Hear a compelling conversation with Suresh Rajan, Executive Chairman and Founder of LCR Capital Partners. Suresh’s family immigrated from India to United States and he shares with us a great story about his dad, an Indian doctor, and how his family has inspired him in life, his career, and his choices for LCR’s core values. Through EB5, LCR helps families to access American markets and American schools and Suresh explained how being an immigrant in the United States helped him transform his family life and career.
In this article we’ll be sharing excerpts from our conversation which you can listen to by subscribing to our podcast on iTunes or Spotify.
Interviewer: Opinions and perspectives shared in this episode reflect those of our guests and are not a representation of the views of LCR Capital or the guests’ respective employers. You’re listening to the “LCR Success Stories Podcast,” where we celebrate people that moved to the United States to find new opportunities and how they did it.
Suresh: I’m Suresh Rajan. I’m the founder and executive chairman of LCR Capital Partners.
Interviewer: Suresh, I’m really interested in why you started LCR.
Suresh: Why I started LCR? Well, if I back it up, the company was actually originally formed in 2012, but the genesis of it started many years earlier, 2008, 2009. I was running a very different business. I was a multiunit franchise operator. I developed and operated Dunkin’ Donuts stores and Quiznos Sub stores, etc., all around the East Coast of the U.S. Some were mine, some were owned by others, some were acquired. And we were doing great developing, and then 2008, 2009 hit. And, you know, the world kind of fell apart in the first wave of that. And I was in search of, like many business folks, capital for growth, and development, and acquisition, what have you. And like most, I was searching high and low. Any source was something you needed to evaluate. And I actually stumbled across this government program called EB-5, which is what our core business is right now. And it’s a government immigration program, where immigrant investors can invest in U.S. businesses, create jobs, and in exchange for that secure Green Cards for themselves and their family.
The program actually started very early, in the early 1990s. EB-5 was designed really to attract the wealthy from Hong Kong before Hong Kong reverted to Chinese control. And a lot of other countries developed similar immigration investment programs, Canada, the UK, Australia, and others. As I studied it, I was… One, I had the same reaction most of my clients do today when they first heard about it is, “No way. There’s no way this could exist. Never heard of it. I would have heard of it.” And someone that spent quite a number of years in Washington D.C. had that view, you know, very strongly myself. But as I did my homework, I realized that the program was real, realized that the program was not well-understood. Kind of most importantly, I realized that the program wasn’t really designed for the provider of capital, much more for the user of capital, and I felt the balance between the two wasn’t there where it needed to be. And I frankly thought I could create a better offering that I could access this capital on better terms for both the investor and myself than others were doing. And so, I spent a couple of years really looking at the market and trying to understand, you know, where we could play. And, you know, critically, it was really all about, you know, identifying a business inefficiency and turning it into a business opportunity. And when I realized that this could be a solution for my business and my needs, I realized it could be a solution for many other folks, many that I knew that were in the same situation in my own industry. So, that actually began the process of developing the LCR game plan. And I, subsequently, over a matter of a couple of years, exited my business as a franchise operator, and launched LCR and developed the business along those lines.
Interviewer: That’s so interesting. When you first stumbled across it, and you had that moment of, “This can’t possibly be real,” like, what made you dig in deeper?
Suresh: Well, again, I think the driving force to investigate was, like many things, a need. I needed to understand if this was, you know, truly something that could be a solution for me and if it really did have the kind of legs that would be needed in order to build a business around it. And, you know, that took time, and sort of invest an additional day every day, that day made more and more sense, I put another day or another week into it. And so, you know, like many things, it didn’t happen overnight. It took a lot of time and, frankly, a lot of faith to see if this thing could come about. The application process is very exhaustive, as you can imagine. Getting a license to conduct business within the immigration system within the United States is complicated and requires a lot of different steps and a lot of due diligence, not just by, you know, myself, but by the government into, you know, me and my business, my aspirations, what we intended to do. So, the process was expected to be about a year to put an application together and then a year to year and a half to wait to see if I got approved. And so you really have to be betting on the long-term. It’s not gonna be something that is instant gratification.
