EW 072 – How To Start An Association and Make It Successful – Winning with Cecilia Bloxom, CEO of the Chiropractic Association of Alberta

Gordon Sheppard (00:01.096)
Cecilia, welcome to the show.

Cecilia Bloxom (00:03.842)
Thank you so much for having me, Gordon. It's an absolute privilege.

Gordon Sheppard (00:07.196)
Well, it's a privilege for me because I've had a chance to spend a bit of time with you in a pre-interview setting to learn about the strong leadership work that you've taken, that you and your board have taken, that you and your board and your members have taken to build up an association from the ground level to get it to be so successful in such a short period of time. And I think it's such a compelling story. I'm so glad that you're gonna be here to kind of talk a little bit about that and in terms of what it is. But

You know, there's a lot of people that haven't met you just yet. So if you had to describe yourself, what would you say?

Cecilia Bloxom (00:40.13)
That's a great question. So I would say, Gordon, that I would be naturally a communicator by heart. It's something that was very apparent in who Cecilia Bloxham is from day one. Luckily, I had a mom who was simultaneously a career coach as well, and she helped me find my footing. And I ended up doing a diploma in public relations, a degree in public relations communications, and I would say that naturally at heart I am a very passionate communicator.

Gordon Sheppard (01:10.098)
Well, and and having spent a bit of time with you, it's super clear. Every conversation I can say that I've had with you of the few that we've had, it's very, very clear. And you're really you've got a nice sort of balance, I would say, of tone and ask where you don't let people off the hook. Is that a fair way to say it?

Cecilia Bloxom (01:10.104)
Yeah.

Cecilia Bloxom (01:27.003)
I would say so. I think luckily you're not my husband. I don't let people off the Keasley.

Gordon Sheppard (01:33.05)
Right. And that's a good thing from the leadership perspective that you're going to be introducing here as well. And I need to understand a little bit of the pedigree there. You said you did a a just take me through a bit of the lineage. So you got that PR degree or whatever it was. Take me through a bit of the history and what you got you to this moment in time. Let's start there.

Cecilia Bloxom (01:48.244)
Absolutely. So I did an undergrad in communications as well as a two-year diploma in public relations and advertising. And through that career projectory, I ended up getting a work-term placement at the Public Affairs Bureau in Edmonton. And if you had asked 21-year-old Cecilia, how do you feel about working in Edmonton for the government, I would have thought it boring. But I ended up loving it. And so I started my career at the Public Affairs Bureau working for the Ministry of Education.

Then I moved over to the Ministry of the Department of Energy, and it ended up being the absolute foundational place to start my career. I then ended up going into healthcare, and that's where the magic really happened. I think from the second I started to work in healthcare, which is essentially the connection of people, I knew that I found where my passion truly lies, and from there my career somewhat took off. I knew I wanted to bookend not only.

having an undergrad in communication so I ended up pursuing my master's degree in leadership and masters of arts in leadership through Royal Rhodes University and that was through exceptional mentorship and the encouragement of my CEO at the time and I truly haven't looked back.

Gordon Sheppard (03:03.527)
I think we're hearing your career coach mom foundation in sort of laying out the right steps. I can hear that in there. Like, I'm gonna do this thing, then I'm gonna bolt in that piece. And that's that thing of I'm gonna say lifelong learning that you'll be going on. And if we talk to you in 10 years, there would be those next three and four major steps that you're making throughout your career to land where you are now. And then somewhere in there, you got started where you are now. Tell me about your current role for a second and just tell me a little bit about how that got started.

Cecilia Bloxom (03:30.84)
Thank you, Gordon. So I was on the executive team of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute for 13 years in a senior director of communications role, and I knew I was ready for my inaugural CEO gig. And I was just coming off maternity leave and I started looking and I saw the posting to be the inaugural CEO of the Chiropractic Association of Alberta. I knew nothing about chiropractic profession. I truly had never been a CEO before.

And I was interviewed by the board, and I was absolutely flabbergasted by how authentic they were, how vibrant, how healthy, how strategic, and how organized they were. And I thought, how cool could this be? Almost a marriage of my two backgrounds of leadership and communications, because truly it has been a public relations exercise in awareness building for the chiropractic profession. And so that was 2021, and it's been a speedy and incredible for.

