For our next session, we have Kristin Lesher, Chief of Wholesale Banking from Truist Financial so, Kristin thank you so much for joining us this morning.
Thanks for having me.
Maybe, I think, just to kick things off, you joined Truist about a year ago. Give us your sense in terms of, one, what, from the outside looking in, created your interest in the job and joining Truist, and what's the experience been like? What surprised positively versus negatively?
Okay. Yeah, happy to. Yeah, so it's been almost exactly a year i think a year yesterday. And I was really attracted to the opportunity at Truist for a couple of different reasons, One was just the installed, like, the growth opportunity that I saw in the franchise.
I felt like there was a lot of untapped potential to be unlocked there because they have—we have an exceptional investment banking franchise, We have a great commercial banking franchise. And putting those things together and having them work together would create a lot of great opportunities. And that has been the case i think I'll talk more about what I see now in terms of the growth opportunity, but it is absolutely there right in front of us.
In terms of surprises, the upside and the downside, I was teasing with Mike and Brad this morning that a great surprise to the upside was, when I arrived, we became exceptionally well capitalized with the sale of TIH, as well as some of the bond repositioning work that we did so, we found ourselves in a fantastic capital position and ready to go after that growth opportunity that we saw. I think that for me, I see a few outsized growth opportunities for us so, one, we've got like this huge installed base of customers that we're a little underpenetrated with in some key areas, especially in some of our key fee businesses.
So as an example, in wholesale payments, which is one that we've talked a lot about, you know, we've got less than 50% penetration with the clients that are already with us and have been with us for many, many years. So just putting more focus on that and making sure that the teams are going after it represents a big opportunity for us.
Similarly, we've got a great wealth business that only 2% of Truist clients are actually also wealth clients a nd so, what I like about it is that the opportunity is there to grow in every single business, but we've also got that opportunity with clients who already know us and love us in the markets that we're in.
Got it. And I'd like to follow up on a few of those things. But maybe you mentioned the word untapped opportunities. So give us a sense of, one, when you look at the franchise today, and there's a lot that falls within wholesale. But as you think about your vision for this franchise, what should it look like? And when we think about from a more near-term perspective, where are the low-hanging fruits that could actually deliver on the revenue side or even on the efficiency side?
Sure h appy to so, I think that I think there's actually a fair bit of low-hanging fruit w hat I love about our story is that a lot of what we need to do to grow wholesale is about execution and getting people aligned against what we want to go do, and making sure that they're ready to go do it and rewarded for that a nd that's happened l ike the team is don't be mistaken t he team is absolutely on offense at this time. I would say that the low-hanging fruit s o we've got an investment banking business that did great last year, obviously more than 40% year-over-year growth.
We're going to continue to grow that business in the exact same way we've been doing, which has been an organic build where we've added complete teams of people and industry sectors where we can build up a lot of expertise and utilize that to continue to take market share.
The biggest area of opportunity I see for us is extending that industry knowledge deeper into the middle market, and so what you're going to see us do is stand up industry coverage groups to go after more private and smaller public companies in the market nationally.
Where we can take that industry expertise and be exceptionally relevant to them, not just from a fee perspective, but also from deploying our balance sheet, doing the payments business, the derivatives, the FX, so full relationship wallet opportunity.
Got it. And how much of that, in order to execute on that, it feels like there's a technology component to it, there's a people component to it, and there's a balance sheet component to it j ust give us a sense of, when you think through those three, is there a lot of external talent or hiring that kind of aligns with your vision that you need to bring to the bank? And then is the technology in the right place? Is there more to go?
Yeah. Yeah. So what I see is we've got a great, highly talented team, and we've got a complete set of capabilities there's no question about it. We absolutely are going to continue to add talent in the places where we want to grow a nd so even last year, we added more than 200 people across our franchise.
Whether they were in commercial banking, corporate banking, investment banking, wealth advisors, and we're continuing to do that a nd I've been exceptionally pleased with how great talent is attracted to Truist. We've been able to really bring in great teams of people.
Who love the way that we operate, and they're finding great success on our platform s o the recruiting story here has been—you asked me earlier about, you know, positive surprises i wouldn't say it was a surprise, but it's certainly been very positive in terms of our ability to bring people in.
What I think is great, though, about our strategy is that we don't need a whole lot of new stuff in order to make this happen s o, we've been investing in our treasury management capabilities, in our products and services, We've been investing in many of our wealth platforms, We've been investing in sales and trading. We're going to continue to do that.
