Meet our CRO, Howard Diamond

“Good enough isn’t.”
In this episode, host Myles Biggs and Patrick sit down with Level Agency’s newest executive, Chief Revenue Officer, Howard Diamond, to talk about growth, leadership, and why strategy (not hype) should lead your AI adoption.

Howard shares lessons from 16+ years helping build a high‑growth agency, the poker‑player mindset he brings to decision making, and how Level’s no‑markup, fully transparent approach to media sets clients up for epic wins. You’ll hear why Level doesn’t have “an AI strategy”, we have a strategy enabled by AI, and what that means for marketers who don’t want to hand their competitive edge to the ad platforms.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to turn AI into an advantage through orchestration (not inventing LLMs)
• Why transparency in media buying beats short‑term “cheaper” models
• The culture behind “good enough isn’t” and aiming for epic wins
• A CRO’s real job: amplify innovation for new and existing clients
• “Briefs on steroids”: using AI to show up radically prepared for pitches
• Guardrails for growth: data, creativity, and your own optimization levers
• Sales philosophy: lead with curiosity, problem‑solve, and serve the truth
• Early‑career advice: patience over virality, own your learning, and ship work
• Leadership that scales: mentorship, feedback, and one conversation at a time

Guest

Howard Diamond — Chief Revenue Officer, Level Agency

Hosts

Myles Biggs with Patrick

If this was useful, follow the show so you don’t miss upcoming episodes, and share it with a colleague who’s navigating the same AI‑driven marketing landscape.

Transcript

0:00

We don't have an AI strategy here. We have a strategy and we enable it through AI. That's right. And I think that's the important differentiator. Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. I'm your host Myles Biggs. On this podcast, we are driven by truth. Sometimes the hard truth. We believe it's imperative to be relentless for results because if you're not your competitor is we're obsessed with how to be better every day because that's what our customers deserve. And if you can set aside your ego, if you can truly be no ego, then we are the show to help you go all in because good enough isn't. Today, Patrick and I are here with our guest of honor, our newest member of the Level Agency team, our Chief Revenue Officer, Howard Diamond. Hey guys, welcome to the team. So excited you're here. What is this day? Day what for you here? I think it's day seven, or we can count hours, but yeah. Holy cow. Pretty early. Pretty new. So you've got it all figured out, then It's all figured out. Yeah. Ready to go. Ready to go. Closed seven deals already once for each day. Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah, that's right. That's perfect. I think, uh, you know what, I think everyone would love to know kind of a little bit about your background. Yeah. Kind of what brings you here, the story. Yeah. The Howard Diamond story. That is now the next chapter includes Level, so Right. What, what brought you here? A lot brought me here and there's a, there's a thanks for asking me about my story. So, you know, I've been in the industry for, a quite a while. Started off in the early days of, uh, of, of digital media before I was even called digital media. And, uh, made my way through, uh, software, um, then to the agency space. So I spent about 16 years working for one of the fastest growing agencies in the industry. Company called Rise and, uh, did amazing things. Worked with amazing brands and, uh, you know, had the opportunity to meet you, Patrick, and Bill and some of the other folks here at the organization. And liked what I saw, so that, that's sort of a little bit of how I got here. So that, that 16 years that you had and the career before that as well, that was a straight line. There were no pivots, there were no mistakes, there were no hardships. Everything was just perfect. Right. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Um, so what, what were, the winding road that I'm sure that, that led you down that path. Like what were some of those hard one lessons that you had during that time? Yeah, I mean, first off, I've always been part of companies that are on a growth path. It's something that excites me. And obviously as you work with companies that are trying to grow, you're going to encounter different types of, you know, roadblocks and, and obstacles. And, um, to me that's part of the fun I look at, you know, and, uh. A lot of people know I like strategy, I play poker. Oh, okay. And, uh, I like analysis, I like solutions. I like gaming out different outcomes. And I think, uh, there's a lot of corollaries between, uh, being an entrepreneur and try to build a business as there is to, you know, those types of, uh, strategy engagements. So, yeah. Has that, has that poker mindset helped you in business? Has it driven? You to be all in in, in certain situations. Yeah. Or yeah. Yeah. My poker friends would laugh'cause it's a competition of who's the best player and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, I think so. I think when you think about outcomes, which I think is both a marketing concept as well as an overall business concept, I do think it gives you a lens that that helps you and, and what you do. Um, so yeah, I, I do think that it's fun to kind of think about both of those things together. Yeah. So the, uh, the"winding road" as Patrick called it, and you mentioned, uh, Rise being a high growth company Yeah. Level is as well. So I'm curious, I know it's only been seven days. Yeah. But what have you seen so far where you had a moment and you were like, I've done that before, and I can do that here, and you're gonna apply that knowledge for Level? Yeah, it's a great question. I, I also think that I'm seeing a lot of things and I'm also recognizing some of the moments that I experienced where, you know, you, you have more work maybe than you have. Time of the day to deliver and you know, you're, you. I think the experience that I have gives me some perspective, uh, to be able to have. Calmness in some of those moments where not everybody may be, uh, feeling the same and try to remind myself of those things too. That's kinda the fun part as well. Um, but I think as you look at, how to staff a team what types of clients are the best fit for our organization, where we can deliver the most value? Those are really fun exercises for me. And, and those are some of the things that I'm seeing in, again, my seventh day. And also, you know, us crystallizing around this concept of"good enough isn't", I think that's really fun and reminds me of some of the things I've done in the past where you really wanna take the soul of the organization and then share that externally. Those are really