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Podcast transcript: EY Change Happens Podcast – Ronni Kahn

38 mins | 20 December 2023

Jenelle: Hi, Ronni. I feel like this recording has been a long time coming for us. As it turns out …

Ronni: Four times, maybe five we’ve moved it.

Jenelle: Maybe four or five. But you know, all good things come to those who wait. And as it turns out, this will be the last podcast of the season before we head off on a break. And I honestly couldn’t be happier to be closing out the year, and the season, with you. So, maybe it all worked out for the best. Thank you for joining me today.

Ronni: It’s an absolute pleasure.

Jenelle: Before we get into it, I do want to just check in and ask how you are, Ronni. You have a really strong connection to Israel, having spent 20 years there, nine of which I know you lived in a kibbutz. You had your two children there, and I know you were over there fairly recently, around about the time when the war began in early October. So, there’s no really easy way to cover this, but I just wanted to check in on how you are doing.

Ronni: Thank you so much. It is very hard to disassociate what is happening in the wider world and bring it down to … without bringing it into the microcosm. You know, I’ve just looked at some hate mail that’s come in, and it’s distressing, you know? It’s distressing that there’s so much … first of all, there’s so much pain on both sides. That we have leaders, or lack of leadership, on both sides that’s doing what’s best for the people. Although, how does one know what is best for the people, you know? It’s complex, it’s very complex.

So, on a personal level, it’s challenging. But I am hopeful. I spent the weekend with the most wonderful Palestinian peace activist, in conversations like I’ve never had before with my brethren, really. I lived in Israel for 20 years, we never had those kinds of interactions. So, I am hopeful, and intending to work with him on what a dual narrative could look like.

Jenelle: I do, and I love the hope in you. It is an unimaginable situation and complex, as you say, Ronni. But thank you again for joining me today, I’m ever so grateful for your time. And I do love the rattle of your bangles; ordinarily, I’d be like give me the … but it’s so inimitably yours, so, long may the bangles rattle away there.

Ronni: Well, I do always say to sound tech people when they look at me if I’m about to do a keynote or I’m about to do a talk, and they look at me, and they’re about to say, can you please remove your … and I say, your problem, not mine, this is what I come with.

Jenelle: I’m glad I didn’t dare make that request, I know you a bit better than that. Thank you, Ronni. Now, to kick things off, I want to start with cake. A lot of cake, thanks to your mother. She sounded like … she sounds like an incredible woman. Tell me about her.

Ronni: You know, it’s funny because I have just also received an email from someone who said, I have just finished your book, and the timing was so perfect, and I thank you so much. So, it’s so funny that I’ve been pulled back into it. My mother was extraordinary. Actually, my dad had an accident, and my dad landed up in hospital for the next two years, and they didn’t think he’d survive, but he did. They didn’t think he’d walk, but he did.

But the truth is, my mother had three young children and became the breadwinner overnight, cos my dad lost his job, of course. And she got up in the morning and said, what can I do? What do I know? And one of the things she knew was she was a great baker. And a friend in Italy said, why don’t you bake a few cakes for my little club, and it landed up to becoming 100, 200, cakes a day in her home kitchen.

Jenelle: Ronni, I don’t say this lightly, but you’ve lived so many lives to get to where you are now. But way back in the beginning as a youngster in South Africa, what did you think you wanted to be growing up?

Ronni: Well, you can laugh at the first, and you probably will smile at the second. So, the first was … I thought a postmaster would be really fun. Cos, I had a stamp kit set, and you know, I thought, how fun would that be? Just stamping envelopes all day. So, not that aspirational. And then I thought being an air stewardess would be very glamourous and a way to travel the world.

Jenelle: But you did travel the world, and you probably did feel like you were stamping lots of things metaphorically through your life. So, you know, it’s there.

Ronni: It all ties in.

Jenelle: It does, it does indeed. At the risk of skipping big chunks of your life which I’m sure we’ll come back to later; you ended up in event planning after your move to Australia. Why did you choose to get into that industry, and how did you get that first big break?

Ronni: When I think about it, the choices I’ve made have been to leave South Africa, to live on a kibbutz, to leave the kibbutz, to live in Australia, and do what I knew. So, the thing that I knew when I came here was floristry. When I left kibbutz, my sister had bought a florist, so I joined her. And we had a very successful florist. And then I came to live in Australia, and the only thing I wasn’t going to do was floristry.