Gordon Sheppard (04:32.015)
Incredible, absolutely. And it's funny, I would concur with that. Sort of, you know, just doing a home bit of homework on your website, for example, again, another place of clear communication. You can hear, see your fingerprints on that, and you can see the pathways that are there that come from this carrying board that you're talking about all the way through to selecting you as the leader to stand this up and then to get it to this moment in time. So that's great. So it leads me to our first big question for the interview, which is if you had to describe your biggest win.

in maybe this whole bundle of work that we've talked about, what would that win be and how would you describe it?

Cecilia Bloxom (05:04.214)
I think the number one win is taking on a role that I knew I could get behind. I knew I could absolutely lead with heart and mind. The second you have those two connections, the magic happens. So the early days, if I was trying to push a rock uphill, the magic wouldn't happen. But this was absolutely a heart-mind connection of being able to believe in who we are and where we're going.

The business end of that is, I think, as Brene Brown says, clear as kind. We developed a strategic plan. And I think that if you don't have those guideposts in place and the strategic oversight of who you are and where you're headed, it's very easy to get lost. And within the first three months of taking on this role, we developed a board-approved strategic plan and we never backed down from it. So our first three years were very successful. In fact, using that strategic plan as our

Our map or our guide, we were able to have our first major policy win, and that was regaining publicly funded diagnostic imaging for chiropractors.

Gordon Sheppard (06:07.835)
Wonderful. And that's a and it's interesting because I think for folks that know more about the chiropractic story, what you just described is is sort of one of those re major milestones, if you want to describe it that way, about just sort of that consistent you know, participation of all sort of the medical disciplines coming together in terms of what you're doing. So you said you got there first three months, you get this strategic plan, you know, you're standing up this place for the first time, the inaugural CEO. And so the win is really getting these four and a half years in successfully to get it to this moment in time.

And it just takes an enormous amount of all your background, your pedigree, your communications, meets the leadership training, meets that moment in time, and how lucky they are to have you there doing what you're doing now. Well, it's great. So we kind of know what the win is. This is wonderful. And we can jump into what I call the anatomy of a win. So what is the strategy, work plan, people, operations, and results behind the win? And if we look at it, you just mentioned it. So strategically, vision, mission, values, goals, objectives, you're super clear on what that is. How would what highlights from

the strategy, maybe that early strategy would you say you'd like to point out to make this win occur?

Cecilia Bloxom (07:11.692)
I'd say hitting the right mark off the get-go. So our initial strategic plan, the tagline was duty to diagnose, commitment to care. And so the duty to diagnose was very straightforward in the sense that we wanted to regain publicly funded diagnostic imaging, which we did in over nine months of dedicated advocacy, which included meeting with the Minister of Health, Minister Jason Copping at the time, a lot of work with the Alberta Medical Association and the exceptional leadership of the Alberta Medical Association, and then

Using research to drive policy change. The second part of that tagline was commitment to care. We know that the just over 2,000 chiropractors in Alberta have an absolute desire to care for Albertans for muscle skeleto or spine, muscle, nerve, and joint conditions. So to unpack the anatomy of that win, I think it's using where we're heading and the language of how we're going to get there. And we obviously

Use the right language because you could see the entire profession rally behind us, but then also in every stakeholder meeting we had, it's in our annual report. But I think last year alone I had 99 advocacy or stakeholder meetings, and I never backed down from communicating who we are, where we're going, and how we're going to get there with that futuristic, you know, they always say be 10 steps ahead of the country. and I truly think our current strategic.

Gordon Sheppard (08:43.856)
Wonderful. So we've rolled over into our second strategic plan, learning from the first and the first one, you know, with that very clear, early sort of foundational understanding and then the evolution is there. What would you say the evolution is the is it the tagline that changed in the second one? And what is it now?

Cecilia Bloxom (09:00.44)
So, our new tagline is Trusted Rehabilitation, Alberta Chiropractors. And that's a pretty bold statement as well. And we know that patient-centered care, evidence-based care is very much part of the current landscape within Alberta. We see how much forward momentum is happening within healthcare transformation. And we wanted to establish not only a strategic direction, but a tagline that can lead us into the future. And the future very much.

Is that wraparound rehabilitation care for any patient that's suffering from spine muscle nerve joint conditions in that interprofessional discipline setting? So working with physiotherapy, working with chiropractic, working with massage, with acupuncture, with family physicians, anyone who's part of that patient's care team. And so trusted rehabilitation really resonates.