fun exercises for me. Yeah. So let's talk about that for a second. This idea of good enough isn't, what does that mean? Yeah. So as I've been learning about the culture and meeting people to me, first and foremost, this reflects the. The soul of the organization, that we have people that are just so passionate and so talented and so vigilant in what they do, that they will not stand for any less. So good enough isn't. Um, so to me this is very cultural and to me this connects to this idea that I've read about in some of our other literature and talking to people of this idea of epic wins. That we're not just trying to like, you know, hit that 10%, you know, ROAS goal or X number of new leads. We wanna deliver these epic wins things that are case studies and we're gonna be relentless and vigilant until we achieve that. And I think while everybody says that, having that mindset and having the motivation and talent to do it is a different story. So that's really, you know, stood out to me in my first week. I'm always inspired by someone like yourself who has done just amazing things in their career. Thank you. Appreciate that. And you got to such a, like, I, I think, a really phenomenal spot. And I know you're really, really proud of all the work that you did. But, uh, why, why at this moment in your career, why, you know, you've reached. You've reached the promised land that a lot of other marketers would look at and be like, and a lot of other, a lot of other sales folks would look at and be like, man, I would love to have your old job. Right? And you're like, no. Good enough isn't I'm going to go to the next thing. Yeah. And what's, what drove you to that? Yeah. Well first off, I'm gonna say a couple things. Any success that I've had in my career and I've been very fortunate is based on the amazing people that I've been surrounded by and, and working with amazing people. And there you cannot say enough about that and joining the right team and working with the right people. I've been very fortunate enough to do that. And the second thing I would say is that me joining Level is about this moment in time that I think we're in, we're in this, you know, I've heard it called a supercycle, whatever you wanna say. And I, I kind of, um, also I think an analog is when I started, when I joined the marketing world where internet marketing or digital marketing as it became called, or digital media was brand new and everyone was trying to figure it out. I think we're in that moment now, again, times. A big number. Million, right? This is a, this is a super cycle beyond, and Google talks about it that way and others, and to me, when you're in a moment where brands, these amazing organizations that are delivering awesome services and products, you know, globally are seeking guidance and help, what I saw in Level is a company that understood. Where this market was going and is starting to orchestrate solutions around that. And not only I, I would say both internally, so how you operate the organization and externally the way that AI is being used in media and, findability and those sorts of things. So those were some of the things. And then people, I mean, again, you cannot state enough how important it's to have the right people around you. Yeah. You know, we're super excited to have you here. You know, and you know, I just, again, kudos to you for saying,"Hey I did it once. Now I'm gonna go and I'm gonna do it again. I like doing the hard work" and I can already see in the first seven days your willingness to roll up your sleeves, get into the muck figure it out. And, it's exciting for me. It inspires me every single day. I see it as well because, that means I, you know, I wanna work just as hard if not harder than you. Right. And it's, and you set a pretty high bar and I love that. I appreciate that. And, you know, part of my goal is to also, coach, mentor, and raise other people up and help them achieve their personal and professional goals. And, and again, this seemed like an amazing organization to do that. When you, when you look at people and they say, I wanna learn more, I wanna achieve more, those are the people that I wanna be around. And, uh, yeah, it's been, it's been a great first week. I wanna go back to what you were talking about with Epic wins and client work. And I think when a lot of people hear Chief Revenue Officer, the immediate image is new business. And future clients. I'm curious to hear from your perspective, how do you see yourself and your arrival at Level affecting our current clients? Yep. It's a great question and I think a lot of people think about chief revenue. They think about sales and accounting and that sort of thing. When I think about growth I really believe that it's the goal of the growth team to help articulate the innovation that the organization is sitting on and what they're doing for clients. And that way if the growth team is doing their job yes, of course there's a big emphasis on new clients and helping those clients find a partner, et cetera. But there's a massive benefit that existing customers should have as well because again part of my job is to help evangelize, amplify the amazing work we're doing. Um, not every client knows that we do everything that we do. We're gonna have more content, we're gonna have more engagement with partners, and that innovation is going to, seep into multiple, uh, aspects of the business. So that's how I would say it's not just about, us, you know, winning business and that sort of thing. It's about innovation and amplifying that knowledge to our existing client base as well. And in terms of innovation and that Supercycle AI obviously plays a huge role in that. Yep. What's your vision for how AI innovation's gonna be? A fixture in the Level growth strategy? It's a great question, and I'm still hoping to, continue to learn partnering with Patrick here and others in the organization. What I like about what I'm hearing so far about AI in terms of how Level's approaching it, is that there's gonna be a lot of companies out there investing massive amounts of dollars in product. You're already seeing it and, from Level's perspective, it's not necessarily about building competing products. We're not gonna go compete with ChatGPT or Google, but it's about how do you orchestrate all these technologies to win for clients to solve their specific problems. And being in a position where as the technology kind of moves around us and the products change, we are the advisors and the implementers and the orchestrators of these technologies. You know, rather than someone who's going to go develop the next LLM, because I don't think that's what we're here to do. We're here to solve marketing challenges with technology and media. By being in sort of that orchestration role. So that's, that's one thing that