Episode 6

Macro-Marketing in South East Asia

Transcript

Cliff Shultz: From the Loyola Quinlan School of Business. You're listening to the Q Talks podcast.

Al Gini: Hello. My name is Al Gini, and I'm a professor of business ethics and the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University of Chicago. Today, I have the distinct pleasure of introducing you to and interviewing Professor Cliff Schulz, who is Professor and Charles H. Kolstad, chair of Marketing in the Quinlan School of Business here at Loyola University in Chicago. Before joining Loyola in 2009, Cliff was a professor and Mali Foundation chair at the Arizona State University and the W.P. Carey School of Business. Throughout his personal education and professional career, he has been interested in and involved in international economics, specifically economics and transition and post-war economics, with an emphasis on Southeast Asia. And he was interested in these topics as far back as 1995 and 96 when he was a visiting professor at Ho Chi Minh City College of Marketing. Now, Professor Schulz has published over 250 scholarly publications. I can't list them, I can't even read them, but I'm very impressed by all of them. This publication record includes books, refereed journals, book chapters and conference proceedings. Professor Schulz has served as president of the Macro Marketing Society and President of the International Society of Marketing and Development. He has been on more editorial and professional boards and we have time to list today. And he has literally lectured all over the world from Cairo to Chicago, from Boston to Bosnia. Professor Schultz has also won many academic awards, government citations as well as numerous student service and teaching awards. And if only in passing, I want to reemphasize the teaching awards, because that's where we earn our money and that's where our importance really lies. But also that he has been asked to do a great deal of consulting work, which is testament to me of how highly his work and research is respected in the outside world. Cliff That's a long introduction, but you deserve it. Thanks for joining me today.

Cliff Shultz: My pleasure. Thank you.

Al Gini: Well, let's start off with something a little easy. Let's start off with a statement, maybe not so easy, but a long statement. And then I hope a question comes out of this about marketing as a vital economic tool. Now, conventional wisdom suggests, and by conventional wisdom, I mean uninformed. Sometimes the marketing is primarily, but not exclusively involved with selling the product sale notification, product placement or media development. But after reading some of your work, I now know that that kind of simplistic analysis will not get you a very good grade in any of your classes, whether it's the undergraduate or graduate leather level. And looking at your work, I gather that marketing touches on the entire spectrum of the business cycle from originating production, original idea to the raw materials to finance to specific marketing decisions, to sales, to recycling, etc., etc., etc.. So finally getting to the question, can you share your thoughts on the big picture job of marketing and the economy as an academic discipline and as a practice that we need in the world of business? In other words, what's the full range of this modern marketing phenomena?

Cliff Shultz: Marketing as I envision it. And in fact, because I think early humans envisioned it, is much more than simply selling stuff. But markets and marketing were always intended to enhance the human condition. From the moment we climbed from the primal ooze, we decided to specialize. We had to engage in certain exchange activities. You make the spear, I'll catch the fish, we'll trade and we'll both be better off. And as this multiplies over time, entire civilizations emerged around markets and marketing and policies to make sure, hopefully, that they were administered well, justly and inclusively. So in my field, we actually call this macro marketing. It's an examination of systems, complex systems, how goods and services are produced, why they're produced, how they're designed, how they move through the system, the myriad exchanges that happen in that system, and the extent to which as we consume all those goods and services and as you correctly noted, even dispose them and recycle them. Are we better off? Have we improved the individual quality of life of people and have we enhanced societies sustainably? And so that's the space that I work in and typically work in, as you noted, places where the marketing system has been destroyed or perhaps never even existed in it. And in the worst-case scenarios where they have been deliberately destroyed in acts of war to force capitulation or completely eradicate people. So what I spend my time on in the last 30 years or so and counting is how do you rebuild those fractured marketing systems to deliver an appropriate mix of goods and services to enhance individual quality of life and sustainable peace and prosperity and communities, and, in best case scenario, entire countries and regions.

Al Gini: Well, let me ask a naive question. Perhaps I was part of the primordial, primordial ooze when I met my first marketer. We both have traveled a great deal and we both know that merchants themselves have changed the course of civilization and the Chinese road, and across the Sahara, and across Europe. The Pax Romanus of Rome was to make trading better and to sell trading. But I'm fascinated about the emerging economies, the postwar economies. It seems to me unnecessary in some sense. Do we need marketing when people are without? Don't they just want stuff at that point, or does marketing help them get the right stuff in the right order for sustainable and purposeful growth?

