Jo Swinson, Director of Partners for a New Economy and former Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the UK, joins Alberto Lidji to discuss transforming traditional economics to tackle the SDGs.
Partners for a New Economy is a donor collaborative founded by the Oak, MAVA, Marisla and KR foundations, and today also includes the Ford Foundation and Laudes Foundation.
This conversation is for anyone who believes existing economic systems need to be improved if society is to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals and meet the challenges of the 21st Century.
Jo Swinson is the former leader of the Liberal Democrats in the United Kingdom. From 2012-2015, she served as Business Minister in the UK, and in 2009, she co-founded a cross-party group of MPs to work collaboratively on new economic thinking and well-being economics.
In this fascinating conversation, Jo sheds light on her current work, political experience and her personal narrative.
Episode Transcript
Alberto Lidji: A big, heartfelt welcome onto The Do One Better Podcast today!
Jo Swinson: It's great to be here, Alberto, really delighted to join you as a keen podcast listener myself.
Alberto Lidji: Excellent. So tell us a little bit about Partners for a New Economy. What's the organization al about?
Jo Swinson: So, Partners for a New Economy is a collaboration of donors, , of philanthropists who recognise that the root cause of many of the problems that we are facing is in our economic system, the fundamentals, the wiring of how things operate, the assumptions that we have of, you know, whether in a business should only be for profit. And whether individuals pursuing, you know, selfish ends actually ends up in the best outcome for everyone. And we want to challenge that. We think that there is a better economic system that can be designed and that, that will be able to result in nature and all people flourishing. And so we've been around for about six years. Initially, then it was four different philanthropic foundations that came together (Oak Foundation; MAVA Foundation; Marisla Foundation; KR Foundation).
We've since grown and welcomed the Laudes Foundation and the Ford foundation. So we're now six strong and also seeing many more philanthropic organizations turning their attention to the deeper economic systems change that is driving us to the climate crisis that is so detrimental to our natural environment.
And you know, these are ultimately existential issues for us. And instead of just addressing the symptoms, we really need to look at the root causes and an accelerate systems change. And one of the interesting challenges is... it's quite straightforward for people to look at the system as it is and say, look, this is broken. It's not working. It's not working for people. It's not working for our natural world.
What's harder, of course is to imagine something new and to say, this is how we can create something better. And that's what many of the organizations that we make grants to are doing in all sorts of different ways. And we've currently got about 30 different organizations that receive funding from us. And, obviously on an ongoing basis, we're always finding new people and projects to support
Alberto Lidji: Great stuff. What are some of those challenges that you're really putting your attention to?
Jo Swinson: So I think it doesn't really matter where you look we're facing multiple crises. So I mentioned already the climate crisis, which is obviously very well-documented. We've got the COP26 coming up later this year. I think increasingly attention... is recognising the nature crisis, you know, the mass extinctions that are happening, the problems with the loss of habitat and ecosystem collapse. And that, of course we can't predict exactly in what ways that has an impact, but we're in the middle of a global pandemic and the spread of zoonotic diseases is one of the major threats that we face.
So, there's all sorts of ways in which the actions that we're taking are resulting in changes that then rebound on us now and indeed for future generations. And at the same time, we are obviously living through the pandemic crisis and that comes on top of existing, massive social challenges. You know, so many people, I mean, I'm sitting here in London and it's true in the UK, as it is in every country in the world, you're living without the enough ability to feed themselves and their family. And obviously that is even more acute in many parts of the world. We've seen a kind of inspiring year of protests to demand racial justice. But of course, you know, rooted in centuries of, kind of colonialism and discrimination. And we're still living in a society where in every single country in the world, the power is disproportionately held in the hands of man. And, indeed, you know, the worst impacts of things like climate change and destruction of natural ecosystems, you know, hit the poorest first; hit women and children first. So these are multiple crises and we need to be addressing them in a joined up way. And that's what I'm really excited about doing, about trying to make sure we can bring these different movements together and also see the opportunities of creating solutions, which are not saying well, let's just focus on climate but saying, okay, if we're going to be trying to make sure that we are decarbonising, how do we do that in a way that is regenerative for our natural world? How do we do that in a way that is just to make sure that we write many of the wrongs of the past in terms of our social relationships with one another.