Gordon Sheppard (09:55.431)
Interesting. So you folks are able to tackle where the puck is going if we listen to Mr. Gretzky. This idea of right, where's it going? We got in, we got started, we got a good foundation. I hear things like don't back down. I hear clear communication. Fun to hear phrases that are, you know, considered and you can hear this communication piece that you're injecting, but then also then gaining the support of this full stakeholder group to kind of move that forward. Well, so strategically, we got a good feel for what you folks have done the heavy lifting on, and I'm sure there's a lot more detail in there, but

Policy wins, advocacy wins, and again, I'm gonna say just momentum around you know, what you're gonna do going in the future. Wonderful. That's strategy. anytime we have a strategy, we need a work plan. So in this case, you said you stood it up in 2021-ish. What are sort of the timeline? What's that timeline highlights along the way? That first strat plan was delivered, and then three years later, you had another strat plan in terms of that development, and then you're evolving in terms of what you're doing now. But any major highlights on the timeline, if we had to look at that along the way that you would point out?

Cecilia Bloxom (10:49.784)
You know, Gordon, in even reflecting for this conversation today, I'd say part of what I'm most proud of is that I focused on the right things. And I think when you're launching a startup, it's very easy to get bogged down by the menial tasks of everything that that entails. So if you think about the basics mailing address, starting a website, securing office space, getting the phone line set up, how do you renew a membership? How do the poor DMs go through for governors? There's so much work.

And it's such a small team that you could quickly get overwhelmed. And I think what I'm most proud of is focusing on the right things at the right time and not getting bogged down by the big global landscape or magnitude of what we were trying to achieve. So I did that very intentionally. I didn't hire a massive team right out of the gate. I was employee one for the first three and a half months until I was very aware of what are the skills.

We need to onboard. And so my very first hire, somewhat of a WestJet title, membership experience manager, because we knew that we don't exist without our members. We never take that for granted. We're a member-based entity. And we want we have a customer service agreement here that if you reach out to the chiropractic association of Alberta, we'll get back to you within two hours. And so we want that member experience to be fantastic. So that was a great first hire.

And with that, I think putting all of the pieces into play.

The biggest one for us was building the right relationships. And our board is incredible of that now. We know that we're only as great as the people we connect to and the people we connect with. And so we've been able to develop an incredible relationship with current government, with other allied health professionals across the province. But I'd say most importantly, we've been able to develop a great relationship with our members. They trust us. And that didn't happen overnight. That was

Cecilia Bloxom (12:56.93)
Something that we had to build. It was a culture build. And when people show you who they are, you believe them. And I think by repeated behavior, our members have seen that we are absolutely here to support them. We never take for granted their hard-earned membership dollars and we use them accordingly to propel the profession forward.

Gordon Sheppard (13:17.446)
Thanks for articulating that. I need to unpack a whole bunch out of there, but thanks for being a leader who didn't get bogged down and understanding the value in not getting bogged down, especially in that small team setting. Interesting to hear you use the word startup in what could be nonprofit language, but startup makes total sense because that's exactly what it was. And then, you know, making these these members your key first piece. So you're laying out a bit of a roadmap for I think other association leaders to

you know, glob onto here. And it's funny, I was just dealing with someone in municipal who said it took them s some time, a few years to get into their portfolio dealing with farmers in the municipality. And as soon as those farmers start to ask about you and your kids, that's the moment when it clicks over. You would have moments because these chiropractors, they're pretty smart. You know what I mean? And I'm I'm gonna guess they're pretty demanding as a group, if we look at them as sort of a membership as a whole. Are there any little moments in there where you knew you're kind of you were winning hearts and minds in a sense along this timeline?

Cecilia Bloxom (14:14.53)
By the amount of times the phone rings or the emails come in. So in the early days, we repeatedly heard from our members in very much call-out language, questioning who we are, what we're doing, where we're going. And now we very rarely hear from our members because we're heading in the right direction. And without question, you know, I've I've mentioned it a few times, I'll mention it again.

Profession, and I think with that they saw okay, this association is truly invested in us and propelling the profession forward, so let's lean in and we'll put our commitment towards the association as well. But I think the other big thing with that is we don't tell people what we do, we show them, and we have very you know, the line that I've heard described for me is no moss grows under that girl. It's because we we don't

Don't just tell people who we are, we show them who we are, and our actions speak way louder than our words. And we've been able, you know, yeah, we're a startup, but not to toot our own horn. We also just launched a subsidiary. So we now own the Alberta Center for Chiropractic Advancement, where we've been able to do a two million dollar investment with Rain Tree. We've exposed that investment opportunity to all 1200 of our members, and they now have the ability for financial wealth. And there

There's something you said about chiropractors. The piece with chiropractors is they on average come out of school $275,000 in debt. They simultaneously have to provide exceptional patient care, but they're standing up businesses. And so that's a very complex challenge. And anything the association can do to support the magnitude of that, I think has been very beneficial to the profession. So they can focus on what matters most, and that's keeping Albertans healthy.

