A moonlighting gig in investor relations during law school ultimately led Gregory Papajohn to the world of public relations. But the financial crisis of 2007 made him reaxamine the type of companies that were deserving of his efforts. Find out how the disruptors to the establishment can sometimes be the ones to follow and then to emulate.
Guest Gregory Papajohn, Dartmouth '96, had thought that Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service would be the way to live out the service ethos that he’d grown up with. But, even for a kid who lived in the shadow of Manhattan, he realized during a visit to D.C. that urban life didn’t seem to fit his idea of college. Dartmouth’s setting provided him with a groundedness that he still relies on to help him make big decisions.
A government major, Gregory interned at a law firm during a leave term and went back to law after graduation. Even as he was taking the LSATs, he knew the round-the-clock grindstone was not something he relished. But it was only after law school and a moonlighting gig that introduced him to investor relations did he realize there were other ways to exercise the advocacy muscle. He pounded the pavements for a way into a new career in public relations.
He made a name for himself promoting his large, established financial services clients. But the financial crisis of 2007 made him reexamine the type of companies that were deserving of his efforts. He was pulled more toward fintech and social entrepreneurship. And when he found that his agency wasn’t giving their clients agency at all, he realized he had a better model and pursued it.
In this episode, find out from Gregory how the disruptors to the establishment can sometimes be the ones to follow and then to emulate on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode's Guest
Gregory Papajohn is a public relations expert with a history of serving big established financial players. After pivoting, he founded the Archie Group, a public relations, marketing and advisory-services firm that helps fintech and other emerging business position themselves in the market, acquire customers and partners, and develop reputational capital. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and three children.
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Gregory Papajohn: What was phenomenal about it was that I found a field that just appealed to me while we talked with people each day. And we talk about what other people might actually do for a living. And communication. We just kind of share it. I love that. I can share things with other families. Well, this is fun.
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Leslie Jennings Rowley: A moonlighting gig in investor relations during law school ultimately led Gregory Papajohn to the world of public relations. But the financial crisis of 2007 made him re-examine the type of companies that were deserving of his efforts. Find out how the disruptors to the establishment can sometimes be the ones to follow and then to emulate...on today's Roads Taken with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley.
Today, I'm here with Gregory Papajohn, and we're going to talk about roads that take others to where they want to be and, in doing so, finding your own roads. So, Gregory, nice to have you with us.
GP: Good morning, Leslie. It's great to be here.
LJR: Well, it's great to have you here. And I start this the same way with everyone. When you were at college, who were you. And when we were about to leave, who did you think you were going to become?
GP: Good question. When I arrived, I was the kid with a lot of vowels in his name and honestly, I had the best first year roommate, but it was Smith and Ray and Holm. And then you add in a Papajohn and there weren't a lot of kids with three syllables. I was a kid figuring things out. You know, if I have a small admission is that the first school that I wanted to go to--here's that big admission--wasn't Dartmouth. I wanted to go to Georgetown School of Foreign Service. That was like a dream of mine when I was a little kid that had been instilled in me from my mom in particular, this idea of service and global International Service. And then I visited Georgetown; it was probably the first time I'd been in the D.C. area since like eighth grade. So your college tours and it was interesting, like I walked away. And I was like, well, maybe I don't want to be here. I didn't love the whole city thing. I grew up in a suburb just outside of Manhattan. My parents are from Manhattan originally. So really familiar with the cities. Love Manhattan, my favorite city in the world, but I was in Georgetown, D.C., so it feels a little big for me onto a small public school. And my sister, I have one sibling, one older sister. I'm such a baby of the family. I'm the younger sibling and I'm also the youngest cousin. And I'm probably like five grades below my sister, 4 and 1/2 years or so. And I was like 10 years younger than my next cousin. I was really the baby, the family. My sister went to Smith College and she had one year at Dartmouth. So I had been introduced to Dartmouth through my sister, well introduced, walking up four flights of stairs to drop her stuff off and pick her step up, step up as the little brother should do. But I knew Dartmouth and I knew she had had a great experience in that 12 college exchange she participated in. But in fact, I thought I might want to go to a different school. And then I decided to visit Dartmouth again with my sister. My sister wasn't there anymore. And I did one of these like overnight visits, maybe others did those as well. And I just loved it. I loved it. And it was everything that my sister had said about the college that I didn't really get because I was like, in eighth grade when she went off to college. But it really suited me. I was kind of a sporty kid, mixed with a bit of a nerd, mixed with a bit of civic minded and Dartmouth and so felt like the student body. I just felt at home, even though I was in the middle of nowhere, right? Coming from a place that was just outside of this huge metropolis, I felt immediately at home. And even today, the call of like the woods, the trees. I go up to Dartmouth with some frequency, probably still once a year as much as I try. And it's just to walk the campus, just to breathe the air. I feel immediately relaxed, comfortable, some big life decisions. I took after going back to Dartmouth to have a bit of a break from whatever may have been weighing me down. So when I arrived on campus, except for this crazy long name I might have, that did make me feel a little awkward in a way that I had never felt before. I didn't feel outside of things until I arrived and I noticed some differences, but I was the happiest kid in the world. It so suited me and everything I wanted to be doing. I knew I had made the right decision. I never looked back on Georgetown. But, you know, that's probably who I was when I arrived.