And I think that's actually a very exciting prospect. I mean, that's a project that is inspiring for many people. I mean, it's also full of uncertainty. We don't have all the answers yet. And that's why, you know, it's there waiting to be created. As I say, we're funding lots of people and organizations that are doing amazing work and we hope that that work will grow, that there will be more people brought to those challenges. But the ingenuity of us when we're collaboratively working with one another to solve major challenges and imagine something better is absolutely there.
Alberto Lidji: Tell me a little bit about some of those grants that you're talking about. And I noticed, you like to take a bit of risk. Innovation is something that you have ingrained as well. And you're connecting people. You're inspiring people. I'd love to find out a little bit about the grants that you're making.
Jo Swinson: Yeah. So we take the view that in order to create change within a system, you need lots of different people trying to make different changes.
But the part that we are focused on is trying to see where the edges and the frontiers are and how can we expand those? So taking the emerging ideas and nurturing them and giving them the chance to grow and to develop. So that they can move towards the mainstream. You can see this on all sorts of different occasions in the past where things started out as being unthinkable and, you know, within a small number of years became very straightforward.
In many countries, you know, the, the pursuit of gay rights, for example, you know we moved from literally not being able to talk about gay relationships in schools when I was growing up to civil partnerships and then gay marriage. You see that progress again on climate. I mean, the Stern (Nick Stern) review was 15 years ago and, you know, still not being taken as seriously enough for some time after that.
But now...solutions, not all there absolutely, but very much part of the mainstream discussion. Whether that's within politics or business or the media and more widely in our culture. So it's about taking things from the edge and moving them to the mainstream. When we're working with you know, student groups like, in the UK, Rethinking Economics, although it's an international movement, we also, support a German group called Netzwerk Plurale Ökonomik, that's doing a similar thing.
They're saying to their, you know, economics tutors that what they're learning is not good enough because it's not taking a holistic view. It's not seeing how economics plays out in the real world. It's not considering ecological economics or a feminist economics, and they need to have a different curriculum.
And that's gaining a lot of momentum and we also fund the beginnings of that kind of new curriculum. There's a new account economics curriculum called Core which is now being taught in hundreds of universities. And is a great kind of step on reforming economics education. So, I mean, that's something which is quite forward-thinking.
At the end of the day, the idea is people learn in university, go on to shape their views. When they move into business finance, the media, you know, policymaking, whatever roles they're working in later on.
We've done a huge amount of work with organizations funding them on central banking reform. And in a very early on like back five years ago, six years ago, when those first grants were made by my predecessor, Leslie Harroun, she was very visionary in recognizing the potential of central banks to move the needle on sustainability and organizations, like Positive Money, based in the UK and now with an EU operation and moving towards the U S. The Council on Economic Policies and the New Economics Foundation, the Institute for Innovation and Public Policy, they have all been working on how to move central banking towards sustainability. And obviously that has dovetailed with key individuals within the central banking world also wanting to move in that direction. And you now have more than 90 central banks signed up to the Network for Greening the Financial System.
So, I mean, that's probably an area where there's been the swiftets progress in a relatively short time. And then, you know, when we're even working with, you know, we, we support the OECD. They have a unit which is the New Approaches to Economic Challenges. And the OECD is not where you would expect to be, perhaps the bastion of innovative economic thinking. But there's a great team there and really lots of very enthusiastic policy officials and indeed ambassadors from different countries who are, you know, developing that thinking and creating those networks to challenge the orthodoxy, which has got us to where we are now and is shown to have failed.
So, you know, whether it's student groups or whether it's, you know, very traditional institutions, but being open to change, we're trying to find the individuals and the projects that are driving that forward.
We've got within retail banking, if you like, and bank lending the Climate Safe Lending Network and the Finance Innovation Lab that are, you know, working with people. And many people who are within existing large banks and, or intrepreneurs, you know, they're working from within to create change and, you know, getting in some cases increasingly quite a lot of traction to get banks onto a pathway and to get the money away from, you know, the, the fossil fuels, new investment in fossil fuels.
I mean, even the IEA has come out and said that we need to stop having new fossil fuel investment. And so we need the financial flows to back that up and to be flowing towards the future technologies and innovations and not reinforcing the old technology, which whatever discussion and debate you have about how you phase out the existing fossil fuel capacity, you know, the science is very clear that we absolutely need not to be investing in the new capacity.
