Stacey Ryan, School of Rock COO on Crisis Leadership

Michael Koenig: Hey, it's Michael. If you've been on a

Stacey Ryan: Thanks for having me. And I have a fun correction to your intro, actually.

Michael Koenig: Ooh, good.

Stacey Ryan: I'm excited to tell you about it, but we predated the movie. So the movie is actually loosely based off of our school. School of Rock started 5 years prior to the movie.

Michael Koenig: Yeah. Oh my goodness. They need to give y'all some credit here. That is, that's crazy. We've been planning on this one for a while, and I've been thinking about the questions that I wanted to ask. And the first one, this is a total bad, horrible dad joke, but How's Jack Black?

Stacey Ryan: I don't know. Jack Black is— although we share the name and, you know, both have very high profiles in regards to School of Rock, we have not yet done a collaboration with Jack Black.

Michael Koenig: Oh, bummer. I was hoping that he was going to be an investor because that would be wild.

Stacey Ryan: No, he's not involved in the business.

Michael Koenig: So straight into the actual interesting conversations. Excuse me, interesting questions, that is. What's the toughest operational challenge that you have faced as the COO of School of Rock?

Stacey Ryan: Yeah, so I would say the most general is the fact that people entrust us with their two most prized possessions, their children and their money. And, you know, really ensuring that we do our best to protect both of those. Of course, the children first and foremost. With that, the most challenging that I've experienced, I'm sure my answer is not unlike many out there, but was definitely the global pandemic. The pandemic was tough for us. We are a business of putting people together in a room, screaming into microphones, spraying their vocal mists into the room. I mean, COVID was designed to destroy us, but we also— the music is just the first part of it. You know, at School of Rock, we're so much more than music education. We help our kids with depression, with suicidal ideation, with their mental health. A lot of kids and instructors find their comfort in School of Rock because it's the first place where they actually feel like they belong and they fit in and they're not different and they can be whoever they are. And that doesn't matter. It's just the music. So when the pandemic happened and we had to shut down, we operate in 19 countries. So not only was it figuring out each country and the differences, But also, how are we going to keep the music going while protecting everyone's health and safety? And we navigated the pandemic always with health and safety as our number one top priority. We were unempathetic about that. If someone disagreed with our decisions and that's what the driving force of it was, I'm sorry, then maybe this isn't the right place for you right now because we're trying to protect our community the best that we can. So it was incredibly challenging, but It was also incredibly rewarding. So I say it's the most challenging part of my career, but I also always say that it's the most rewarding part of my career because during that time when the world was turned upside down and nobody knew what was happening, what to do, how to do anything, our community pulled together in a way that I have, I've just never witnessed in my life, yet alone in my professional career. And it was every day we were getting on some group of calls, some of them it was everyone, some of it was all the owners, some it was just the operations team. And it was, "All right, let's throw out the School of Rock book of knowledge and start on page 1, line 1. Like, how are we going to do this?" And we innovated, Michael, like I've never saw innovation before. And we kept the music going and we protected people's investments and created new value in different ways to keep everything pushing forward in the best way that we possibly could. So it was tough, but it was amazing and something I look back on with a lot of pride.

Michael Koenig: I love this. Now, in terms of innovation that comes from challenges, I mean, it's the challenges that you never see that make you innovate in the ways that sometimes are most impactful. We see this all the time with tech and with startups. First, I'm very interested in hearing about like, how did you innovate and how did you survive? What did lessons look like? But also, did you innovate in ways that you've kept and kept on outside of COVID Yeah.

Stacey Ryan: So one of the things, the main pivot that kept us going, that still is available, was we completely turned to remote lessons. Luckily, School of Rock, we already had a platform in place. That platform has since changed. We've secured it in a School of Rock Online fashion now instead of

Michael Koenig: If you've got a grandmother expressing that type of gratitude, how do you go back and say, "No, grandparents, sorry, that's not gonna happen." So it sounds like the online portion of this is tied to the in-person classes. So single cohorts. Is there an online only cohort opportunity?