Gordon Sheppard (16:15.065)
Wow, there's so much subtle like it it takes all these years. You're you're super articulate right now. This is not easy in month two and month twelve and month fourteen, do you know what I mean? To get these things in order. I'm really glad to hear how articulate you are around these things that are happening along the way. And you can see the amount of time that takes to build trust, get those things to happen. And then that thing about where's the puck going. You just said it. Well, we set up with Rain Tree. We're on the innovation side of things. We also know our members well enough to know how to support them in their early years and also their later years.

With this policy advocacy. Well, there's so many things that you are doing so well along the way. So stra anatomy of the wind. So strategy, work plan. You talked a lot about people. People's the third step in here. How would you describe yourself and your attitude? Like, tell me what was day one? Your employee number one. What's day one? You're sitting there somewhere. You got a laptop and and what was that like? And how would you describe your attitude over the the ride since?

Cecilia Bloxom (17:07.288)
professional and I think you know I look back to those early days Gordon and it was just on the tail end of the pandemic where working remotely was the norm. So we didn't have office space yet. But I would wake up every single day and make sure that I looked corporate ready and put on my nylons and my high heels and drop my children off at daycare and get ready to work. And I think that by showing up as a professional you set that as the standard.

And the other word I would use is authentic. I think in nurturing those authentic relationships, especially with chiropractic care, because this hasn't been an easy profession to really showcase that on average chiropractors have eight years of education, generally a four year undergrad in kinesiology, a four year doctorate in chiropractic. It's a very misunderstood profession. There's only two places in Canada to get your doctor of chiropractic, one is in Toronto at the Canadian Chiropractic.

Memorial College and one is in Trois Rivière, Quebec. So there's not that integration within mainstream medical profession. So, you know, not getting educated with physiotherapists or with other allied health professions. So it's been an awareness build. And I think by being professional and being authentic, we've been truly able to showcase who chiropractors are and the exceptional care that they are providing in Alberta. And I think my board would say this as well: the biggest blessing.

is they hired a CEO who's not a chiropractor, so I don't get in my own way.

Gordon Sheppard (18:42.063)
Right. And so you've got that outside perspective and that professional approach to what you've been doing all the way along. Well, what a nice way to go to work. Cause you have a know a standard for yourself that carries on through. I don't mean to, I don't know your mom. There's something about that career coach that's shining through right now, along with what you've done as well, obviously as a leader. The there's other people involved in this type of win. So I'm gonna say I've heard policy advocacy, you don't do that alone in terms of what that takes.

Any other s or the board you've mentioned over and over again along the way, any other kind of key people that you think you need to you can mention them by name or not or groups or whatever you'd like to say, but who are some of the other key players and how would you describe their attitudes in making this success occur up to this point?

Cecilia Bloxom (19:23.522)
Well, I mean, for sure I it can't all be my mom, so one other quick person to mention is my dad who made me stand on a little box and answer the phone at three years old. So you block some speaking, block some residents and so I think I was taught at a very young age how to communicate. So yeah, my dad Perry Bloxham was a huge like up on that as well. But without question it's our team. We're a small but mighty team and this is the day in, day out and the the

Operations of the Chiropractic Association of Alberta. So we have our goal is high-functioning, cross-collaborative. We always talk about the fact we're small but mighty. The magnitude of work that we pull off for a mighty team of five people, I think, is pretty unprecedented. We allow that perfect space of we don't manage the minutia the silly things. We manage the leadership where you can show up every single day with a purpose.

We really believe in high autonomy, low bureaucracy. Here's your project, you can lead it, start to finish, but let's pull in the entire team to help you get across the finish line. And we don't take that for granted. We, you know, when things don't necessarily go as good as they could have, we immediately do a debrief and figure out how we can do it better next time. So truly trying to create that culture. I have a personal line where I say this will be the best job you've ever had, and I've only ever had the best job I've ever had.

And I think we we make that the culture around here.

Gordon Sheppard (20:57.647)
I've only ever had the best job I've ever had. What a true north to be and you're you're l you're and you're in the show not tell game. So what's funny is there's we're talking about the chiropractic association, but there's also then you and your own leadership. and that's shining through here as well. This is getting in the master class level. I really appreciate your good preparation for this moment in time. We've got the strategy, the work plan. We've mentioned some of the people, and we know there's so many more, we just don't have the time, but it's your staff and your board and your

Cecilia Bloxom (21:03.606)
It is.