LJR: And so did that call to service play out in a way that made not doing the Georgetown thing all the better?
GP: I think it did, but I think I learned a few things that I didn't understand, you know, and you wouldn't understand when you're still a teenager. There was a lot of things in particular, my mom was instilling in me that I just again, I didn't get it when I was a kid. But there were these ideas that many years later in a graduate program later, too, I'd understand, to be known as 'triple leadership.' This idea that you can be a good actor in the private sector, in the social sector, in the public sector; I didn't have a comprehension of that. And that part of what my parents were instilling in me when they were having the active across the community service that I would have done the way I was active in the student body before college, the way I worked multiple jobs. It all came back. It came into form when I was in college then studying government. It's interesting, even though I've mentioned foreign service, I've mentioned Georgetown, I didn't immediately know I would be a government major. In fact, I was a first year, I was lost. That was 13th grade for me. I had to get acclimated to what it would be in this type of environment. And learn that I, well, I'm going to choose with my curriculum is. I'm going to choose what I learn. How do I do that right now? And no one's going to judge my choices or are they? And now I have to excel at this or do I? It's up to me now. Like, yes, I'm going to excel at these. I hope, right? But that that determination needs to come from me, from within and prior to that time, a lot of it was from external good influences, thankfully. But now, all these years later, my activity in the community with the public and particular in the private sector where I'm quite focused, that they do have a relationship to what was, you know, inspired in the way I could possibly think and be a good person in the world. I hope I will be a good person in the world.
LJR: Yeah so I'm going to fast forward you through that college career. And as we were hopping off, what was the first way that you took all those life experiences up to that point. And said, OK, here's the first sleep?
GP: It was a leap to make a whole series of mistakes.
LJR: Well, those are good.
GP: Yeah, lots lots of great mistakes that I was looking for a landing when well, I felt falling. And thankfully, I did find some sure footing, but it took a while in college. I took one of our off terms and I worked at a law firm in Manhattan. And I should have known that this idea that I also had, that perhaps I'd be an attorney, wouldn't be the right path for me. I know you've had this conversation with some others. And actually, I'm so curious of today's graduates. Hopefully they don't say the same thing that I'm about to say: in our senior year when suddenly it was thrust upon us that we wouldn't be here anymore, and we probably have to think about these things called jobs, you know, there were these five ideas. I call them the five. One was that we're going to go work for a bank. One was we're going to be a management consultant. One was that we're going to be a doctor or go to some graduate school study. One was education. And the fifth one would save the world. Sadly, I couldn't do save the world. I didn't have the financial independence and the rest to not go earn my keep first. But here I was. I graduate. And I go and I work as a paralegal at another large law firm in Manhattan. And I so should have known, don't go to law school. I took my LSAT after working a 24 hour shift. Right OK, the partners knew I had the LSAT the next day. And yet they had me work. That job, which was a great job. I was introduced to so many super intelligent people, interesting people who had no lives. They lived at the law firm. The first day I was there, because I had had three months of experience in college, they had me work a 24 hour shift because I had had some experience in college. I came back, I got a day off right after my 24 hour shift. And then on Wednesday. I worked a 24 hour shift. And still I took an LSAT, applied to law school and went to law school. I went to law school right and in my first two weeks of law school, a professor asked me, 'why are you here?' And I couldn't help myself. I had this snarky reply, like horribly snarky reply, which was, you know, 'I never wanted to be the puppet. I always wanted to be the puppeteer.' It was this horribly negative, jaded reply, which wasn't how I felt about the law, but it was how I felt about the decision I had made and what a miss it was. Now, I persevered for some crazy reason. I completed my degree, but that was a huge miss. And in my last year of law school, knowing that while this is not going to fulfill me, what I didn't want to do was then take a job that perhaps would have a pretty lucrative income and get trapped in a lifestyle that I didn't want to live. So jumping off another cliff, essentially walked the old pavement and Madison Avenue of New York to find this thing called a public relations firm that I knew nothing about. I didn't know what public relations was, but some folks are to me, you know, it might be transferable. This idea of advocacy in the law could be transferable to commercial advocacy, advertising, public relations, communications. My last year of law school, I was working for a financial firm. And I was just kind of a night assistant to the general counsel. But during