Stacey Ryan: There is, if someone is in a place where School of Rock isn't yet. And of course, our goal is to be everywhere where people are, and we're pushing forward on that mission. But if someone is in a country or in a state or a location where they don't have access to a School of Rock, we do offer that as well.

Michael Koenig: The reason I ask that is because so many businesses transformed the way they operated during the pandemic to have that online part. And those have unlocked new business opportunities. A recent episode was with the CEO of a company called GetYourGuide. The pandemic was an accelerant for them because it forced people to be able to use new technology, book things online. It created those habits. And so to hear another example of a business doing that, I think is just so fun and so interesting. As it brings a different flavor to the business. You talked about belonging and being who they are. I'm a musician and I got— I actually got into my career through an '80s tech punk band.

Stacey Ryan: We're going to have to talk more about that offline.

Michael Koenig: One of the things, and I wanted to ask this, and it's way far off of operations, but just fascinating, is playing music is one, a huge stress relief for many people, right? And you talked about the mental health aspects of it. Playing music can also be— it makes you incredibly vulnerable as well. Now, how do you teach around that vulnerability to be your real self? And the reason why I ask this is I think that there's probably some lessons that we can all take outside of just being a student in the School of Rock.

Stacey Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. And it's great, you know, belonging. We operate on a set of core values, and belonging is one of those. And we stress it always. So the way we encourage it is really just in, in our community. And we won't stand for— we have a series of code of conducts that everyone has to sign, the children have to abide by. If you're in a situation where you're proven to be bullying somebody, you may be, you know, expelled from School of Rock. You may be removed from the band temporarily. There are consequences to it. So we want to ensure that everyone understands the importance of accepting everybody. And then at School of Rock, we have our AllStars program. So our AllStars are— we're approaching 65,000 students worldwide. So of those 65,000, A few of them are able to apply for AllStars. And then those thousands of kids who apply for AllStars, think of it as like an American Idol almost situation. So they do local school auditions, they do video auditions, then they go through a series of live auditions and we bring it all the way down to about 170 students. And those are our AllStars for that year. And what happens, these 170 are all over the world. They're casted to their team. We have 7 different teams. They're casted to their songs and their parts. And then they fly in, they have 2.5 days to rehearse together, and then they get on a tour bus and they hit a different city every night at a different venue for a different show. And those shows include Red Rocks, Lollapalooza, Knitting Factory, like iconic stages they're playing together. And it's a 10-day experience that changes their life. It changed my life. I go on a tour bus every year. I hop on a bus because it's just such an incredible experience. But Part of becoming an All-Star, you can be the best musician in the entire organization. If you're not a student who shows and operates with our core values, where when you see a new student walk in the school, you're not walking over and introducing yourself and introducing them to others, you're not allowed to apply for All-Stars. And there is that point we really stress with the kids, and then even on the All-Stars, you have to load your gear in, you have to load your gear out, you have to help each other, you have to operate on those values. So every opportunity that we have, anyone who's had experience with School of Rock students in their venues would vouch for the fact that we leave our green rooms spotless. We don't leave with garbage places. It's the last thing, is the room clean? Pick up the garbage, throw it out, tie that up, get all your stuff. Every opportunity that we have to instill those habits in them, we really take advantage of.

Michael Koenig: That's incredible. And I'm going to enroll. I used to live in Colorado. I can't even tell you how many shows at Red Rocks I've been at. I always wanted to play there, so I'm going to enroll. Yeah, yeah, that'd be amazing. That would be absolutely incredible. When you first moved into the role, how did you go about assessing where the operations were? You know, what is the state of efficiency within the company?