Gordon Sheppard (21:26.221)
your members and there's so many other places, you know, even people in the government or whatever that have been helping you along and and the even medical association got mentioned in there as well. Good. So people operationally, if you're going to stand something up, you have to operationalize it. Now what I heard earlier was you weren't going to get caught on the minutia, but you did operationalize a few different significant things that I've heard so far. So policy stand-ups as an example. You've also, you know, you got your staff which was taken on thoughtfully

And it's sort of in the right order in a sense if you're gonna operationalize something like this. There's then setting those future seeds, which then have actualized in the rain tree thing that you talked about, again, supporting people along the way. Any other kind of operational highlights that you'd like to point out that have made this a success?

Cecilia Bloxom (22:09.61)
I think the the biggest success is the fact that we are so organized within how we're set up that

The players could change, but the guardrails are there. So we have our robust strategic plan. We have our robust operational plan. So we've essentially unpacked every strategic pillar throughout the entire next three years and put those into concrete goals and tasks for what the team needs to achieve. And we're even so organized that our budgets align to our strategic pillars. So if the members, if our members ever called us and said our first strategic pillar.

Is positioning chiropractors as the first point of contact for MSK Health. How much money have you spent in the past year on that endeavor? We'd be able to pull it out, unpack it, and say whether we did a partnership with the Edmonton Oilers or the Calvary Flames, this is the dollar amount we've spent in order to drive that strategic pillar forward. And I think it very much helps to have that level of organized detail. And it's a huge testament to the board as well because they stood up a startup as well.

And they had an exceptional governance policy manual. We take a lot of pride in the strategic governance that we've been able to develop. We're to the point now where we have a consent agenda, which is very sophisticated level of governance. So it's a testament for sure to the board as well. And I think it whether you're on the operational team or at the board level, or you experience a stakeholder meeting with us, you're going to feel that level of professionalism, authenticity, or

organization and knowing we know who we are and where we're going.

Gordon Sheppard (23:52.751)
How nice to hear the numbers tied to the strat plans. Often the strat plans get cooked up and sit on the shelf and don't have that connection to ops and reality. So again, another great best practice example for the folks that don't know what a consent agenda is, can you explain it a little bit and why it's a good thing?

Cecilia Bloxom (24:09.858)
So when you have only six board meetings a year, what you do is you unpack the agenda. A portion of it is in this consent agenda, and a portion of it is in the strategy agenda. And essentially, everything that's within the consent agenda you can pass with one resolution. And although, if there's anything within the consent agenda, you as a director needs to be moved over to the strategic side, you can pull it out of the consent agenda and then it's opened up for more dialogue. It puts the onus as well.

Well on governors assuming that they've read the board package and they feel very comfortable passing everything under the consent agenda with one simple resolution.

Gordon Sheppard (24:49.848)
And it asks instead of trying to catch up with it when they meet, they've done their homework before they get there to be able to, you know, sign off on that consent or you know, vote in that consent agenda and get it done. And again, you've got the flexibility to pull it out. A great governance procedure that not enough people are practicing. And I'm glad to hear that you've got that in place as we're going forward. Good. We've heard about strategy, work plan, people, operations. Finally, there's results, quantitative and qualitative results in getting a win. And we've heard

A quite a few of them in a sense. A couple thousand members. We've had some policy wins like on the quantitative side. any of the quantitative pieces that you like to point out that really illuminate what we're talking about here?

Cecilia Bloxom (25:31.286)
I'd say one of the examples, Gordon, we've established an incredible relationship with Minister Adriana Lagrange, who we know's portfolio has just done a a a shuffle this past week. However, Minister Lagrange was exceptional for believing in us and we received two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from Alberta Health, but now Alberta Primary Care Preventative Health, to roll out our low back on track pilot. So we have a pilot program running in Calgary Foothills PCN.

And Red Deer PCN, which is the opportunity for Albertans to receive chiropractic care, funded chiropractic care for low back pain. And early results are really showing that this can have an impact at having chiropractors at the table to treat anything muscle scletal related. So that is a concrete example of some action that's come out of our operational plan that really ties in that research component, the government relations.

component to it as well, but really putting the patient at the center of the care that we're providing.