But in a way where it doesn't, it's not like we're missing something w e're just continuing to improve. We will continue to invest in talent, but the biggest thing for us is just executing in a disciplined way against the opportunity that's out there for us in the market.
Got it. I guess maybe just pivoting to the macro environment. I think on the one hand, there's a lot of optimism around the new administration, what that means for tax policy, et cetera, but there's some concerns around immigration, tariffs. Give us a mark-to-market in terms of customer sentiment. And is the policy backdrop good enough where they start pulling the trigger on CapEx, deal activity, et cetera?
Yeah. I'd say that in the Q4, we shared, and it was clear to me that there was a little bit of a shift in customer sentiment to the positive, meaning that with the election uncertainty behind us, that people were thinking, "Okay, now I'm going to really get ready to execute on whatever my growth plan is, If I want to build a new facility, I want to go into a new business line," all those things.
I think that coming out of December and into January, people expected that there would be sort of a huge amount of M&A activity, and we would start sort of with all the engines gunning, right? I think all of us would say that hasn't exactly happened, but I think the underlying client sentiment is what's most important.
And I haven't seen a change. I actually feel consistently that clients are still planning for the things that they want to do and getting ready for the things they want to do s o, I don't think that the sentiment has shifted materially, maybe just the timing of when it starts to get executed.
How much time, so we had inflation data today, the yields are higher. How much time do you think your clients spend on thinking about where interest rates are, Do they need rates to be much lower in terms of having a greater appetite for investments, or are we in a good place?
I think we're in a pretty good place there, I think that obviously, you know, people were expecting rates to move down a little more this year than maybe they will. But I think that clients are at the place where, "All right, we've got to continue to grow and invest in our business," and they're getting more comfortable with, "This is just where rates are. And so I'm going to have to go ahead and do what I need to do.
Got it. Just moving back to the business and back to the bank, I think the two things that come up often are, one, Truist went through a big merger, doubled its size. What that creates is an opportunity to go after larger clients that the legacy firms may have not been able to pursue s o one, is that the right way to think about where the growth opportunities might be? And second, in that world, how do you think about just the competitive landscape? Who do you view as your biggest competitors? And what's the USP? Like, why Truist over the other two or three players?
Yeah, so I think that's absolutely true. Like, Truist is a bigger bank than it was four or five years ago. And I think there are a couple of things that we're very clear with our teams about s o one is, you've got all the capital that you need to grow, like go be front-footed with your clients.
Two is act like we're a bank the size that we are. And make sure that means that what we're doing is increasing the number of lead banking positions we're taking w e're going after positions with larger companies. We're being more confident in what we can do in terms of deploying our balance sheet, We're doing that all in a way that's completely in line with our credit risk appetite. But there is a little bit of a just confidence factor of making sure people know we can do bigger things.
And we're being successful at it w e're, you know, taking left-lead positions from all kinds of competitors in the market. And I think that there are moments where people are saying, "Wow, Truist, I didn't see you coming." And I love that, you know? I love that. So I also think that there is, in, we'll call it sort of the middle, in between what is our commercial franchise and our corporate and investment banking franchise. Think about companies that range from, say, $500 million to a few billion dollars.
There's a lot there that we haven't gone after historically. And so we are going after that very intentionally now. And I think that'll create opportunities for us to get involved in relationships in meaningful ways where we can then bring sort of the full benefit of Truist to those clients.
Got it. I'm sure it's a much more complicated answer. Maybe I'm oversimplifying it. But when you are going after this, when you are winning deals, is it service? Is it geographic exposure? Like, what's driving that shift where clients are picking Truist over the other institutions?
Yeah. I think it's a combination of things. I mean, I for sure want to say a lot of it's about the people, right? This is an advice-driven business, and that advice is delivered by people. One thing that we're very intentional about is making sure that we're delivering in a way that includes industry expertise.
And so we're trying to surround all of our teams with enough industry knowledge to make sure that they're able to go in and talk to a client about the specific problems that they have in their industry and the solutions that we can bring to them.
We're also, because we're small enough, able to show up in a really integrated way a nd so, it's frequent that we're having a conversation with a client about not just their commercial banking needs, but also what they want to do with their real estate investments, how they want to handle wealth management for their daughters and sons, and, you know, everything across the spectrum. And so I think there's an element of the completeness of our product and solution set that enables us to give them great advice.