Stacey Ryan: Yeah, so I've spent my entire career within operations in 3 different organizations, including School of Rock. And my first year at School of Rock was the only year I did not do operations. I was doing events and partnerships. And about a year into that, the former CEO said, I need your help with company operations. And I was like, okay, that I can do. Because the events and partnerships, it was new for me. I learned a ton. But I was ready to get back into what I really, where my jive is, which is operations. So, I waded into the pool at School of Rock into operations. So, I started with company ops, which we were 16 schools at the time. We now own and operate 48 within domestic US. Then, I branched on and brought in franchise operations, and then I had international operations as well. And each step of the way, the first thing that I did was seek feedback. Tell me what's going on, what's going well, what's missing, what's being done wrong. And I really just went into full listening mode and took everything that I can and then utilized just analyzing data and KPIs, seeing where those things married up. And I did a full reorg when I took in the franchise and international operations. We, previous to that, had two separate teams. We had a company operations team, we had a franchise operations team. That was part of the problem because the franchisees are like, what are you doing there that you're not telling us? And there was nothing, but there was no reason for not to have one voice, one approach. And that has worked really well for us. So every year still, we seek that feedback across the organization. I work with our VP of Domestic Operations, and we take the feedback and we look at it and say, okay, like, where can we be better? So we'll— we've improved significantly. That I'm confident of, I'm proud of, but we always will have things that we can be better on. And I think that's the most important step, is getting the insight from the others out in the field, getting that different perspective of it, challenging yourself. We operate on a mentality of maybe they're right. Anyone in franchising really needs to operate on that mentality and going into the maybe they're right mode and then just reassessing and seeing where you stand. Hmm.

Michael Koenig: How do you go about evaluating how you want to reorg and also how do you execute it, both the planning and just how it's going to go?

Stacey Ryan: Yeah, I wish I had a really sophisticated answer to this, but it was truly a lot of quiet moments by myself with a giant whiteboard. And there were multiple times where, you know, I drew up a map and I erased it. I think it wasn't until my 5th or 6th drop that it was like, all right, I think this is it. So, you know, just giving yourself the freedom to navigate that whole experience and know that the answers don't always come immediately. The answer didn't come immediately to me, but as I was reading through the feedback, as I was hearing where those opportunities were, I started to formulate some thoughts and some ideas. And our system has grown significantly. I remember when we hit 100 schools and we just hit our 360th school. I remember when we hit 10,000 students and we've surpassed 60,000 students. So with that growth has come the necessity for restructuring to ensure that we're maintaining the same level of support for our system, for our franchisees. And we've had to do that a few times now. And each time it's just sitting back and sitting with the problem and stewing on it for a bit and exploring all the different opportunities. And you get down that path and you're like, oh no, that's not gonna work because of this. And then you come right back to the beginning and you start over. Nothing really concrete to it, but really just taking the time that's needed to go through the thought process.

Michael Koenig: You mentioned that you've gone through several reorgs. Has that been prompted by your growth?

Stacey Ryan: Yeah. So, we had our directors of operations oversee territories within the US, and initially they both oversaw our company schools and our franchise schools. So they worked directly, managed our general managers, and then they consulted our franchisees. Again, that one voice approach. What happened is, again, we grew from 16 schools to 48, and our franchise schools grew as well. So there were more schools within the territory, and we just found that we weren't providing the right level of support on both sides because it was spread too thin. But it was incredibly important to me to maintain that one voice approach. And then there were some other things that we saw, some other opportunities as well with career path and growth potential and professional development. And what we ultimately did is instilled an additional layer underneath the Director of Operations. So now we have someone specifically focused on the General Manager who works with the Director of Operations. Who supports the franchisee. So we still have that one voice approach, but now we have the appropriate level of support.

Michael Koenig: I'm interested in this because you have, with your company-owned locations, you have direct relationships with your customers, whereas with the franchisees, you don't necessarily have that. Your customer is the franchisee, and then you have these, let's call them sub-customers. How does that change your operations so that it's flexible enough to be able to support both?