I've seen and I've observed, and I think is kind of how I see Level continuing to, you know, move the ball down the field. What do you think, Patrick? Oh, I mean. I completely agree. Right. So, you know, the three types of companies, you and I have talked about this, you know, companies that are inventing the technology. Then companies that are adopting the technology and then obsolete companies that are gonna go outta business. Uh, you know, they and so it's. For us, we think it's super, super important for us to become that emerging AI organization and really implement AI into everything that we're doing. But and folks that hear me talk, hear me talk about this a lot, but you know, we don't have an AI strategy here. We have a strategy and we enable it through AI. That's right. And I think that's the important differentiator. You know, I think a lot of people are putting lipstick out on a pig right now and saying AI enabled plastering AI in front of what they're doing. That's right. It's, it used to be data driven, right? Yeah. It's the news. And before that it was internet know. Correct. We're an internet company, correct? No. You're a company that leverages technology, correct? Right. That's right. So, and I've said it before, I don't, I and so like. I think it's really important that we look at this technology not as the silver bullet. That's going to solve every single problem and it's going to come in and do everything, but it's a way for us to really enhance and execute against our strategy. That's right. And I also think that if you look at the market right now, you have all these, um, you know, large platform companies, you know, we're a media company, so platform companies would be Google Meta, Amazon, et cetera. They're all racing. To offer these AI algorithms optimization solutions. And if you are simply going to hand your money over to these organizations, which we, we work with and partner with, then you're sort of giving up your entire competitive advantage without adding some level of optimization and some lever on your own, whether that's data, creativity, you know, creative, et cetera. And using AI to, to orchestrate that and capture some level of competitive. Advantage is really key. Otherwise, every brand is gonna be using every one of these platforms the same, and you're sort of relying on the platforms to deliver your growth. So that's another perspective that I have in terms of how you have to think about, you know, media investment. How do you see, the role. You know, that's in marketing. Right. And the overall organization. How do you see the role of AI playing out in a sales team and an internal marketing team? I bet a lot of people that are listening here Yeah. Interact with a sales team or part of a sales team or a marketing team. So as you think about. Now coming in and applying some of those best practices, building a new team, having that opportunity, the Tabula Rasa how do you, consider how it might be different Yep. Going forward. Yeah, and I think AI is a tool that sales teams are already adopting, of course. And I think there's some key areas where, you know, you start off with signals. You start off with looking at, you know, what, what brands are doing, things that. Align their growth path with your services. So, so first off, just in terms of finding potential folks to talk to, uh, there's a lot of AI tools out there. I think also when, when you talk about briefs, when you get those opportunities, and I had I had a great, uh, meeting earlier today with, with, uh, with Brad, our head of creative, and we talked about this idea. Of briefs on steroids. So the ability to sit down with a client and be so far ahead of where you, you may have been earlier, you know, to move that line so far forward with what you know about them, their competition. Um, I think that's incredibly important. So, um, and then there's a number of other orchestration type of things in the backend. You know, let's be candid, when you talk about sales, you talk about agencies. There's this concept of the pitch, the RFP, all those things, and. The goal is if we can have technology doing some of the things that maybe take up a lot of time and the intellectual horsepower can be, preserved for great strategic ideas, that's what you want. And we're already seeing that and we're already doing some of that here at Level and we're gonna do a lot more. Yeah. As you are now thinking through this, I'm just curious on kind of what your POV is as you go forward when you think about, how clients need to be thinking about. Buying media and, you're gonna be on the front lines working with folks. Kind of what are you thinking as you go forward on, on what the best practice is around media buying for agencies like ours and agencies of the future? Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to what Myles started the podcast with, which is kind of, the truth, you know, and letting data sort of. Be we're all sort of, um, rallying around the rigor of data to drive those outcomes. I think transparency is key. A lot of you know, a lot of models out there or a lot of, buying models I think you were referring to earlier have some less than transparent approaches to them. And I think brands wanna know how much of their dollars are going towards working media, how much they're going through, through, uh, to technology, how much are going towards spreads and profits and things like that. And I think with all the technology we have, it's an imperative that. Agencies and media companies are transparent with clients and they know where their media dollars are going, so Yeah. And that's been a fundamental principle of ours since we started. It's actually one of the bedrock principles that we had when we started the agency. It was no markup on media. That's right. And this came from us working with some of the top agencies in the world as clients, and you know, it was a double dip. And it was, you're gonna charge me to do the work, you're gonna charge me a percentage of media and you're gonna get a kickback on the media itself. Or there's a marginal That's right. And that's how those, that's how those businesses are built. Yeah. And so, you know, ha. Was, have there ever been, I don't know what you can share and what you can't share, but has there ever been a time where that decision has actually cost you margin or cost you money? Of course, and we've also, you know, it's been challenging and you have to learn from it, you know, and you have to educate buyers as well. We've been in situations, I've been in situations in my career at different companies where you're up against X, y, z competitor and you're charging just to use raw numbers. You're, you're charging, uh, you know, a million dollars to do the work and the other group is charging a hundred thousand dollars to do the work. And you know that you have the same number of people on the team, the same tenure for the team, and you ask the client. Where do you think those dollars are coming from? Or, how are the, how are they paying for that cost? And, that's an education process to actually walk the clients through that, that sort of that model. 