On those, you mentioned the industry verticals a few times. Where are you in the process of having those in place? Is there a lot more in terms of hiring to be done?
Yeah. So, well, yes and yes, I guess, is what I'd say. So we have, we brought in a new leader who comes to us from a larger company, and she's going to be running corporate and commercial banking. Her name's Kerry Jassani s he joined us two weeks ago. And within that group, what we've done is given her the responsibility for driving most of our C&I lending businesses and standing up more industry vertical practices than what we have today.
Which is completely aligned with the skill set that she has s he comes from a background that was a combination of investment banking and then over into commercial banking, delivering industry specialty across a broad client continuum, as well as with a ton of experience in the payment space, which is clearly a place where we're also highly focused.
So maybe just let's talk about the payment space i mean, in my space, it feels like everyone's focused on payments. So I think one, just remind us in terms of when you say payments, what is it that you're going after? What does the opportunity set look like?
Yep. So I have responsibility within wholesale for what is our enterprise payments business s o that's both our payments business for consumer, as well as for our wholesale clients. When we talk about wholesale payments, what we're really focused on are treasury management revenues and merchant and commercial card. Those are the big movers i would say we are in a place where we've got a great product set. We've got a product set that will appeal to the vast majority of our client base.
Everybody is focused on this t hat is true i think one thing that we really have that is differentiated for us is we've got a massive installed base of clients who are already our clients, who we haven't yet been talking to about treasury management solutions. And so we've got an ability to penetrate our existing base as well as be making sure that we're selling that business as we go after new clients.
When we think about the success in the payments business, should we measure that primarily driven by just getting low-cost, sticky relationship deposits?
I think you should look at it in a couple of different ways o ne is certainly getting low-cost client deposits, which hopefully you saw we were already starting to show in the Q4 of last year o bviously, there's some seasonality to that, but I'm pleased with how we're aggregating more client deposits. You should also see it in our fees, and I know it's a little bit difficult to see that in our fee line because it's got a lot of things in it, but we're definitely expecting that business to grow at sort of mid to high single digits.
Now, you know as well as anybody that that's a long cycle, and so that'll take us a little bit of time. What we're really focused on is making sure that we've got some really good proof points and metrics that we can start sharing with you so that you can see the progress that we're making in terms of building those pipelines.
I guess while on deposits, just talk to us in terms of the environment for deposits. Do you think we are at a stage where you start seeing some outside of seasonality, some level of consistent deposit growth? And what's the competitive landscape look like?
Yeah, I think we're definitely expecting consistent deposit growth outside of seasonality. I think you saw that in some of our guidance for 2025, and so that's definitely something that we're expecting. I would say that right now our non-interest-bearing deposits have absolutely stabilized i 'd like to start to see that grow as we make more progress on this treasury management strategy.
And what I'd say is that the, you know, I think the teams are fully focused on the fact that we want to be developing full relationships with our clients, inclusive of the deposits as well as the lending and other fee opportunities. And we also have places where, in fairness, like that hasn't been as much of a focus before, so I'll give you an example in our commercial real estate business l ike they hadn't focused before on making sure that we were also talking to those clients about treasury management and deposits.
Well, once we put a focus on that, you know, six or eight months ago, we started to see a ton of momentum in those conversations and then them starting to capture them s o, there's a big element to our growth strategy that is about making sure every single person in wholesale is aligned on how we want to grow, why it matters to Truist, and then they're all incented and aligned against that a nd we've got that set for them right now.
Got it. And on the deposits and deposit pricing, the Fed cuts have helped. So we've seen down deposit data. The Fed might be on the sidelines for the rest of the year. So one, how much more do you think there is to go on the commercial side in terms of flexing deposit costs lower? And what drives a tick back up in competition? Is it clients no longer expecting rate cuts? Or are you seeing competitors begin to already lean in on the commercial side?
Yeah. I would say that we were very disciplined in how we brought rates down after the first cuts. I think that we've got a great execution around how we're thinking about rates. We haven't seen any pressure to bring any of the rates back up i would say while our markets are absolutely competitive and everybody wants to be in the markets because they're the best ones and they want, you know, the same clients, we have not seen an outsized amount of competition in terms of pricing on deposits i t feels like that's in a pretty disciplined approach right now.