Interviewer: I wanna back up a little bit. I wanna know about you. What is your story, personally?
Suresh: Well, nothing terribly interesting, I think. Well, my story is my family story. My family immigrated from India many years ago. My father was one of the original early participants in the U.S. government immigration program designed to attract foreign doctors to the U.S.. The U.S. was suffering a shortage of healthcare providers largely because the U.S. was at war in Vietnam, had a lot of health care providers deployed into Europe, into Asia. And so, there was a real shortage in the U.S., particularly in rural America. And so, what is now known as the Conrad Bill back then, the name actually escapes me, but that program afforded doctors from all around the world to come to the United States to study, to learn, and to really serve as physicians in communities that needed that kind of support. And that’s really where you saw a lot of Indians and other nationalities, but certainly, a lot of Indian doctors ending up all around the U.S. You know, our stops included the Bronx, and later in Leavenworth, Kansas, where we spent a lot of time, and then eventually into central Florida, where we ultimately, you know, stayed and built our American life. So, it started with my father immigrating from India to be a doctor here in the U.S., and we spent a number of years sort of back and forth between India and the U.S. And it wasn’t until, I wanna say, maybe the late ’70s or early ’80s, that we decided to make the U.S. our permanent home. And I would say my formative years in the U.S. were largely in Florida, and ended up going from there, high school in Florida to later go into college in Los Angeles, then started working in Washington DC, and then graduate school in Boston. And, you know, the road was sound. And so, you know, very much, yeah, any success I’ve had is due to my parents.
Interviewer: I think I had a really amazing conversation a couple of weeks ago with first-generation American parents, Indian in descent. And I’d love to know what that’s like as a first-generation American. Because I think so many people are coming to this place, they’re saying, “Okay, I think we wanna immigrate. We can go EB-5. This will be a good way for us to go.” What’s this life going to be like for the next generation? And you kind of are that. I’d love to know what your perspective is.
Suresh: No, it’s a great question. I certainly can’t say mine was the norm, maybe there’s nothing that can be termed that, but, you know, my father was the first in his family to go to college. He was selected in his village by state officials as having, you know, very good academic skills and potential. And so, when he was 15 or 16, he was selected to go to medical school. And so, he was a practicing physician at 21, having already seen 1000 patients. That’s not my experience, right? I started really here in the U.S. And I started with, you know, a lot more than most people do. And I had the luxury of being able to explore my own interests and not have it predetermined. In India, they needed doctors. And so, if you had skill you needed to meet the needs of the community. And so, it was a patriotic duty, frankly, to, you know, follow the needs of the country. In the U.S., because we have so much here, you know, freedom is sort of defined in a lot of different ways. And the freedom to choose to follow your own dreams is a big one.
And I had, for whatever reason, fallen in love with politics at a young age. I remember… I actually think I know exactly when it started, it was in 1980. And I was supposed to be in bed, getting ready for school. And my parents were watching the Republican National Convention, and candidate Reagan, at that time, was speaking. And I heard it over the TV from my room, and I kind of snuck out of my room and sat by the couch where my parents were watching. And, you know, he was called the great communicator for a reason. I didn’t know much about anything, but I was just drawn to the theater of it all and how he, you know, expressed his own aspirations and hopes and how he connected with so many people. And I think that really started, you know, my interest in politics. And the Indian community in the U.S. is not one that’s, you know, very involved in politics, especially back then. It was very much focused on, you know, science, and math, and engineering. And when I chose to go to undergrad and study Political Science and International Relations, and not STEM, it’s not an insignificant thing for an Indian son to do. My parents were very, very supportive. And, you know, they said, “Look, you know, study what you love. You’re young, this is one of the reasons we came to America, to give you and your brothers this kind of freedom and opportunity.” And I did. That’s what I studied in undergrad. And I loved it. I loved everything about what I was learning and I wanted to do more. And I told my parents, “Look, I’m not gonna go to graduate school. You know, I’m not doing law, I’m not doing business or medical school or any of that. I wanna go to Washington DC, and I wanna work on Capitol Hill.” And it was really right about that, I think my parents realized maybe they’d been too lenient and too flexible.