Alberto Lidji: And speaking of banks and financial institutions, these systems, they wield a great influence over the environmental and social impact of companies and markets. How can you achieve that goal of making the monetary and credit systems more accountable?
Jo Swinson: I think what's really interesting in thinking about how do you achieve systemic change is to recognize that what you're dealing with is not a problem of kind of people being evil. You know, it's not like there's some James Bond villain somewhere, you know, stroking a white cat coming up with ways to pollute the world. You've got a real systemic problem. So even when people try to make a change, they can often find themselves just kind of... this system is brittle. They come up against these barriers. And something breaks and, you know, maybe they burn out or they get fired or whatever. So what I think you have to do is to try to get a lot of different parts of the system to move at the same time. So if you're looking at finance or business, it's not enough to just get chief execs of banks or companies to embrace change.
Yes, that's necessary, but you need to look at the wider boards of those companies, you need to look at the governance and the shareholders, which means you also need to look at what the investors decisions are doing. And one of the grants that we have made is to a campaigning organization called Majority Action. And what they do is they mobilise shareholders to vote down the reappointment of directors, where companies are not properly demonstrating a solid pathway to a future, which is livable. So you've got to do the kind of the leadership in the business; you've got to do the investors; you also have to make some progress with the regulators or the politicians, depending on the particular systems.
And ultimately another part of this is the public, you know, all of us, we all have our roles, whether that's as consumers, when we're making decisions about what products we buy, what banks we use. And I think people can often feel very atomized. Like, you know, they on their own, can't make a difference, which is entirely understandable because it's this big kind of Behemoth of a system. But if you can find ways for people to operate together, then there is the possibility to create more change and, you know, Make My Money Matter is a sort of example of a campaign, currently, particularly focused on the UK and the pensions industry to get people to say, where is my pension invested? ...you know, this is my money. This is my money. And it's my future. And if, if my future pension savings are invested heavily in fossil fuel and carbon intensive industries, then I might be getting a return so I can have some money in retirement, but what's the world I'm going to be living in going to be like.
So, you know, how do you change those things, it has to be all of the different elements of the system that you're working on at the same time. Otherwise, things just kind of break off and it doesn't really work because even when you have good people trying to change the system, it's hard. So you need people in different areas to be giving each other, the space to move.
Alberto Lidji: Speaking of people, finance, corporates, one of those reoccurring themes that I hear over and over again, is about income inequality and how stark that is and how that's increasing.
Jo Swinson: I don't think you can divide these different crises from one another and we're not going to resolve the climate crisis or the nature crisis if we don't recognize that the crisis and inequality is part of that. So the future we create genuinely has to work so much better for people because the deal that many people have had up till now, you know, apart from the kind of the wealthiest few... that deal hasn't been working for them.
So you have to address it together. And it's also about us asking the question, you know, what are our goals to society? Like, what are we trying to achieve? And, you know, for so long, It's been like governments have sort of pursued GDP growth as if that is a proxy for success for a country.
And we all know, I mean, the analysis has been around for decades of how inaccurate and how pointless that is to try to use that as one figure that covers everything when crime and environmental disaster adds to GDP.... and the support, the voluntary support that you give to your neighbors in the COVID pandemic, you know, it doesn't show up at all.
Yet, we've all realised has been absolutely essential. So it doesn't count the things that matter as Robert Kennedy said so eloquently said back in the 1960s, but it's been very difficult to shake it as, you know, the economic growth figures being what matters. So I think government needs to significantly pivot away to considering wider wellbeing metrics of people, and indeed over our natural world that we are part of, you know, nature isn't something separate.
I've been interested in, you know, what alternatives and how'd you create alternatives to GDP ... for 15 or more years. It's got a long history but I think it really is, is coming into its own. And if you start from that premise of prioritizing well-being then you end up with quite a lot of different decisions, which go far beyond how you change the tax take and what those policies are. And places like New Zealand have been implementing wellbeing budgets... There's a group of five countries that are in the Wellbeing Economy Governments initiative.
That is the Wellbeing Economy Alliance is one of the organizations we support have been helping to get off the ground. So that's New Zealand and Scotland and Iceland and Finland and Wales. And so I think you can start to see the seeds of what something new would look like, but we are, I would say in the early stages of that as well.
