Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Policy Adviser feat. Orjanel Lewis, Esq.
110 Plays3 years ago
Today we’re discussing Policy Advisors. A policy advisor creates the internal and external strategy that helps a company achieve their mission. Internally, they develop operational guidelines to ensure state and federal regulations are being adhered. Externally, they use their expertise to negotiate with leaders in government agencies that impact the day-to-day operations of the company. Because the responsibilities are expansive, Policy Advisors have to have a wide range of skills for success that include quantitative analysis, being an astute collaborator and a visionary.
Today, I’m proud to speak with Orjanel Lewis, Esquire, Policy Advisor with the PRA Group. The PRA Group strives to be the trusted leader of the nonperforming loan industry. She has an influential role balancing the goals of her company while creating policies that treat their customers with respect and achieve long-term financial success. It’s an honor to learn and speak with you today.
Recommended
Transcript
Multitasking as a Policy Advisor
00:00:00
Speaker
I think that they would see a lot of me typing on the computer. They would see me doing a lot of reading, a phone in one hand, another phone up to the ear. It would be so much multifasking because not only am I talking to the different business units within my company, I'm talking with our coalitions, other industry leaders,
00:00:28
Speaker
Other people within my office, if not me, are working with the different legislators or their staff to advocate for or advocate against me. You'll see me typing emails, you'll see me drafting memorandums of support, memorandums of opposition. So it would be that picture of me multitasking and kind of doing it all.
Introduction to 'Take Your Home Boy to Work Day' Podcast
00:00:48
Speaker
What's up, everyone? I am Brandon Alexander, and this is Take Your Home Boy to Work Day podcast, your favorite podcast to learn about career paths. Here's what you can expect by tuning in. Each episode, I will dive into a new career. We'll learn the nuts and bolts of jobs within each path. We'll also learn how these jobs impact our everyday lives. And finally, I'll ask how each person finds fulfillment through their work.
00:01:18
Speaker
For anyone interested in hearing the first-hand experience of a specific career, these conversations are your launching pad to learn more.
Role and Skills of Policy Advisors
00:01:28
Speaker
Today, we're discussing policy advisors. A policy advisor creates the internal and external strategy that helps a company achieve their mission.
00:01:37
Speaker
Internally, they develop operational guidelines to ensure state and federal regulations are being adhered. Externally, they use their expertise to negotiate with leaders and government agencies that impact the day-to-day operations of the company. Because the responsibilities are expansive, policy advisors have to have a wide range of skills for success that include quantitative analysis, being an astute collaborator, and a visionary.
00:02:05
Speaker
Today, I'm proud to speak with Arjunel Louis Esquire, policy advisor with the PRA Group. The PRA Group strives to be the trusted leader of the non-performing loan industry. She has an influential role balancing the goals of her company while creating policies that treat their customers with respect and achieve long-term financial success.
Meet Arjunel Louis Esquire
00:02:26
Speaker
It's an honor to learn and speak with you today. Welcome, my sister. Hi, thank you so much for having me.
00:02:33
Speaker
It's great to have you on. The role of a policy advisor uniquely interests me. And so I wanted to have you on as one of the first guests because you have such an impact and especially in the industry you are in where you're bringing ethics and respect to the customers.
00:02:51
Speaker
who need a little financial assistance. So I appreciate you using your skills and gifts to this industry and bringing a positive image to it. And I'm excited to learn about your experience that led you to this. And so thank you for coming on. No problem. I'm excited to share.
00:03:08
Speaker
Awesome. You ready to jump in? Let's go. Let's go. So the first question I'd really love to learn, what drew you to this career or even this industry? Was this something you specifically targeted? And I know that you also earned your JD. So I guess even take us back to, you know, what made you want to go to law school? And then after you earned your JD, how did you end up in this career and being a policy advisor?
Arjunel's Advocacy Journey
00:03:38
Speaker
Okay, so I hope you have some time. I'm not feeling a talker. So what I can remember even as far back as elementary school is that I have always been an advocate. Like I was the girl in fourth grade who started a petition to get the teacher fired for not allowing them to go to the restroom. So I was always an advocate for my peers, for my friends, you know, fight the powers that be. That's always been me.