And I remember my father supportive but giving me some words of caution in that he said, you know, “Do you really think American leaders, politicians are going to, you know, look to the son of an immigrant for policies and advice?” And I remember him saying, and I remember it resonated with me because while blunt, it was really the right question to be asking. And I went to DC and I did well. I studied hard there, you know, worked very hard and, you know, things worked out for me. I moved up very quickly in the arenas that I was participating in. And not very long after getting there, probably two or three years, I brought my parents up from Florida to visit me in DC. And at that time, I was working for several members of Congress, and I’d actually done some work for the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader. And I took my parents to the floor of the House to where the, you know, president gives the State of the Union Address. And it was a private tour, you know, there are members of Congress there. And I remember my father turned to me and he said, you know, “I guess I forgot what makes this country so great.” And it was his acknowledgment that, you know, I chose the right path for me because that was my passion. And my father and mother always said, you know, “We just want you to do what you love and do it great.” And I think he finally found some comfort that, you know, both of those were being met. And it led to a great time in Washington DC and, you know, positioned me better for graduate school later on, and then a subsequent professional career. But that was the real kind of inflection point.
Interviewer: How do you feel, like, those experiences and your upbringing and kind of your early passions impacted the core values that LCR Capital holds today?
Suresh: A very good question. I think that the key to it really is having a meaningful purpose in life. You know, I don’t think I valued anything more than what my father did for a living, which is not the path I chose, but my father had said to me, you know, “When you decided to become a doctor, you know, you gotta do it for others. You know, you’re not doing it for yourself.” And I only really understood that much, much later in life. I remember I must’ve been like 12 or 13, and my father and mother hadn’t attended a game, a match in soccer that I was participating in. And I asked my father afterwards and said, you know, “All my friends had their parents there, and, you know, you guys don’t show up at games or practices.” And I said, you know, I asked him, you know, “Why is that?” Then, you know, my father said, “When you have the power to heal, taking time off comes at somebody else’s pain and suffering.” And it was just floored. It just dawned on me, really, you know, the perspective that drove my father for his entire life. And it was about service. And he was very clear.
He’s like, “Look, if you don’t have the passion to be a doctor, don’t occupy that seat when somebody else can bring that kind of commitment, you know, to that very important role.” So, for me, I needed to find something to do that really gave me a lot of passion, that drove the mission. And the mission of LCR, you know, is really about helping global families achieve their fullest potential. And I believe my personal experience says no place does that better than in the United States for most people. There are plenty of wonderful places to live, and work, and study, and that might cater to, you know, many people better than the U.S. But by and large, for the masses out there, for what the U.S. can offer to so many, I think it’s not a question of having a rival. It just stands quite apart. And so, that became sort of the fundamental mission of the firm, you know, was I going to build a business? Yes, of course. But was the mission strong enough to make it, you know, not just a going concern, but an enduring institution? And if our business is really built on helping families achieve their American dream, not too many things were more enduring than that.
Interviewer: I think there’s something really beautiful about how you took your inspiration of your dad’s purpose and how your father embodied that, and you found your own interpretation of that, that it’s just as meaningful, just a completely different venue. That’s really…that’s wonderful.
Suresh: Well, I appreciate that. I mean, it does give me a lot of pride. And that’s not the easiest thing to come by. And I do, you know, take a lot of care, and caution, and concern about decisions on the business because it impacts so many folks. We now have about 850 clients, you know, almost 1000 clients from around the world, from more than 30 countries. And what they are looking to LCR to do for them is likely to be one of the top two, three, at most five biggest decisions of their families’ lives, essentially a strategic family decision about where to live, work, and learn. That is a huge responsibility because if we don’t do it right, it’s not about a business opportunity lost, it’s about a lot of hopes and dreams that aren’t realized or not realized as quickly as hoped.