that time, I was introduced to investor relations and they asked me if I would add a few hours during my day and do some IR, and then do legal assistance. And I said, 'I'm trying to pay for law school. I sure. Well, this is phenomenal.' But in fact, what was phenomenal about it was that I found a field that just appealed to me while we talked with people each day. And we talk about what other people might actually do for a living. And communications. Right we just kind of share it. Oh, I love this. I can share things with others on someone's behalf. Well, this is fine. So I pick that next jump and I started knocking on doors to see, hey, do you have an internship? I'd like to get introduced to this thing called public relations. And and there was a woman who was the office manager at the firm that I would come to join. And she's like, you're a Dartmouth grad, you're a law school grad and you're applying for an internship. I was like, well, I believe in learning the ropes, and I'd love an opportunity and some of my experiences. And if I could have a chance to learn here, and apprentice a bit, well, I think that'd be wonderful. And she's like, 'well, how about a full time job?' And I was like a full time job? And I like, well, that sounds stupendous. I have to finish my degree and then finish it at night. Like, well, can you manage 40 hours a week? That's like that's not a full time job. The part time job. I'm coming from law. So that sounds good too. And it has benefits. Oh, wow this is amazing.
LJR: I'm in.
GP: And so I was a county coordinator in my mid 20s, starting all over again in a new profession. And it really did really suit me. But this idea be OK. And jump off those cliffs, build a plane, it's going to get built. And you're going to fly again. I feel that some of my last 25 years since college have been proof of that. Even in the business that I have today, some people think I was nuts when I started my own business four or five years ago. And my actually disposition at the time was that I think I'm nuts to keep working at a place where I don't feel that I'm being all that I can be and all that I can perhaps share with others.
LJR: But before we get to that, that realization, there was there has to be a period of, I don't know anything. And I'm willing to be an intern to I know enough that I know I'm not exactly doing enough. And I'm going to go be my own thing. So what's the progression there? And what were the things that you really had to learn to get you to the place where you could do this on behalf of others through your own company?
GP: It was it's so insane how quickly things moved, things moved so quickly.
LJR: And what kind of clients were you talking about? Because that kind of work...
GP: With a big "I", I was working on things known of 'internet banks' 20 years ago. 20 years ago. Right? And then I'll come full circle with what I might do today. And I was working on things called 'search portals.' Right. A great, great company called Lykos would have been a client 20 years ago. A new idea company called Netbank would have been a client 20 years ago. And then, well, I want to use the boring word, but some known entities like law firms and accounting firms and other professional services firms, were also clients. And I was working in a new type of media that was called cable business television' and helping my clients; I did what was called financial media relations. And in essence, what does that mean, when you open, say, the Wall Street Journal or old pink paper, the FT. The way you read these stories and principally our business and financial stories. And then those are coming online right into what we're called e-Zines and dotcom sites and being broadcast on a relatively new network CNBC. And you may recall something called CNNFM? And even MSNBC was still like newish. Right so these are new mediums where folks were looking to communicate in. My role then was to help principally private companies to relate with a public that was the press and the financial press and to think how quickly things have moved, not just media, but I mean 'internet bank'? And 'search portal'?
LJR: Yeah Entire industries.
GP: Entire industries. We we're only talking two decades ago, three or four years into my career, I started to work in house first at two companies. Everybody on this tuning in is going to know--Mastercard was an employer and American Express. And if you can imagine that when I was working at Mastercard, that taxicabs didn't take credit cards. Convenience stores, which later became known as CVS, didn't take credit cards then. People didn't use things called debit cards then. When I was a Mastercard, there was a joke that I was Debit Man. One of my bosses was I mean, just so funny. She got this Superman doll and brought it to my desk and got me an extra Cape. And I was Debit Man because here I am at what was then really a credit card company. And I'm trying to impress upon people that maybe they should use this thing called a debit card and stop using your checkbook. And a lot of our messaging bluntly was oriented toward the woman's purse. And instead of going to the checkout at the grocery and bringing out your checkbook, just swipe. So all of these silly things, that was 15 years ago that I'm right in saying when I was at American Express, I worked not in payment. I started working in travel. And this crazy thing was happening in travel. People were booking their travel not through an agent, but online.