Cliff Shultz: Yes. But both of those I interpreted that as kind of a two part question. The answer: it is both. I mean, there are more people who right now somewhere need a pencil or a drink of something or a shirt, something. And there's an immediate quid pro quo transaction, typically with the merchant and buyer, but there are large groups of people. Just one example I've been working quite a bit in Lebanon's Valley with Syrian refugees. You have 350,000 people in the Bekaa Valley, Syrians who have been dispossessed from the market system. They know and they're struggling to thrive in this camp or community, as it's euphemistically called. And what are the services that are there? What are the goods that can be brought there? Who's responsible for it? Is it a company? Is it NGOs? Is it governments? Is it multilateral organizations? Is it all of that? And again, the answer is yes, but what is the correct mix to deliver a shirt, a meal, potable water right now because they need it right now, but they certainly typically can't buy it. So the complex system becomes very obvious and very recognizable as needing to be managed well as much as possible.

Al Gini: Two part question. And these are naive questions on my part, but not naive. There won't be a right answer. How do we determine what products people need? Do marketers determine what products people need? Or do they view the problem and then make judgments from the problem? Secondly. Does that. Stimulate immediate productivity on the side of industry itself. What comes first? The chicken or the egg? The idea that we need this or that we have this now, how do we sell this?

Cliff Shultz: Well, I think, again, somewhat tongue in cheek, but quite serious as well. The answer is, again, is yes. I mean, there are large marketing organizations that try to drive the market, anticipate what the market might want, produce it, and hope that the market will actually buy it. I think of Apple straight away. I mean, you didn't roll out of bed one day and think, gee, I would really love to have an iPod or an iPhone, but over time, as you became educated, as we all became educated, we recognize, yes, I think I would like that. I think that would enhance my well-being if I had one of those products and I buy one. So that's a case of a of a marketing organization driving the market. Right? Then, of course, we all have primary needs, we all need food, we all need shelter. Most of us aren't-- I'm looking at you Al, well, I'm guessing you didn't till the field this morning or shear the sheep or.

Al Gini: That was yesterday afternoon.

Cliff Shultz: That was yesterday afternoon, maybe, but not this morning. You didn't build your homes. Somebody had to do that. And you you participated in many exchanges to be in your lovely home, to have your lovely clothes, to have a good meal today. And so that's where we're pulling the product through the channel by our demand, because we need those literally to survive. And I tell my students all the time, and I think I'm joking at first and then as we walk through the exercise, they realize that marketing is literally life. I mean, I would propose to anyone who's listening to this podcast now that that person would be dead were it not for marketing, because we don't grow our food, we don't build our homes, we don't make our clothes, we simply don't. Somebody's got to do that for us. Somebody has to design and make and sell, and we have to purchase the medicines that keep us alive. And just too many examples to prove the case that marketing is life when administered well.

Al Gini: But let me ask the really the basic question. In a post-war economy or in a devastated economy like you're dealing with the Syrian people right now, and, by the way, bravo for your involvement. I know you've been involved in many issues in recent years. How do marketers determine what we need to focus on right now? We're not talking about do I need a Lexus or a mercedes? And I drive a Nissan, just for the record. But and do I need a new set of clothes and Brooks Brothers, or should I go to Target? I'm so sorry. That's this becomes classic, I think, right now. But how do we decide in impoverished markets and struggling markets? In emerging markets? What's your job?

Cliff Shultz: Well, we would find a wide range of markets and marketers involved in even the most deprived, devastated market, and sadly, you find typically very unfortunate, exploitative examples of marketing in these cases where people take advantage of very poor, desperate others. So I think to draw some clarity to an example of who is first into a market, who makes decisions about what happens in markets and marketing. Let's go to a place where a reasonably well-functioning marketing system was devastated, was replaced by a brutal command economy. And that place is Cambodia. So 1975 to 1978, Pol Pot comes to power, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, and they destroy the country and try to create an agrarian utopia. Anyone who's involved in markets and marketing, anyone involved with the intelligentsia, indeed anyone who wore glasses was either killed or driven from the country. So after that state fell, what fills the vacuum? And we see some pleasant things and we see some very unpleasant things. So people exploit people because they're weak and vulnerable in those places. And we have marketing in the forms of human trafficking, which I would like to think no responsible person wants. Alcohol and tobacco sales and firearms. And so not a particularly prosperous society, but over time, through the cooperation of governments and multilateral aid agencies, making decisions about what sort of market systems should emerge and what sort of goods and services should be brought into the market to make people's lives better clothing, food, supplies, technological things that education--education is a is a huge part of the of a marketing renaissance. And over time, a marketing system can emerge. And again, in a very good example of a formerly non marketing system, literally to one now that is a marketing system, a town of Siem Reap place that I've studied quite a bit, which is near the Angkor temples, is a thriving economy. With tourists coming from around the world, creature comforts has pulled many people out of poverty. Now, let's make no mistake. Cambodia still has a lot of problems, but the fact that it's engaged now with the global economy, it's more transparent. People have jobs, multinationals are there, many of them working responsibly. Not all of them, it should be pointed out. It's reminiscent of Friedman's golden handcuffs, right? I mean, there are trade offs, but by and large, people who have bought into the system have been better off.

