Hello, Slush, Luciana, Andrew, such a joy to do this, and a huge thank you for joining us here today. Thank you so much.  It's such a treat. Agreed. It's great to have you. So, as you just heard, we're here to talk about the deeply important announcement that was the Sequoia Capital Fund very recently. But before you get going, I thought we'd set the scene and perhaps break the ice a little bit. So, Luciana and Andrew, you're both partners at Sequoia. But how did each of you actually first make your way into the world of venture? So, I joined Sequoia about eight years ago, and I'm based in our California office. And for me, the drive has always been a general curiosity about business writ large and trying to figure out this dynamic mosaic of the world's economy and this era of accelerating change, how different founders and companies fit into it. So, for me, that's led me into all sorts of different directions on the investing side. So, I work with software companies like Figma and Loom, Product Board, Vanta, Source Graph, Zapier, FinTech companies like Robinhood, global internet companies like Bolt and Robbie. And the fun thing about this job is there's always some new thing to explore tomorrow. Absolutely. My story is a bit different. So, I'm from a small town in Romania, and I did not grow surrounded by technology or venture capital. And I have a fun fact. I was talking to a friend yesterday. I realized my mom still does not have an email address. So, just to share some background, I thought I'd teach math. And honestly for me, it was luck and serendipity. I started in venture, so I started investing back in 2009 and I started with later stage investing at a firm called Summit. And I started in venture in earlier stage a decade ago. Back in 2011, I was with Excel for eight years and I joined Sequoia almost a year and a half ago now. And it's been a treat to see how the European ecosystem evolved over a decade. And I was very privileged to work with founders that, in my opinion, really helped shape the ecosystem like Willa de Verru and Daniela de Waipath and Andrea Nero and many others. So, it's been a fun journey and it's changed a lot. But I'm sure we'll talk more about that. Absolutely. So, if we here in Helsinki sometimes feel like we're coming out of a fringe ecosystem, your story beats that out of the pond. But let's dive into the announcement of the Sequoia Capital Fund. And just to contextualize this for the audience, I thought I'd just explain how a venture capital fund traditionally works because Sequoia Capital Fund is different. So, many of you will know that venture capital is a private equity offspring. Which was created back in the 60s and 70s. And so, most venture capital funds are 10-year funds and they're closed-end funds. And what that means is that limited partners, that's the people they invest into venture capital funds, put their money in and then they're basically stuck for the next 10 years. Like, as the fund exits portfolio companies, they will start paying that money back and then they'll try and do that paying back over a total period of 10 years. But now, the Sequoia Capital Fund, the big news is that you have chosen to do a thing or structure yourselves differently. So, tell me, how is Sequoia Capital Fund structured? Sure. Before diving into the details of what the Sequoia Capital Fund is and how it works, it's worth describing the why. Because Sequoia has been around for almost 50 years. It's been, I think, 49 years since Don Valentine made Sequoia's first investment, which was into Atari, the gaming company. And for us to contemplate a transformation of our business like this, there's obviously a compelling reason that we found to do so. And it starts with our mission. So our mission at Sequoia is to help the daring build legendary companies from idea to IPO and beyond. And the backbone of the Sequoia Capital Fund is the legendary companies. So I think our history has taught us that these amazing and enduring companies can surprise any of us to the upside and compound for decades. Companies like Google and Apple and Cisco and Oracle and those sorts of companies. And in the context of those businesses, ten years is truly an arbitrary number. It's a nice number to do math against, right? But it could be 12, it could be 15 in any event. It is an imposition of our fund structure that's untethered to the way companies scale and operate. And we thought about different models and the reality is what we landed on was just to upend the closed-in fund structure entirely. And Sequoia Capital Fund for a little bit of detail on how it works is an open-ended fund that holds a selection of public positions in our most enduring companies. And beneath that are a series of closed-in funds. It's seed investing fund, early stage investing, growth stage, expansion stage. And the reason for those funds is, you know, we're not interested in being in the money management business. You know, we want to help the daring build legendary companies from idea to IPO and beyond, which means making the best seed investments we possibly can with a focused seed effort. And the nice thing about this model is as those companies scale up, you know, partner with Stripe at the seed or Airbnb at the seed, as those companies get really big, they can mature out of the closed-in funds into the open-ended fund.  So it's a novel structure and it's one that we believe creates the first genuine crossover fund in our industry, starting with seed all the way to Publix. And it should be great for our founders, so we can be their longest-term investors, and also great for our LPs. Well, I think this is so important and fitting on the slosh stage. It's obviously the third tenet of our theme, entrepreneurial renaissance, is called Innovation Reborn, which is all about building incredibly, like taking huge technological risk, and often huge technological risk, what you might call deep-tech, you know, doesn't materialize within ten years. But Luciana, so like what does this announcement mean for founders? What changes for founders? From our perspective, we've always invested in the same thesis that we want to find founders who want to build iconic companies, want to build generational companies. So we look at the same type of companies, we try to invest early and try to invest with a fund, to work with our founders for the long run. The difference is exactly what Andrew said earlier. There is no deadline. We can start partnering with founders and think about a really long-term relationship. Again, especially when we invest at seed, building a generational company takes decades. So now we're able to be part of the journey for decades. Okay, very good. And then I want to put the question to you. Like, why has it taken 50 years for us to get here? Because as you mentioned, you know, Sequoia was founded in 1972. That's around the time when venture capital came to be. So, like, why was this the right moment for you to do this? I guess it's my question. I'm happy to answer this because I actually, since I joined Sequoia a bit over a year ago, it was, you know, a period of discovery and getting to know our culture. And one of the things that I find really impressive and really fascinating is a constant desire to reinvent itself. I think it's normal human psychology that when things are going well, you try to do more of the same. But the culture at Sequoia is not that. The culture is how do we break it down and then build it up again better? How do we change? How do we reinvent ourselves? And it's really interesting because it's actually something I look for in founders. It's a trade I look for in founders. So it's really nice to be part of a culture that thinks about the world this way. What I will say in terms of timing, we've always thought really long-term. Now, we actually change the structure to reflect that. But that was always our philosophy. And what I would add on that is, you know, this isn't the first time that Sequoia has done something novel or innovative or that people have called wacky.  