LJR: I know no one thought you would buy anything over $5 online, right?
GP: Right. Booking hotel travel plans. Online and so I was working in the incumbent industry, so even at Mastercard, it was this a company where there wasn't Venmo. PayPal was a new thing then; peer-to-peer payments 'well that's not safe,' says the incumbent online travel. How secure can you be? Will you get to where you need to go? Talk about anachronistic. But this is pretty important, for me at least. I was working on these incumbent entrenched industries. And I went to one more right around the Great Recession. I returned to working in public relations agencies. And my primary client was Bank of America, big old bank. In fact, bank of America was a smaller bank then, but they were integrating things like MBNA, if anyone remembers that credit card issuer and they were buying a Countrywide, now infamous mortgage lender and Lasalle Bank. And so many others. And they were becoming bank of America. They acquired Merrill Lynch. And so it was 2007. And in one month, I had two programs and complete opposition to each other. One was, I was going to introduce something called the Bankamericard card, and the other was a reputational crisis. And it was called if memory serves that master liquidity equity conduit, MLEC or something. And this was a collection of banks saying, hey, there's something going wrong with the credit markets. They're getting gunky. So on one side, I'm on phone calls about credit markets or gunky. On the other side, I'm going to introduce a brand new credit card that's kind of the first post acquisition of MBNA product. And we're going to do that on Black Friday in New York City. And we erected on third street, I think it was there was an empty lot. We built--We built a store made of glass, enough glass to wrap around a football field a couple of times it had a bow on it. Or steel, huge about this building was up for all of 10 days. And it was built as a concierge. You go in, you get hot chocolate. There'd be, you know, carolers. You could book tickets to a theater because it was bringing together, bringing to life the then attributes to the card, the service, you get through a credit card. And then the other year was something's not right with the credit market. And again, I was working for an incumbent business and something crazy happened in the industry. Everything felt right. And a lot of people were harmed and hurt. And it was that industry that I worked with that was creating and participating in the harm that I can't do this right. And I made all sorts of I think were good ideas. And you know what? The bank implemented a lot of these good ideas at the time. It wasn't just me, me and folks who are working with where we know we get the direct deposit of people. We know that they've lost their jobs, can't we wave feels? I think we can do that. And we know that they go to an ATM. They're getting charged by us. Can't we bring those charges down? Can't we take better actions? And now I'm watching the market, as one does in any field, and I'm seeing new companies come to light. These new companies that funky names, social finance was one of them. Now it's called. So far each company in the financial space and their names like that would be come to be known that you might have heard like the Venmos of the world and like, what are those guys doing? So they're private companies and they're saying, hey, we can transform, we can bring technology and change the relationship that people have with their money and the relationship that they have with the business itself. And so that started to head me on a new path, which was the guy who represented some of these big brands, the Mastercard, American Express is the Bank of America. So, no, you know what? I want to focus on those who are generating a social impact through their service. I left that role and came to run it and recreated a corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship business within a public relations firm. That public relations firm had been built partly on that business, but then it let it kind of go to bed. And we resurrected it. And so now I work in the field of social entrepreneurship and corporate activism or corporate citizenship. And that allowed me to kind of begin a transition from hard core financial media relations guy to corporate communications on behalf of these incumbent world renowned brands to social entrepreneurship and then today into working with privately held companies who are trying to bring new disruption to age old industries, a space called fintech or financial technology.
LJR: Yeah And so you saw the need to do something that more aligned with your values and what was important. And then you saw: OK, well, no one else is really doing this, so I have to go do that. So tell me about the Archie Group and how what was the beginnings of it like?