Stacey Ryan: Yeah, we actually see they're all our customers, honestly. So we do have opportunities to impact directly through emails for programs like All-Stars or our Gear Select. But we are very mindful of it because our franchisees really develop that more deeper relationship, right, with their customers than we do. The way that we do it is we share anything and everything that we're doing in company schools. And have this thing I always say, like, we need to put it in a box. And what I mean by that is to be able to pass a box off to the franchisee and it has everything they need included in it. Marketing collateral, how-to guide, how to operate in our operating system, communication templates to families, to staff, whatever it is. And because we own and operate 48, we're creating that anyway. We're creating the communication template and saying, okay, GMs, go ahead and send this out to the parents about this annual price increase. This is how we want it to be worded this year. And then we say, hey, franchise owner, here's the communication template and what we're doing in the schools within your territory also. You're welcome to use it, all of it, half of it, none of it, whatever fits. So just making everything available to them, sharing with them what our approaches, what our initiatives are, what our projects are currently going on. And we really do operate as we're all the same.

Michael Koenig: This is interesting. A lot of our listeners are tech. They come from the tech world, tech operations. This obviously is a, let's call it a brick-and-mortar business, right? Franchise. But there are so many similarities. If you think about your location planning for your franchisees, this is very similar to territory planning for a sales team. If you think about a franchisee, it's very similar to using a partner sales channel. And I love these sort of, let's call them, I don't know, echoes, mirrors, whatever, mirror image, but in a different context. And I think what that can show us is that good operations are good operations. They transcend anything. When it comes to planning your territories and also deciding, is this going to be a company location or is it going to be a franchise? How do you approach this? What is the decision-making process?

Stacey Ryan: Sure. We have a great program, Form Analytics, which I'm sure many other franchisors will be familiar with, which helps us determine where are the locations we're not in that we need to be in and any locations, are they viable? So we look at a very detailed series of metrics. We have an incredible franchise development team with decades of experience. And together determine, is this going to be the right location for a School of Rock or not? And here's why. When deciding if it's a franchise or a company, that's an easy one because we actually don't open new company schools. So our company school growth has come more through just other opportunities, franchisees who have said, you know what, I've put in my 15 years, 20 years, I'm ready. And would you guys be interested in my school? And that's how that has— that and many other situations. That's what's contributed to the company's school growth. We're big believers in our own concept, so when we see a great opportunity to acquire a great school, sometimes we go for it.

Michael Koenig: How do you go about, one, selecting international locations, but also two, rolling out in a new country?

Stacey Ryan: Yeah, that's a great question. So we, many years ago, we had Direct International and what we learned is that we don't know the culture outside. We're a US company and we don't fully understand the culture in Mexico, in the Philippines, across the globe. So several years back, we've converted and all of our international— we still have some international direct franchisees, but all of our new countries, so Brazil, Chile, now Mexico, Spain, Portugal, all of those are coming on as a master franchise situation. So in Brazil, for example, they're our second largest country there. They've surpassed 40 locations. There is a master franchisee there and he has his whole franchisor there. So to what you were saying to the customers, that's actually the franchisees there. So he is our franchisee. They sub-franchise. So they have their direct franchises and there are sub-franchises. So what it allows us to do is just have greater impact, you know, especially with COVID We laugh about it now. It was definitely a sobbing moment then, but we were pushing out so much information so quickly, and then it would go to the master franchise in Brazil. They would quickly convert everything to Portuguese, and then send it out to theirs. So, it just creates that additional layer to catch any of those nuances that are just unfamiliar and unknown to us.

Michael Koenig: So, with the master franchisor, that introduces yet another step in between you and the end customer. How do you account for that so that you still have that interaction and learnings and understand the satisfaction, what's working, what isn't?