You know, these are things that Sequoia was, you know, the first scout fund was the Sequoia Scout Fund. And there's a question that Patrick Halston from Stripe actually posed at an offset we had recently, which is, what would Sequoia say if Sequoia were on Sequoia's board? Because with the companies we work with, we do try to push them to think bigger, be creative, be different. And we take that same approach to running Sequoia. Like, we are entrepreneurs at heart and want to take risks with everything we have. And I have to say, I think this really resonates with the founders that we work with and the founders that we want to work with, because after this announcement, I got so many calls and so many messages saying exactly this. Firstly, delighted to be able to work with Sequoia for the long term, but secondly, so nice to see that there is the same entrepreneurial mentality on the venture side to echo what Andrew was talking about. Absolutely. All right, so then I wanted to put a quote forth from Doug Leone, who manages Sequoia Capital. Doug has said, Sequoia is a team, not a family. So my question is like, how does the team at Sequoia make decisions together? What is your decision making process? And specifically, how does that change depending on the size of check or the sort of stage of investment that you are making? Yeah, so Doug, we have 10 tenants at Sequoia that define our culture. And Doug has mentioned this a few times. There are two that we talk about all the time. Number one is performance. And Doug likes to say, if you don't have number one, the other nine don't matter. Need to be a great investor, deliver great returns to our LPs and be a great partner to founders. And number two is teamwork. It's different than the way many venture funds think about teamwork. And to use some tired sports analogies, I think there is one version of teamwork which is like a golf team where you have a bunch of people who play their ball and at the end of the day you add up the scores and that's the score of the team. That's not how we think about teamwork. We think about it more like soccer or rugby or basketball where for any given opportunity we all try to work together to get the best possible results. So for a tangible example recently we invested in Bolt here in Estonia and that was an investment that was first nudged to us by Mike Moritz and it was Luciana who had the relationship and she and I worked together with a partner in us and I led the investment for Sequoia and that's kind of the way we do things. And yes, I'm in California and they're in Europe but we are one team and for us the teamwork a lot of it is in that decision making to figure out which investments to make but if you think about it over the last couple of years that decision making process has gone from weeks to days and with the Sequoia Capital Fund our tenure of working with companies has gone from years to decades. So the vast majority of teamwork happens actually after the investment and when companies go public we tend to sit around an internal email just say who's done what for the company let's make sure that we give proper credit and for a lot of these companies it's not uncommon for 20 or 30 people from Sequoia to have worked on the company between the moment we first invested at a very early stage all the way up through the point of the IPO and with the Sequoia Capital Fund the point of the IPO really is just a milestone and you can presume the same thing is going to happen many years into the future. So building on that let's perhaps switch gears a little bit here and let's talk about some of the sort of tectonic shifts molding venture capital at the moment and I think the most striking is just the hugely increased availability of capital so I think Europe is on track to specifically we're on track to 100 billion invested this year compared to 40 billion last year so that's two and a half times growth in just one year which is an exceptional pace. So there's more capital available than ever how should founders think about the fundraising market and capital in this new environment. I have to say having been in venture for a decade in Europe it's just absolutely wild how much has changed from many perspectives and yes absolutely availability of capital is one of them. I think it's two sides to the same coin on the one hand I think it's really positive for the ecosystem or for the many European ecosystems because it's not just one here I think it's great because founders that might not have had an opportunity before now do they have access to capital to give it a real shot and to build their companies so I think that part is great. I think on the other side of the coin is just being thoughtful about when to fundraise and who to fundraise with and trying to keep some discipline I really believe strongly that having some constraint when it comes to capital and in general keeps the mind really clear and really focused on prioritizing and what really matters and investing your time and your money in what really matters so our advice to our founders is always okay do you need the capital is the first question and let's have that conversation and the second question is is this a really value add new investor is this going to change your destiny or maybe that's too much to say but is it going to shortcut your way to success so those are the types of conversations that we have with our founders and I think that's staying sober for us investors, for founders in an environment that just moves so fast is really really important so I would say it's mostly good for the ecosystem but it's also important to keep the mind clear and keep some discipline I'm sorry if it's a boring answer but it's a genuine answer from the heart as opposed to go raise two billion dollars Let me continue on that actually and let me ask the same question from a capitalist perspective so your perspective so let's think about it in one year we're going to see two and a half times more funding in Europe it's probably or it's intuitively probably true that there's not two and a half times more good equity to go around and the end result of that is venture capital probably is becoming more competitive and you can take issue with the framing but how does that affect your work just the fact that there is so I'll give you European view and maybe you can share a bit from the US how about that I would say that actually there are a lot more wonderful founding teams today than ever before I think it's just a cultural shift Europe always had really strong education really strong technical talent but now people are willing to take the risk they're not going into corporates or into consulting or banking any longer they work for a startup they get some experience and then they're willing to take the risk and build their own company so I don't know if the number is two and a half times proportionate to the amount of capital increase but I will say on a daily basis I just get so many introductions really really strong founding teams much more so than five years ago in the European ecosystem so I would say that there is a balance between the number of great founding teams and the amount of capital available now on the other hand we try to just think about what happens within the building and we just try to what I said on discipline we apply that to ourselves as well we just want to find wonderful founders at seed and be really good company builders we think of ourselves as company builders not only investors and work with these founders for the long run and we just try to keep a clear mind every time we wake up every single morning and focus on this and we are not supposed to focusing too much on what is happening in the world around us I will say we each make two to three investments a year probably we don't each make we don't issue a term sheet a day I'll say that so I think that we pick and choose very selectively the companies where we really spend time and the companies where we invest and when we do we put the entire weight of Sequoia behind those founders I would just add when I started Sequoia eight years ago it was fairly common to see a new investment opportunity and have a week to do some market diligence do a few meetings talk to customers get a data room wave through that figure out what you think and the reality is is that timelines have just gotten compressed and you know founders often think of us as just the investor side of the table we work with each of us probably a dozen companies that are also raising money so we know how painful fundraising can be from the founder perspective and with the compressed timeline and greater competition that's really a wonderful thing and the era of being able to sit back and take your time to understand things that's gone you have to be prepared you have to move very quickly with a lot of conviction when you meet some of these companies and that's how we love to do business like we we are I think the founders