I did a year of interior decorating and then somebody offered to set me up in a florist. So, I didn’t know I was entrepreneurial, but was I knew, I had my florist, and one day somebody came in and said, will you do the flowers for my wedding? I said, yeah. And they said, what else do you do? And I said, what else do you need? And she said, the hall’s a bit drab. And I said, sure, I can make that look beautiful. And that’s how I fell into event planning.

Jenelle: I have heard you say that you, you know, what you know you can do is sell anybody a dream, but then deliver on it. What gave you the conviction that you can deliver on it? Cos your dreams weren’t small ones; they weren’t tiny little visions here. You had some big, big, big, grandiose ideas, but you could deliver on it. Where was that, I don’t know, the confidence and conviction, the chutzpah maybe, that you could deliver on that?

Ronni: It’s interesting, cos I have actually … I guess that’s part of this ability to … for flexibility, agility, and the spirit of going for it. I had moved countries, I had walked into a shop that I had never touched a flower, and it turned out to be a perfect medium for me. It turned out that selling I was good at, and it turned out that business I was good at. So that, I suppose, without ever deconstructing it, gave me a level of confidence. I then knew that I needed to move countries with two children, no jobs for either myself or my then husband, and no money. But decided we could do this.

Jenelle: I mean, if I think about what you’re saying, though, that some of it was born out of necessity. Then, you started to build up little proof points in your own ... cognitive rewiring. I can do that, well, I can probably do the next thing. So, these rolodex of proof points that you were building up for yourself to give you that level of self-belief and conviction was there.

Ronni: Yeah, I love that notion of proof points. Because it is such an important thing, and as you say, it makes it much more simplistic to understand.

Jenelle: So, cow manure, a perm, and the lightning of Soweto. They may not be the most natural, or the most obvious, segues to my next question, but I want to assure our listeners that this does make perfect sense. Tell me about those three pivotal movements that led up to you forming OzHarvest.

Ronni: I think Soweto is really the most pivotal. Because when I went to visit South Africa for that week, and that’s … this is what I did before I started OzHarvest. I’d already had the idea, I’d started rogue food rescuing, my business was kind of growing, but I thought I was starting loving giving food away way more than loving draping ceilings and wrapping napkins.

But I went to visit this beautiful, wonderful woman, Selma, who’s an activist. Didn’t really know that much about the activism she was doing because I’d been out of South Africa for so long. She said, we’re going to go to Soweto. And growing up in South Africa, I’d never been to Soweto. It was three kilometres from my home, but it was a dusty, swarming, seething, mass of humanity that did not welcome white people. And that’s what I left; that’s what I knew.

And Selma says, we are going to visit Soweto. And as we drive into Soweto, when she turns round and says, just under her breath and matter of factly—and that was not the reason we were going to Soweto—and she said, by the way, I am responsible for electricity in Soweto. The hairs on my arms stood up. And all I could think of was, I want to know what that feels like.

And by the time we got to the AIDS clinic, which she had set up because she’s a doctor, I knew that my life would never be the same again, and that I wanted to know that feeling, and therefore I could rescue food, cos there probably were enough people—I knew nothing about the facts—that might need food, I knew nothing about the fact that 36 billion dollars’ worth of food goes to waste, I didn’t know that then. But I thought, wow, that’s what I’m going to do.

Jenelle: How did Selma come into your orbit? She seems like an extraordinary woman.

Ronni: My family and Selma’s family grew up next door. Selma was a doctor; she went to work, her children came to us every day so that my mother could feed them. But my mother went to Selma, cos she had a different kind of wisdom. So, they were very close, and as families we were like brothers and sisters. And I have to share something which I have not shared with anybody because this is what happened when I went to South Africa now.

Selma’s son fetched me from the airport because he is now the CEO of South Africa Harvest. And I went back, because they had just delivered their 50 millionth meal, and to see Selma. And Alan said, I’m going to take you to … past our houses. Our house, mine was number 17, his was number 13, and the numbers were odd, but the houses were next to each other. And he said, you’ve need to see something: somebody has bought number 13 and number 17 and combined them.

Jenelle: That’s incredible.

Ronni: As we were outside the house, the new owner drove out, and we said, stop. We need you to know that the energy from that house and the energy from this house is powerful.