Al Gini: Let's use Cambodia as a bridge to a series of other questions, if you don't mind. And thank you for your comments. Now, looking at your body of work, although it's clear you've lectured internationally. And now presently in Syria, as you pointed out, I think your area of focus has been Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. I'd like to develop some of the special issues you've done there. But first of all, how did you develop this special interest in Asian markets such as these three countries I've mentioned? And I assume that there is an element both of personal and professional reason for your choice.

Cliff Shultz: That's a good question, Al. It's a question that a lot of people have asked me over the years, and I've discovered that there is a three word answer to that question and a three hour answer to that question. So depending on your level of interest and how much time we have, we can go a couple of directions. But I will say the three word answer is interest, opportunity and obligation.

Al Gini: Well, you've got to develop get the interest. You have a quizzical mind and I mean that with great compliments to you. I've always been amazed by your sagacity and wealth and spread of knowledge, but opportunity and obligation.

Cliff Shultz: Obligation.

Al Gini: Yeah. Tell me about that.

Cliff Shultz: Well, I had just finished a dissertation in New York eager to have Columbia University behind me, and that dissertation was essentially the efficacy of Machiavellian sales tactics on Wall Street. And while I found that quite interesting, it was very timely when I was doing my dissertation. I just couldn't see myself doing that for the rest of my life. And not too far again behind me at that time, the Berlin Wall had come down and I thought, this is going to be a seminal change for humanity. The ripple effects of this and people had already been working in what then was becoming the rump of the Soviet Union. And people were already in China. Having grown up as a schoolboy during Vietnam and knowing it was very much a part of the Cold War and the hot war for Americans in Vietnamese, obviously, I thought this place is interesting. So that was part of the interest, part of it. And then and you kindly talked about maybe the personal reasons I got involved with as well. And I was truly just a schoolboy when Vietnam started. I know you had some up close and personal experiences that I didn't have in Vietnam, but one of my schoolmates in in elementary school, his older brother, who was the paper boy, just a nice guy, was sent to Vietnam and sadly didn't return. And it was devastating to our small town. And his mother was never the same. She was my Sunday school teacher. And just that, coupled with the grainy images from Walter Cronkite, it just Vietnam just always sort of hung in the back of my mind and so very naively at Columbia, going back to New York now, having finished my dissertation, what do I want to do now with the rest of my life? And to make a very long story short, Vietnam was part of that. And I literally walked over to the UN and to the Vietnamese mission and said, I'm interested in studying in Vietnam. And because the US didn't even have diplomatic relations with Vietnam at the time, but Vietnam had a mission to the UN and they said, well, essentially we'll think about it and we'll let you know. And I was kind of doing a post-doc at Columbia and about six weeks later I got this call, 'Professor we're interested' and kindly calling me Professor at that time, 'We're interested in how do you come to Vietnam and we'll arrange it for you and you'll give some lectures.' And as it happened, I ended up being the first person to lecture on marketing and consumer behavior post 1975.

Al Gini: Wow.

Cliff Shultz: And then it just rolled from there. I became fascinated with the country, and there was a very steep learning curve. But on the other hand, I realized or discovered early on that once you met one person there, you met somebody else. And so Harvard, a couple of people were already there. And fellow by the name of Tommy Vallely, who's become a very good friend, runs the Vietnam program at Harvard. And then John McCain and John Kerry and Bob Kerrey and Chuck Hagel, some people with vested interest in Vietnam and memories about Vietnam.

Al Gini: And real memories.