we work with we tend to be very fast on email we tend to be willing to get on planes we tend to be very direct and straightforward when we're making new investments and I think in this new era it really suits the way we like to do business so I think from the US perspective yes it's more competitive but I think at the very least it's good for founders and I think it makes our job pretty fun too and what I will say is I say this to the founders that I work with I want to listen you are making a big decision as a founder you are choosing a partner for the following 5, 10, 15 years making the decision within 2 to 3 days might not be always a great idea of course if you build a relationship over time and you get to know the investors over time and then the actual fundraise happens in a short period of time that's a very different scenario but I also always try to have an honest conversation with founders and tell them by partnering we're not just giving you capital we're committing to you and to your journey and to be behind you for a very long time so let's take more than 2 to 3 days to get to know each other and to see that we think about the world in a similar way I think that's really important speaking about sort of compressed fundraise timelines which obviously for you imply you know compressed decision making timelines like with that being said I'm sure there are situations in which you do need to act fast because there are competitors who would and they'll take the deal if you don't so how do you as a fund ensure that you approach each investment with that same level of like rigor and analysis when you have to act faster than ever before I think it's not about learning about a company and making a decision 24 hours later like that is just not a great way to make excellent investments I think it's about having a prepared mind and being willing to do work whether it's building connection with a founder or understanding a market and a landscape before there's any sort of a fundraise so when there is the chance you can jump on it so I think that is probably the difference and in terms of how it affects our business like yes there are more rounds being done and more dollars being invested but as Luciana said each of us make 2 or 3 new investments a year it really is not a market thing as a company by company thing and we take performance incredibly seriously like it is our number one tenant and it's something that we look at and the reason for that is our limited partners are the vast majority are nonprofits and schools and we really take pride in delivering excellent performance for them because they're great causes and our performance really matters to them and I think some of this data is public which is quite a capital fund news one of the reasons we're able to do that is currently in our private funds we have $45 billion of public positions of which $43 billion are gains so on $2 billion to cost basis we have $45 billion of publics and that's not counting the private positions they're still in the funds and on top of that for the last 15 years we've been a net source of liquidity so we've distributed to them more than twice what we've invested and I think that general philosophy of just being extremely performance focused is I think the core of what Sequoia is and when it comes to things like making decisions on companies we don't view it as oh just another investment just in our company we view it as on an individual level one of the two or three new things we're going to do in any given year and on an aggregate level the only thing that matters is if I'm on the website if I'm a founder and I reach out to an investor and I say hey you have to decide within two to three days that's also for the investor I think it's a good test to see the reaction because if an investor thinks about this as hey I'm going to partner with you for the next 10 years if that's the mindset and I'm actually really going to work with you and I'll roll up my sleeves and I'll ask you if you're a founder if you're a founder if you're a founder if you're a founder see how investors react when you approach them with those types of timelines so one of the follow on effects of the general increase in speed in the ecosystem and the fundraising process is that funds venture capital funds are also being deployed faster so one of the questions I want to ask you is in this environment how do you think about your own kind of pacing and speed of how you deploy your funds so I don't think that those two things are equal meaning an increased pace in the fundraising environment does not necessitate an increased pace in our funds and I think I would echo back the comments I just made which is we are extremely focused on delivering exceptional multiple of money returns to our LPs and being great partners to founders that I think pace tends to take care of itself all right that's loud and clear we ask some discipline of our founders so we have to show some discipline on our side as well right absolutely switching gears once more it's quite interesting to or I think it's interesting to ask a question from you about the biggest failures the biggest misses as venture capitalists what was your big miss and how did that change or like mine set an approach as venture capitalists after that mine is a very my mind goes directly to one situation so this was back in 2014 and JustEat had gone public not long before and I believe it was about 3 billion dollars in market cap and at the time I mean 3 billion dollars is a wonderful outcome for any company and at the time it was really one of the few larger outcomes in Europe so it was really a big deal and one of my friends called and said hey I have this business school friend coming back to London he wants to start a food delivery company it was Will Shua Deliveroo and I didn't know how to get off the phone faster it was like another food delivery company I'm not gonna meet him anyway so I didn't actually meet him then and then I met him a bit later and still did not dream enough at the series A and you know you're gonna laugh but the question at the time was market size because Deliveroo was active in a couple of neighborhoods in London and I thought to myself you know affluent neighborhoods people who work a lot but have cash is this really going to become a mass market proposition is everyone going to want to pay the 2-3 pounds delivery fee and you know it turns out that convenience it really is a mass market proposition people appreciate the extra 20 minutes to spend with their family or to do work or to watch Netflix or whatever it might be people really appreciate that extra time and it turns out they are willing to pay that delivery fee across the world not just in London and I did fix my mistake at the following round and I worked with Will for several years and that was great but I think ability to dream around what a market might become is my learning from that we like to invest at seed we invest really early often times those markets don't even exist so being able to dream that a category might actually become something large I think that's really important for an early stage investor and you know it's something I learned over the years what was yours I'm curious I think for any anybody who takes this job seriously that question just brings up a huge list trying to sort it by market cap mist or aggregate gain mist or most painful mist what's the ranking mechanism you said your worst mist so the one that sticks out to me we came very close to leading the series to be a Peloton and it was personal for me because I was one of Peloton's first users I loved the product then I really believed in its future the exercise equipment market was littered with carcasses of extremely mediocre companies and Peloton was just this unique thing that did live classes and streaming video and hardware delivered to the home and it was really hard to figure out you know what might this business look like and you know you fast forward there aren't 10 Peloton ask companies in the public markets there's just Peloton and it's because it's a really special business and they thought about things from first principles and they're willing to be different and the sad thing now is I still ride my Peloton bike every day as a reminder of like hey but I think the last thing it's quite similar one of one companies exist and when you find something that's just a little bit different you take it more seriously not less and number two is as a consumer trust your