Interviewer: Yeah. The weight of that, it’s not to be lost. I mean, this is heavy, and it’s impactful, and there’s a tremendous amount of upside to it generationally. I mean, it’s not just, you know, the people that come, it’s their families, and their families, and their families.
Suresh: Very much a ripple effect.
Interviewer: Pretty much.
Suresh: Right. It’s the single pebble in the pond. You know, I don’t know what my clients are going to do 5 years from now, 10 years from now. What I do know, that’s not how you measure it. It really is about…it begins here when they arrive. And, you know, there’s not…I don’t know the statistics on this, so I’m speculating, but I don’t believe there are a lot of families that came to America, got their Green Cards, got their citizenship, and then decided to leave. I think a lot of families going into many other countries describe that same way. Do you find cause to leave, need to leave? That hasn’t been the U.S. in 200 years. So, I believe that it will be a significant part of, sort of, the latter half of my professional career when I can really focus on those families after having delivered that value proposition to them. I think I’m headed in the right direction. I think we’re doing some great things for a lot of people, but until we see it through, and it’s a lengthy process, you know, we can’t lay back on our own oars. So, we’re moving every day, more and more of our clients are getting their Green Cards, coming to the U.S. And when you hear from them at that moment, or you get the picture of them, you know, holding their approved paperwork, and that smile is just a little bit broader, a little bit brighter than they usually do. Yeah, it’s hard to describe how rewarding that can be.
Interviewer: I was working with kids at a not-for-profit that helps with immigration, and we were working on a timeline project. It was a volunteer thing. And, you know, you have a little line, and then you have a dot, and this is the day I was born. Then you have a dot, that will be the end. And the biggest dot that any of those kids drew was the day that they came to America. And I would imagine that so many of the LCR families would have a big dot there too, maybe the biggest dot.
Suresh: Maybe, I hope that’s the case. I do feel that my team, which is a global team, you know, we’re not just made up of immigrants to the U.S. or U.S. citizens, but we’ve got folks from many countries. I think each of us, when we get the news that one of our clients has, you know, received the approval to come to the U.S., the Green Card, it’s just such a great feeling for everybody involved, even members of the team that themselves may not have come to the U.S. yet or have aspirations of doing that. They just know how important it is for that family. You know, they’ve been working with that family for years, you know, getting texts, and emails, and calls in the middle of the night, and nervously watching every U.S. headline on elections and immigration. And, you know, you’re holding your breath for years. And when your client is happy, you breathe the sigh of relief and you really can enjoy things.
Interviewer: When you think about the future for LCR, what are you most excited about?
Suresh: Well, I’ve always been, you know, very much focused on the president executing the game plan that I set five years ago. I always, though, look to, you know, what I think is going to be the next big thing for LCR. And it has to be adjacent to our core mission and to our core activities. We don’t wanna go too far afield. We have the opportunity to do that. We, as a firm, because of the folks that we interface with both individual clients, as well as the different channels and partners that bring us to them, we see a lot, and we get exposed to a lot of opportunities. We have some amazing people that come to us with great opportunities to, you know, want to jointly explore. So, there is a tremendous amount of things that might take one’s attention off of matters of the day. So, it is an effort to stay focused on what you do, what you do well, and what you can do well in the future. And one of the areas that I think is very exciting for the firm is… Because of the nature of our business, our clients generally are from wealthy backgrounds, high-educated, and they’ve made their wealth in a variety of different ways, generational family wealth, or they built businesses as entrepreneurs that generate a lot of wealth for them. What they don’t really have a lot of, in many countries, is wealth management.