Jenelle: What an incredible, incredible story. And I’m glad that we got to hear it here first; I think that is amazing. Ronni, so that listeners of this don’t think I am a crazy lady that just talked about cow manure and perm with no context, can we come back to that? Can you rescue me from this abyss that I’m in and put some context to those two?

Ronni: Okay, so, on the kibbutz, I worked in the refet, number one, in the cow shed. And actually, I loved it, because I was working with calves, otherwise I was working in the office. Everyone gets a roster of where they have to work every six weeks out of their everyday job, because their Saturday, Sabbath day, jobs that need to be filled. And working in the refet, in the cow shed, was a happy place for me. And I still think of cow manure and smell that and just think back to feeding those little babies and shovelling shit and throwing down hay. But while I—I’m gonna jump—so that is a special, special memory for me of the time on kibbutz. Cos they were challenging times, but there was also so many special times.

But I’ll jump to the perm, which changed my life, because I felt like a little mouse. I had dead straight hair, I never felt pretty, I never felt really very attractive. And went with my sister to a hairdresser in Haifa, off the kibbutz. And he was French, and he looked at me, and he said, we are going to do something different. And I just said, do it. And my sister said, do it. So, I’ll share very quickly; my sister came out with … like a Zebra. She had gold stripes in her dark brown hair, and she was hysterical. And I came out a new woman. My hair was fluffed and full, and it was like an injection of confidence, of new spirit, because even the hairdresser turned around, and kind of, very frenchly, went, madame, started making eyes at me. I walked back onto the kibbutz, and it was like, wow.

Jenelle: Look out world.

Ronni: Yeah, go girl.

Jenelle: That’s one hell of a perm. I tell you, I’ve had a few perms in my time, and I had nothing of the same kind of experience. I do have a series of very, very tragic photos for party events, but that’s about it. 

Now, for you, being a successful event planner put you in a prime position to see how much food was being used and left behind and thrown out at every event. So, many event planners, food waste is just part of the job. You’d rather throw away food than have your guests leave hungry, and understandably so, I get that. When did you realise that there was a problem with food insecurity? Was it a slow realisation, was it an epiphany? And then, what made you go, I need to do something about this?

Ronni: Actually, I didn’t realise there was a … I mean, I knew there were people in need. I had no idea of the scale. I had a problem that needed to be solved. I was making and producing surplus food, so I needed to find a solution for my problem. And the food was perfectly good, the food was delicious, and at one particular event I had so much food left over, I … up until then, I was every other event planner throwing away my food cos it was easy, cos it was late at night, and you start early, and the day is long, and there’s stress, and all you wanna do is get out of there, clean up. And we threw our food away.

But this night, there was just too much food. So, I put it in a van, and knew of one place that possibly could use that food. I have no idea what would have happened if they said no, cos I would have had a van full of rotting food. But they didn’t say no. They graciously and happily took it all, and I thought, that was the best thing.

So, my events after that, I kind of, used to say to my clients, how would you feel if at the end of your event, any surplus food went to feed hungry people? So, they loved it, and I loved it, and made sure there was surplus food. And I did that for the next six years, until … while I … as I built OzHarvest, I continued working, because I’d never set up OzHarvest to support myself. It was to support my soul, and it became more and more and more fulfilling.

And I always say to anyone that I’m talking with, every day, we all have problems. Most of us turn round and say, I wish somebody would fix this. I had no idea why I was the person that chose to fix the problem of surplus food, but I was. I was. And that is the blessing that I have received, and the gift that I have received.

Jenelle: Tell me about the Hebrew word—and I hope I pronounce this correctly—tikkun olam.

Ronni: Tikkun olam. It’s a very powerful word. It’s really part of the ethos of the Jewish faith, and I was brought up in the Jewish faith. And what that does not mean I’m a religious observant Jew, but I am a ritualistic Jew and believe in the morals and the ethics and the ethos. And the ethos of tikkun olam means, repair the world, is the literal translation. But it means, the world is shattered. And or job is to be of service and find what it is you can do to fix and fill the cracks and be, in your daily life, able to give back. And it’s that principle that is a very powerful one. Again, it wasn’t that I realised that I was fulfilling it, but it’s a value and a deep, core driver to what I do.

Jenelle: So, some people seem to be born with that inherent sense of service, or the innate desire to do their bit and more. You seem to be one, Selma, you’ve talked about Selma, she seems to be one. But there are those that don’t have that. Given all the work that you’ve done, what have you learnt about igniting people to act on issues that they might not be directly impacted by? To live out this, whether you observe the Hebrew rituals, or the Jewish rituals, as you’ve said, but the incumbency upon people to do their part when they see an injustice. How have you ignited that in others?

