Special Mini Episode | Ruby Keys, Geraci LLP

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We’re dropping this mini episode in your feed to give some insight into Captivate, Geracicon’s upcoming private lending event. Kevin is joined by Ruby Keys, Geraci’s event extraordinaire, to discuss why it is a perfect opportunity for our listeners. Listen in to learn about the event’s capital-raising theme, nationwide attendee presence, and success stories from past years (including Kevin’s!).

Captivate will take place August 21-23, 2022 at the Encore at Wynn in Las Vegas, NV.

More info and registration can be found at our website: https://geracicon.com/captivate

Ruby Keys is the Vice President of Geraci Media. She joined the firm in 2015 to help build and grow the marketing department and launch Geraci Media. She started out as the Marketing Coordinator and was promoted to Marketing Director for Geraci Law Firm in 2016. In 2018, Ruby shifted her focus to Geraci Media, taking on the role as Vice President to expand our event line and launch new initiatives within the company.

Throughout her time, Ruby has helped grow and manage Geraci Media to where they now host both in-person and virtual conferences and produce a magazine for the private lending industry.

As she enters her 7th year at Geraci, Ruby’s focus is to manage and expand our conference line, create, and nourish industry partnerships, plan external events with industry leading companies, and assist the marketing team when needed. At the end of 2021, she helped launch the Women in Private Lending Group, which she is excited to see grow in the coming years!

Episode Transcript

You’re listening to Lender Lounge with Kevin Kim, a podcast dedicated to the private lending industry. I’m Kevin Kim. And my goal is sit down with key figures in the private lending industry to talk about their business and their personal lives. We’ll get their takes on market conditions, the industry at large, and their personal stories. Overall, I really want to learn more about how they started and grew their businesses. So whether you’re a lender, a borrower, be a vendor, an investor, or anyone just interested in learning more about private lending, this podcast is definitely for you. Thanks for tuning in and enjoy this week’s episode of Lender Lounge with Kevin Kim. 

Kevin Kim: 
Hey guys, Kevin Kim here, coming to you with a new mini episode of the podcast Lender Lounge with Kevin Kim. Today, I am here with my friend, my colleague and event director extraordinaire, Ms. Ruby Keys, here to tell us about something very cool that Geraci’s doing come August. Ruby, you want to tell us more? 

Ruby Keys: 
Yeah. So for those of you that don’t know, or have not attended, we do have one of our conferences coming up called Captivate. It is a capital-raised themed conference that will take place in Las Vegas, this August, August 21st through 23rd. And we’re super excited to be at a new venue where we can hold more people, which is the Encore at Wynn. 

Ruby Keys: 
So at this event, we’re really going to have everybody in the lending industry there in attendance. So private lenders, brokers, real estate developers, capital sources, high net worth investors, such as family offices, REAs institutions, and then also your service providers as well. So yeah, we hope you guys can join us. 

Kevin Kim: 
So Ruby, give us a little bit of insight into what differentiates this event, because what makes this event so cool? Because we know the private lending industry has grown by leaps and bounds. We’ve become quite the talk of Wall Street. And so there are a lot of events designed to serve this industry, small and large. What makes this industry’s event special? 

Ruby Keys: 
Yeah, well I think the sizing of this event, one, is really unique. It’s definitely not a small show, but it is an event if you play your cards right, you could really network with almost everybody there, if you really utilize the app and do the speed networking type stuff and go to all the networking events. So I think that’s really cool. At least network with everyone from one company, maybe not every single person, but the sizing of the event I think is really great. 

Ruby Keys: 
Also, Vegas has that draw, that it really does bring a nationwide presence. So we see people come from all over the country. We’ve even had people outside of the country come before. However, that’s not really our focus. We do like to keep it within the US. 

Ruby Keys: 
Another really unique part about this event is that we do comp admission for those investors that are looking to invest in debt funds. So that’s something that myself, and I work really closely with Kevin and other attorneys at our firm, to get those people there that will deploy their capital with these funds and people who are also our clients. 