Alberto Lidji: So, if I understand everything correctly from your side, it's not so much as a specific thematic focus, as opposed to identifying innovative ideas with potential to truly transform the reality in which we live. And let me ask you from that, two questions: How did these originally for now six foundations come together? And how can somebody get involved if what you're saying resonates?
Jo Swinson: So obviously it was before my time, but there the initial, four foundations, you know, many of the people there had already been collaborating on issues around environmental protection. Indeed, that was what was the stimulus for saying look we've been funding these projects on, you know, marine pollution and protecting nature... and those projects might have been successful in and of themselves. But the problem still getting worse. So why is that? Why have these projects not been addressing the core problem? And that's what led to those deeper conversations and the decision to try to do something more ambitious about fundamentally changing our economy.
Those four foundations of MAVA, Oak, KR and Marisla were the initial four, but there's many that in more recent years have started to look at these issues and Laudes and Ford joined us last year. But you know, if you look, I mean, I know you've spoken to Larry Kramer at Hewlett, who have their whole Economy and Society Initiative that has been going for some time, but particularly majorly launched last year. Omydiar Network with Reimagining Capitalism and OSF and CIFF... there are a lot of these organizations that are thinking through these issues and I find myself, you know, collaborating on zoom calls and I really looking forward to actually meeting many of these people in person when, when that becomes possible.
I think there is a lot of energy around this as people realize that it's a more fundamental issue with the system. So, I mean, anyone that's interested, I mean, you know, Partners for a New Economy is a really great kind of learning community where we, we recognize we don't have all of the answers to this, but we've already identified some really exciting projects and supported them. And, you know, as we learn, we were able to identify more. And of course, you know, we want to be able to support more of these initiatives. So whether it's, you know, co-funding opportunities or whether it's, you know, being involved in the Partnership for a New Economy itself, we're very welcoming and open to others, if people want to get in touch and have those conversations.
And I do think collaborating and connecting people both within the funder community. And also within the communities of, you know, NGOs and civil society and campaigners and activists is absolutely essential because it's when everybody is divided, that it's easy for the status quo to prevail.
Changing existing power structures is difficult, you know, power protects itself. And I think philanthropy is in a really interesting position. Because it does have the potential to be more innovative, to be really effective, to be able to direct resources to places where, you know, they wouldn't necessarily be able to go through all of the accountability hoops that need to happen for public money.
These obviously might be organizations where there isn't going to be a private investment case in terms of generating a return. But philanthropy is in that position where, you know, it can take a bold ambitious step and really help get some of these initiatives off the ground and nurtured to help to create that better future.
I think that's quite an exciting space to be. Albeit it's perhaps a slightly different way of looking at philanthropy from perhaps the KPI, you know, approach that was quite prevalent in recent years, but I think it's one that will actually deliver a much more long lasting and exciting change.
Alberto Lidji: I think it's quite exciting. So you're still fairly small in terms of the number of constituents. I think you have, you mentioned, six foundations. Does that mean then that you can be flexible and creative in terms of if somebody reaches out to you and they say, look, I'd like to get involved somehow. I imagine it's not a highly regimented, highly prescriptive option, but you could probably work with somebody with whatever they might have in mind and try to see how you can align together?
Jo Swinson: Yeah, I think there's lots of different ways in which that can happen. As I say, either in terms of, you know, we've obviously had two new foundations who joined us last year and that was absolutely wonderful and there are lots of foundations. We also work with... on a more informal basis and like sharing, you know, here's a great idea for a project... You know, we're funding this, have you thought about whether you might be able to fund it as well? I think growing that network and those links is, is always positive.
Alberto Lidji: So tell me a little bit about your trajectory. Give us a little bit of insight about Jo. How did you get to where you are today and what was that like? What was that route like?
Jo Swinson: Yeah, if I if I trace back to my childhood in the 1980s, you know, I always railed against authority, wanted to [focus on] things where there was injustice to change. And my heroine growing up was Anita Roddick. And this was in the heyday of the Body Shop with the little basket that you would go around and you'd get fruit shaped soaps and you'd create a little gift for your friends and then you get to the tilt to pay and you'd have to sign a petition. I mean, it wasn't entirely mandatory, but it kind of almost was. And it was a great introduction to campaigning because Anita Roddick's vision was that, you know, business and indeed anything, you know, you know, we're here on this world and we should be trying to challenge what is not right. And to make it better, whether that was unfair pay for the, you know, the women who were producing the cocoa butter that was being used at the products or whether it was, you know, the way in which animals were treated in the cosmetics industry or the way in which packaging and, you know the kind of the use of resources was happening. I mean, she was a real trailblazer and that kind of led me to basically campaigning and activism.
