, before we ever really thought about leaving.
Suzanne: That’s amazing.
Tanis: Yeah. I I so that actually you’re kind of preemptively getting to my next question, which was all of these formative experiences are probably have shaped you in profound ways regarding the work you do now and and the company that you’re leading. So, you know, when you’re going about building your company, that’s one example of, you know, formative experiences that shaped um operational practices today. Can you think of any others, or, you know, how how else have some of your learnings changed the way or shaped the way you lead at Cloud?
Hart: Yeah. Well, one of the biggest learnings is like we left a good scenario….
Tanis: Yeah
Hart: For hopes of a better scenario, right? And I, the feeling of walking away from something that was good to like, take, like push the chips in on yourself, and like an idea.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: Um is is very fresh for all of us like, and I, we, we’ve had good success, and we’re we’re doing the things that we were hoping to do, and the growth is what we were hoping it would be. Um, but I still very adamantly remember sitting in a room with Sean and looking at a computer screen with the aggregate master accounts of our firm of one and the balance being zero. And I was like, “Okay,”
Tanis: Yeah
Hart: Here we go. We need a client. We gotta get a client. Let’s go.” So, I remember that and I think that that’s been a driver.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: And like when we when we hit milestones now, like Sean and I will talk, Taylor and I will talk, and it’s like, man, I remember when it was zero.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Hart: I remember like, okay. And like we in the beginning, like there is a lot of hustle and like I think that, you know, we just hired a a new wonderful person in Southern California. Um, and we’re thrilled he joined the team cuz he is the exact human being that we were looking for. And when we were talking in the interview process, I was like, I don’t think you’ve seen like what we’re doing yet. Like because like what we have in all of us is this.
And like I hate hustle culture. Like I’m not like the broy hustly type, but I was like, you have three somewhat senior people who are working together on a common objective of growing a team and growing a firm and making sure it’s great for clients. I was like, and we work somewhat tirelessly about that. And I was like, I don’t know if you’ve been in a scenario where people will respond to your emails at 6:00 in the morning or 10:00 at night.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Hart: But they will never require you to respond at 6:00 in the morning, at 10:00 at night. But it’s all so that we can all be better.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: And this morning, you know, I was driving down here and on the way to my meeting, and he calls and we’re working on, you know, setting people up. There’s always things that go haywire.
Suzanne: Yes. Yes.
Hart: Right. In this case, we had some file-sharing things we had to fix. Um, but he call, he’s like, “I was really sorry to be emailing you like at 8:00 at night.” I just. He’s going to Japan. He’s doing all this stuff. I’m like, “No, it’s great. Like, if I didn’t want to work, I wouldn’t work. And I expect the same of you.”
Suzanne: And so you talk about the scenario and and I hear a lot of values that you have intentionally as you’re building um operationalize those values. If you were to say, would your partners and you all agree on the same values on how you are intentionally building this organization?
Hart: I think the values are are somewhat clear. We might have different methods of saying it, right? But it comes down to like take care of the client first. You know, we have to be compliant in what we do.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Hart: And we have to make it a a fun and great place to work. Because, like, this is a marathon.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: Like it is not a sprint.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: Hustle culture is indicative of sprint. We don’t want that.
Suzanne: Yes.
Hart: Right? Like a a fertile ground where people can plant roots and develop and be better at what they’re really good at is what we want to make happen. And so having the client focused or client-first focus, obviously, compliance is paired very closely with that in a regulated industry. We can’t ever turn a blind eye to that. But having like the idea of what’s right for the client and compliance, and then what’s right for Cloud Capital to make it a better place to work and develop. Like, I think we’re all three very well aligned on that.
Suzanne: Well, and you all have been growing really fast.
Hart: Yeah.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Tanis: Do you want to speak to that a little bit? Do you mind? We will let you brag because you should. It’s very impressive.
Hart: Yeah. We’ve had a good start. It’s it was beyond our expectation. Um, you know, some months are slower than others, but when you look at the aggregate of years, it’s it’s healthy, which we’re happy. about. I don’t, I don’t want to brag because it’s it.
Tanis: Am I allowed to brag? I just don’t know if I’ll get all the statistics right. I.