gut like if you really think a product is special even if it is an exercise bike that was delivered to your house with streaming video from a New York City studio and what is that you know that is you know worth viewing as a real part of the mosaic I just want to say it makes a lot of sense that for Andrew is a fitness company and for me it's a food delivery company we'll leave it at that very good so we have a couple of minutes left and to wrap things up you may know that Harry Stebbings was originally supposed to moderate this session the host of the 20 minute VC podcast and recently founder of the 20 VC funds I think it is at this point so as an homage to Harry I thought we'd do a quick fire round which he likes to end his podcast episodes with so I'm going to say a short statement addressed to one of you and give me our immediate sort of snap thought so Andrew favorite book and why answer that we do have a little bit of time left I think on the topics of the Sequoia Capital Fund it was an immense effort and is an immense effort from a lot of people at Sequoia who just typically go unnoticed you know we have a small partnership of investors we have many more people whose fingerprints are all over that obviously the investment team and Rilof, Doug, Mike, Jim who are the inspiration for a lot of this but it's our operations team or finance team or compliance team or legal team or tax team or communications team it's a lot of people who typically don't get shout outs on stages like this so while we have a little bit extra time I just wanted to say thank you to those folks it's a lot of work still ongoing and I couldn't be prouder to work with them on the question of favorite book and why favorite book is Dune it was a book I read when I was much younger and fell in love with it and if you haven't seen the movie yet it's the first movie I've seen that does so it's a you know, it's a good book Super, let's be super rapid Luciana, what moderate quote do you repeat the most often? Okay so this is going to sound negative but actually it has a positive twist at some point very early on in my career I heard someone say that companies die by suicide and not by homicide and it sounds dramatic but I actually think it's a very positive message which is focus on what you control because actually as a founder and as a team you control your own destiny you know what matters is your speed of execution your product, how you hire how fast you move, how ambitious you are not what people around you are doing and of course your market needs to inform some of your decisions but really a lot of it is actually under your own in your own control so focus on that so I actually think it's a positive twist but it really stuck with me and I share it with my founders often keep going Andrew, what three traits would you want your children to adopt? so I became a father five months ago so this is congratulations kindness optimism and courage do you want to add one Luciana and let's end there I think being grateful it's something my mom always used to tell me whenever I got up in the morning she used to wake me up as a kid and she always said be grateful for every single day you have and I just think being grateful is really important I think it helps you go through life with a different lens with optimism I guess it goes hand in hand with that awesome well Luciana and Andrew it's been our exceptional pleasure to host you here thank you so much for your time thank you everyone in the audience for listening thank you so much for having us we're happy to be here


The Milwaukee Brewers mentioned today we play ball and no more rain delay. Brewers versus Cubs. Go Brewers. Let's beat them Cubs. Go Brew Crew.


Thanks everyone for coming out on such a lovely evening here and welcome to community financial literacy six annual celebration. My name is Mike Wood, I'm a portfolio manager with RM Davis and I'm very proud to serve as CFL's chairman and again thank you all for coming out on such a lovely night. We're very fortunate to have this beautiful space here and we do appreciate all your support. I have a couple of brief comments and then we'll get on with our program. We all know from our history lessons how important immigrants have been to our country. America has been found was founded by immigrants many of whom risked everything they had to pursue a better life to enjoy the blessings of freedom or to flee oppression. This tradition continues as immigrants contribute much needed that vitality and entrepreneurship to our economy. In fact research indicates that our economy grows at a much faster rate than other developed countries due in part to our open borders and integrated society. So we are here tonight to celebrate and support Maine's newest arrivals. At previous CFL celebrations, economists Dr. Charles Colgan and Portland Mayor Michael Brennan explained how important immigrants are to our state and local economy. Maine is aging rapidly where the oldest state in the country and the pending retirement of baby boomers will soon cause a labor shortage. To help fill this gap today's immigrants are eager to work, become self-sufficient and compete in our vibrant economy. However these new majors these new main workers must have a basic understanding of our financial, legal and economic systems. This is where CFL is providing real value. In 2014 we assisted almost 300 students from 21 different countries including Congo, Cuba, Burma and Iraq. Over the rest of this evening you'll hear much more about the vital services CFL provides to our community and our state. Thanks again for joining us. Before we introduce the rest of our program I did want to recognize Gene Ardido. Gene are you here? You got around here. Gene is our outgoing chairman. He has served many years and continues to lead our organization. As CEO of Seaport Credit Union Gene has helped many new manors achieve their financial goals. I am honored to be Gene successor and please join me again in thanking Gene for his service to CFL. Good evening. My name is Clema Yombe. I am a program coordinator at Community Financial Literacy and it's a pleasure for me to introduce the speaker of the day. Our student speaker is Marie Francine Daishimie. She graduated in economics from the University of Ngozi in Burundi. Later she works at the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Burundi for six years as an administrative assistant. She arrived in the U.S. in 2011 fleeing from political persecution in her country. Marie Francine graduated from CFL, Basic Money Management in February of this year. I remember when she was coming to class she was nine months pregnant but she kept on coming until she got her certificate. Please help me to welcome Marie Francine. Good evening everybody. As Clema already said, my name is Marie Francine Daishimie. I'm original from Burundi. You can tell by my accent. I have been here in the United States since May 2011. I'm married and have children. The youngest one is just one month. Even though I have a bachelor's degree in economics, financial literacy was always a big challenge for me. In January 2015, I enrolled in Money Management courses at CFL. This course was very important and helpful to me. The course helped me to acquire new skills including how to successfully manage my personal finances. I also learned how to set goals, budgeting, even though I don't have much money, build my credit and much more. Before taking this course as someone who had a degree in economics, I thought I knew how I can handle or solve any financial issues but that was a big mistake. The American financial system is so complex and challenging for new Americans to learn on their own. Thanks to Clema, who was my instructor. Now I understand the basic of banking including how to track my money, how to save even how to get along if I need it. Basic money management, how important it is. However, it's given for free, so unbelievable. Have you ever heard or received any free money here in America? If you are a refugee or a asylum, don't wait. Go to CFL. They have a federal program which helps for refugee and immigrant with those issues. I was able to save $4,000 which was matched with another $4,000. This was through an IDA program and it's allowed me to purchase my first car. Now I have a transportation. It means to go work, take my children or myself to any medical appointment, do some groceries and other things. Again, thank you CFL for the IDA program. I think this is just the beginning. I promise