Ronni: Well, it seems I have unwittingly. I certainly have never set out to do that. I do know that my book does that, which my story, therefore, does that, or again, a need to share that this is an unwitting side phenomenon that I’m in awe and wonder of every day. But I think that passion is very infectious. I believe that giving is a thousand times better than getting, and that is a message that I share every single day. And I just say, try it. Random acts of goodness, random acts of kindness, have the most extraordinary ripple effect, but I believe the biggest ripple effect is on the giver.

You know, I’d been in a position of getting, taking, needing, wanting. And thought that would make me happy, to get more, and more, and more, and more. Until I discovered that giving has made me happier that anything I’ve ever done. And that’s just the only message I can share. And it’s the only message I know how to share, because I live it, and I’ve experienced it. And I think that gives me that ability to say with conviction, go out and do it. Even if that was not your plan.

And that’s part of, very much part of, my purpose for leadership role now. I think if we haven’t got it, and not everybody has it, and I’m lucky to have it, we can learn it. And I can teach it because I live it. And so, I get very excited at the opportunity to coach and to talk with leaders and shift that mindset around the bigger purpose of why their companies exist.

Jenelle: You talked about, when you were with Selma, that you wanted to know what it felt like. What does it feel like? This thousands times better than getting; what does it feel like?

Ronni: Tell you what it feels like: it feels like every cell in my body is filled with gratitude. It means that I wake up in the morning happy with my first breath. Even when things are down, I can touch my bed, and know that I slept and woke up in a bed. And I can lift my eyes up and know that I have a roof over my head. I look out the window … and so, gratitude is the driving force for me, around knowing and being so grateful for being able to do what I do.

Jenelle: Beautiful. My son has a poster in his room that says obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal. But you literally—I mean, it’s wonderful that you’ve had this idea, and with absolutely no disrespect intended here—you are not the first person to have a kind of Robin Hood idea of, you know, giving from the excess to the poor or the less wealthy. But there was—or the more needy, I should say. 

But there was a very, very real obstacle around the liability that’s associated with, you know, if there are negative repercussions of a business giving food to others. So, you were at the forefront of igniting real change when it came to the Civil Liabilities Amendment act, which passed in New South Wales in 2005, and then the other states followed.

What made you think you could do something about that? Like, that’s beyond gratitude and trying to show what you can do. And what did you learn from that experience of actually affecting that kind of change? What did you learn about making that sort of change happen?

Ronni: I think the biggest thing that I learnt and knew, and actually want to reinforce all the time, I had an idea, I’ve shared that idea, and magnificent people have joined me to help me bring this to reality. So, when I go back to that, I knew what I needed, but I couldn’t do that by myself. So, I enlisted the best people to support me on that.

So, my ultimate lesson is collaboration, asking for help, vulnerability, admitting you can’t do everything, but that people around you are there to support you if you ask. And if you ask and the answer is no, then go to the next person, you know? Very early on in my journey—and I’m sure this is an urban myth, but it has stayed with me, and I love it, and have kind of shared it and keep it alive in me. I was told that Walt Disney went to 150 banks before a bank would invest in Disneyland.

Jenelle: Wow.

Ronni: So, you know what perseverance and resilience you have to have? And so, even if it’s not true …

Jenelle: It’s a good story.

Ronni: It’s just always made me think. Even if it was ten banks, or 20. When you are set on something. And so, to me, it was just so obvious. There was a problem, a hurdle; hurdles are to be got around, not to block the way. So, I love your son’s poster. An obstacle to me is just a challenge that I need to get around.

And so, I just went and asked the best law firm and said, how are we gonna do this? And sorry, but you’re not gonna get paid for this. So, cos, I don’t have any money. And so, I do believe in giving people the opportunity to be good. And they rise to it, they love it. And I think that’s hugely important. Instead of thinking people will say no, I think people will say yes, and I’m fascinated and blown away if they say no.

Jenelle: Wow, it’s a fantastic way to look at it. You know, something that’s evident in you, and it certainly smacks me in the face every time I’ve encountered you directly or from afar, is the extraordinary energy that you exude. And I know that we—at least in my world—often talk about time management, but I’m much more intrigued with energy management. How do you manage your energy? Which to me, at least, seems to be infinite.