Hart: I feel like the statistics are just muddied because it was started as a very small company, but we’re doing the things we were hoping to do and our objective is to grow the thing into a more substantial regional firm. Um, and it’s starting to look that way, which is exciting to us.
Suzanne: That’s really exciting.
Hart: Um, you know, yesterday morning we had a a prospective call with a client in Connecticut. He’s going, “Hey, are you guys local?” We’re like, “No, 85% of our clients are around the country.” Um, and I think it speaks volumes to us, you know, hitting the product market fit on what we’re delivering. People will be willing to trade what was previously a locally provided service for something that’s not because it’s more of a fit for them. So.
Tanis: Yeah. When when I first met Hart, I was very interested to kind of hear um his in my opinion quite unique approach to um to an industry that is often a little bit more…
Hart: It’s commoditized. Yeah, you can like…
Tanis: Yeah. Yeah.
Hart: It’s a little stodgy. I mean, there’s a reason we don’t wear, you know, suits all the time. We will, we, I do have a suit still. Um, but there’s a reason why we don’t have class, you know, AAA office space.
Um, I think that clients are much more savvy today than what they were a while ago. And especially as we deal with these new liquidity events that are happening all around us, right? The tender offers that exist at OpenAI, the SpaceX stuff, the stuff at even at Microsoft and Amazon that continues to grow. L
ike as we’re dealing with newly minted liquidity, as we’re dealing with new companies spinning up very quickly, um people have access to just way more information and so they can look at us in a comparative light or look at wealth management or financial services in a in a a broader comparative life and I like and I think they can select what they want and don’t want in a developed market.
Suzanne: Yeah. And with this growth, it it has a lot to do with growing your team. What do you look for when when you’re adding to, to who you are? I mean, here you’ve created this reputation. Talk about the alignment and what you….
Tanis: Or you just, you actually just mentioned that you hired your absolutely perfect ideal person.
Hart: Yeah it’s great.
Tanis: So, I’d love to hear, you know.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Hart: Well, I think it’s a mix. So growth um a a critical component of our business is growth, right? Like, if you’re not doing something to grow your existing footprint, your existing AUM, your existing client base, it’s only a matter of time before attrition catches you, right? It forces you to be better. And like we’re always looking for growth.
But, um, we also are always looking for optimization and efficiency. And so, like, yes, the people are a critical component of that. We’re also looking at how do we implement more more technological solutions that give us more capacity, that give us more reliable, consistent, higher client satisfaction, higher client service stuff, like that, because those are being developed every day. So it’s it’s hand in hand, right? When we think of growth, how do you get the right people and how do you arm them with the best technology so that they can do their job more efficiently, more effectively, more consistently?
Suzanne: Yeah.
Hart: For people, um, we’ve never posted a job rec or anything. We don’t hire, we haven’t hired a recruiter. Um, it’s all been done through our network. And it’s been harder than I anticipated it being finding people who have industry experience in the space, who have all of the regulatory requirements to come and work in a firm like this, who have the desire to grow and build something at the usually at the expense of walking away from a very comfortable job. That’s been harder than I anticipated because like in the tech world, it’s readily available.
Tanis: Yeah.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Hart: There are people that will leave big tech….
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: All over the place to go start a new fresh idea. Um, so that’s been a bit challenging, but just through constant conversations with people, getting the brand out there, talking to people like, you know, the two of you.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Hart: And sharing what we’re working on and and how I believe we’re different, like opens the door of them saying, “Hey, you should meet my friend. She’s at this firm. He’s at that firm.” And that’s exactly how this happened, by the way. So, um, Taylor was meeting with a, we classify them as COIs, right? Center of influence. So, someone connected in the business community in Southern California said, “Hey, have you met this guy in your circles?” “No, I haven’t.” Left and they went to coffee and chatted, and it was pretty clearly like he’d already made the decision to like jump and start building and running at this thing.
And then it was a question of, like one does he want to move, and could we create an environment where he could be successful. But we almost instantly saw, one he’s really good at the client service, he’s very detail oriented, right and the people that he was working with and calling on really liked and respected him, which is good. So that’s kind of a big checkbox for us. Um, two, he’s asking us all the right questions, right? And he was really meticulous about the questioning of us.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: Which, as in like when I’ve given a few interviews. Like I always appreciate it when somebody comes in and they really want to know, like want to know from us, why we’re different, right? What are you doing differently? Like how is that different than this or this or this? Or like how is that an advantage? How do you do this? How do you do that? It just shows that they’re really thinking thoughtfully about like what we’ve built, which is good.