Stacey Ryan: Yeah, we have amazing relationships with our franchise partners. So I was just actually with one of the members in, at a music conference in California, and we had time together. I visited down in Brazil and visited all the schools and attended their annual convention, getting to meet many of their owners. So it's a very positive, transparent relationship where they're able to share with us frustrations or anything that they're seeing on their end. We're able to do the same and we collaborate and work together to find the right solution. Strong communication and we really just love each other. Like, we really like each other, not only as business partners, but as friends also. So that definitely makes it easier. They're a critical component to helping us solve for issues that are happening within their country and their territories.

Michael Koenig: Let's talk about talent assessment and retention. Now, this is one thing that you have written about a little bit on LinkedIn or elsewhere. I can't remember where I saw it, but this is a superpower of yours. What have you learned and how do you go about this?

Stacey Ryan: Ah, I've learned that it's like gambling, right? You'll never fully know until you're in it. I've learned to I really trust my gut, and that's a hard thing for people to do, especially newer managers. So I always try and coach them that if there's something going on in your gut, like a little— if it's a maybe, it's a no. Yeah, you know, no maybe turns into a yes, maybes turn into no. And really having to tap into patience and have the patience to find the right people for the roles. I wish I could say that I had an exemplary track record, but I don't. But I, every opportunity I have not looked at and said, well, it was because of this, or it was because of that, that is beyond my control. I internalize each turnover, whether it's voluntary or not, and question myself and the whole team. What's our learning from here? What can we do differently? What did we miss? In the screening or the onboarding. But I also think in regards to development, it's again that relationship. So I have great relationships with our company school general managers, our franchisees across the board. And when I speak with our staff members in company schools, I ask them, what's your next step? What are you thinking? Who's your bench? Who are you preparing? And I learn about their passions and their goals, and I tell them, reassure them that I am a champion of theirs, whether it's in School of Rock or elsewhere. I'm always going to be in their corner to help them in any way that I can. And, you know, one of my favorite examples is a young woman who runs one of our schools in Texas. She's a star. She's incredible. And in a one-on-one conversation with her, I learned that she was in school for graphic design. And, you know, when I asked, "What's next for you?" She's like, "I don't know, but I'm in school for graphic design and that's what I'm passionate about and that's really what I want to do." And Okay, so then I reached out to our head of marketing and I said, "Hey, she's interested in this. Could you guys use some help?" And it was, "Yeah, absolutely." So now this young woman works with our director of creative on designing new things. She's getting that experience. If an opportunity ever opens up within our marketing department, they've already have experience with her. So she's already got a foot in. And if it's not at School of Rock, she's got all this great experience to put on her resume with a really large organization as well. So, I think it's, you know, you have to get to know your people. It's all about the people and what drives them and helping just play your role. I've been blessed with amazing mentors and supporters throughout my life. So, at that point in my career where I just want to repay, pay it forward.

Michael Koenig: You talked about patience. That's so key, especially with hiring. Because ultimately it can be more costly to hire the wrong person than it is to take an extra month and do that. But it does take some steadfastness. Is steadfastness a word? If it is, then I'm going to stand behind the word choice. If not, then I think it should be because it's a good word. Anyways, so you talked about mentors that you've had. There are pearls of wisdom that, that I've received and things that I think about What's, what are one of those that you receive that, that has left a long-lasting impact?

Stacey Ryan: Oh, just one?

Michael Koenig: You can choose two.

Stacey Ryan: Yeah, I will say so. When Rob Price, our CEO, joined School of Rock, the organization was in a different place. There was just not a very positive relationship between the franchisees, the field, and the franchisor corporate office. It was an us/them type of mentality. And I will give him his credit for this because two of the most important things that I have learned, he came in and instilled two things. One, I already mentioned, first and foremost, we have to have the mentality of maybe they're right. We can't be in a position where they're telling us something and we instantly go into defense mode and tell them why they're wrong. And that has completely changed things. Having the freedom and the security of the safety of being wrong and it being okay has really changed how we operate as a team. And that was the second thing was we are never ever allowed to say anything contentious about a franchisee. Even if it's a heated moment in a heated conversation, we can't come back and say, you know what, he was a real— I don't know if I can curse on here, but he was a real a-hole. What we can say is I spoke with them and they're really passionate about this topic and this is going to be something that will keep coming up, but it's changed everything. And not saying that we were an organization that spoke poorly, but it's very easy to hang up from someone who's been yelling at you or angry or disagreed with you and be like, jerk, and shove it off. But saying, okay, this is really important to them and they're very persistent on it, changes again, the mentality, the perspective. Forces you into that maybe they're right zone. And it's changed a lot for me, how I look at franchisees, how I look at partners, how I look at myself and team members. And I think that's been one of the most powerful growths I've experienced in my career.

