Where Success Meets Success, with Ron Kruszewski | WTP with Mikaela Ep. 12

**Mikaela Shiffrin** (0:00)
What do you think, apres ski in the US or apres in France?

**Ron Kruszewski** (0:04)
You know, it's not even close.

**Mikaela Shiffrin** (0:06)
You know, I think about my life sometimes. I think about this like parallel life where I wasn't a skier, and maybe I did go to college.

**Ron Kruszewski** (0:12)
And the way you disagree will define your success, I promise you that.

**Mikaela Shiffrin** (0:17)
Hosting a podcast, man, it is scary.

**Ron Kruszewski** (0:20)
But she had this pole that she would whack me when she would say, get on your toes.
I get asked this question a lot, and then I'll answer it this way. So what do you, why do you retire?

**Mikaela Shiffrin** (0:32)
Welcome back to What's the Point for our final episode of Season One. For anyone tuning in, I want to thank you for listening, and I hope that you've learned something or felt inspired or maybe taken some time for yourself to reflect on the things that drive you and motivate you in your daily life.
And there's really no better guest to wrap Season One of What's the Point than today's very distinguished guest. He's the reason this podcast's venture really even happened. And if we do have a Season Two, fingers crossed, you can also thank him for that. A large part of the Stifel US. Ski Team's success in recent years is truly because of today's guest. Ron Kruszewski is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Stifel Financial. He's one of the most passionate people I have ever met. He's won several accolades and is on countless boards, and invests deeply in several elite sports including hockey, golf, skiing, soccer, and most recently figure skating with the Stars on Ice Tour. Honestly, I can't keep up, so I don't really even try. Speaking of which, Ron is also quite the skier.
Ron, I can't thank you enough for everything you've done for me throughout my career and for the US. Ski Team, and thank you for joining me today. Welcome to What's the Point.

**Ron Kruszewski** (1:50)
Well, Mikaela, first of all, I have listened to your podcast, and I have been inspired, and it's fantastic to be with you today. I was thinking that you must have, for your last episode, you must have run out of interesting guests. So you called me, because you've had some pretty interesting guests on this, and let's see if I can even get close to what some of your other guests have been able to contribute.

**Mikaela Shiffrin** (2:17)
Well, it's been great. We've had great guests, but I think we've had you on the guest list since the beginning. I think this is the first conversation I'm going to have with somebody who's, I mean, you're very involved in the snow sports world. You're very involved with ski racing, obviously. So it's like one degree removed, but for somebody who has such an incredible background in business and finance, so this is really exciting for me. First things first, we're going to start with a faster, always rapid fire segment, which is presented by Atomic.
So I was just wondering, I have a couple for you. I think you might have a couple rapid fire for me. So we'll just get into it.

**Ron Kruszewski** (2:59)
Fire.

**Mikaela Shiffrin** (3:00)
What's your favorite ski destination?

**Ron Kruszewski** (3:03)
Well, I ski out of Vail, and so the back bowls of Vail when there's snow, you know this, Mikaela, is I hate to go to the home field advantage, but I love Colorado. But in Europe, obviously, Courcheval and St. Moretz have their own special things.
But I'm going to go to my hometown course and tell you that if I'm going to go skiing, I'll meet you in Blue Sky.

**Mikaela Shiffrin** (3:33)
Okay. Blue Sky.
I have a lot of fond memories of Blue Sky, that's for sure. What's your favorite World Cup destination?

**Ron Kruszewski** (3:41)
Well, that's interesting. I thought about, let me think about that. Certainly, for the event, the men's event in Kitspeel, which I've made for the last few years, there's nothing like that. I wish more Americans could see the passion of skiing at Kitspeel as you know, and that weekend is always fun.
But also, I have fond, fond memories, and I love to go to Killington. I go to Killington every year. That's usually where I run into you for the first time. And the New Yorkers, the people that run up there. And I think that we're going to really get something special in the US with the World Cup Finals in Sun Valley. I think that we did a really good job and now we're going to get them again this year. It was unbelievable. So that's what we're going to do. And those are my places, St. Moritz. I mean, look, I can name a lot of them, but I like to ski.