Gordon Sheppard (26:37.294)
So again, another concrete example. And I'm sure if we had enough time, we would go through KPIs and deliverables and hitting budget targets. And we would hit number of policy impacts or number, like you said, ninety-nine meetings or those types of things. And it's all in there in sort of again a very stats based orientation. Funny Bianca Jade Parsons was on. She leads the Alberta food processors and they just doubled their staff based on performance.

And so is that one of those things where they're advocating in their area? You're reminding me of that because anytime you can get funding, government, you know, a government you know, put their hand up to say, yeah, we're gonna support you. That's based on, like you said, a lot of hard work and behind the scenes to know that you can present a case to them, that they're gonna support that to that level and how nice that you are helping Albertans with really a serious issue that is gonna stem out of the good work that you're doing. Well, that's interesting. So quantitatively, that's it. Qualitatively, how's it feel to talk about this win?

Cecilia Bloxom (27:32.803)
Feels incredible. I think I I have my favorite quote up on my wall: don't ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive, because what the world needs is people who are alive. And I really believe in the whole concept, you're here once in life, make it count. And I take it back to my old tree planting days. Why would you ever plant a tree upside down? You plant a tree to grow. And I think I'm so proud of what we've achieved at the chiropractic association.

Of Alberta. It's no small feat to essentially launch a startup with a little bit of seed funding and turn it into hopefully something that will be around for the next century and propelling the profession forward for the care that Albertans need. And you know what it is that magic represent recipe of I'd say great board governance, great leadership, culture, trust, communication, authenticity, knowing who you are and where you're going.

Think all of those pieces come into play. And there's one thing you touched on, Gordon. Why create a strategic plan that sits on the shelf? I couldn't agree more. And you know, I was in conversation this past week with someone who is equally as credentialed with having their Canadian Society of Executive designation, Canadian College of Health Leaders designation, and when our strategic plan was reviewed, he said it's terrible, and I was like, It's terrible. What do you mean by that? And he said, You

Know it you're missing a lot, it needs to have a couple more pages to it. And I pushed back and I said, No way, a great strategic plan is tight, bright, and light, and you should always be able to recite it off by heart, know exactly who you are and where you're headed, so that you can call it to action every single meeting and every single conversation you have. So I hope he sees the clarity and the modernization of what a strategic plan should be.

Gordon Sheppard (29:30.328)
I'm so glad you've you you put again that light part, thank you. again, so memorable. I know in the work that I do on the coaching, executive coaching side, advisory side, I often say, you know, what's your vision statement? And even if they went through the exercise, there's not many people that can say it out loud. And I'm like, well, wait, what'd you spend all that time and money for to get that sort of out there? But what I can hear is yours is relevant. And then what's nice is that detail that

He might be alluding to is in your ops execution of it. You can hear that would be in there anyway. So it's funny about where do you put it and then old versus new thinking. But this is the agile, this is the agility about focus on those right big blocks that you alluded to earlier from a leadership perspective and not getting bogged down. I so appreciate that you've said that. A lot of leaders listen to this.

And shiny objects can come and go, you know, in any leadership role. So to not get hung up on the telespill whatever it is that you're sort of early on and really get into saying, no, what's gonna move the needle here, you know, for our members, for the people that we're serving, how nice to be really, again, on a true North perspective, again from your own perspective, but also with these people that have been involved. Great. Anytime I get a wonderful leader on the show, I always like to say, you know, if you had a few sentences going out here at the end of the podcast and you had to pass it along to another leader.

what sort of things do you like to to pass along to leaders that are could maybe receive some suggestions from you?

Cecilia Bloxom (30:53.848)
There's been so many great little nuggets of advice from incredible people that I've had the privilege of working for and with. But I'd say one of the best pieces of wisdom I ever received, because really in any leadership role, what is it? It's a series of decisions. And the best advice I ever received was make a decision and then make it the right decision.

Gordon Sheppard (31:18.529)
Make a decision and then make it the right decision. Boy, does that that just sort of overcomes the perfectionism that I suffered from decades ago. Do you know what I mean? You get moving forward and you make it happen. And you've been making it happen so well. Obviously, for these four and a half years that you've been in your role to get to this big win at this moment in time. Cecilia, thank you so much for being on the show.

Cecilia Bloxom (31:41.538)
Well thank you, Gordon. You do incredible work and I hope you get the acknowledgement you deserve as well because what an incredible thing you're putting out there. The Executive Wins podcast and for to be able to tap into leaders and make them reflect too what makes them win. So you're winning in what you do every single day.

Gordon Sheppard (31:59.715)
Thank you so much.