00:04:08
Speaker
I never honed into wanting to be an attorney initially until I got to middle school. Prior to that, I just wanted to be a pediatrician. And I think most people, most kids, you know, want to be someone who helps other people. And that's the person in their life who they saw as being a helper. You know, they were sick, they went to the doctor, they got some medicine, they were all healed and, you know, happy again.
00:04:36
Speaker
And so a lot of kids want to be a pediatrician. And that was me. And it wasn't until the seventh grade when I went with a group of friends to the mall and the group of friends that I went with. Now, I had known these girls forever. We, a few of us went to church together. You know, we were very good friends. Well, two of them decided to steal from the mall. And when they stole from the mall, we all got arrested.
00:05:02
Speaker
And it was a horrible experience especially having my mom who works nights Have to come and pick me up from the police station being accused of theft You know from a major department store and I didn't actually steal anything
00:05:18
Speaker
We hired an attorney who was awesome but one of the things that he told us and even the judge told us when I got in front of the judge for my case is you're gonna have to explain to me why I should not give you some form of punishment for this.
00:05:32
Speaker
And I said I didn't do it. I was able to get affidavits from the parents of the other girls who had stolen To just show no Arjuna had no involvement. She did not know anything that was going on You know, this is not her and we were able to prove our case to the judge and all of the charges ended up being dropped in taking off my record
00:05:54
Speaker
And that experience just truly, it was such a horrible experience, but it propelled and pushed me into my future, into my destiny of being an attorney. So fast forward, I get through high school, I go through college.
Academic Influences at Tuskegee and Tulane
00:06:12
Speaker
Huge shout out here to Tuskegee University, the most amazing historically black college university ever. Shout out to all HBCUs right now.
00:06:23
Speaker
While I did speaking, I double majored in political science and English because at that point I was committed. I'm going to law school. And those were good decisions because I enjoyed politics. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed politics, but I did enjoy politics. And I knew that being in the legal field, I'd have to do a lot of writing. So I wanted to perfect it while I was an undergrad and do even better while I was in law school and in an attorney.
00:06:50
Speaker
So then I went to Tulane, which was an awesome, awesome experience to go back to the city where my family is from and go to Tulane, the school where my mother was never allowed to go to because of this color of her skin. And here I am on the scholarship to Tulane. So it was a great experience. It exposed me to so many different fields of law.
00:07:15
Speaker
And I left their loving law and very confused about what I wanted to do. What field I wanted to practice.
00:07:24
Speaker
After I came back to Houston, I passed the bar exam.
Early Career in Debt Collection Law
00:07:28
Speaker
And the first job I was offered, I took it. We were in the middle of a recession. We were trying to get things back right with the economy. So there weren't many jobs. But I was proud to get this offer at this small firm where I would practice debt collection. I knew nothing about it, absolutely. I just knew I wanted to help people.
00:07:53
Speaker
And I think that I did a pretty good job helping people remove inaccurate items from their credit report. And I think that I did such a good job with it that my bosses saw my potential and not only allowed me to oversee the entire consumer litigation division within our firm, but also move over to the commercial litigation side and do other things, personal injury, estate litigation, just a little bit of everything.
00:08:20
Speaker
So I got that exposure and got some true litigation experience, you know, going to court, handling hearings, even handling a major trial in district court.
00:08:30
Speaker
It was around that time that I ended up this position with my current company opened up for a litigation associate in Texas and hopped on it. And by the grace of God, they hired me. And so I worked for about four and a half years as a litigation attorney for a debt collector.
Legislative Work and Advocacy Fulfillment
00:08:53
Speaker
Now, when I say that, people are like, oh my God, you work for the bad guy. How could you work for the bad guy? But what I remind people is you want people like me who look like me, who have my background. I mean, my mom is college educated. You know, she got her bachelor's degree, but my dad didn't.
00:09:15
Speaker
He went to college for like a year or two, but he's a landscaper. No one on his side of the family had went to or graduated college before I did. I know what it looks like to have no money in the account. I know what it looks like to have your bills turned off. You having absolutely nothing to pay. And here come these debt collectors calling you, mailing you. I get it.