Got it. I guess maybe going back to lending, and you mentioned, I don't think anyone expected things to start too strongly at the start of the year b ut, when you think about loan growth, what are the two or three, are the two or three markets or two or three industry verticals that you're particularly focused on or optimistic about that would be driving growth here?
Yeah, yeah I think you've heard us talk about in the Q4, we were really pleased with the growth that we're seeing in our commercial business, especially in some of the middle market companies w e saw production in that business increase about 150% from the prior quarter so, A lot more activity and just sort of what I'll call our true commercial C&I lending business.
Similarly, what you haven't seen yet, because utilization has remained pretty stable, is we've been increasing commitments to those clients too w hat I'm focused on is let's make sure in our core lending businesses that we're driving the right conversations with the right clients and that we're helping them with their growth objectives.
Then the fundings will come as they start to utilize their lines. That's where I'm most focused i think that we are starting to see more lending opportunity in commercial real estate. t here's some areas in commercial real estate where I think there's some attractive stuff to do today. We're not obviously leaning into office and some of those other areas where I think we're doing a great job of managing the exposure that we have. But across all of our corporate commercial businesses, I'm looking for balance sheet growth.
Do you think commercial real estate, so let's say ex-office, can pick up in this rate backdrop? Like I've heard from others where higher rates make it hard to pencil in new CRE deals. What's the conversation been like? How do you think about it?
I think that we're starting to see some more activity i t's not like, a gully washer of activity by any stretch, but we're starting to see some activity. And we really focus on working with either investors or clients that are repeat investors in real estate w e know them really well, We know what their risk-taking looks like, and we want to support them in the places that they want to grow.
We're also seeing a fair number of opportunities with some of our agency businesses where people are looking to do more of that s o that's been good. And then there are other areas that are maybe adjacent to real estate, things like data centers, etc., where there's a lot of growth activity s o, I would say it's a little bit of everything, but it's, you know, it's starting to come back.
In fairness, we're still going to have headwinds from real estate this year as it relates to loan growth with maturities that are going to be coming due a nd frankly, some areas of the portfolio that we decided that we wanted to focus less on, that we're definitely looking at this as we want to grow the balance sheet we want to grow it in the places that are core to our strategy, and we're not going to deviate from that in any way.
It makes sense. During the Q4 call, I think Bill talked about, I don't want to overstate the importance of these, but New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas as markets where there's meaningful growth runway. One, I'm assuming you share that view. Just talk to us in terms of that growth runway. And are there other markets beyond these three where you see the same?
Yeah, sure. Well, I'm an Eagles fan. Hopefully there's some Eagles fans out there s o I'm going to focus on Philadelphia and New Jersey for a minute s o, I think Bill brought up those markets because they are markets that we've been in for a long time, but they're also good examples of how we're sort of adding talent very intentionally.
Making sure that we are in growth mode in offense from a client acquisition perspective, and we're seeing results s o, if you take the Philadelphia, New Jersey area, I think Truist, overall Truist, added something like a couple hundred teammates up in that area over the last year. And if I think about it from a, if I kind of drill into the wholesale business.
I mean, we have added teams of bankers from many other places in Philadelphia in our commercial business w e've added in wealth, We've added in treasury management and payments, We've added in ABL, and that's enabled them to go out into the market with the kind of confidence and conviction behind our capital strength that I was talking to you about.
And I think they added close to 100 new clients last year, so that's exactly what we're trying to do, and we're trying to do it everywhere, so he brought those up as areas where you can really see it working, but they are markets we've been in for a really long time, and they are emblematic of what we want to be doing across the business.
Sure. I guess the other thing that falls under your purview, you mentioned earlier the wealth opportunity. One, I guess describe for us what that opportunity looks like. And again, are the pieces in place for you to be able to go after and pursue these and monetize it?
Yeah. So I think that the pieces are in place. I'll give you, as I sort of like outline the opportunity, think about this as the opportunity to first bring wealth services to the Truist clients that we already have. So today, only 2% of Truist clients, whether they're in consumer or in wholesale, are also wealth clients. And so we've got a huge opportunity to just go penetrate that client base with our own wealth solution, which I think is very well set up from a product perspective w e've got great advisors, We'll continue to add advisors.
But most importantly, it's about executing well. We're really focused on making sure that we have all of our advisors lined up against the Premier banking opportunity with consumer, like right advisors in the right branches doing the right routines every single week in order to capture that wealth opportunity, as well as extending from. We already had good connectivity between our wealth teams and our commercial teams.