Ronni: Actually, it feels a bit infinite to me, too. I do laugh, I can go out with people, we can spend a day at work, and I finish, and I’m like, okay, bring it on, what else are we gonna do? And they’re kind of ready to crawl … we laugh about it all the time. You know, I think, whether it was from my mother, or whether it was, you know, whether one day it’s just … and at some point, I’m sure it will, because I face my death every single day, because if I didn’t, you know, it encourages me to know how to live each and every day. How do I want to be today, not, how am I today. And so, I just think I’ve got an extraordinary amount. You know? Some people get dished out different talents and skills, I got a lot of energy.

Jenelle: We use words around resilience and tenacity and perseverance, but there’s an impatience in you as well that I feel. Impatience is … seems to spur you. And it’s not necessarily thought of as a virtue, I would say, impatience. Tell me about the good and the not so good aspects of impatience.

Ronni: Well, I think the good aspects of impatience—and I’m sure there are people around me who might say they’re bad ones, I’m a hundred percent sure—the good ones in me spur me. It’s like, right now, there are less than 3,000 days to halve food waste. Our country, we got our country, I got our country, to commit to halving food waste in line with the UN SDG goals by 2030. We did this in 2015, when we had kind of set a target to 2025; ten years seemed so long. I am impatient. I need this to happen, and we’ve now absolutely … I’m energised more to do this. We have less than 3,000 days.

So, to that end, it spurred us on to create a beautiful product: our ‘use it up’ tape. And I moved out of my study, I normally have it, but ‘use it up’ tape, you know, since we’ve discovered that 40 percent of food waste comes from households, I’m impatient to get every single citizen committed to halving their food waste.

Certainly, middle class, upper middle class, I understand we are a rich and abundant country, and there are third world countries where that might be less prevalent, but globally we waste a third of all food. And so, I am … so, that impatience drives solutions and results, and creates action. And so, in that respect, I think it’s quite useful. But it’s also very demanding. And you know, I walk into my office sometimes and say, I’ve got an idea, and my people duck and weave and jump under the table and say, oh no. What is she expecting us to do today? So, you know. [laughs]

Jenelle: How are we tracking against the goal of halving food waste by 2030? Where are we at as a nation?

Ronni: Well, the reality is we’re far. But I’m not deterred, because literally with this little tape of ours, which has been worked together on with Monash University and behavioural works and has got so much science behind it based on what we are willing to do. It’s been in the household of 45,000 households, and they have halved their food waste by 40 percent and their fresh fruit and veg by 50 percent.

And it’s given them two results; one, it’s saved their average household bill by about two and a half thousand dollars, and it’s made their garbage bin very small. So, there’s less going to landfill. So, that is incredibly encouraging. So, I just have to find a way to get 27 million Australian’s using our ‘use it up’ tape, or their own homemade version, their do-it-yourself version. You can get it free off our website, but if you want to make it, it’s a piece of sticky tape, you put it in the shelf in your fridge, you move everything that needs to be used up on that shelf. So, it’s about a visual reminder.

It’s a bit gamified, cos families can play with it. It encourages discussion, conversation, and in those families, those households, there’s been extraordinary success. And given it’s a global issue, I think it should go out into the world. The Netherlands have created their own, taken our prototype, Germany has just asked us for some. So, if we got everybody using it, we could achieve it.

Jenelle: That’s it. And also, we haven’t really talked about the angle of the impact to climate change, but obviously the less food we put into landfill, the less methane, which is a massive contributor.

Ronni: Yeah, food waste feeds climate change. And most people don’t know that. We could all be climate activists in our own homes. Not everybody can afford an electric vehicle, not everybody can afford solar on their roofs, but everybody could save money and stop wasting food, and save our planet at the same time.

Jenelle: That’s it. There’s literally no downside to this at all.

Ronni: Exactly.

Jenelle: Ronni, you’ve gone from delivering food in a single van to owning—how many vans do you own now?

Ronni: About 80, 85.

Jenelle: Okay, 85 vans across Australia. You’ve opened your free supermarket, down the road from where I live, actually. Subsequently, 50 other countries have sought to replicate that model. You’ve launched the CEO cookoff; I personally have been privileged to have a magic yellow apron and partake in that. You’ve achieved so much more, in fact, the OzHarvest impact report is well worth a read. It’s a wonderful read, actually.