00:09:36
Speaker
And so you want someone like me who can have that empathy to work with you, but still be a good advocate for the debt collector to get what's paid. At the end of the day, I do not know anyone who is old money and does not want it. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no, no.
00:10:00
Speaker
So I did that for about four and a half years and I worked to help resolve cases for our clients, excuse me, for our consumers, resolving them in a way that they could pay, they could afford to pay. It wasn't too much of a burden on them, but also making sure that my client, the company that I represented also got their pay. It was in my fourth year that I got to work
00:10:30
Speaker
on legislation There was a in a bill that was being proposed and I think it was maybe the second or third time that this bill was being proposed where it would increase the jurisdiction for Justice courts. So that's like the small claims courts here in Texas. It would increase the jurisdictional amount So instead of only cases up to 10,000 it would increase it up to 20,000
00:10:57
Speaker
And so when I learned that this bill had been filed, I thought that it would be amazing. Not only would it be helpful for our industry, but it would be great for consumers. It would be great for the general public at large. Most people don't know how to file a lawsuit. Most people don't know, you know, all of the structure that goes behind it. And so if they have the opportunity to file their cases in a small claims venue where the rules are less structured and more public friendly,
00:11:25
Speaker
They should be able to have that. And I just thought that it would be a great opportunity for not only my business, but also for the consumers to have that. So I worked with the legislators. I was calling, emailing. I even went to Austin and visited their offices to help push for this legislation. And a lot of people kept telling me that it wouldn't happen.
00:11:46
Speaker
but then it did. The bill passed the Senate and then it passed the Texas House and then the governor signed it. And as of September the 1st, 2020, the jurisdiction for small claims court changed. Um, and it increased based upon that bill that I had worked very diligently to get passed. And with that, the bug bit me.
00:12:07
Speaker
I just kept thinking, I want to do this every day. This is fun to be able to talk to people and find commonalities, you know, between our industry, between, you know, the consumers, the general public to see what positive changes can we make? You know, everything won't be great. Everything won't be a hundred percent. Um, but I loved being able to find some sort of resolution and advocate for it, uh, something that would help everyone. And so,
00:12:37
Speaker
my boss seeing how great I was at it and how much I enjoyed it. She worked with the government relations and public policy department and a position ended up opening up that they created for policy advisor and I got it and I was so excited. So that's how I came to this industry and I truly, truly love it.
Ethics and Early Career Challenges
00:13:01
Speaker
Wow, congratulations. I remember when you first took this job, we had a conversation. You were asking me how I felt about you working for a company like this. And I remember you also talking about how you wanted to bring respect to the consumers and ethics to the organization. And that's how you were going to be when you came in, regardless of the image of the industry already. So congratulations on stepping out on faith.
00:13:29
Speaker
and using, you know, bringing humanity back into this industry. So congratulations on that. Oh, thank you. That is my goal. That is the ultimate goal for sure.
00:13:38
Speaker
Awesome. So I guess this question ties in more, the next question ties in more with your JD and how it built into this opportunity. And maybe entry level isn't the right word, but what was your first job as it built into this career? And what was the salary range? Yeah, what was the first job? What was the title? And then what was the salary range?
00:14:03
Speaker
So my first job as a JD Was working for a company. It's a small and I'm not sure if they're even in business any longer But it was a small company here in the Greater Houston area that did Employment investigations for both public and private entities and
00:14:27
Speaker
It was fun. It was interesting because you're getting the hardcore details of what goes on with different employers and the different employment claims that
00:14:40
Speaker
employees will make when an adverse action has happened or is about to happen to them. So I did investigations for government agencies. I did investigations, employment investigations for private entities. And so that was interesting. What was the salary range? I won't tell the exact salary range, but I'll tell you that it was very low. And it was between 40 and 60,000.
00:15:11
Speaker
Let me say a few things about that. First of all, Houston has a very small cost of living. It's increasing every day, every year, just because more industries are coming to Texas and specifically the Houston area. But because our cost of living is so low, our pay may not be as high as you'll see on the East Coast or even the West Coast.