you I have a goal that I plan to accomplish in the future. I will continue to save money beyond IDA to meet my other projects needs. Financial literacy is the key to understand the American financial system. It's so complex. I invite all my fellows, immigrants, to take this course because it's really important for us. Let me also thank the sponsors who continue to support this program. Thank you again. It's now my pleasure to introduce the man of the hour, Claude Roganji. I practice that a few times, Claude. Is that still still wrong? Claude is otherwise known as the most connected man in Portland. In leading CFL, Claude has met almost every politician, educator, business and community leader in Maine and throughout the Northeast. If you haven't met him yet, you will. We'll make sure of it. These leaders recognize and support Claude's vision for CFL. We are pleased and honored to have so many of you join us here in support this evening. Claude is a graduate of USM and recently received his MBA. He's member of the Portland Chamber Board of Directors, the Financial Literacy Advisory Council of the Finance Authority of Maine, and Avesta Housing's Home Ownership Advisory Committee. It continues to be recognized with awards, including the Bates College Award for Outstanding New Initiatives and the Spirit of Service Award from Bowdoin College. Please join me in welcoming Claude to the podium. Thank you, Mike. Thank you all for coming again this evening. Every year I try to think about what I will say and how I'm going to appreciate all your help. But it's always nice to see the same faces year after year coming to support our initiatives. I know you took much of your time from this busy schedule, nice weather outside, but you wanted to come and be with us. So it's a pleasure for CFL to have you this evening.  We thank you. We thank all our sponsors who made this event possible. I also want to thank our volunteers. You all know that there is no much you can do with a non-profit organization without using volunteers. They have put in about 700 hours in 2014 to support our organization. That includes board members, advisory board and those who come on a weekly basis to come and support us. I want to thank them. Also want to thank my staff. You know, we were in a meeting. They told me that we have different awards, but what is the award for the staff? I said all of you are the winner of the 2014 because they have done a wonderful job. I really want to thank all of them. Clema, who you saw here, Mark, who is our college access counselor, Mara, who is our office manager, and then also Kevin Carly, who is our professional consultant and also a personal mentor. Thank you all for doing what we are doing for the community. Thanks a lot. Again, as Mike said, every year, we continue to grow by serving more people and more people. Last year, we served more than 300 individuals in our financial empowerment. That's me in the financial training and also one-on-one financial counseling and financial coaching. And it was not only about me. It was about, again, our staff and the many wonderful board members that supports our organization initiatives and also through many of your financial support as well. We grew, as I said last year, that we were going beyond the financial literacy to talk about financial stability. By talking about financial stability, we mean including financial training, workforce development, that's what we have been doing in partnership with our partner Poland Dollar Education and the Poland Job Alliance, and also to support higher education and the small businesses as well. And we have grown beyond just financial literacy. I think you remember last year, I told the mayor that if we don't succeed, I'll blame him because he told me that CFL is a wonderful organization and should come out of a box, which is we were only financial literacy. Now we need to go beyond financial literacy, and that's exactly what we did. I'm happy that we're able to be to partner with FAME, a financial authority of Maine, to be able to provide higher education counseling for folks who are struggling either to pay for college or even after college where they go. I'm also happy that CFL was able to join the Poland Job Alliance, which is a project that was funded by the CDO Poland. I know we haven't reached our dream or our vision for that project. I wanted to say this today. We tried our best to help people find jobs, but one thing when we do the job training with our folks at PAE, sometimes they ask me to come and do some interviews with our student. When I ask them, what kind of job are you looking for? You know the answer. They say any job. Then I said, you know, in America, we depend on specialties. Don't go by any job. If I interview you, how am I going to give you any job? But some of these folks come abroad with a skill set. But what they need is just to have them a little bit transition from the old job to the new job. But I'm sure that they have skills and they can do it. And I'm looking forward with all our partner to see that these wonderful professionals won't only be making the beds or cleaning the restaurant, but they will be able to join their own career again. Lawyers will be practicing law and the doctors will go back to work in medical field. That's my dream. That's why we continue to work with our partner so we can get there. In high education, I was looking at the statistics. 36% of college degree holders from the immigrants are underemployed. So bed from PAE and the folks from PGA, for PGA, we still have work to do. But also, fascinating, 19% of college educated from the immigrants community are still poor. That's what they can't even afford to pay for post loan, even though they graduate. So we need to do something. So every year, we come here and try to tell you what we're going to do the following year. But the boy told me, Claude, you need to slow down. This time, we need you to focus on what we have already built. Build the capacity. Increase the organization capacity so that we can really provide our activity with excellence. And remember, I told you, I have my coach, Kevin, who will say, Claude, slow down. And indeed, we are. So one of the things that we decided to do this year was again build the capacity. I'm sure you saw wonderful annual report. If you haven't grabbed one, feel free to grab one. The beautiful, colorful, they match with the program. They match with the special thing we have launched today that probably many of you didn't know. We have launched a new website, CFLME.org. I'm not sure if we have internet here, we should be able to see it. But if you go to CFLMenda.org, it will still direct you to the new website. This website is great. Please, if you're really curious to go check it out. It was donated to us by one of the partners. And we're very happy that they spent, please listen to this, they spent more than 7,000 building this website and donated to us. You're going to hear more about this later on. Hold your applause because it's coming. And the other thing we want to focus on is to build technology is increasing everywhere. How do we move forward? Do we stay only providing courses in our physical classroom or can we also use technology? I don't want to promise many things but more things are coming. We want to continue to support our people who either come to our classes or those who won't be able to attend the classes, but probably can be able to navigate some of our training online. It's a project. Don't don't take me accountable yet, but it's a project. But we are also dedicated to have small businesses. A few weeks ago I was privileged to join a panel of our World Affairs Council when they asked me to speak. And I did. And one of our community member that we helped, she came forward and said, if it wasn't CFL, I wouldn't be running the grocery store that I have. It was an emotional for me to hear that message. But we want to help small businesses because we know that it's the engine of the economy. I know that in Augusta we have a problem. There is a crisis going on in Augusta, but there is a good news. Some of you who are still supporting the immigrants community understand why you need to do that. The governor has brought a war against immigrants, but thank you for standing up to support all our initiatives. I believe that we will win the battle. We have many people supporting us, including some of the city councilors in Poland, the state representatives, senators, non-profit organizations, individuals. We