Cliff Shultz: A real memory as you have just in a moment. And it makes me proud to be an American. I'm always proud to be an American. But getting to know these gentlemen, not carrying acrimony to their graves. But this is a new era. There is a thaw. Let's seize the moment and get guys like Shultz and some other people who are already curious on the ground in some risk to work on projects. And literally, I've been everywhere from Phu Quoc in the South to Kampong in the North, every place in between coffee, sea, plastic education provinces. And it's it's been fascinating. And I could I this is where I have to rein myself in because I could just run with these stories that are larger than life but all very true.

Al Gini: Well, we bombed them and we fought them. We shouldn't have fought them just to put this very quickly. But they were a nation of beautiful people and there were real opportunities there. And I think as a nation we had a responsibility to do something for them. We did that to Europe. It was called the Marshall Plan. We didn't do that to Vietnam except with through people like you individually. And for that, I thank you, not simply as a colleague, but as a fellow American. Let me ask. That was a brilliant answer, Cliff. Thank you. That was really a brilliant answer and a human answer. But what were the special problems then? So let's talk about Vietnam. Let's talk about camp. We talk about all three in one. So we were assuming that. How did you develop not the special interest, but how did you develop the economic vision, the marketing vision and the ethical responsibility that you had there in this new desperate market, these new desperate markets?

Cliff Shultz: Well, when I first went there, I think Vietnam was one of the ten poorest countries in the world. And there was a time when if you said marketing, you could be sent on what Vietnamese euphemistically call long holiday. So my first post was the Institute for Research on Market and Price, and this was 1991, I think, and I flew into Hanoi and even getting into the country then was still a bit of an issue because I had to have a visa, but you couldn't get a visa in the US, so we would fly into Bangkok, hole up in Vietnam, in Bangkok for a while, go to the Vietnam Embassy, give our papers, come back later. Two days, three days. You never really knew, but eventually you hop on a plane was known as Hang Kong Airlines then, but we used to call it Hang on Airways. There is a whole series of stories that go with that as well. But that's a conversation for another day. But flying to Hanoi and just amazing. I can remember it as if it were yesterday, landing at NOI Bai Airport on the outskirts of Hanoi, and still the bomb craters all over. And the airport at that time was the size of a double wide trailer. That's the international airport for the capital city of the country, picked up by somebody into town, stay in the government guesthouse, just as each one of these little nouns has a tremendous story attached to it.

Cliff Shultz: But to answer your question, so I was invited to the Institute for Research on Market and Price to give a lecture on marketing and consumer behavior and building a market based economy. And the gentleman who was my host was a fellow by the name of Layswaneia, who ended up being essentially the secretary of the Treasury. But he was he had gone to he had been sent to East Germany to get his PhD. And he was a soccer player and I was a soccer player. So we immediately had an affinity and had a part of our conversation in German and part of it in English. And but now those times just to government guesthouse, it was where visitors stayed and there were no restaurants except the 202. And why was it the 202? Because that was the street address and there were no streetlights and hardly any cars. And you would go out at night and you would literally hear the collective were of bicycle pedals and I was the freak show in town and people would stop and come up and want to touch me. And it was just otherworldly. But each time going back, I think I've been to Vietnam, well, almost 100 times as a guess. And actually, I think I've spent more time in Vietnam than most people on tours of duty. I know I've been in Vietnam more than in my term, more than a year and a half.

Al Gini: Here's my little revelation of this. I was 13 days in country, landed tons, went into combat, picked up a lucky wound and was out.

Cliff Shultz: Out. And you weren't you were in Quantrill.

Al Gini: This is all stuff I blur, but I was icore, so I was in the first quarter. So we're right outside there and I was in a place, a fire camp and went out on patrol and stuff happened and suddenly I was in the helicopter and next thing I knew I was in gorgeous Guam. Gorgeous, lovely Guam.

Cliff Shultz: Well, I'm glad that you were one of the fortunate, fortunate ones rather than.

Al Gini: Yeah, yeah, we shouldn't laugh about it, but and it's ancient history and let's hope we've learned something from that history. But more than that, one of the basic rules here, I've been teaching ethics and business ethics for years now, more years than I'm willing to admit that capitalism is perhaps the greatest tool that has been created by the Western world in regard to the productivity and the betterment of human beings if it's properly run, if it's properly managed. The gold handcuffs from Friedman is a wonderful example that beautiful metaphor that he throws out there. And point of fact, you're showing that good things can come out of the collective capitalistic needs of people when properly managed and properly understood. And again, celebrate your contribution to that. And I'm in awe of it. Let me get I get to mushing, by the way, football, which American thinks is the NFL? Football is the world game. And you were playing football with a fellow and you just traverse three different continents at once. It was kind of amazing to you that. Yeah.