GP: One thing that happened was that I was realizing that I wasn't staying in one job for any amount of time. I was like, how did I become a Switcher then? Really think of myself that way. Some of it has to do with the industry that I work in where you represent a customer and the relationship changes. And so your role changes. And so, in fact, you learn that you're not always connected to the agency in my field, you're connected to the account and things can move around. Some of it was this idea that I work in an industry that adopted the name 'agency' and that's almost like the last thing they do. Agency is something you give to somebody else. Agency isn't something you hold on to. You give that to someone else. You're supposed to be providing leverage to others, not to yourself. But you can work in these environments and find that they have exactly the constraints they should not have to lend agency. They do not have the capacity to do more or the ability to do less. Even if they're inflexible and they're generalists as opposed to specialists, they lack kind of the capability, the domain expertise or discipline expertise. That's, again, extensible. They're structured in a way to do something particularly well. And that thing isn't a good thing. That thing is to be as efficient as they can on a thing called a billable hour. That is so lame. But you learn that when you work at an agency. So they have this financial motive. And I used to get all sorts of trouble because I'd be like, gosh, we're like a factory. And the thing that we produce is a billable hour. Wow, that's boring. What else could we do with our time? And so I, I became a Switcher as I was describing where I said, there has to be an environment there, perhaps with my motives and my ideas, and I don't know, just could be a better Petri dish to test some of these things out. And so on my change in career, I went away from the big firms. And I looked at a San Francisco boutique. I knew I wanted to get around tech because I was talking about tech-enabled finance. And there was a San Francisco boutique firm that was trying to build out its presence in New York. And I joined it. I was there maybe six to nine months, but it was the most consequential experience I've had because it was the first venture capital client I had. Two of them. I came to represent to one particularly well known venture capital firm, and then one that had a particularly, really astute managing partner and working with a, b, C firm. I began to understand how private capital markets work. I've been working with all these publicly held companies. And I got introduced these people called founders. I was never around. I was around people called CEOs. People called board directors and people with 600 million different titles, but probably really had no authority. And now suddenly I'm around founder entrepreneurs. So I go from the 150-year-old companies to just born, not selling anything. And not making any money. And trying to figure out how to get even one customer types of client companies. Total divergence. But I'm now introducing venture capital and investors in this thing called fintech, which I had some familiarity with, but I was trying to sort out. I was like, this is so it. This is so it. So I'm going to work at the intersection of private capital, and technology enabled finance delivering social impact, socially beneficial businesses. I can't think of anything more rewarding for me to do in the private sector right now. And I was there for nine months. I was on there for nine months because I then got poached by another firm that basically said, hey, we know you're the only guy doing that at that place. And we keep competing with you. And it's annoying. Why don't you just join us? We've got 25, 30 people doing this here. And I'm at that job. And what happens in jobs is crazy. Things happen when you work in the private sector. Three months after I'm there, the folks who brought me over and hired me, they all quit. They all quit and they went and started their own firm three months later. Now, keep in mind, I was someone coming from established firms, established companies. I try this funky thing. I like it, but it's too small. I get lured over to a platform thinking I'm going to a stable place, an established firm that only does this thing. Three months later, they're all gone. So in my own story, 18 months later, after they packed out, I said, I can do that too. And I had written a bit of a Jerry Maguire moment. I had written a game plan for my boss and I said, hey, we've stabilized the business here. And we've made it past this decisive moment that could have ended our business. And we're about to flourish again. And I'd like to execute this plan and be a partner with you in doing it. And we had a very professional conversation. It was all good. And he said, no and then I did something I hadn't done before--with the absolute kick in the butt from my wife, who had been coaxing me to do this for many years--I said yes to something. I said yes to that plan. I said, yes, that I could be a founder, entrepreneur, too. I had never been. I've been the corporate guy. I haven't been an entrepreneur. But my wife was always saying, you've always been an entrepreneur. Just listen to what you were trying to inspire these companies. I think that that's entrepreneurism. I'm not familiar with that. It's like you'd be surprised how familiar with it you are. And so I left my job the next day. I'd come up, I hadn't before this day, I came up with the name of this company, Archimedes -- from Archimedes' of Syracuse, who was a counselor to a King, inventive problem solver. And then I just made it more, I don't know, today, more modern, but so modern, apparently, that, you know, a certain royal family thinks that Archie's a pretty cool name, too. So Archimedes became Archie and we play off the Archimedes lever and give leverage as an operating partner to our companies. And we give them leverage in the space known as reputation. I call it reputation capital. It's said in my field that a brand is a promise you make and your reputation is whether you keep that promise. And so I spend time working with young companies there in a growth stage, but they're teenagers at best, or tweens, most of them, and helping them to create and/or identify in the first instance, what their reputation could even be, what promises have they made, and then to nurture that and to give it a soul and to work thoughtfully with your stakeholders. So that you can build equity deposits of goodwill with you and others. And that's how I spend my time in the private world. And it's great. You know, I was able to create a business where we're fully remote. We weren't trying to be nuveau in that. But the thought was that here we are, gray haired people who perhaps have three children and want to spend more time with their family. A point of view that work is where the work is. And sometimes that's on a computer screen and sometimes you do that at home and sometimes you're inside of the client. And now I can be more engaged in my community and give back. And, you know, the other day I was talking with my wife about maybe I'll take that Foreign Service exam, something that maybe when I in a few more years, when I turn 50 or so, perhaps I prepared for and taken that exam. And she telling me that I guess you have till you're 59.