00:15:34
Speaker
Also, at that point, I had not passed the bar. I only had a JD and I had absolutely no experience. And I think that that company appreciated that, that I had no
00:15:50
Speaker
bar license behind me and that I had no experience because that allowed them to not only be able to train me the way that they wanted to train me, but it also allowed them to pay me less because I just didn't have certifications behind me.
00:16:05
Speaker
Gotcha. Well, thank you for your honesty. I think that's really important for the audience to understand. Oftentimes we hear about the upper echelon jobs, but we don't hear about those early years when you're still scraping to survive and you may be making it on a lower salary. So I appreciate you being honest and sharing your experience.
00:16:27
Speaker
I know in your first question, you mentioned that this was your passion since your experience in middle school. So as you reflect on your high school education and your college education, which courses have been the most applicable for what you do now?
00:16:44
Speaker
Oh, this is a good question. OK, I want to go back as far as middle school, if that's OK. I had a debate class while I was in middle school. And actually, this subject, this question specifically touches my heart because my middle school debate teacher has been my mentor since middle school.
00:17:05
Speaker
I won't tell you how many years ago that was. I'll tell the audience after. Well, he recently passed away within the last two weeks. And when I tell you that this man was one of the biggest champions of my life, he was such an encourager throughout high school, throughout college, throughout my adult life.
Importance of Public Speaking Skills
00:17:28
Speaker
Prior to his passing, one of the last conversations, in-depth conversations that we had over lunch
00:17:34
Speaker
was him pushing me to run for public office and just being my biggest, biggest supporter. So I definitely want to give kudos to him for being that amazing teacher that we all needed. Mr. Henley was everything to all of us who took his class or who had the honor of being around him.
00:17:55
Speaker
So that was a really good class for me to take because it helped my mind think about always considering the other argument and preparing myself to argue based upon what I know the other argument to be.
00:18:10
Speaker
In college, we had a speech class and that class really stood out to me because every class period we had a different speech that we had to make. And those speeches were based on politics. It was really big. The presidential election was really big at that time.
00:18:30
Speaker
It may have been based on how to, teaching the class how to do something, but it just really taught and prepared me to get up in front of a group of my peers and make a speech without saying, you know, and using correct vocabulary as much as possible. In law school, we had legal research and writing and that class really gave me
00:18:59
Speaker
the encouragement that I needed for oral arguments, which as my husband likes to say, you can't argue with her. She went to school for this. Well, it really gave me the foundation and the encouragement that I needed to be able to do everything that I'm doing today and more.
00:19:20
Speaker
Wow, wow. Well, thank you. A lot of what you mentioned was about public speaking being comfortable in front of other people. Do you think that you'd be the same person without those skills, the same, I guess, same lawyer specifically? Do you think you'd be the same lawyer if you hadn't learned these public speaking skills?
00:19:40
Speaker
Absolutely not. When I initially went to law school, in my thought, in my mind, I was going to be this high-powered attorney making seven figures, of course more than the six, making seven figures and just reviewing contracts. I never saw myself having to go to court. I never saw myself having to speak in front of groups of people.
00:20:05
Speaker
and now I do it on a daily basis. If it's with the different business units at my company explaining different legislation that's been proposed, policy that we can advocate for or against in my prior role as an attorney, litigation attorney, having to go to court and advocate to not only a jury, to a judge, or to an opposing counsel,
00:20:32
Speaker
It definitely is instrumental, has been instrumental in making me who I am today. Amazing, very amazing.
00:20:41
Speaker
So first, thank you for sharing your personal experiences that built into this career. For the listeners out there, if you have a passion that has tied in with any of Argenelle's experiences, then this may be a great career for you to be able to use your good to help bring change to whatever industry that you ultimately see fit getting involved in. So thank you for sharing your personal experiences, Argenelle.
00:21:09
Speaker
What part of them?
Legal and Ethical Operations in Policy Work
00:21:10
Speaker
The next couple of questions, I want to talk about the job. So the first question, and I'm coming at this from a business standpoint. I work for private companies and a big part of what we always discuss is return on investment, whether it's with the products that we're using or even ourselves as employees of the company.