Michael Koenig: Maybe they're right.

Stacey Ryan: Maybe they're right.

Michael Koenig: I love it. Let's talk about FrontWomen.org. Now, this is a nonprofit that you founded. Tell me about it.

Stacey Ryan: Yeah, back to what I was saying, I'm at that point in my career, I feel like I'm shifting and I really want to pay it forward. I've been working corporate America since the start of my career and I have fought my way up and fought to have a voice in the room and sat at too many board tables where I could count the women on me, one other, and one other who's there to take notes. And then it's 14 men around the table. And it's, as a woman, it's hard not to feel intimidated. And my favorite book, Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In. I've bought it probably 8 times because anytime I reread it and I'm out and someone is like, is that a good book? A young woman. I'm like, take it. It's yours. Yes. Read it. Because it impacted me and it taught me to lean in and having to remind myself, hey, you're in the room because you belong in this room. And my whole career I was fighting the next step. I was an entry-level and a regional manager came in and asked me, what do you want to do? And early in my career, and I said, I want your job. And she was so taken aback. No one said that to me. I'm like, I'm not saying I want to take you out to get your job, but I want to work towards your role. So, I've always been focused and, you know, getting into the C-suite was important to me. You know, the C-suite roles in corporate America, 26% of them are women. And it's men and women join the workforce at the same rate. And when you get to a VP level, for every 10 men who are promoted, it's only 7 women. And that gap just continues to widen as you get up. So, when I was awarded the COO role, for the first time, I'll never forget the feeling, I felt like I could exhale and take a breath and sit in it and not be so laser-focused on, "Okay, how am I getting to the next step now?" And I also felt, being part of such a small representation, an increased level of responsibility to other women, whether they're fighting for the music industry, the tech industry, corporate America, wherever it is. The inequality is in all of it. And sitting home during the pandemic, I was just thinking through that and I said, I need to do more. And I came up with the idea of Frontwoman. And I have an incredible friend for many years who is in TV. He's an executive producer. And I said, help me come up with a name and a logo. And he did. And everything just started to fit in. I took it to Rob, our CEO, and I said, I have this idea. And before I could even finish going through the details, he said, I love it, do it. Frontwoman actually started as an employee resource group within School of Rock. And then about 2 years ago, 3 years ago now, I made the decision that it was too big and too impactful, and I didn't want to limit it just within School of Rock. So I have completely taken ownership. We have completely removed it from School of Rock. It is completely my project now, and we have opened it up to all women. And it's really powerful because what we do is we not just educate, but we celebrate. So every quarter we put out a newsletter where we highlight one incredible woman in all different industries, and we just ask them what have their learnings been, what have they done, what advice do they have. So just really great insight. And then we also do quarterly meetings. So once a year we do a panel discussion, which we just had a few weeks ago, which was absolutely amazing. We had an artist relations from a guitar company. We had a female CEO of Shure Microphones, Shure Incorporated, not just microphones, excuse me. We had Miki Angeli, which is an on-air radio host and producer. And we had Allison Hill, who is head of diversity and social responsibility at Rourke Private Equity Firm. So we had all these different industries, all these different levels, all these different experiences, and people come on and just ask questions. And it was such a powerful conversation. I always walk away from these things with something. And then the next 3 quarterly meetings will be more workshops. So we talk about how to navigate body positivity and how to navigate and fight against microaggressions. And we do workshop discussions, we break into small groups, all are welcome to join. And it's really just a great community of women. And I actually ran into a woman who joined us. Like I said, I was out in California at a music conference and she was there. We were both at the SheRock Awards, which was amazing. And she came over and was like, I just have to say hi and thank you. And just that one person, if we made an impact on one person, it was worth all of it.