And then I joined the Liberal Democrats when I got to university. And from there got more and more involved while I was pursuing my career in business and marketing. And then encouraged to stand for parliament and sort of got the bug really, and realized that I really wanted to change the world.
That was going to be perhaps a bit more difficult to do when I was spending my day job marketing a pop music radio station, it might be more fun to be involved in campaigning. And so I then, you know, worked very hard... Also had a degree of good fortune in terms of, you know, my home seat having some boundaries redrawn and became a lipLibDem MP at the age of 25.
And at the time was the youngest MP in the UK. And had in total 12 years in Parliament including, you know, five years when my party was in government. And I had the great privilege of being able to serve in government as a business minister and, you know, introduce, you know, shared parental leave and win the fight to make sure we got gender pay gap reporting and revamped consumer rights, and all sorts of changes that were, that were possible to drive through, but also recognised, you know, what the constraints and the challenges are in how government is able to, do things. And I think that's very helpful to draw on. But you know, I was also challenging GDP as a measure of progress and I helped to set up the all party group on wellbeing economics back in 2009 when it wasn't very, uh, I mean, it was the kind of subject that people sort of looked at you and, and sort of said the wellbeing what, like, what you talking about?
It was certainly not seen as mainstream if I could put it that way. So it's great to see more energy in that now. Obviously I then became leader of the Lib Dems in 2019 and fought the General Election. You know as I still believe strongly that the UK was better off inside the European Union, working with other countries to be able to tackle all of these, you know, huge challenges rather than plowing our own furrow and being more isolated from other countries. The British post, like obviously felt differently about that.
And so I moved on to a new challenge, but what I think is really interesting was despite spending so much of late 2019 talking about Brexit because that was, you know, the overarching, dominant discussion of politics. I was also really interested in the campaign when I was talking about how we needed to reshape the economy so it worked for people and planet. And I was really aware that we had some good policies in our manifesto about insuring businesses should have to say what their purpose was beyond making money and in climate risk disclosure in financial services. We had some good policies, but I also knew that we didn't have the whole answer and I sort of was really interested in... and I remember saying, you know, after the election I really want to spend more time, you know, getting into all of that detail and helping to work at some of the policy solutions. Because I don't think anywhere they've got the prescription for that totally sussed.
I think Biden's doing some really interesting stuff but basically trying to sort of build the plane as he's flying it. Taking some quite radical stances which is great, but it's not like it's fully fledged.
As I say, I do think within the UK, that that program has been properly developed. And I think the reason for that is that we're kind of operating within this old paradigm that doesn't really. It doesn't really work for the types of solutions that we need. And so we're not just trying to think up some new policies. It's actually about trying to move to a different way of thinking about our economy, thinking about the world, and that is fundamentally quite hard to do, but it's a really stimulating challenge.
Alberto Lidji: And indeed, it's all about thinking, right. It is a very complex environment and we certainly don't have all the answers and certainly, even amongst the guests that I've had and people who you know, who are running foundations. If we were to ask the question about a billion dollar endowment and do you divest from fossil fuels or not, and do you do it immediately or not? And all of these things, there's no consensus, but I think there's a genuine desire to get to the bottom of what could work. Ultimately, I think the destination, there's agreement on, but the route, maybe there are some differences there.
Jo Swinson: I totally agree. So I think painting a vision of a world where, you know, people can... I mean the doughnut I mean, Doughnut Economics Action Lab is another amazing organization that we fund with Kate Rayworth and Carlota Sanz.
You know, the doughnut is such a simple concept that in the middle, you have this inner ring of the basic foundation what is needed for dignity in human living. And that's about access to water and to food and equality and basic human kind of resources and needs. And then on the outer ring, you have these planetary boundaries, which Johan Rockstrom has described in such great detail and you need to be able to meet human needs, but not exceed planetary boundaries, which will lead us to, you know, runaway ecological disaster. And so that is basically the vision of what we're trying to achieve, but how do you get from a system that is by its nature extractive; that is by its nature, a very unequal in distribution, where kind of wealth, accumulates more wealth and, you know, people with very little are struggling, in an existence where their next meal is not certain; how do you get from that system, which is so different, to that future, which I think there would be a lot of agreement about trying to create that.