continue to count on you because you know the role of the immigrants and what they can do for the growth of the state of man in the economy. That's why in doing that, we have wonderful people who are supporting our immigrants and who want to continue to see the success of immigrants. Without, I want to introduce Charlie, who is actually the CEO of the Seedogs. I don't have his bio. He gave me his bio. I don't know where I put it, but it's very short. He has been the CEO of Seedogs for a long time. And today, he actually wants to welcome new menace, not the same message the governor is bringing. He has a special message for us. Welcome, Charlie. Thank you, Claude. It's a real pleasure to be here, and I got to tell you we're excited. We have a special event this Saturday, and we're honored that CFL is working with us, and it's an effort to bring new menace out to the ballpark and learn something about baseball. Now, a wise Frenchman by the name of Jacques Barzoon, and you'll have to bear with me on the pronunciation. I was a German student, not a French student. But anyway, Mr. Barzoon was a keen observer of American history and culture. And a while back, he said something that was of great interest, especially the people in baseball. He said whoever wants to know the hearts and minds of America had better learn baseball. So that's our effort on Saturday is to invite the new manors. We're working with Claude. We're expecting somewhere, what, two to 300 to come out, spend time in the picnic area, have a picnic lunch, watch the ball game. But we're even going to take it a step further knowing that many of these folks are new to the area, new to baseball, much as they are with the financial setup in our country. So we're going to try to explain it as best we can. Prior to the game, we'll have one of our players there who can answer questions and talk to the folks. And then during the game, one of our radio announcers will be in attendance. He'll be out of the radio booth for the day and he'll be in the picnic area explaining the game as best he can to everyone who is still learning. So we're really excited about it. We're doubly excited because Mother Nature has suddenly deemed good weather upon us and supposedly Saturday is supposed to be another good day. And we're really looking forward to this. And I want to make it clear that we hope this is the beginning of a long relationship with CFL. We'd love to do whatever we can to help you and we'd love to see this event become an annual event. So I told Claude I'd keep my remarks under 47 minutes, so I think I've done that. So thank you very much. Just briefly, Clemont reminded me that we have a number of graduates from our most recent basic money management course in attendance tonight. So if those graduates could stand up for a moment, we'd like to recognize you on this significant accomplishment. Congratulations. I'm pleased to welcome Dana Connors as tonight's keynote speaker. As president of the main state chamber of commerce, Dana leads the state's largest and most diverse business association. He dedicates his energy to enhancing prosperity for all main people. He oversees the chamber's broad range of activities, advocacy efforts, economic development initiatives, and workforce development. His writing and community efforts have long supported immigrants in Maine. A Maine native from far north, Presgyle, Dana received his BA in public management from the University of Maine. He's been appointed by the governor to serve on the Northern New England passenger rail authority and on the state of Maine governor's business roundtable. Other boards on which he currently serves include Maine Economic Research Institute and Maine MEP. Dana has also received numerous awards for service and leadership to the state of Maine throughout his career. We are very pleased to have Dana join us this evening. Please join me in welcoming him. Thank you, Mike. Good evening, everyone. And thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of this very special evening and evening of celebration. And congratulations to the recent graduates. Very nice. Can you hear me okay? Does this sound like it's reverberating all over the place? You may wish it would after you hear me speak. Who knows? But again, I thank you so much. I've been asked to speak among the workforce challenge, and I'm pleased to do that. I have chosen to use my time on that subject matter to talk first about the challenge, but also about the plan that would move us from the challenge to the opportunity and perhaps as much as anything to talk about the partnership that I believe to be essential if we are to be successful in what we jointly want to achieve. I probably would be best served tonight if I were sitting out there listening to all of you share with me your thoughts and how we can deal with this extremely important issue of the workforce challenge. The workforce challenge, if I were to choose a title for us tonight, would be the workforce challenge, but your place and mine in its solution. I want to focus on the partnership to begin with because frankly the workforce challenge, even though it would have been something the state chamber would involve then, I find that our role in it is far more sympathetic and significant because of a partnership that was created in 2009. That partnership is known as make and main work, and if you've seen our reports and I have actually one here, the workforce challenge make and main work looks like this, but it started in 2009 when Lori Lachance, who is now president of Thomas College, many of you know her, she was at Main Development Foundation. I was at the state chamber because we've known each other, we decided to get together and do something between the two organizations. Out of that came this concept, and our very first report was to really look at the state's economy, what were the barriers and what could we do to help? And believe it or not, we went through a process, we developed the brand, we presented it to the governor who was just, was candidate just coming in in the legislature, and they responded to it. They used it as a priority. That gave us great encouragement. We continued on. It was asked by the university main system, followed up by early childhood development, which you all know is important, led us naturally to the workforce issue. And I'm going to talk about that in a moment, but before we get there, I'd like to set it up in this way because I think as we think about where we are in the economy today, the workforce challenge becomes pretty self-evident why it is so critical at this time. We all know that in the world we live in, nothing works unless the economy works, and we're all trying our best to figure it out, but what we find today more than probably any time in our past is that we really don't know what our economy is. We're still trying to figure it out. That's a hard thing to say in front of a group, but to be honest we are trying to figure it out. We know there are certain things that clearly are not the way they were in the past. We know that there's a tremendous service element to our economy today, but more than anything else, this is what we know. We know it's knowledge-based, it's technology-driven. We know information rules. We know that productivity in innovation, in fact, innovation, 80% of our economy comes from new ideas. That's what innovation is. We also know that in Maine, the entrepreneurial spirit is probably there's more of a flame here in the state than most any other state in the nation, and that is a good thing. We know all that's played out on a global stage. What is the common thread in all of that? What is the tie that binds all of those elements together? It's the human capital. Human capital is indisputably the most important thing, the key to our economic growth and success. The human element, human capital. What that means is that we need more people with diverse skills, education, and training to not only meet today's needs, but create opportunities for the future. That's what brought us to the make and main work, the workforce challenge, extremely timely, and even though we may have been fighting the fight because of the report we did and the analysis that provided us, it gave us greater strength. It's what other speakers have reinforced, that information is vital. And if you don't think that workforce is one of our biggest priorities in the state, listen to this point. If Charlie Cogan was here today, as I think he was a year ago, I'll