00:21:32
Speaker
We're given a salary, and then our job is to exponentially bring back money to the company that justifies the salary. So I guess the first question is, how does your job make money for the company? How do you know the investment that the company makes with you through training and salary? How do you then return that value back to them through the work you do?
00:21:58
Speaker
Our role, especially, and this is going to be, it's not just for my company, but it's any government relations and public policy person. They are there to make sure that their company can operate.
00:22:10
Speaker
We have legislation that may come down federally or even state or locally, and that determines how we can operate within that space, within the United States of America, within that state, within that locality. And any person in government relations and public policy will be advocating for or advocating against certain legislation or certain ordinances or certain rules and requirements
00:22:40
Speaker
for that company to be able to operate in that space. So without us, legislation could get passed that could be totally against our industry, totally against our company and without us advocating for or against it, the companies will be screwed. They would not be able to operate at all.
00:23:02
Speaker
And so that is our biggest return on investment. We are here to make sure that our company and our industries are able to operate within that space.
00:23:13
Speaker
Excellent, excellent.
Impact of Policy Decisions on Society
00:23:15
Speaker
And that question tied in more for what does your job do for the company? My next question is, what does your job do for society? So as a customer or an end user, how does the work you do ultimately manifest itself for the everyday person? How can I see or learn or feel the impact of what you do?
00:23:39
Speaker
That is also a really, really good question. So an everyday person can see the effects that we have. You'll see policy people within every political campaign. You'll see them working for every political legislator that we have, and they are crafting the way that that partisan representative speaks, thinks, and votes, right?
00:24:05
Speaker
Initially, I kept thinking you want to always get to the elected official. You want to get to the elected official so that they can see things your way. But you really want to get to the policy person, right? Because the policy person is helping to craft a way that that political or that elected official is thinking or operates or votes on a certain type of legislation.
00:24:27
Speaker
So everyday people can be able to affect that policy. They can be able to understand how this person thinks by the policy that's being created by their staff or the policy that's being created by companies that they are pushing.
00:24:42
Speaker
And then that will trickle down, right? In the way that that elected official votes, the way that we are given, for example, everyone has been excited about these stipends that we've received from the government since with COVID-19.
00:24:59
Speaker
All of that comes from some policy person or some policy group of people determining that this is what would be best based on this information, this data, this poll that they've received. And so they're pushing their representative, their senator to vote in that manner.
00:25:21
Speaker
Gotcha. Thank you.
Daily Routine of a Policy Advisor
00:25:23
Speaker
And the next question, could you possibly describe your job with a picture or scene of you doing it? If you had to tell an artist to commemorate your career with a painting, what would that painting look like? This is good.
00:25:44
Speaker
This is really good. If they had to do just a scene by painting, I think that they would see a lot of me typing on the computer. We doing a lot of reading.
00:25:59
Speaker
of phone in one hand, another phone up to the ear. It would be so much multitasking because not only am I talking to the different business units within my company, I'm talking with our coalitions, other industry leaders,
00:26:17
Speaker
Other people within my office, if not me, are working with the different legislators or their staff to advocate for or advocate against things. You'll see me typing emails. You'll see me drafting memorandums of support, memorandums of opposition. So it would be that picture of me multitasking and kind of doing it all. Wow. Let me ask you another follow up. How do you keep yourself organized with all of the responsibilities?
00:26:47
Speaker
Right now you wouldn't think I was organized at all. Papers and books everywhere. So one of my friends actually, and I just started it this year, she put me on to this passion planner and I love it. I try to calendar everything that I have, not only in my phone and on my computer, and I do have two phones, but also in the passion planner because that helps me to be able to more deeply reflect
00:27:16
Speaker
into what it is that I'm doing, the purpose of it, and how this is gonna create a greater good. And if it's not me accomplishing the goal that I initially set forth, how I can get closer to that goal or exceeding that goal in the future. Wow, Passion Planner is an app that you download? It's actually a physical planner. It's a website, passionplanner.com. No, I'm not getting paid by them. You can order it, and I love it. It's been awesome for me.