But we hadn't yet wired that up with real estate or investment banking or some of the other businesses. Now we've got teams dedicated to every area of Truist with a mandate to make sure that we're talking to all those clients about wealth management, and that will help to drive some of the growth. The great thing is that with the number of clients we have, like it's just like chipping away at that, we'll have a meaningful impact.
It sounds like there's a lot of the growth runway, at least in the next few years, should be mining the existing customer base, wealth, payments, etc.
Yeah, yeah. And I think where you started, like when I came to Truist, what I thought I would find is there is so much opportunity within the franchise to go generate more revenue for us, And I absolutely see that to be the case across all the businesses that we have t here's growth opportunity that we just, we need to mine and execute what we have.
Got it. I guess would love to hear your perspective t here's an active debate around private credit, direct lending stealing, coming down into categories that were historically bread and butter for the banking sector. One, give us your perspective of like how you view private credit, these players as competitors, partners, etc. And are you actually seeing them on a day-to-day basis competing on lending opportunities?
Yeah. Well, I would say like first and foremost, I'm most focused on the opportunity set that is directly in front of us, like sort of what we have in the franchise and how we unlock the earnings power of that and how we're competing against our other bank competitors to take incremental share t hat's like primarily where I'm focused.
We do have. I do think that direct credit, you know, they've been in the market for three or four years now. And so I think what I see is we know when a deal is going to be most appropriate for a bank versus when it's going to look more like a private credit deal. And I want the teams like focused on competing for the deals that look like bank deals that we should hold on our balance sheet and that meet our risk appetite.
Now, I do think that there are other things that as we continue to become a bigger and bigger institution, you'll see more of s o as an example, within our investment bank and our real estate business, we want to be doing more with financial sponsors. We already do a fair bit of business with them, and we need to become increasingly relevant to them. So that's absolutely part of the growth trajectory for some of those businesses b ut, outside of that, I think we're focused on, you know, doing more with what we have.
Got it. I guess it's less talked about right now, but from a credit quality perspective, we've had a pretty decent run for the U.S. economy t he outlook is good, but do elevated rates, maybe some slowing spending. Are there areas of stress that you're watching for where you're seeing even within your portfolio?
Yeah. I feel really good about our C&I portfolio. I mean, I think you saw the net charge-offs are like 27 basis points or something like that. So it's really holding up exceptionally well. I don't see big areas of stress outside of real estate, which of course we've talked about i actually see that if anything.
We're probably talking about, you know, there are areas that maybe we were watching a year ago that now we're feeling better about a nd so we don't need to be, not that we don't need to be watching them as closely, but they're coming off of the radar screen in terms of areas of focus n ow, we are of course paying attention to all of the news that's coming out of Washington right now, and it's clearly far too early to know what that might mean. But I'd say I feel like, I feel really good about our ability to manage credit risk and the results that we've been delivering as it relates to credit risk.
Just talk to us. So you've talked about hiring of people i think that's going to remain a focus. One, I love your perspective on i think there's a narrative around over the last few years. You've seen competitors who want to get into the Southeast, hiring talent away from the bank. Just kind of right-size that for us in terms of your perspective on, are you losing a lot of talent that you would like to keep at the bank because competition is intense. So one, whether that narrative is true or debunk that for us. And from a hiring standpoint, your success either from peers or larger banks.
Yeah, I think that, I guess I'd say a couple of things. Everybody's different about how they talk about who they're hiring and how many they're hiring and who they're hiring them from, right? So I would say what I'm focused on is making sure that the great talent that we have at Truist is motivated and rewarded and aligned to our strategy a nd I feel like we've got that, like that is in place.
And then separately adding talent that's going to continue to elevate the profile of our franchise along with those internal folks. And I'm really proud of the way that our culture is something that's really, really special and we need to protect it. And so we're pretty picky about who we bring in.
The people that we're bringing in see a company that they're able to be really successful at and that they can go out and market with conviction to their clients. The couple hundred that we've hired, we've hired them from a little bit of everywhere, right? Like all of the, you know, big banks, medium banks, small banks, like we're just, we're looking for talent and I'm really pleased with who wants to come to Truist.
That's good to hear. I guess commercial banking wealth generally are people's business. And I think you've talked about that. Talk to us around from a technology infrastructure standpoint. I mean, you come from a larger bank l ike when you look at the technology stack at Truist, what's already there, what needs to be there for you to be able to maximize the opportunity you have?