And then the last pool that we saw is he, although he wasn’t in a position to like build a firm, he was really additive in the development of the firm, and so he was taking it on his kind of own volition to go find technology, go find better ways, go build things for the benefit of others.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Hart: I’m like, “Okay, that’s an interesting thing.”
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: And then at the end, you know, we could make all the puzzle pieces line up. Comp, healthcare, um, you know, timing of start, transition of existing clients.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: You know, a happy departure, happy joining.
Tanis: Right.
Hart: And then he gets a vacation.
Suzanne: Well, there you go.
Tanis: All sounds…
Suzanne: Yeah. I know it.
Hart: So that’s like, that’s what I mean. Perfect fit, you know.
Tanis: Yeah. That, yeah, that sounds ideal.
Hart: It’s good for our team. Like we…all services business have an endemic problem of capacity, and like, this grows capacity and it’s good.
Suzanne: Yeah. Absolutely.
Tanis: Yeah. So I guess like, um, one of my favorite questions that we ask our guests is, if you could go back in time and speak to that young, you know, 21-year-old man working in advertising sales, which I will mention you are our second CEO to have a background….
Hart: Oh really?
Tanis: In their early 20s in advertising sales.
Hart: Yeah, there’s a lot of money going.
Tanis: Um, but anyway, if you could go back in time, what advice would you give your young self?
Hart: Uh, that’s a good question. I mean, I think that there’s professional advice and personal advice. Like, I think the personal advice would be to be healthier because that catches up with you really quick. And like in the last 5 years, I made a lot of lifestyle decisions to kind of improve health and longevity, and I can’t tell you what a positive impact that’s had. So like, um, and small things too, like stretching more.
Tanis: Yeah. Yeah.
Hart: It’s really important, right? Uh, I cut out alcohol a few years ago, that’s got a noticeable benefit. Helps me sleep better, helps stabilize my moods. Not that I’m some super moody person, but I just, I can feel the positive effects from doing that. Um, exercising, you know, prioritizing that thing. Like having control of your day and trying to build a routine at 21 would have been really helpful, right? It would have been less of an adjustment at, you know, 40-something than what I had to deal with. So, I recommend that.
Um, the second thing would be back to probably that research component.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: Like, and I see it now on social feeds and LinkedIn and all this, there’s like all these content pushers who are telling you like, spend 30 days and research AI and do this and do this and do this. Like, okay, that’s a little rich. But if I would have taken 20 to 30 minutes a day every day and just read deep on one topic for like three or four months at a time. You know, how deep can you get on the development of mobile technology? How deep can you get on infrastructure changes? How deep can you get on, you know, other business thoughts? Like that would be, I think, way more valuable than….
Tanis: Building and testing, you know.
Hart: Yeah.
Tanis: Testing and production.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Hart: Yeah. I mean, the MBA program that I went to, we were, the process does work. Like the iterative process does work and you could point to a million examples. And um, I still remember like a lot of those lectures about stage gates and iterative improvements and all that stuff. And like, it all has value, right? But if you’re going at it from a perceived understanding, um, I would challenge you to go back and validate and re-validate the understanding before you go forward. And I think with doing that research and like making that a regular behavior, um, it would be immensely helpful. Like I might have identified other opportunities that were really, really valuable.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: Or you would have gotten ahead of some things where maybe we were trailing.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: So. Yeah.
Suzanne: No, that’s interesting. And what an interesting hindsight because when you’re young, in particular, and I don’t want to stereotype everyone, but I think it’s to run fast, to move fast, make a fast decision. And you’re actually saying slow down.
Hart: Yeah, I think so.
Suzanne: Think things through a little bit.
Hart: I mean, I would focus intently on the process.
Tanis: Yeah.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Hart: Um, the process of staying healthy and making sure you’re taking care of yourself, and the process of….
Tanis: Taking action in business.
Hart: Yeah. Just understanding what’s happening around you, right? Like how is the world moving? Where are..what are people doing? Not like, how do I close this deal today?