Cliff Shultz: Let me just interject, because it's central to the theme of marketing. When people challenge me and you and I both have lives in business schools and in arts and sciences so I've had many people say, well, how how can you work with the Vietnamese for any number of reasons? Sort of old school, new school. And yeah, what about marketing is so good. And I tell them if you want to understand the miracle of marketing, think Vietnam. This was a country that was on the brink of famine. Yeah. One of the ten poorest countries in the world. And literally, by simply making a policy, they said, we're going to let farmers grow what they want and keep some of the profits. It was an economic explosion that has pulled tens of millions of people from poverty. And we have re-engaged with them. And it is it literally still gives me chills to talk in that framework. And to have been a big player in that early on has been very rewarding and the wonderful friends that I've made, and that's why we do what we do. We hope we can have an effect on people. And absolutely, markets and marketing have been literally a lifesaver in Vietnam.

Al Gini: I think that people in the outside world think of us academics as Jonathan Swiftian. And where are the people that walk outside with boys, boys being young male servant to tell us when to step in one not to step one to speak and when not to speak. We do, in fact, try to integrate intellectual ideas, profound concepts into the practical order. And that's what you were doing. Bravo. Now let's take that practical order and turn it to well, you do something at Loyola that's very, very special. You've taken your passion and converted that into Marketing 561 Your comparative consumer behavior and marketing in emerging Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. How did you come up with this? How do you run this baby?

Cliff Shultz: I would like to tell you, I've always thought about teaching this class and it just happened. But that's not the case at all. It emerged from my research and I was giving a seminar again back at Columbia. I'd gone back to give a seminar in 1994, 1995, and a student came up to me afterward and he said, Professor, have you ever thought about taking students to Vietnam so we could learn about it on the ground? And I literally I must confess, I had not thought about that at all. And one of the reasons was, I guess, is that we didn't even have diplomatic relations with Vietnam still at that time. But I pondered that and I said, I'll tell you what, let's find a group of people who more than say they want to go with they're really willing to roll up their shirt sleeves and go and deal with the rough edges of the country had then. And so it was just kind of a one-off then. It wasn't a class. It was just we went over January break, which is a pretty nice time to be in Vietnam. But when I got back in the good tradition of Jesuit education, I wasn't at a Jesuit school at the time, but I had unwittingly embraced the importance of reflection and discernment. I decided.

Al Gini: But Arizona does have the same colors as Iowa. So that perhaps was the.

Cliff Shultz: That is true. That is true. So I sat on this for about a year and I then designed a class that was an immersion class. At that time, only Vietnam and Thailand, because Cambodia was frankly just too dangerous, it was too unstable. And it morphed and it grew and it grew in popularity. And here I now offer it at Loyola's marketing 561. And it has proven, according to students, to be rather transformative for people who are engaged.

Al Gini: Because they see the real happenings there. And Cambodia, for example, I don't think the world realizes that was the largest ground covering palace anywhere in the world. And that was at one point in 13, 14, 15th century, perhaps the greatest power in the world. And how that changed and how that ossified and how things fell apart and how things grew up again. You talked about feeding Vietnam again. At one time it was the rice bowl of the Southeast Asia. And the one thing I remember from Vietnam is I found out there was no such thing as a colored green because everything was green in a different way and rice was different green than everything else. But somehow in this class and I've talked to your students, they say they've been transformed by this, they've been moved by this. They've seen ideas really on the ground. They understand what you're talking about. This is not a theorem. This is not to refer to your dissertation, which I'm sure is brilliant. And I studied Machiavelli as well. But how many times can you beat that horse to death? This is wrong. That's wrong. It's wrong. That every time you went there, there was a new problem, a new issue. So I want to ask with the class to what do you celebrate most? What do you celebrate with the class? What do you show them that you that you feel is kind of maybe the proudest moment?