Michael Koenig: That's fabulous. And since you opened the door, what are some of your learnings and advice to people?

Stacey Ryan: Yeah, the most recent, which I loved because I've heard it for so long, but the most recent on our panel discussion, somebody asked how you balance work and life. And 3 of the women on the panel, actually maybe all 4, said it's not balance. You'll never have a perfect balance. So one of the women, Lindsay Love, who's AR for Taylor Guitar, so she's a musician, will make sense. They talk about rhythm. Am I in the right rhythm? Because sometimes my tempo is faster and sometimes my tempo is slower. So I'm just making sure that I'm playing to the right rhythm of what the current situation is currently going on. And I loved that because trying to find balance, it's so much pressure. And I always say, look, that's different for everybody. For me, my balance is very heavier on the work side, but that's by my choice. I love what I do, so I don't mind looking what's going on a Sunday. That's just second nature to me, but that's my choice. So the whole rhythm thing, that, that was a different perspective. And then I also asked, I asked this question, Chris, who is the CEO of Shure Incorporated, I have so much respect for her, what she navigated in engineering. And I, she said it was like 300 students and 8 women when she went. And I'm like, did you ever feel like you didn't belong? She's like, every single day. And how she navigated that. And I asked the question early in my career, I had a woman who was several levels ahead of me tell me that I needed to put on lipstick to increase my sales and I needed to pull back my hair and put on lipstick. And I do like to pull back my hair time to time, but I don't like wearing lipstick. I'm not a lipstick wearer and I never did. And I'm glad that I was strong enough at that point point, because I was in my early 20s, to say, okay, that's not who I am. So I'm going to find another way to do it because I don't feel like lipstick is what's going to make me successful. There's that image part. And I always struggle, like something men don't understand, like long earrings, short earrings, hair down, hair up, things that your physical appearance. And what was shared was I dress the way I dress to feel the confidence that I, the way I want to feel in that moment and in in that meeting, and that's how I show up. And I don't care about what others may think. What I care about is how it makes me feel. So that was another good one from the most recent panel for me. But in the past, I've learned so much about microaggressions. I learned so much about why women have the body image issues that we did. We read an amazing book to go with the quarterly call that we had, and I'm excited to continue to learn more because every time I do, so I encourage anyone listening who's interested. It doesn't matter, um, gender, anything, industry, all are welcome. Frontwoman.org has a link to our mailing list, and we will always send out information when we have upcoming calls. And if you sign up for our mailing list, you'll automatically get our newsletters, which are, are pretty cool.

Michael Koenig: That's fantastic. Frontwoman.org, I will drop a link to it, but it is easy enough to remember. Frontwoman.org. And Stacy, where can people go to keep up with you?

Stacey Ryan: I am on LinkedIn, Stacy Ryan, S-T-A-C-E-Y R-Y-A-N. I can also easily be found on Instagram as well, and I can be reached via email, sryan@schoolofrock.com. Always love to meet new people, talk with new people, and like I said, support in any way I can.

Michael Koenig: Fantastic. Stacy, thanks so much for joining me. I appreciate it. And thanks to you all for listening to Between Two COOs. I'm your host, Michael Koenig, and a very special thank you to Stacey Ryan for joining us. Tune in next time for our next COO chat on Between Two COOs and make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere you listen to podcasts. And if you have a moment, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts and tell others about it. Thanks for listening. Tune in next time. And until then. So long. Hey, it's Michael. If you've been on a