You’ve always been upfront about the skills you have and the ones that you need help with, and you’ve talked about not being afraid to ask for help. But what were … what would be the, sort of, key takeaways that you learnt in the early days of OzHarvest that has allowed you to keep expanding beyond, beyond, beyond, where you’re ever at?

Ronni: Well, I think the interesting thing, one of the drivers when I think of it now, for coming up with new and innovative ideas, was this notion that funders in the very beginning … when the first funder after two years came and said, okay, I’m moving on somewhere else. First of all, I said, how could you move? You’re just watching our impact. Why wouldn’t you want to see what your money can keep doing? So, a lot of our funders have been with us for 19 years. Which has shifted their whole thinking.

I also realised that they do like shiny new things; now, I never, ever create a shiny new thing for the sake of a shiny new thing. It’s only if it’s going to be of greater impact, greater service, deliver on nourishing our country, which means it’s either going to stop food waste, it’s gonna feed people, or educate, or innovate within that framework. And so, that’s exciting, cos that overarching purpose to nourish our country means there’s a lot of ways I can nourish our country. So, I can keep doing special and gorgeous things.

Jenelle: You have managed to put OzHarvest, as we’ve said, not only all across Australia, but you’ve taken it internationally. It’s expanded into New Zealand, to Japan, to the UK, and …

Ronni: Vietnam, South Africa.

Jenelle: Vietnam. Well, that’s it, I was gonna say, what an amazing full circle moment. Even more so with your updated story with Alan and number 13 and 17 in South Africa. What’s next?

Ronni: Well, what’s very exciting is I made the decision that I wanted to ensure OzHarvest’s future. Succession has been on the list of so many … the lips of so many of our funders. And I’m young in spirit but my years are not as young as my head and heart feel. And so, I’m very excited that we’re bringing on a new CEO in March 2024.

Jenelle: I have to say, I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to step into those shoes, honestly.

Ronni: Well, we did a big, long search. And we found James Goth, who currently is the CEO of the Seven network, will take over as CEO. And I step aside into my new role, which is not new in what I do, but has the title of Visionary in Residence.

Jenelle: I love that title.

Ronni: I know. And I’m intending to cut down to three days a week, but I’ve been intending to cut down to three days a week for the last … many years. But that is what I’m planning to do. And I’m very excited for OzHarvest because he brings a set of skills and wisdom that, even if I had a more energised to do other things and feel after 20 years … it’s our 20th birthday, we’re gonna have a big year. So, you have to watch this space.

But yeah, that’s a very exciting move. I’ve had so many people say, that’s so brave and courageous; it didn’t feel brave and courageous. It feels like it’s the right thing to do for OzHarvest. And I’m excited that I think we will work so well together; as the founder, I’m not going anywhere. And he’s very excited about having me in that role, and I’m excited about having him take over the things that he will be better suited to do.

Jenelle: One final question for you: in your book, you pose the question, right at the front, ‘is this life of mine good for me, and is It doing good for others?’ How would you answer that today?

Ronni: It takes me … it takes me back to that question that I said to you. What do you want to be today, and that you face … every day, I face my mortality. Because we spend so much time thinking about birth, but we don’t spend enough time thinking about death. And so, I think every day, if I die today, will I have achieved something? Enough? And I think, I think what I’ve done, what I’ve been able to do, means I have added something of value. I think I’ll be happy with that.

Jenelle: I hope so, Ronni. You have been extraordinary in your impact to the world. And I don’t know whether it was a perm that brought out that shy little mouse to have this kind of impact on you. When you think about what Selma did for you in unleashing that, ‘I can do something’, you know? I can effect that change. You have done for thousands and thousands of people around the world and continue to do. You are the embodiment of tikkun olam, that you … whether it was an unwitting change agent.

But you show what it means to receive so much more from giving, rather than getting. It’s the thing that gives you that infinite amount of energy, it’s the force that inspires others to be wanting to do what you do in any small way. I love the assumption that people will want to do good, that people are good, and will lean on that. Your ability to enlist the best people through collaboration, through asking for help, for assuming it’s going to be a yes rather than no, your ability to channel the impatience; you absolutely are, and always have been the visionary in residence, and I cannot wait to watch this chapter unfold. Thank you so much, Ronni.

Ronni: Thank you so much. I have loved and enjoyed chatting with you.