bet he shared this with you, that the success of our economy in the next 20 years depends on the quality and the quantity of our workforce. Think about the significance of that. The economic success in the next 20 years depends on the quantity and the quality of our workforce. That's what took us to this issue and that's why it's so important. And if nothing else, I hope that I leave here today and I do have an idea to share with you in a moment that proves that I do want to help. The state chamber and local regional chambers and the business community wants to be at the table. The question is, how do we make that happen? And that's what I'd like to share a thought with you regarding. But before we get there, let's look at our two reports. One report, there's two sides of the same coin when you look at the workforce challenge. One is about the supply. How are we going to grow our workforce? The other is about preparing our workforce, the skills side of the equation, the quality, if you will. On the first report, growing, to set it up in a way that the report brought forth for us, this is what we found. It's already been noted that we are already the oldest state in the nation. And I contribute to that. But here's the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say, if you were standing here. Between 1980 and 2010, our workforce grew from 500,000 to 700,000. That's a pretty significant growth, 40%. And in the 80s, that was the largest growth. And that was attributed to women in the workplace and a strong immigrant presence in our state. Each decade got a little less until you got to 2010, when it kind of stopped. That birth rate declined and went the other way. And in those last 20 years, between 1990 and 2010, those between 18 and 34, we lost 20% of that age group. That is a major issue for us. But let's start again, 2010 going forward. This is what you'd find. Not only are we the oldest, our birth rate has started to go the other way. We have 200,000 people that will be reaching the traditional retirement age. 200,000 people. We know conservatively. Document is over 20,000 people we lose. And if you look that out to 2030, it doesn't stop. As a matter of fact, under 21, we lose 15%. Between 21 and 65, we lose 10% by percentage. But over 65, the percentage of growth is 75%. So what do you do? You can't just do a report, because we know a report without a plan is simply a wish. And that's what so often happens with reports. This report, our reports, hopefully started not only a dialogue, but an active activity. What we did is we looked at our population in two categories. One, we're going to grow it from the... You know, hear me? We're going to grow it. That's another problem I have. I walk all over the place. We're going to address the problem of growing our economy by increasing participation within the sectors that we have, the populations. For example, the disabled community, the disadvantaged youth, those who do not necessarily want to retire, and the veterans. And we created a metric that was comparable to other states and set up a goal. We did the same thing by attracting. In that capacity, we looked at young people or families that moved away that wanted to come back, and we looked at the foreign worker. And in those categories, we set up a number in comparison to other states. New Hampshire, we attract about 1.14% of immigrants or refugees to the state. New Hampshire, by comparison, does 0.28. That's a significance. You have to wonder, why is that so? We're not welcoming hosts. We're not being very effective in our marketing. What is the problem? The point is, we set up that goal, and we meet regularly. But I want to share with you, as a result of talking with Claude, and thinking through my comments for tonight, we have failed in one of those categories. And I'll tell you what that is in a moment. When we looked at preparing our population, we know there's a skill gap, and we know why that is so, because they're in misalignment. But here, in preparing our people, we found more encouragement, because we realized that we don't have to create a new thing. We just have to better align our education and our business community. Does that sound familiar? We got a better line, our two sides. We also found that there are some incredibly good practices already going on that we don't know about. That if we shared with another, we could lean on, and we could use. We also found that there isn't one pathway to success. That education is fundamentally the most important thing. But we're all not going to be PhDs in human letters, or some other capacity. That there is a role, there's an importance in the trades, and the skills associated with that, and the credentials, and the certifications, and so forth. We found that in this instance, we needed to bring the people together, maybe have an annual summit in which we sat down and worked with each other. That's what the report calls for without getting into painful details, because I want to spend the couple minutes I have left in sharing with you what I would like to think our next step is. And this next step is not so much, and I hope this doesn't come across like, this is not being done someplace.  That's my fault. But here's what I'd like to offer, and you can probably find it in these words as much as anything, if I haven't already suggested it already.  And that is when you come together, it's the beginning. When you stay together, it's progress. When you work together, it's success. So in this case, when we're aware of a challenge, a problem, and we try to turn that into an opportunity, that is representative to me of the beginning. When we sit down and we listen to each other to gain understanding and how we can help each other, that's staying together, and we're going to have progress from that. And once we start to listen and plan how to go forward with both of us at the table, that, I believe, will bring results. I don't want to insult anybody by suggesting it's not being done, but if it is being done, I would like to be a part of it in some way, and if it's not being done, this is what I would offer. I would offer that, Claude, you bring five to 10, how many you want to, of the immigrant, foreign worker, the new manor to the table. I'll do the same with the business community. We'll sit down, we'll talk and listen to each other, we will create a plan and a strategy. I'll even retain a company to help us do that. I already have, assuming that you accept the offer, that's industrial, I think you know the person in Quincy Hensel, that's a part of that, that would be helping us to not only keep us on task, keep us on mission, but also help to publicize so that others will know around the state that we're trying to do something to help others. That to me is fundamentally, I think, how I would like to proceed, and I'd offer that to you hoping you would take it up as a consideration going forward. One of the things I failed to mention that we overlooked, that I learned from you, among other things, that when we put our make and main work together to grow our population, and we looked at the two categories from within, and I named those four, like those with disabilities, veterans and so forth, the category that I failed to mention, because the other one was attracting, and in that capacity it was the new manors, the foreign workers, what I didn't mention was within that participation category, there's a number of immigrants and refugees already here that we can hold upon for the success of meeting that need to grow our workforce. So I leave you with this thought, if there's anything that we can do, if you're willing to take us up on that offer, I'm willing to bring people to the table. I know one guy, Dave Barber, who would be absolutely marvelous, who's on my board that could help lead it from our point of view, and I would hope that it will prove to be helpful. With that, I thank you very much. Thank you, Dana, much appreciated. Claude, are you ready for some awards? Thank you, Dana, for the offer. I'm going to evaluate the offer and see if I can take it, I'm just joking. I'm sure that we have many immigrants skilled in a room today who might be able to come with me and go meet with Dana to make this analysis and see how we can go to the next step. We appreciate that. One of the things that I learned also after meeting with you, I looked and said, this question has come not only from Dana, but also from Cress Hall, who is our original chamber. He said, which company do we