00:27:46
Speaker
Wow, I think I'm gonna check that out after we hang up. Thank you for sharing that.
Handling COVID-19 with Empathy
00:27:51
Speaker
So I'd love to know more about what keeps you fulfilled. It's evident that you are, and I'd love to just learn. So the first question, what has been your proudest achievement so far in your career, or even if this was in a previous job that builds up to this opportunity, what's been your proudest achievement?
00:28:15
Speaker
So in this role, and I haven't been in this role super long, but one of the things that I'm super proud of is the way that our company has handled the effects of COVID-19. This is the part, this has been super difficult on the general public. So many people have lost their job or lost their amount of income. There's been a lot of pay reductions
00:28:44
Speaker
for the general public so many people have died it's been difficult but what i truly have appreciated with my company and especially with me being this role is how much of an empathizer we have been
00:28:58
Speaker
We don't have people out there saying, no, you're going to pay, or we're going to try to send you to jail, or some other just horrible thing. We work with people. If you can't pay, let's find a way to make it happen in the future, or let's put a pause on this, or let's not garnish any of your bank accounts, any of your income right now. Let's truly work with you because we get it. This is hard on everyone. And we don't want to be the big bad predator, the big bad wolf.
00:29:27
Speaker
here, we really want to help work with you. And even as an associate attorney or a litigation attorney in my prior role with this company, I appreciated being able to do that. There were so many times that I would talk with a consumer at court and they're in tears. They've had some health situation that's come up. They lost their job, something unexpected. And although they had been paying
00:29:53
Speaker
they couldn't afford to pay anymore. And so I sit there with them and I talk. Listen, I totally understand this as life. What if I do this? What if I cut this debt down by this much? What if I cut your payments down to this much? Can you do this? Will you still be able to eat? Will you still be able to have housing? Okay, if this works for you, it will work for us. Let's get this agreed to. You will not know how many times I've walked out of court
00:30:22
Speaker
holding hands with the consumer, hugging them, crying with them, because I get it. I get it. Everyone has difficult moments, everyone has difficult times, and they're just at different times. And I'm not here to make you feel horrible or just be, again, the big bad wolf. I'm here to work it out with you.
00:30:45
Speaker
That's the right adjective to use. That's inspiring. That's very inspiring. It really is. It really is.
Diversity and Ethics in Debt Collection
00:30:52
Speaker
We've talked a lot about the good of your experience through your career, but as with anything, there are gonna be bad actors, bad apples. So as you've navigated this career, what has been some of the bad or even the ugly side of what you've seen in the industry, and how do you protect yourself? Or how would you recommend somebody else to protect themselves if they decide to go into this career to prevent being abused or taken advantage of?
00:31:20
Speaker
So there are a couple of things that I can say within this industry. One of the things that sticks out to me is diversity and inclusion. You don't see a lot of that in this industry and
00:31:34
Speaker
I liken it to criminal justice. You don't always get to see a lot of people who look like us on the prosecutor side, right? It's increasing now, but 10 years ago, 15, 20 years ago, it was not like that. And it's like that currently in the debt collection industry. I am one of the first, I know for my company for sure,
00:32:03
Speaker
And I believe for other industry leaders as well. And I'd love to see more of us be more included in this industry, in this realm. One of the good things that my company has recently done is created a diversity and inclusion team. And I'm actually a part of it. It's only a 15 member team with a lot of top senior executive leadership. So we are working to actively make that difference.
00:32:31
Speaker
One of the other bad things that I've seen within this industry are you have a lot of people who prey on consumers, who consumers want to make a difference. Everyone wants good credit. Everyone wants more money. You know, these are given. And so you have people or groups or organizations who prey upon consumers. Oh, give me some money and I can get these things knocked off your credit report.
00:33:01
Speaker
But what the consumer may not realize is this is a bad actor. They're just taking this monthly fund from you, this monthly amount from you, and they're not really doing any work. And I just caution people when they see groups saying, hey, I can help your credit report. I can help get you a 750, 800 credit score. Just be very critical of what it is that they're doing to actually make this happen.