100 Yeah. And, and, and I think when played over and over again, that model wins because it's not about the short term. It's about the long term, right? That's right. It's about what's doing right for the client every single time, no matter what, and over time on balance. That wins. That's right. We want our value to be the people the orchestration of the technology, the outcomes and our o our ROI should speak for itself. And, happy to have those conversations with brands and educate them. They need to be educated as well. We have heard. You know, this notion of clients and CFOs wanting to not hear about it, if they think they're getting a be a better price, they don't wanna know. I think that those folks are gonna be obsolete pretty soon anyway. Um, I think transparency is obviously the way to go and proving value is, is where we wanna be in that. And, and I see level doing that so that, you know, that is basically breaking down a, a level agency philosophy. Right. Like Patrick said one of the founding principles. But it makes me curious as we're getting to know you to understand what are some of Howard's personal philosophies, your approach to sales and this role. Yep. As we're getting to know you. Wow, that's, that's a, that's a hard hitting question. You know, I think first and foremost, I'm gonna go back to like my earlier days when someone said, Hey, you, you should be in sales. And I said. Why would you say that? I didn't even understand what sales was and, um, when I learned about sales the right way, you know, what, what sales means, aside from some of the negative connotations out there. Sales is meant to solve problems and our job is to you know, meet with potential clients or existing clients and understand their pain. And if you put yourself in the position of consultant and you really align around this notion of curiosity. If curiosity is, is your sort of north star. Then you're gonna do, you're gonna do well by that client. So that's sort of one of my, sort of north star from a sales perspective, is your job is to truly understand the pain, the opportunity and then build solutions around that and sort of. That goes back to again, this idea of the truth, as well, because that's the truth that you are aligning yourself to as, as a sales professional. Certainly, I believe in other value points. You know, we are the front door of an organization. There's a certain sense of customer service, of articulation of clear terms and, and things like that. Uh, sense of urgency that any, you know, professional new business group has to bring to the table. And at the same time to educate and partner with the service delivery team. So we are all, you know, we are all in sales. I think it's fair to say that's something that I also believe in is that everyone in the organization is, is responsible for growth at some level. And, um, I have a joke that I sometimes will say in front of large you know, employee gatherings, that we have two jobs in the organization. We have sales and we have sales support, and, you know, you could choose one. And people might sort of scratch their head and say, well, how am I in sales support, you know, if I'm not in sales? And the answer is. Every single person embodies the brand and those values I talked about earlier, understanding clients. Being the front door of the organization or the agency being articulate, being clear with terms and services, those are things that everybody can help with. And I do believe that as a growth organization those values need to be pervasive across the entire organization. And we don't get new work if we're not doing great work for the clients we currently have, which is. A form of sales support. That's exactly right. And, and I'm glad you brought that up because a lot of times people look at the sales team and they say you know, you guys, you have the fun job. You get to go to the, uh, the fun conferences and, and all these other things and the dinners and, and whatever. In another way of saying that though, I think our job is the fun job because we're simply evangelizing the amazing work of the team and we want those stories to come out. We wanna be journalistic and talking to the team what is the amazing work that they're doing, and amplify that. And that is a very rewarding part of the job of being a new business professional, is to have that sort of, you know, being at that intersection of the great work we're doing and sharing that with the market. You mentioned pain, so not to take this negative, but yes. Pain points, they're out there. Yeah. We've talked about ai, we know that's one. But I'm curious, besides AI, what do you see out there as like the most common pain point that businesses are facing, and then bonus points how a Level can help solve it. Yeah. There's a lot there. I mean, first off, every business out there is trying to grow. Every good business is trying to grow and most businesses have constrained resources. So I think that's a pressure point that, especially in the marketing space, you will find that there's only so many dollars to spread across so many platforms and so many people to optimize those ads and things like that. So every, every cycle, A CMO, we've all heard the cliche that A CMO has, you know, 18 months, maybe now it's 14 months, maybe now. 9 months, whatever it is, to do a good job for that PE-backed organization or publicly traded company to do a good job. So part of that pain is just literally the environment and context that marketers come into. I think from there, um, prioritization, every marketer is getting bombarded. With different media platforms, technologies, and they're trying to eke out these tiny, tiny, you know, fractions of percentages of, again, ROAS or conversion rate or whatever. So that pressure is just sort of pervasive across brands. Then you bring in the agency dynamic and what you find is that. A lot of brands are either a, not getting the attention or the strategy that they're looking for. They, they feel as though things are on autopilot et cetera. And then innovation, and one of the interesting conversations I've had with folks in the past is that sometimes innovation comes through through sales. It's we, we, our job is to tell clients. About new things and things that work for client A or B that is similar to them. So those are some of the pain points, but I think when you have a brand that's typically looking at a new agency, those are the key things. They're not getting the service they need. Even