There isn’t the industry, there isn’t the learning, the theory behind it, the markets behind it. And many of our clients are effectively 100% indexed to their own economies in terms of, you know, their wealth. And that is, you know, not the right thing to do. And they may know it. In fact, most of them do know it, but it’s a situation of, you know, who can they go to in their home countries that can help with that? And what’s been a real learning surprise, very unexpected, is to find out that even the most sophisticated clients of ours have difficulty accessing good wealth management advisory services. And I do believe that is going to be an area of calling for us. We have clients that want us to assist in that activity. And all of the analysis and study at our side suggests that’s the right thing for the firm to aspire to do, but what’s very, very clear is you can’t jump into that. You have to build that capability, that understanding, and that takes time. That takes a lot of patience, gotta develop skills internally, you have to bring in skills and capability. You have to understand how best to meet the individual needs of clients from 30-plus countries. That’s a long work stream. And so, it’s underway. I can’t say when we’ll be in a position to say we’re an established wealth management firm, but it has become, you know, more than aspirational. It’s an area that’s occupying more and more of my time. And I feel very good about it because I think we can provide our clients with a lot of value in an area of significant need.
Interviewer: Definitely. And it is adjacent mission-wise in terms of helping people achieve what they can with what they have.
Suresh: It never comes up as part of the initial discussions, right? You’re very focused on the here and now, you’re very focused on a specific investment, but what you see is when they’re making, you know, such a long-term strategic bet for the family to go to the U.S. and, you know, put aside a significant amount of their own wealth to do so, to participate in the EB-5 program, how they manage the rest of their wealth becomes that much more critical and important for them to take great care with. And, you know, that is probably not something that they did a lot of planning around. And so, when the need arises, you know, looking around their own communities, it’s not the easiest thing to have those discussions with folks around you when either the industry doesn’t exist or, frankly, a lot of folks don’t want to be sharing what’s a rather personal subject matter that they’re leaving their home countries and immigrating to the U.S. That’s a very private, personal matter, and there’s uncertainty tied to it. So, they don’t know if that’s actually gonna happen. And so, they’re very, you know, cautious about who they would, you know, speak to about that very sensitive matter, and more in the middle of those discussions. And our activity with our clients isn’t transactional, it’s not temporal. It is, we start a discussion, somebody is interested. The cycle to get somebody from that point to actually investing and coming on board is measured in many, many months, not days or weeks. And then from that point to the end of the cycle of them actually coming to the U.S. and getting their investments back is measured in years five to seven. So, we’re connected with these folks, rather intimately, for a long period of time. And so, we really do understand, you know, what’s going on in their lives that really has an implication on their wealth and vice versa.
Interviewer: And you’ve built such a rapport of trust in that timeline.
Suresh: Yes. I mean, this is probably the most trust-based business I’ve ever seen. You’re basically looking to find somebody from the other side of the planet that’s never met you before, and convince them to invest in a project you identified and developed in the U.S., you know, close to $1 million. And you’re saying, “The timeline’s five to seven years before, you know, you made the right decision.” That is not an easy thing to get anyone to do, even if they do know you well. And, you know, our clients are folks we don’t know. We did not know them really before our first outreach via an EB-5, you know, effort. So, it is very much a trust-based relationship, and those are hard to earn and very easily lost. And that’s the math that has to guide all of us.
Interviewer: I wanna get into… This is a very tactical question. I’m just curious, why LCR Capital?
Suresh: Sure. So, nothing terribly complicated about it, but I’d always thought that when I sort of built the last company, started the last company, that I wanted to be sort of where I aspirationally, you know, retired, that it would represent very much what’s most important to me, and that’s my family. And so, LCR, really, that’s the initials of my children and, you know, my last name, my son [inaudible 00:31:13], and my daughter [inaudible 00:31:15], last name Rajan. And so, you know, bearing their initials, you know, frankly, has an impact, on how I view the company and the decisions it makes, it reflects on their name, and that will be a permanent condition. I think it helps me define what I need to do every day and helps me make some tough decisions at times and to, you know, “How do I want my firm to be viewed, and how do I want my kids to be viewed when their names attach to it?” You know, I might not have put that much thought into it initially, but it certainly has played out, you know, very much like that. You know, this firm represents my family, and I need to protect that.