And I suppose the only thing is we don't have an exact kind of step ladder of how to get there, but we have to just keep moving towards that and doing so together and in collaboration. And people will take different views. And I think the movement needs to be broad enough to recognize and to hold those disagreements in a respectful way.
We need to have the kind of radical imaginary kind of no nonsense about the state of emergency that we're in. And we also need some voices that are perhaps closer to where things are currently that can move people and bring people from the current system along. And the challenge that we face collectively is how do we do that with the urgency and speed that this moment requires because we are in an emergency.
Alberto Lidji: Yeah. If you and I are having a coffee, hopefully post pandemic with no social distancing, perhaps 10 years from now, looking back what would success look like to you?
Jo Swinson: So, I mean, I think it's that the edge of what's possible has moved so significantly. So, you know, the discussions that we're having today about nature, where it still feels that that is on the fringes, that there's still people that feel that it's in conflict with development for humanity.
You know, I feel that, that, you know, the idea that we can have progress and, and development and by development, I mean, flourishing and wellbeing, not, you know, economic growth as has previously been defined, but people's life feeling better. Um, I think that we can have that in a way that is regenerative for nature.
And that that is a mainstream concept in a way that climate is, is sort of mainstream today. I think that would be a really important barrier to break through within the next 10 years. I mean, obviously society needs to have transformed in terms of its resource use, in terms of the the way we choose our energy, the way we live and we need to use the opportunity of coming when we do come out of the pandemic and that resetting of norms, to be able to imagine something different.
I mean, you know, 18 months ago, we wouldn't have been able to conceive that you could have suddenly stopped all air travel almost overnight. And although video conferencing was kind of a thing like that could happen, you know, it was still a bit novel. And the idea that you would just have a meeting with somebody on the other side of the world and you know, that that would just be pretty normal, you know, that wasn't there. So that I think shows us how quickly we can actually adapt and change.
You know, the pandemic has been absolutely horrendous in terms of lives lost and suffering. We also need to recognize the lessons that we've learned, which can be helpful as we address these other emergencies.
So I think that mainstreaming of nature, moving that edge... and the other thing I would hope to see as a real integration of just recognising that these crises need to be tackled simultaneously. We can't, you know, sort climate and just go for net zero and, you know, the trap I don't want us to fall into, much as I think net zero can be a kind of simple organizing tool. And I know there's big debates about over optimism we place in sort of carbon sequestration, solutions for that. But there's also a danger that we just optimise for net zero in the way that we've got used to optimising for GDP. And that we don't make sure that that's a just transition and we don't make sure it's one that is protective and regenerative of our natural world.
And so it's not just about replugging into our existing economic system a different variable, it's about reshaping, the..., it's writing a different software program for it. You know, it's kind of fundamentally starting from a different place. So that integration of income, inequality, nature, climate, race and gender equality that integration I would really hope could be...
And it's not about saying everybody has to be, you know, it's not, it's all one big homogenous movement, but it's about saying that the connections between all of those movements are so strong that, you know, you wouldn't think about developing a climate solution without thinking about what that means for indigenous people and racial justice.
Alberto Lidji: Now I always like to ask my guests for a key takeaway. What is that key takeaway that you'd love for the audience to keep in mind after they finish listening to today's episode?
Jo Swinson: I think it's a sense of empowerment that we can do this together. Individually and even more collectively, we all have power in different aspects of our lives.
And although in some ways you can look at the difficulties that we face and you go, oh my goodness, it's the system that's the problem. And the system seems so, you know, immovable, but actually the system was designed by people. And it can be redesigned by people, so we can write a different future for ourselves and for the generations to come if we are prepared to do it together and to step forward together. So I would encourage people to really channel that sense of empowerment and collaboration.
Alberto Lidji: A great takeaway, a good call to action if there ever was one. Jo, it has been such a pleasure speaking with you again, having you on the show. And thank you for the insight and here's to your continued success with this with this venture. I think it's a fascinating stuff and it's still early days.
Jo Swinson: Absolutely. Thanks so much, really good to talk to you, Alberto.