00:33:31
Speaker
Well, first, being a trailblazer is always difficult, especially when you're the first woman, most likely the first black woman also.
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
00:33:42
Speaker
So congratulations to you to that. And have you ever dealt with imposter syndrome? Once you made it into these leadership conversations and your opinion was valued or your role was important and you had to influence others who may not look like you, have you ever dealt with imposter syndrome?
00:34:00
Speaker
You know, I just heard that term for the first time a few weeks ago. Yeah. And I had never heard of it before. So I was like, what is that? I'm sure that I have dealt with it, but I'll tell you this. I don't know that I would recognize it. Maybe I'm experiencing it now. I don't know that I would recognize it because I have always come from the thought process of
00:34:24
Speaker
you get in there and you just do what you have to do. Don't focus on the bad. Don't focus on anything, anyone else. You be who you've always destined and wanted yourself to be and just focus it on that. And the other thing is I was a cheerleader in high school and I had to tell someone this the other day, put on your cheerleading face, let's be here and let's root it to the end and get the job done. And so,
00:34:51
Speaker
I possibly have the imposter syndrome now, but I may not realize it just because of how I combat things. Gotcha. And that's a perfect segue into my next question. And so what would you tell your 22, well, I guess when you graduated law school, you may have been 26, 27.
Advice to Younger Self
00:35:17
Speaker
25.
00:35:19
Speaker
25. What would you tell your 25-year-old self as she is preparing for this career? What advice would you give yourself looking back on your experiences so far? Oh, that's so good. First of all, I would tell her, hold on. Everything that you wanted and never even realized that you could want will happen. Second of all, you're going to have to work for it.
00:35:47
Speaker
Every day will not be a good day, and that's okay. The next day may be, or the day after that, keep working very diligently, hold on to your networks, be kind to everyone because you never know who you need again, and keep working hard. You got this. Excellent advice.
00:36:09
Speaker
And you brought up how the pandemic, and one of your proudest moments has been how your company has handled the pandemic.
Future of Policy Work
00:36:18
Speaker
So I guess as you look forward, as your company is looking forward, yourself looking forward, given we're coming out of a pandemic, we're starting to, vaccination numbers are increasing every day, and also adding in technological advances because we live in a very tech-focused society where we're looking to use the internet and improvements every day.
00:36:40
Speaker
How do you see your industry or your job evolving given any technological advances and we're coming out of a pandemic?
00:36:50
Speaker
So I'll tell you one of the things, and it's not just my company specific, but it's all companies, really. I don't think it's just industry specific. One of the biggest focuses that are coming out of different state legislators, legislations and federal side as well, data privacy and data security. I think since at least 2016,
00:37:15
Speaker
That is becoming such a much larger focus because all industries are realizing how easy it is to get hacked, how easy it is to invade someone's privacy, data privacy. And so there's a lot of legislation that's coming out every state and even the federal government are coming out with buku legislation to help combat that as best as possible.
00:37:41
Speaker
And I love that our company is getting ahead of it and making sure that we are doing everything to protect consumers' information as much as possible. And I hope to see every industry doing the same as well. Well said. Well said.
Conclusion and Acknowledgments
00:37:57
Speaker
Well, Arjunel, I really appreciate this experience. I've learned so much more about who you are as an individual, also along with your career. When I was sharing with my wife, Stephanie, about your career, and I told her about the company, I said, hold up, hold up. She's bringing humanity, ethics, respect to the customers. And that's what we need in this industry. So once again, I appreciate you using your gifts and your passion to help improve something that
00:38:26
Speaker
probably over indexes on our community also. And so we need somebody like us in the leadership position, influencing change at a legal level. And I wish you nothing but success in your career. Thank you. And the same to both you and Stephanie. Y'all are so awesome. And I'm just so happy that I've known you guys for, what, 15 years now. Yeah. Yes. And so six, right?
00:38:51
Speaker
since Orlando in 06 and we've seen the country together too. We've seen the country together. Well, thank you again. I really appreciate your time and I look forward to having you on again, maybe in five years and seeing what happens between now and then. Awesome. I would love it. Awesome. Have a great day. Thank you. You too.