sometimes of a result of the results obviously are the number one thing. And then you know, this idea of innovation. You know, I think I'd love to hear. You know, you told us a little bit about your background. Yeah. Right. I'd love to hear, the twists and turns the story. Sure. But you know, also like who you are as a person. Yeah. Where, where you came from and Sure. You know, your family and things like that. So, let the listeners know. Yeah. Uh, who is Howard Diamond? I appreciate that. And again, my friends will laugh because they probably think I love talking about myself, so here I'm talking about myself. But thanks for, thanks for the questions. You know, from the Chicago area, I always loved telling people from a reference point in the world. I, I went to the high school where Ferris Bueller's Day Off was filmed, so it's a fun fact. Oh, nice, nice. John Hughes went to our high school, so a lot of those movies were filmed in the area. I, I think it's also interesting to talk about some of those formative experiences. I started in high school working at McDonald's and, you know, learned at an early age how to be of service and how to, deliver customer service. I worked there for four years. I, I did openings. I did closings. I was a manager, and, you know, you carry some of those things throughout your entire career. Absolutely. That anything that you'll do. Anything that you'll tell, you'll ask someone else to do, you've done yourself, whether it's cleaning a bathroom or, you know, or, or making the fries or, or dealing with customers. So I learned at a young age about customer service and that was a very formative period for me. I sometimes refer to the big sales I've made in my life. My first big sale was I didn't quite have the GPA, I went to a very competitive high school to get into University of Illinois. I asked my mother to drive me down on spring break with the only suit that I owned, and literally demanded a meeting with the dean of Admissions to tell them why I should be admitted to the University of Illinois. And I did ultimately, uh, achieve that goal. That's great. So that's, that's one of the fun facts about me. I, I loved advertising. I thought it was this amazing sort of intersection of creativity and business growth. So I, I was able to quickly jump over to the advertising school and at first, I'm, I'm wasn't exactly sure what I was doing there. Am I gonna be a creative and media person? And I saw this, uh, classified ad for the Daily Align. I have a newspaper there which did 18,000 copies a day. That was a big deal back then for an ad sales rep. So my junior year I started selling media. I drove the, the Daily Align Mobile around campus in Champagne, Illinois. And I would sell ads to the record store, to the bars. And what I learned was the manager had the best clients and. It would not give up any of those clients. If you wanted a new client, you'd go get them, but your list was fixed. So what I would do is I would put my business card in any vacant or four lease spot on campus. I would call the zoning board. I would find out who's going in where, and I would, I would get clients that way. So I learned right away kind of survival was based on being, you know, resourceful and aggressive and that sort of thing. So that's how I started my career is I started in sales you know, selling ads for the school newspaper, one of the big pivots was. I had this amazing opportunity to meet, um, the CEO of a Fortune, uh, 100 company who was, uh, someone who had been involved with the school. And he asked me what I was gonna do after college. And I said, I'm gonna go work for a major Chicago newspaper, you know, and, and I'm gonna go sell ads and have a great salary. And this was at a time where the internet was just emerging. And he said, have you ever thought about going and doing X, Y, Z? I said I didn't even know that was a profession. So I went on. Uh, one of the earlier job boards and I found this company coolsavings.com, one of the first internet marketing companies, and literally it was the only search result, which is hilarious if you think about it. And they hired me for half of what I would've made at this other organization, and we won't get into finances and things like that. But ultimately it was a really good choice because I was able to enter into. You know, as I said earlier, kind of this supercycle of internet media and it was the wild west, you know, there was no such thing as defined ad formats and, and pricing models and things like that. So, at a young age I was flying around the country meeting with these huge brands and, and doing really fun stuff. So yeah, that was kind of the early formula. It's like a dream, right? It was amazing. Yeah. Um, you know, and yeah, I got to live in San Francisco and, and meet with quite large organizations. Sell them advertising. Yeah. So that so that's kind of the early part of my career. I decided that ad sales, which is great, it's a great profession for me, was a bit transactional at the time. I wanted to do something more strategic. I knew some guys in software and I had an opportunity to go work for a small technology company that did CMS Content management solutions and e-commerce sites, and was given the opportunity to do sales and marketing. I learned a little bit about technology, how these things actually worked. Got to be part of longer term strategic sales. And that ultimately I think, set me up really well for this more idea of a consultative sell, which led me into the agency space. So yeah, those were a couple of the twists and turns and pivots of my career. I love that career. And, and, and now, you know where are you now? And, uh, as you. What's the, what's the Ferris Bueller quote? Life moves pretty fast. Yeah, that's right. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. Right? Yeah. So what I, I'm sure this moment in your life, yes. You've had a chance to stop and look around a little bit. That's right. So what have you noticed in and of Howard now? It's a great question. It's, uh, something that I've, I've spent a lot of time thinking about, um, because, you know, when I leave an organization after 16 years, which I think is a little bit unique in this time period in general I, I had to define a north star and I was very lucky, uh, to have some great people that I call my board of directors. Some of the advisors I work with, people who've either are close personal friends of mine, or people that have run big agencies and have helped me sort of identify. What I want, what I don't want, et cetera. And without getting into all the specifics, there are certain things that I was ready to do in a new chapter in my career. Uh, first and foremost, I'm always looking for sort of that, that next level, you know, maybe pun intended where I can challenge myself. I felt that