Tanis: Do you intentionally spend 20 minutes a day doing that now?
Hart: Uh, probably close to that. Yeah.
Tanis: That’s really neat. Do you schedule it in?
Hart: No, I don’t schedule it in, but I live on an island. I have a 35-minute scheduled boat ride every day almost. Um, less this summer, but we’re kind of getting back to it. Um, but Sean and I talk a lot about that, right? Like we look at this…Like Cloud Capital is the nucleus of what we think is possible.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: Right? And there’s all these adjacent things that are close to it that could be possible other adventures to go on. Right. And so we’re kind of always talking about like, what about this? Or what do..have you seen this company, and have you seen what’s happening over here? Like, have you seen this tool and how that changes things for, how that could change for advisers? Or how do we build this so it’s a consistent flow? Or how do we make this happen so it happens with some level of automation, right? Because like those little changes end up becoming massive time savers.
Tanis: Yeah.
Suzanne: Oh absolutely.
Hart: So like we’re kind of always, we’re like okay, we got the, we believe we got the product-market fit, right. Like, at this point, I feel like that’s validated.
Tanis: Now it’s optimistic.
Hart: And now it’s like, okay, how do we make client service, and client satisfaction totally sustainable, somewhat automated at a very high level.
Suzanne: And to make it scale.
Hart: Yeah. Like, well, I mean, it has to be scalable to be automated, right?
Suzanne: Right.
Hart: Or vice versa, has to be automated to be scalable. Um, but how do we get this right so that we could, like, the whole kind of litmus inside of our talks is like, how do we hire someone off the street. And they walk in and they’re a great adviser working on our platform.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: Like, how do we make the platform controls such so that, like this human being comes in with the right chemical makeup of a great person, great Cloud Capital person, and we give them this platform, and it’s like, accelerate.
Tanis: Yeah.
Hart: Right? And they can go and do and be great at it, and we can control it in the right ways and help kind of support them where there might be a deficiency, and amplify the things that might be a superpower, and let them run.
Um, so those are kind of the things that we’re always like researching and testing. Um, I don’t do the, I mean, I do a little bit of like the greater research, but one of the coolest parts about working in this space is like you meet so many wonderful people who have done so many awesomely successful things that you learn through them.
Tanis & Suzanne: Yeah.
Hart: Like we go to talk to someone at OpenAI and, you know, they don’t share any non-private or non-public information or things like that. Um, but they just talk about like the theory of where they’re headed or the theoretical changes in society. And like that’ll like prompt me to like go read about stuff that we could implement or read about other thoughts around the area. So, um, yeah, that’s, it’s a really fun job.
Tanis: Yeah, what a wonderful space to be in. Well, we always conclude our interview by asking our guests, um, you know, what “hiring for good” means to them. Uh, we like the fact that the title is iterative and I’d love to hear your interpretation.
Hart: Um, yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s uh multi-faceted, right? Like there’s companies today have to do more than just commercial business. Um, and in my mind, it’s hiring for good meaning how do you, how do you bring someone in who you can authenticate as the right person and everything, and have them have a great experience and leave them, wherever they decide to leave or you decide to part ways or whatever it is, leave them in a better position than when you got them? Right? It’s improvement throughout the time that you’re spending together.
Um, plus there’s also, there’s the corporate stuff of like, as the firm grows, like how do you make a positive impact on not only your clients but also the communities you serve and the people around those communities? And how do you, how do you add value in all the other stuff that you’re touching as a company? Um, but I think that hiring for good is bringing talent in, developing them, you know, making them smarter and better and more efficient, and then sending them on their way when they’re ready.
Tanis: That’s beautiful.
Suzanne: I love that.
Tanis: Yeah.
Suzanne: Hart, thank you so much for joining us today.
Hart: Thanks for having me.
Suzanne: Absolutely.
Tanis: Yeah. What a pleasure. Thank you.
Hart: Thanks.
Tanis: Thanks for joining us today at Hiring for Good. If you were inspired by our conversation, don’t forget to like, follow, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Suzanne: And if you want to learn more about our executive search services, check us out at www.hiringforgood.net or our company website, Acumen Executive Search. Tanis: Thanks so much, and don’t forget to join us next time for another in-depth conversation about transformational leadership. Until then, have fun.