Nicole

And I did a year of servant leadership, which basically meant I went around my network and said, you have me for free for a year.

So the advice is free, take it for what it's worth.

I did.

But it was fun because I was leaning in.

I was like nerding out and leaning into areas that brought me real intellectual joy, personal joy.

It allowed me to be around people that I constantly learning from.

It allowed me to give back in ways that when you have a full-time job, you're not necessarily able to do.

And it just gave me such clarity on where I thought the real investment opportunities, like where the puck is going, if you will.

And I would absolutely be lying if I said when I left PERS, I knew I was going to launch a credit fund.

I knew I was going to do something in private markets.

I knew that I wanted to take everything I love about being a CIO, but combine it with everything I love about building businesses and building strategy.

I knew I wanted to do it with a team of humans that I really was excited to get up and work with every day.

I think the work hard, be kind strategy.

mantra that I, you know, try to live by was something, you know, that I kept in mind as I was seeking out who it was that I wanted to build a firm with.

And so when I ultimately met my now co-founder, Peter, and he and I shared very similar values on what, you know, what we think is important when you're going to build a firm.

And with his background being solely in this part of credit that we've now launched Square9 into, I

It just got me really excited.

I had already spent so much time thinking about where I thought the right interesting thematics were through the lens of where's the capital going to come from?

So what do allocators need today?

Where can I, Nicole, add value in the ecosystem as I build a farm?