Yeah. So I'd say for Truist, for Truist broadly, I would say that, you know, like everyone, there's work that needs to continue around modernizing some of our platforms, etc. From a wholesale perspective, I feel really good about the place where we are l ike we've got really good systems as it relates to all of our lending businesses.
We've got a really good treasury management platform that we're able to continue to add capabilities onto. We are making significant progress in things like digital APIs, you know, digital onboarding w e're making progress in our wealth business on platform improvements s o, I feel like we're in a good place.
And actually a question that we get asked a fair bit is, you know, if you're expecting positive operating leverage, like how do we know that you're investing enough in what you need in order to continue to advance your growth mission? And I feel really good about that. I'll say that I feel like we've got investment dollars that are prioritized against the right opportunities for us t hey are in line with where we're saying we want to grow. And we've also got plenty of additional opportunity out there to continue to get more efficient in order to fund the growth that we need.
Any areas that particularly stand out on the efficiency side? I mean, Bill and team have done a lot in terms of improving the efficiency over the last few years. I'm just wondering, is there still some low-hanging fruit where you think that could move the needle?
Yeah, I think I would think about it as the bank continues to get bigger and as you kind of put a wholesale business together or a consumer business together and you look at it from the lens of all one business line, you do find opportunities where you can scale in certain ways, right? You can achieve more growth without adding more cost.
You also find ways where we can continue to improve our processes, get a little more automation, do some more offshoring. There are lots of pockets that I see where we can find efficiency, And actually, I'm, you know, I think in my background, it's been always like we're trying to get efficient and grow, get efficient and invest a nd so that's just the mindset that we're operating under right now.
I guess maybe a couple last ones, O ne, when we think about just the evolution of the franchise, like paint for us a picture in terms of what this looks like two to three years from now, where are the big differences that we should what we should be looking for in terms of where things stand today and where they could be?
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I'll start with, we've been public about sort of having been on a march towards a mid-teens ROTCE target a nd so, when I think about that, I think about, okay, how is wholesale going to contribute to meeting that target. So there are a couple of important things l ike one, we need to continue to accelerate our growth in fees.
And that's all fees, right? We need to continue to grow in the investment bank while also adding more recurring fee revenue to the mix. So that's one thing that I would definitely like us to see. I want us to grow the balance sheet and take incremental market share in every single business that we're in.
I also want to see us like extend our client footprint to be broader in the, you know, kind of middle of the barbell where we have a lot of strength right now, as well as across the industry sectors that we're going to specialize in.
Got it. And you think in terms of the barbell doing that, how long does this process take? It never ends, I assume. But in terms of from year to getting to 95% of the way, is that a 12-month thing? Is it a three-year thing?
I don't know i think, I'd love to give you the exact answer to that question i think part of it depends on what the market's going to give us, right? And so the market's going to give us a backdrop within which to work. I think that you will see us move really quickly and we're already doing it in terms of capturing the growth that we started to capture in the Q4. That is what we just need to do more of, And so I think you'll see what I would like is for us to be able to show you every quarter, every year, just consistent progress towards where we're going.
One last, you mentioned the ROTCE mid-teens or 15% plus. When you look at your business, I'm assuming you believe it can be accretive to that form of the ROTCE. Just talk to us in terms of the opportunity there in terms of being acquired l ike, is there a governor in terms of how, like, could it be a high-teens ROTCE? Just what the headwinds might be to getting to an even more profitable sort of business for you.
Yeah. Well, I'll take it this way i think I'm not going to talk about what the opportunity might be with ROTCE l et's start with like the first thing that we laid out there. But what I will say is that I don't feel constrained in terms of how we need to grow, how fast we want to grow, and how we get there l ike so, I feel like we're operating in a great place where we've got the flexibility from a capital perspective to be deploying heavily against the growth mission.
While also returning to shareholders, etc., and being in a good place for whatever the regulatory environment tells us we need to be in. I think that I also feel like we've got kind of the tailwind behind us of like everybody is focused on the fact that we want to go grow the business.
I feel like I've got enough room to invest in the talent and invest in the products and solutions that we need in order to make that happen. Whether it happens faster or slower, the numbers higher, lower, I'm more focused on the fact that like we've got what we need. We just now need to go do it.
Awesome. That note, Crystal, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.