Cliff Shultz: I have this saying that I tell them and I really believe it to be true. I tell them if you're open to it, literally every step and every breath will be something new, different, fresh that can change your life. What you see, what you smell, how the air feels on your skin, the noises the congestion or the open green grandeur depending on where you are, the human element of someone in the street, a child who you have a connection with, it is an assault on the senses, which requires information processing the entire time you're there and to live the market dynamics of that. Have an experience in the killing fields in Cambodia. Not to be to Macaw, but to be accurate, where people walk around human shards of bone and see skulls stacked. And I must say, every year, fewer and fewer students know any part of this, that history and our involvement in it. Even the Vietnam War, which I find surprising students tell me they get one page in a high school book, and that's kind of it. So I can't say it's this moment, but it's the collectivity of it that when they get back I've had people I've had students tell me, you know, they meet people, I introduce them to people who who have survived the killing fields and they hear their stories and they find that they, they wake up in the middle of the night and maybe they're sobbing or just that they're trying to get their minds around it. So that connection to humanity, the empathy, the understanding, the differences of the people as well, I think a lot of times people sadly and certainly incorrectly think, oh, you mean over there kind of in China? I mean, you know, couldn't be further from the truth. Different languages, different cultures. Even among Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. even in Vietnam, there are 54 ethnic groups. So I don't want to belabor this, but it's just all of it. It's a cannonball moment course, which, you know, a term we use a lot in Jesuit schools.

Al Gini: I see it as a fulcrum. I think you've gone from the discipline as an academic series of tools and ideas and metrics to really seeing it on the ground, how it develops. And it's not just selling the latest lingerie or the latest the latest bourbon or the latest version of the Mercedes or whatever car of Ford. Let's not make it all highbrow stuff. It's about how do we make this economy work? How do we serve basic needs and growth needs? How do we serve luxury needs and long term sustainability needs, etc., etc.. Let me end with and this has been fascinating. I could do this for hours and you'd rather not. I'm sure you're exhausted after a long day. Overall, I know you're at Loyola. I know we believe in values. And, you know, my tenure at Loyola, people would ask me, how could you work for the Catholics? And I would always say, I don't work for Catholics, I work for Jesuits. And only insiders know that that's not denigrating Catholics. But the Jesuits are the special group who believed in social justice, who believed in putting your money where your mouth is, who believed in implementing change for the betterment of others. How do you see the role of business schools overall now in the modern world or specifically in America? What should the schools of business be about? And I base this on your work in India, in Asia, and so I'm assuming you have an agenda here you'd like them to embrace.

Cliff Shultz: Well, I do. I would like to tie the marketing discussion together a little bit. You said selling lingerie to bring this full circle. There's a very good chance that the lingerie that anybody buys in the US actually was produced in Cambodia or Vietnam. So we have some closure on global marketing, small and large. Again, similarly to you, I have three degrees in arts and sciences and I did a postdoc in marketing. So I'm very much concerned about what is the human dimension of business schools in the edification, not just learning a toolkit, but how to apply it to make the world a better place. I mean, that's what we do at Jesuit schools, which I have to admit I had to learn because I was raised sort of a Presbyterian Lutheran hybrid. And it took me a while to get up to speed on Jesuit school. My wife went to Boston College, so she was helpful. But how do we use our craft or toolkit to pull people from poverty, to make the world more just to prevent wars, to help countries recover from wars, to embrace Laudato Si. They're just countless opportunities to do what we do well as technicians in ways that can enhance the human condition inclusively, sustainably and justly. And I'll go a step further and say, I believe this is our moment, this is Loyola's moment and fellow Jesuit schools moment to be the business schools the world needs. And I don't think many schools can make that claim. And one of the gifts we have is we are a part of a global Jesuit network of universities. I had a meeting at 8:00 in the morning with several of those schools from several countries on rebuilding curricula that are doing or will do exactly what we are talking about in this very moment. So that's what a business school, certainly that's what a Jesuit business school should be doing. And I think we are doing that. And it's just exciting to be a part of that, to be a bit player in that and to make the world a better place, we hope. If the metrics are right.

Al Gini: Well, it's been exciting to talk to you today. This has been a pleasure and a treasure. I mean that. Although our offices are right down the hall for a number of years, I didn't get to spend as much time with you now. Now, I wish I had. And this has been just wonderful. Cliff Schultz, thank you for your work. Thank you for your insights. Thank you for sharing.

Cliff Shultz: My pleasure. Thank you, Al.

Speaker2: This has been an episode of the Q Talks podcast where we seek to marry the wisdom of the Quinlan community with the issues of today. Special thanks to our guests for their conversation and insight with additional thanks to Dean Kevin Stevens for his generous support of this project. Matt Shelley, our student producer for editing this episode, and Loyola School of Communication and WLUW for their continued collaboration. Please take a minute to support us by rating and reviewing our episodes to help expand our reach. Thank you for listening and we hope you join us next time.