Interviewer: It resonates. I think that’s something that’s really lovely and that you can feel the connection that you have with not just, you know, what you’ve created, but with the people that benefit from the creation.
Suresh: Yes. I agree.
Interviewer: What are you learning or what have you learned over the last, you know, decade of doing this work with LCR clients from around the world that maybe surprised you a bit?
Suresh: Well, I think a couple things. Even though I knew it, it’s still surprising. It’s still impactful to be across the table from an individual or family and hear how passionate they are about the thought of moving to America. And, you know, my business is all about that. My life has been all about that. Naturally, that’s something that I really know and appreciate. Yet it doesn’t matter, though, every time you hear it from someone, a family, the way it’s conveyed over is unique. It’s something so core to, you know, their hopes and dreams that you really…we’re very lucky in that we sort of get a resetting of what’s important for us almost daily, right? Because we’re seeing it from our clients’ eyes. And I find that, you know, very, very surprising. I shouldn’t. And every time I go out and, you know, meet with clients, it’s the same. I see their reaction, which is the same that I’ve seen with so many, that’s how passionate they are, but how it resonates with me, how it impacts me is, “Is this what I should be doing with my life?” The answer is a hard yes every time I’m out there. And so, I’ve found that a bit surprising. I didn’t think it would be so novel to me always. And that’s how it’s turned out. You know, there are certain, you know, challenges or learnings that were unexpected as any business might have. You know, when I was evaluating going into this industry, the EB-5 program had been…
Okay. As I said earlier, it started in 1991, but it’s not a permanent program. It was renewed on a three-year basis since 1991. In 2012, about the time when I was making the decision to pursue this path, EB-5 was effectively passed by the U.S. Senate with a vote of 98 to 0. So, it had very, very strong bipartisan support. That was 2012. By 2015, its next renewal, the program almost expired. And in that three-year window, the environment around immigration and the thinking, the beliefs, the perceptions had changed so much that a program that had, you know, almost complete 100% support across by both parties was on life support just 3 years later. And that was a shock. That was a shock, how something that had been, you know, so effective and raising money for American businesses and creating jobs, how it can be made vulnerable given certain political headwinds. And, of course, that’s a learning that, you know, continues today. It was completely unexpected. It wasn’t part of my risk factors that I identified writing the business plan, but it’s turned out to be, you know, one of the more significant ones that influences the business day-to-day.
Interviewer: I think it’s good to address that because, you know, any immigration path into the United States carries with it risks. How do you feel that the risks of an EB-5 program compare to other options?
Suresh: So, EB-5, when you’re evaluating an investment, any investment, you’re identifying first what your principal return expectation is, why are you making the investment, for what principal benefit? And then the other part is, you know, what risks to the capital are you taking by putting it out there? And for EB-5, the principal benefit is the ability to immigrate to the U.S., to live, work, and study here in the U.S. That is the end goal. It is not about an economic payoff. You know, the clients are wealthy, you know, they’ve made their money, they’ve made their wealth, they have businesses that are ongoing in their home countries. This is about the immigration benefit. And when people are evaluating EB-5 or other ways to enter the U.S. or other ways to enter other countries, there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty. Things like the H-1B is not a permanent visa into the U.S. It’s done on a lottery basis, a lottery that’s getting harder and harder by the year to win. You know, other visa categories, again, done on a limited basis for schooling, or OPT, or, you know, they all have different requirements. Some are very specific and some are, you know, by chance, like a lottery. EB-5 isn’t that. It’s very specific as to what you need to achieve in order to secure the EB-5 visa. Very straightforward, you know, you have to invest a certain amount of money, mostly right now, the investment levels are at the lower end $900,000, on the upper end is $1.8 million. But it’s investing that $900,000 into a U.S. business or a real estate project for a substantial amount of time, five to seven years. And that project or business has to create and sustain 10 new American jobs, very specific.
