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Man: Welcome to “Own the Promise,” a CLA podcast created to share what guides every decision we make and every relationship we cultivate.

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Denny: Hello, CLA family. Denny Schleper coming to you once again, this time actually from Orlando, Florida. Why are we in Orlando? We are in Orlando actually this week with the incredible pleasure of meeting with the executive team, the young executive team, some of the chief industry officers across CLA, and the FIT group–the Future Innovation Team.

We spent about the last day and a half really looking at 2018; where are we going as a firm, what do we have to prioritize; a year from now, what is that we absolutely are going to have to accomplish as a firm. One of the great things about CLA is that people like myself, the board of directors, the executive team, we know and understand we don’t have all the answers.

There’s no way that we can figure this out for a firm like CLA, with the geographic reach that we have, the industry reach, the service reach that we have, and also for many of you listening, obviously, the perspectives of all the generations within CLA. So the reason the Future Innovation Team is invited is to really help us figure out a perspective that we wouldn’t otherwise have within the firm.

So actually with me today are members of the Future Innovation Team. And this group, many of them have been together now for a little bit, about a year and a half or so. Some are newer. But it was just a fantastic experience we’ve had. And I wanted to share with all of you, and let you not only get introduced to this group, but really get a sense as to what they add to the strategy of CLA and the vision of CLA.

I know I get impressed with the 50% that I understand that they’re talking about, and I guess really impressed with the other 50% because it sure sounds good. But it does give us that knowledge that we need. So I would love for all of you across CLA to get introduced to this group and hopefully, as I do, really appreciate the efforts. They do this really on a volunteer basis. This is their time above their day jobs, really helping the firm move forward.

With that, I’m happy to turn it over to one of the FIT members. And somebody needs to raise their hand. We have a hand raised. John Tauer.

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John: Thank you, and hello CLA, and I appreciate having the opportunity to say a few words. And I had to raise my hand there initially because Denny said he wanted to put a group together to figure all this out. If you’re looking to us to have it all figured out, we don’t have it all figured out, and frankly, we’re probably never gonna have it all figured out. It’s a journey. So what is FIT doing and how do we feel we’re helping the firm? It’s really trying to dive deeper into the disruption that we’re hearing and we’re seeing throughout all industries, throughout the economy, in many different pockets.

And we don’t know what the exact answer is. We don’t know the exact path to get there. But we know we all need to be engaged in it, and we need everybody from CLA to be engaged in it at some level, whether you just started with CLA, you know, one day ago and you have an idea. We want to hear about it. If you’ve been here for 30 years, we want your help as well, too, because you’re also probably leading others and other groups and need to be open to that. So again, that’s what we really see as probably again as top level, what does FIT do?

You know, we just got our ears and eyes open and trying to understand the market and hoping that we can add value to where we’re all trying to go.

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Denny: Jessica Platt from New Bedford.

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Jessica: I would also say in regards to the FIT, when people hear about FIT,