I had more to accomplish in terms of growing a company. So being part of a growth story is really important to me. I've always been part of smaller companies with a big growth potential, working with people. It sounds cliche, but as you get to be more, you know, older in your career, we'll just say the word. It's very gratifying to not just, win clients and build a pipeline, but see other people build their lives. I mean, literally to get married, have children buy their first house. Those are awesome things. And I wanna continue to do that and do that at a rate which is really exciting for me. And also still talk to customers. I love being on the front line. I love being in front of customers. It's energizing, it helps me learn. It helps, you know, going back to the idea of curiosity. I was looking for that opportunity and again, aligned with where the market is going. Clearly, while Level is not just an AI company, the speed at which. This organization has adopted AI for both, internal, operational, you know, sort of use cases as well as for the external ways we're buying and optimizing media was exciting to me and the growth path that you guys are on. So those are some of the things that help me define my north star and where Level intersected with some of those value points. Yeah, I love that. I imagine going through what you went through in the early 2000's as well, when the internet was just. Coming out in the wild, wild, wild west and you know, those are, those were formative years where I'm sure it was marked with a lot of failures, a lot of experiments, a lot of campaigns that succeeded. So, you know, I kind of, we kind of hit on this, but what's it like what do you think is like a significant failure, a tough listen from those early years Yeah. Um, that maybe profoundly influenced how you lead and make decisions today. That's a great question. I mean, at the macro Level, I think, you know, I saw the rise and fall of like, you know, the, the early dot commerce, you know, so from a company's standpoint, you know, there were, there were all these organizations with massive, um, injections of capital that then just disappeared. And as a young sales professional. I didn't know how to deal with any of that. I felt that if my clients were failing, I was failing. And I literally you know, even changed jobs in, in an earlier part of my career because I didn't even understand sort of, you know, what was going on. I said, well, I better pack it up and go do something else. So I think having perspective on, you know, different cycles and super cycles I think is very helpful. I think also just learning that not knowing something is okay, and it's an opportunity to grow, right? You think, you think, uh, you know, you get to a mindset where it's, uh, it's cathartic almost to like, wanna learn something and, you know, find out you're bad at something and then get better at it. Versus early in your career, you're sort of scared of those moments and you know, you're worried about them and have anxiety. And you can look back and just say, you know, I've heard people say, you know, your success is sort of the sum total of all your mistakes. That. Success is not a great teacher. It's really when you lose, what can you learn from it? There's a, an awesome guy. I had my team in my last organization and he would say, you either win or you learn. Hmm. And if he's listening, he'll he'll know. He'll know who he is. So I think that those types of things are, they sound like platitudes when you're maybe younger or developing in your career, but when you start to really look back and see how things have developed, those things absolutely ring true. That's amazing. And I've read some articles on you where you are described, uh, in your leadership style. It's described as generous and mentorship driven. And, you know, I would imagine, uh, that you have a, a deep belief, and I, I'm sure that team has seen it now and nurturing talent. Um, and maybe that, maybe even echoes somehow you've been mentored and, and taught in the past but I think that speaks to emotional intelligence leading with empathy. Your commitment to helping some other, you know, other people grow. So, yeah. You know, what, where did that philosophy come from and, uh, why has cultivating people around you been such a central part of your leadership? First of all, I appreciate that. It's very kind of you to say. I think there's a couple thoughts there. I mean, first off. I think that a lot of young people in their career you know, they don't necessarily feel empowered and part of my mindset is to help people feel empowered that they have control over their career by getting involved, raising their hand going outside of work and signing up for Toastmasters because they wanna get better public speaking, or Sandler because they wanna get better at sales. Because I had to do a lot of those things myself. Yeah. And there were also a lot of generous people along the way. So I'll go all the way back to my first job outta school. I would stay after work and, you know, talk to either the head of finance or the head of legal and just shoot the breeze and try to understand people and ask about things. And I, I learned that maybe that wasn't the norm. But because I did those things, I was able to connect with people and learn about the business. And I've encouraged people. Along the way to do that themselves, that, you know, not everybody is always gonna be tapped on the shoulder and to be told, I'm gonna now bring you into this new environment to teach you this and promote you to that. So part of what I do is if I have an opportunity to work with someone and I, and I have to give an upfront, sometimes I've learned that, that I'm the type of leader who will give a lot of feedback. It's because I care and you will gain from it. And that's because there are also a lot of leaders who maybe either don't know how or don't wanna give feedback, and that's a detriment to that employee. They don't know if they're doing a good job or a bad job. And, um, to me that's very important. Again, I've worked with some amazing people Larry Fisher being one of them, the former, uh, CEO of Rise and the and John Morris, the former founder of Rise. We basically built a company one conversation at a time. And I think that's another concept that, you know, I think people could understand alignment and. Bringing people in on things. Those are not, those are things that are not done by everyone. That's not the norm. And I think that if you do that, you build trust with the organization. People feel motivated and they wanna work hard. And those are, I think, things that every company wants to unlock. I love that. Okay. I love that. Yeah. Um, and a lot of those lessons prob, you know, I know I have them Myles, you probably have them or learned because