really look as the example of the company that can hire immigrants that we can say, oh, this is one of the company. We are struggling to fund that company yet. We haven't seen it, but one of my friends to remind me that today's technology Harvard University, Stanford, even other companies are going overseas just because they want to expand their businesses. But our company's men cannot even expand the management to include some of the immigrants. That's the challenge that's one of the chamber to remember. So every year we come together to thank and give a special thanks to businesses individuals who have really done a lot for the organization and the community. Community financial literacy has three types of awards that it gives every year. One is the Volunteer of the Year Award. The other one is Commitment to Service Award and Outstanding Community Partner Award. So the awards are given annually to organizations, individuals, or businesses that have demonstrated excellence in partnering with the CFL entity to provide opportunities to refugees, immigrants, and asylume. These awards were founded to recognize and honor the vital role and the commitment of those organization partners. Our 2014 Volunteer of the Year Award goes to a hard-working student who has volunteered with the organization for more than a year. Daniela went beyond her volunteer time to coordinate the annual celebration. And I'll tell you that she didn't even know she was going to receive this award until now. So please, let's welcome Daniela Makuraza to receive the Volunteer of the Year Award. So I don't know what to say because I'm really surprised. I think it's motivating to know that I'm sorry. When we come here, we don't have working papers. So it can be very hard not to be productive. So it's a really good way to motivate us and to show us that we are doing something. And also learn by making mistakes. And I can see that the results of the work have been doing. So thank you. I hope I'm being brief, right? How am I doing so far? All right. I know we're hungry and we have wonderful food. So we're going to get to that. Our 2014 Commitment to Service Award goes to two wonderful businesses. You know, to be honest with you, it's always hard for me and my staff and the board to select these recipients. But again, we came to a conclusion that two businesses have supported CFL since 2011-2012. You may have heard from me in the past that I received a phone call from Poland Financial Planning Group asking me to come and receive a check for donation back in 2011. A thousand dollar check from nowhere. They told me that this was going to be a one-time gift. But this not only is one-time gift, it has turned to be yearly gift. Since then, and beyond that, some of the partners themselves became CFL donors. Thank you for Poland Financial Group for your support. And I will call you in a minute. I will call you in a minute. Just a minute. The second business has a similar story. They heard me speaking at an after-hour event and they decided to start supporting CFL. I will tell you that CFL hasn't purchased any toner, but don't ask me how because that's the cloud and CFL. Don't ask me if you can go and get free toner too. We haven't purchased any free toner, free ink, drum, from since 2012. In addition, this wonderful couple from Cartridge World, I'm having a hard time pronouncing Cartridge World and I told them that I would say that on podium, so that's why she's laughing. The couple from Cartridge World, not only they felt they wanted to support CFL, but they delivered these materials to our door at no cost to us. So please, let us welcome the Poland Planning Financial Group, Tom, Deborah, and Brian, and also from Cartridge World, Phil and Leend to come and receive the 2014 Commitment to Service Award. We would just like to thank Claude for his most inspiring leadership within the Greater Maine Community. He is just a wonderful presence in our mists and the organization's mission is vital to our future. We're proud to be a part of this. Thank you. Let me just say that I heard Claude speak one time, as he mentioned, at a business after hours, and I was just so incredibly impressed with his commitment to what he was doing that I just said, gee, there's got to be some way that we can help this group. And since that time, I've become even more impressed with his dedication and commitment, and it's a joy for us to work with CFL. So thank you very much. The last award goes to a friend, a member of the community, a dedicated person to CFL. The 2014 Outstanding Committee Partner Award goes to Gabby Marketing Company. Anna, who is the owner and her husband, Randy. This is what Anna told me. I was inspired by your presentation, same thing as what Phil said the same day, and thank to Cport Credit Union, that gave me the spotlight that allowed me to be a part of CFL. To be able to get all these wonderful partners. And she was inspired by my presentation and wanted to volunteer for CFL. She joined our Board of Directors in 2012, and since then has chaired the Marketing Subcommittee and continued to do wonderful work. She has done more than just being a board member. Her small business donated more than 100 hours to build our new website, which I mentioned CFLME.org. She didn't stop there. She said, I want to make sure that we brand all your materials. I hesitated when I called my staff that I should call her also my staff. Because every time when we have marketing material to do, she's there to do this work for us. She did the annual report that you saw. She did the program that we have. She did a slideshow. I don't think I have a better staff than Anna to do this kind of work. And she continued to say, my commitment and a passion for CFL come from my personal experience. The journey that every immigrant in America has experienced since the founding of our country. So please help me welcome Anna and the reindeer on stage to receive your award. Thankful that CFL recognized our work. And we're going to be posting it in our office. And we're very proud of it. And thank you again. 60 years ago, I started CFL. And the men and the women dedicated to support our mission joined me and work together. Some have left and some still work with us. You know, even your own child, you have some of the people that's really you connect with. During my 60 years, I had a friend on our board that's really touched me so much. I could go to that person anytime and call him whenever I needed any support. He dedicated even himself to drive with me. Sometimes when I was still struggling to find myself in a mix of CFL or in the community. But that person, as of last month, decided to retire because he said, Claude, as much as I love to work with you, I cannot hold it anymore because the health situation. But he is still a dear to my heart. I have known Scott Kerr for more than 10 years. He is a good friend of mine and I will miss him. I can tell you that I love to work with Scott. And Scott was not only a board member, but a good friend of mine. That's I want to thank him for his 60 years of service and ask him if he can stay to continue. So Mara finds a shirt which has a CFL on it. So he doesn't have to forget that he worked for CFL as a volunteer. So time to time we'll come back. One day Claude asked me to go with him to the main state housing authority and we went there and when we were done we were a sub grantee for about a $3,000 grant and this was a big deal. Claude has done a marvelous job of being able to bootstrap his way up. The big sales pitch then was because he had been teaching immigrants about financial literacy for Portland adult education. So in my business I was always trying to back bootstrap myself up from one position to another. Claude has done a marvelous job of that. He's a great person, great skills and it's been a great honor to have him allow me to help. Thank you. Thank you all. Really just quickly I wanted to thank everyone who has sponsored or supported CFL in the last year. We are a non-profit and if you are so inclined there are donation cards throughout the hall here. Or please go see our wonderful new website. I'd also like to take a quick moment to thank members of the Portland City Council the City Manager, representatives of the Portland Police and Fire Departments and guests from Senator King's office. Really CFL could not do as much as we have without the support of these key community leaders. We really appreciate it.  We thank you for coming and we thank you for supporting CFL.