LJR: Joey Hood came on, and told us all that. So yes, you have, we have more time.
GP: Yeah So the world that I've lived in has been one of really long days and really short years as the expression goes. I've felt that, but it's been beautiful. I look back to Dartmouth and I say Dartmouth inspired me to have fun when you're doing it. You know, I was talking about this sort of sensitive thing of a kid with a lot of vowels in his name and feeling a little awkward and different. There is nothing more blessed than being different. And if you can find a way to embrace that about yourself and about others, life is just so much more enriching. And that's come to be with Archie, where we work with young companies who all aim in the first instance to change something to be different. Right? To switch and to be cool with it. And I think I found my place. In fact, Archie has been my longest employer. That was even one of my goals. I have so many goals. But one of them was that I thought that Archie might be my longest employer. And we celebrated that as an anniversary recently. And that was really exciting. And I thought that Archie could be a workplace for so many colleagues that I lost to my past careers, particularly women. My industry is about 2/3 more women. Many women leave the field for all the reasons that I think we can acknowledge and imagine. And I thought that that was wrong. So with Archie, we've tried to devise not only are you perhaps closer to your home or community when you work, you decide what full time employment means to you. It's something I learned. And if I use that analogy that I had when I worked at lives working 80 hours a week, and then they give me a full time job at 40 hours, it's like, wow, that's part time. Well, now, all these years later, full time should be decided more by the employee. And so if 10 hours is what you have or four hours or one day or one project, that's full time employment. And we can embrace that. And so our model is structured as a collective. We're all members actually. We don't have any W2s today. They're full time employees. Everyone is an independent, either consultant or small agency group. And we come together and think about what full time means to us. And what we want to jointly, collaboratively deliver impact on.
LJR: Well, I've said this on a number of other occasions, but this is one of those podcasts for I wish it were a video podcast, because people need to see your glow when you talk about this. And I can't imagine that your face did those kinds of contortions when you were pulling those all nighters at the law firm. So it sounds like this really is the sweet spot for you, at least for now.
GP: And look: if the law firm did anything, it renewed my love for coffee. It really did. And for wacky, kooky conversations, the only ones you'd have between 10 PM and 6:00 AM. It really was special people and a special place. And I don't miss it. Right I do hope, though, that in this next whatever the next chapter might be, whatever the next tidbit, that there are two areas of my life that I feel have been under-invested in going back to where we started our conversation. I do want to spend way more time than I'm able to currently in my community and thinking about the day that we're speaking here on inauguration day. We learned a lot about leadership at Dartmouth, and I think it's really important. And there used to be an expectation. I really mean the right way to everyone who might tune in and folks who go to colleges like Dartmouth lead. And there can't be a void. And we can't permit the void and diplomacy and thoughtfulness and considered ways a bit of a benevolence. I've let go of that responsibility, and I view that as a personal responsibility, that I owe that back to our society. And I haven't spent enough time in it. And as much as I thought I would when I was young and part of it is like anyone you're seeking sort of that, at least in my case, I get some personal financial security. And you're making life choices about your family. And we've talked plenty about career. But I would hope that next time we speak, Leslie, that perhaps what I'm talking about is not career. I'm talking about servants and servant leadership. And you know, all the good things you and I and others are doing for those around us. That's my great hope. If I'm a success with something like Archie, I call it a generational business. It's a business, then, that can be shared and passed on to others. But it's also something that perhaps would give me that comfort to say my time is done in the private sector. How can I be as forceful, I hope, of a contributor to social and public sectors that need us, that need the graduates of Dartmouth college?
LJR: Well, I think that you will get there because they do need you, and you seem like a willing servant. So I'm excited for that conversation when we get to have it in the future. But I'm very happy for the one that we just had. So thank you so much for sharing.
GP: I'm really appreciative for our time. A lot of fun. Thank you.
LJR: That was Gregory Papajohn, a public relations expert with a history of serving big, established financial players. He founded the Archie Group, a public relations marketing and advisory services firm that positions fintech and other emerging businesses and helps them position themselves in the market, acquire customers and partners, and develop reputational capital. Find out more at ArchieGroup.com and find me, Leslie Jennings Rowley at RoadsTakenShow.com and with another fascinating friend on the next episode of Roads Taken.