we look back at young versions of ourselves and say, man, I wish I had that or I had that. And that's how I now want, I wanna show up. That's exactly right. Right. Absolutely. And, you know, I don't, maybe always, you know, none of us always do it the right way, but I think the intent, and that's another thing, you learn about intent when you get older, you wanna have good intent and you want to, uh, yeah. Empower people and give them, give them those opportunities. That's great. I know you were just in Japan. That's right. And there's a, a Japanese concept called Ikigai. Are you familiar with Ikigai? So it's having a sense of purpose or a reason for living, and it's connected to the work that you're doing, right? Yep. And you want to make sure that the work that you're do doing is also connected to that passion. Love it. So at this stage of your life and career. What do you feel is your deeper, kind of why you know, what's your personal mission? That what's fueling you to do everything that you do? Maybe work, maybe life. Yeah. But what, what's fueling you right now? It's a great question. First off, I have a beautiful wife and two amazing children. 14 and 12. Great ages and even the reason, yeah, it's so fun. And even the reason I was in Japan is because my son really wanted to go. And I think also, you know. First of all, life is precious and we as you get older and you get opportunities to do things, you wanna be able to do things for your family. I think that, my, my mission in my work is to make sure that I'm focused on building something. I, I think that is, it's just something that I enjoy, but you have to have fun doing it. And again, that goes back to this idea that life is precious. Life is short. Some people say, you know, and if you're not having fun, then you probably shouldn't be doing what you're doing. And I get it. People have to earn a living and all those sorts of things. Um, but I think that if you have the opportunity to do something that you like. You're delivering value to your colleagues, to your customers. That to me is satisfying and the growth element is satisfying. And it also enables me to, you know, live my life. I love to travel. I love to play poker. I love to see live music. I love to hang out with my family and, and encourage them to do all those things as well. So, or the things they like to do rather. Of course, I'm, I'm now learning that I am the, uh. I am the fourth level down in my household. Of course. Yes, of course. Yeah. And, you know, uh, that's what I'm focused on, is making sure that my family has all the opportunities that they want to be happy. I bet you're a really good chauffeur. I bet you're one of the best. Well, I have a 14-year-old daughter, so I'm, I am definitely a very, a full-time chauffeur. And getting really good at it. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. I could, I could see you in the suit and, you know, wearing the whole thing. It's good. Speaking of, of the kids. We worked that angle for a second. And back to what you learned in your career, right? Uh, if you imagine your kids growing up soon, 14, they'll be there in a minute. Yeah. It's coming around. Yeah. What's a piece of advice you'd give your child starting in your career that you didn't get and wish you had? It's a great question. It is scary because I have a 14-year-old and, and she's starting high school today, and we've talked about, you know, the fact that college admissions is different these days. I don't know if you could drive down to Champagne and talk yourself into college, I'd, I'd certainly be happy to coach her to do it. But activities are very important. They're looking at this whole idea. Of, well-roundedness. I mean, it's almost as if you are thinking about yourself as a professional and your LinkedIn profile and how many followers you have. Multiply that by acts of what these kids have to go through to get accepted to college. I, I don't think I would be accepted to college these days. Like I what you have to do to get into college now, I, I certainly, it's absolutely bonkers. I certainly may not, may not have gotten into the college I went to University of Illinois. It's an amazing school, so I, I, you know. There's certainly some very specific things like are you adopting AI? And I know AI has become a cliche, but it's are you understanding the technologies? And there will be other technologies that she and my son also will have to learn because the job market is changing very rapidly. You're seeing people that were maybe thinking about computer science and engineering who are now second guessing themselves. And if you would've said that a year and a half ago or two years ago. People would've laughed. They go, what are you talking about? Those jobs are gonna be around forever. Those are the most important things. Trying to teach them about the macro world without, without freaking them out, of course. Uh, and, and, you know, maybe they don't care, but giving them those little, um, insights and, and making sure that they're being aware of some of those things. So that, that's one thing that I'm doing. You know, also trying to make sure that they have fun. And that they enjoy this time of their life. You know, I've asked my daughter, where do you wanna go to school? I'm not gonna say for, for privacy reasons right now, but let's just say they're fun schools that people are aware of and I said, study hard because, you know, those, those schools are also very hard to get into. So, I, I think just encouragement with some light coaching and yeah, those are some of the things I'm thinking about. I love that my 7-year-old has told me he's not going to college. He's already said that at seven, so we'll see what battle that becomes. Well, come on in. How many he might not need to 11 years there might not be college. That's right. That's right. We're all gonna be at ChatGPT edu, right? ChatGPT University? Uh, well, I think that's the big thing is that the constructs that we have in our ages, in our, in our lifetimes where we are. Could be very different than where our kids are when they graduate high school. So, um, you know, my daughter said to me, I wanna do what you do. And I said, what do you think I do? And she goes, well, you get to go to really fun places and meet with really fun people and you get to travel all the time. And I said, that's great study really hard, because that's, that's business in general, but what I do, you know, working for a, uh, working in my profession may be very different than, than it is right now. So I think that's something you just have to. You don't wanna like scare your kids, but you want them to not live in a bubble either. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I also think it's important, and you know, I'll say a, a few things here, right? So like the employees that are coming right outta school and getting jobs at Level. Holy cow. I've gone to Pitt and Duquesne to do speaking events and they are just like way further ahead than I ever was. Amazing. At 21 years old. Right? Like just running circles around. Yes. Where I was when I was, you know, when I was that age when I was 21 or 22. Um, so that's phenomenal. Right. So I think they's they're leading they're getting to a point where, they have skills and technology understanding that like. And they're not even learning it in the school. They're learning it outside of school. Right. And it's super valuable to what we do. I think that's, that's really, really important. I think that's gonna lead to 5, 6, 7 years from now some really exciting opportunities for folks that really embrace it and are really a part of it. Right. Right. They are the natives of all these technologies. 100%. That we talk about. And, um, you know, and it's, again, it's probably a little cliche. There'll be other people that said that they had the similar experience, but. My daughter told me about TikTok before anybody knew it was a thing. I brought it to my colleagues. They're like, yeah, that's not a thing. And then here we are. And it's like the thing, nothing. And these, these kids, they, they know a lot more than we think they do. And, um, they're native. They're native to all these different. You know, platforms and AI and things like that. So while there are some challenges and pivots going into the market, there are other new opportunities. If you're coming outta school right now, AI can make you into a superhero, um, and, and do things that you never thought that an entry Level person can do. So I think it's a really interesting time right now. I think though, and so like to that end, right? But coming in with a lot of knowledge, AI natives, digital natives, they also come, are, you know, a lot of folks are coming in and maybe I'm just talking about my family or you know, folks that I know and friends and whatever, but without a lot of patience. And when you think about, when you think about a couple things that are, are being led to that. So, you know, I, you, you asked that question Myles like, Hey, what would you tell younger version of you? Yeah. Or your kid or whatever. And one of the things I have to continually remind myself is like, I. We get to be in the spots where we are because we put the 20 years of hard work in, or the 30 years of hard work in to get to where that is. And there were times where I was impatient, but I think patience is probably one of the most important qualities that we can instill. In a culture where you log onto TikTok and you log onto Instagram and you see, oh, this person is doing a million dollars a day and they're dropshipping, AI, whatever, craziness. Right? And like, there's this culture of I need it now. I'm gonna, I'm That's right. I'm gonna be famous now. I need millions of followers now. And your self-worth is built up into that. And you know, it's, it that I, for me, just the put in the hard work. That's a great point. Right. So I had a young, a young gentleman I think he was still in college at the time, and he reached out to me through LinkedIn and, um, I always, you know, I'm one of those folks who if I try to, if I can, talk to anybody. He wanted to ask about the marketing space, the technology space, et cetera, and we went through this whole conversation. At the very end, he said. What do I need to do to get there faster? And I reminded him that he reached out to me, a virtual stranger, we had a mutual connection, to have a conversation with me. Someone significantly older and far farther along in my career. And I said, just keep doing what you're doing. This is the type of thing you need to do. So that idea of patience is critical and focusing on the behavior and in telling your child it's okay to not. You don't have to be a social media star. You don't have to, I, my son is into theater. We don't have to go get an agent tomorrow and, and be in movies and television shows. Enjoy your life. Focus on what you like to do. And, uh, yeah, I think that patience is really critical. I would say to add to that, how you get there faster is you start doing it for yourself, right? So this is how I sort of hacked it.'cause I'm, I think. 10 years younger than both of you sitting here. Come on man. Sorry. But it's true. And there was a point in my career where I was very frustrated with where I was and how to get there faster. And I wasn't given the opportunity to do it where I was. So I did my day job very well. And then at night I started doing what I wanted to do and building up for myself and building the skills and teaching myself things that nobody was gonna give to me. But you have to go get yourself. That's right. And then you put that resume together that you're talking about, whether it's to get into college or get the next thing you want. And then you can run these two parallel paths and at some point they converge and you amplify the work that you're doing during the day for somebody else and the work you're doing for yourself. Yeah. And that's true at any point in your career, right? Yeah. It's like if you're not where you wanna be. You have to make it happen. But that hard work doesn't show up on an Instagram reel. No, it doesn't. Right? No. They just see the final result. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And if you don't like that one, you can scroll and have another three second video to keep your attention and then it goes back to patients. Well, Howard, I know we're really lucky to have you here. I know the team is really excited. I'm really excited. You know, what, what message would you like to leave our clients, our partners, our team, as you know, they've gotten to know you. Now they know the, the type of person they're, they're they're gonna be working with. But what message would you like to leave with the crew? First off, it's great to be here. I'm so excited about what we're gonna accomplish together. I think we've covered a lot of, a lot of those things that our job is to continue to inspire. The team to innovate great solutions, to listen and be curious of what clients need and, and, and really try to work together to solve these things that, you know, that's, that's what it's all about. The more we align on mutual success the more fun we're gonna have together, and, and we're gonna, and we're gonna achieve great things. So that is what I view my role to be and I'm excited to do it. And yeah, let's go crush it. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to follow the show so you don't miss upcoming episodes. And if you found value in today's discussion, share it with a colleague or friend who's navigating the same AI driven world. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.