So, if you’ve invested the right amount into an approved project, and that project creates the necessary jobs and sustains it over the right amount of time, the investor and his or her spouse, their children under the age of 21, unmarried, have the opportunity to come to the U.S. under a Green Card so long as they’ve not violated other immigration laws or having, you know, some other issues related with their immigration profile. That’s a very short set of very specific things that need to be achieved for the EB-5 investor. They’re not insignificant, $900,000 is a lot of money here, is even more money in the rest of the world. Five to seven-year commitment is a long time to be without that capital, having it be at risk in the U.S. And creating 10 jobs and maintaining it for a long period of time isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially in days like now, or unemployment is 15% and going to 20%, perhaps higher, maintaining a business, let alone creating it or expanding it, is challenging. So, it isn’t the easiest way to enter the U.S. from an investment level. It is substantial, but from a, “What do I need to deliver? What are the metrics I need to meet?” It’s far more specific and manageable than most other methods by which an immigrant might consider applying to the U.S.
And importantly, looking at the program over the course of almost 3 decades since 1991, the approval rates for EB-5 investors making their investments and ultimately getting their Green Card is in the 90% range. So, you know, how many investments do you know that 90% of the time it’s delivering what you expected? That’s not common, especially over a 30-year period. So, I think investors can take a lot of comfort in that the program isn’t new, it’s been around a long time, and the participants in this industry are well-established, I mean, you can understand who you’re working with and what projects they’re bringing to the table. So, I think it is always a challenge to talk to somebody about the risk to immigration and the, you know, chances of getting in, especially when we’re in the environment we’re in, globally, on immigration. But I think investors that really kind of look into the data, you know, study what’s happened over the years, I think they take a lot of comfort in seeing the success rate of tens of thousands of EB-5 investors, you know, over the course of…in the last 30 years, particularly in the last 10, and how successful they’ve been in achieving their aspirations.
Interviewer: Wonderful. I’d love to know a little bit about who you are outside of the work.
Suresh: So, outside of work, what is that like? You know, having been a serial entrepreneur, frankly, since I was in my mid-20s, I really have a hard time picking out a meaningful amount of time where I just sort of wasn’t doing work. It just wasn’t there. And especially with LCR, with such a mandate in a global proposition, it’s been…there hasn’t been a lot of time that’s not focused on work. But being a father, being at home a lot more now with COVID, it’s been…it’s hard to use this word during these times, but it has been a blessing because you get to spend time with family that you haven’t been able to do before, either because of real constraints or easy excuses and, you know, those things are different now. And so, I will say that, you know, in the past, when I had some free time, I would certainly look to my early pleasures in life, which is around sports, you know, following my favorite teams.
But now, as we do some planning going forward, you know, really is about, “Okay, how do we do something special with the family that’s not inside the four walls of our house? And, you know, when can that be?” So, we have spent time as a family, sort of, you know, sitting around the table with a map and saying, “Where next? Where next?” And talking about, you know, different places in the world. My children are young, 6 and 10, and they’ve been to a few places, but not many overseas. And I’ve been fortunate, my wife as well, to have traveled. And so, when you talk to them about, you know, what’s a trip to Europe like versus Southeast Asia, you know, what’s gonna be different there. And it has been [inaudible 00:44:23], even just sharing past experiences and answering their questions. You know, they see me, thank God for FaceTime and other technologies, when I’m traveling around the world. They do get to see a little bit of, you know, not the U.S., not Fairfield County in Connecticut. And, you know, it just spurs a lot of questions, you know, “Daddy, what was it like? What was it like?” And, you know, now we really do have time to actually sit down and talk about it more than superficially, and share more experiences of mine, you know, growing up than, frankly, I’ve done in the past. So, you know, right now it’s very much kind of work and sort of living the COVID reality.
Interviewer: Definitely. Suresh, thank you so much for your time today. I know that we’ve hit right up to the top of the hour. I really appreciate it. I found this conversation to be so interesting, and I really appreciate you sharing so candidly.
Interviewer: I appreciate that. It was lovely talking to you, and I appreciate all the time.
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