Ruby Keys: 
So yeah, I would say those are some of the differentiating factors, but a lot of other events, including ours, we have really awesome networking opportunities. We also pride ourself in our content. We have speakers really from all over that come and we always try to get new speakers. So you won’t typically see panels with the same type of speakers and companies on there. 

Kevin Kim: 
And I’d like to chime in here too, because we’ve been doing this for some time. Geraci, the law firm, we’ve been, how long has it been now? It’s been about what… 

Ruby Keys:
Ooh, our first event was 2016. 

Kevin Kim: 
Okay. So about six years now, and it’s just gotten better every year. And for those of our listeners who have been in attendance, you know how intentionally designed the event is. We’re very well organized. I think Ruby and her team do an exceptional job. I do events all across the country, go to conferences all across the country. I’ve been to the biggest and the smallest, all sizes. And I think we do an excellent job at keeping it very well-conducted. But the content is something that I feel is some of the best in the country because we don’t do a pay for play model. Right? We invite speakers specifically designed around content that we, as the attorneys, feel are relevant to the industry, because we are the nation’s largest private lending law firm. We have a very strong pulse on what’s going on. And we really try to translate that into quality content that our participants, our attendees, our sponsors can either participate and speak in or just listen in on. 

Kevin Kim: 
And then lastly, just the amount of opportunity. I’ve had multiple clients come back and tell me, “Hey, not only did I find some new investors for my fund, I made a relationship with a new aggregator and I’ve also been able to lock down some new vendor contracts with the service provider I’ve been trying to get a phone call with the principal with right.” And the issues that exactly, that drives it home, is that you’re an event where you’re going to see a lot of C-level executive decision making type people, whereas you’re just not going to get that in general I feel like at other events. 

Kevin Kim: 
And lastly, just if you think about it, right, myself being an attorney, right? And while this is our own event and a little bit of bias, I guess you can call it, if you look at it objectively, I’ve done a lot of business at my own event. And this is kind of the reason why we created it, right? Give the law firm also partially some opportunity. And if you’re a vendor or service provider, you can do immensely well as well. So I really encourage all our centers to really look into this event. If you’re interested, you can find more information in the show notes or go to our website. What was the website, it’s GeraciCon, right? 

Ruby Keys: 
Geracicon.com/captivate. 

Kevin Kim: 
There you go, geracicon.com/captivate and learn more. It’s going, once again, August 21st of the 23rd. 

Kevin Kim: 
We’re really excited this year because we’re getting bigger. So we’re going to the Encore. And if you’re interested in growing your lending business, it’s great place to be, because you’re going to meet people of all shapes and sizes, and people who’ve been through it all, people who are getting started, all types of people to partner with, and you never know an opportunity may come your way at one of our events. So please check it out. You can learn more at our website or if you’re interested, just email one of us. Both of our emails are in the show notes as well. Happy to answer any questions and hopefully we’ll see you in Las Vegas. 

Ruby Keys: 
Yeah. And just a heads up to register before end of July to get the best savings. Pricing will go up. So register as soon as you can. We hope to see you there. 

Kevin Kim: 
Definitely do that, guys. You don’t want to deal with the excessive pricing, right? Get in there as soon as you can. We’ll see you up there in Vegas on the 21st to the 23rd of August at the Encore at the Wynn. Thank you Ruby. 

Ruby Keys: 
Thank you. Talk soon. 

Thanks for listening to Lender Lounge with Kevin Kim. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode as much as I did. If you did enjoy, please leave us a five star review on your podcast platform. And be sure to follow our show to be notified of new episodes. If you’re on YouTube, don’t forget to smash that like button and hit subscribe for more content from all of us here at Geraci. Lender Lounge with Kevin Kim is available on all podcast platforms. Referrals really help us spread the word. So please send this over to someone you think might enjoy it. See you next time. This is Kevin Kim signing off.