Jake Silverstein addressed Swansea City supporters at a fans' forum on Thursday night.
The American director was present at the Swansea.com Stadium during his week-long visit to the club which takes in the Swans' Championship matches against Reading and Cardiff City.
Here's every word Silverstein said on the key topics raised by the Jack Army.
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How are you going to win over the sceptics (regarding the agreement with the Trust) and within that deal, there is a £500,000 bonus for three seasons if the club reaches the Premier League - who is paying that sum?
JS: "I’m aware that there is still some animosity and some things to work through. I can’t comment on how things get sorted out inside the Trust. I think a lot of the questions you have would be inappropriate for me to comment on as they have to do with Trust internal matters.
"The best thing about two parties that have a disagreement reaching a settlement is that you get to move forward and focus on building things together for the future. For better or for worse, it allowed us to start building a relationship with the Trust which is grounded in mutual trust and respect.
"In terms of your question on how we're going to win over sceptics, I don't know. I think actions speak louder than words. Since I've invested in the club, I think I’ve done exactly what I said I'd do which is to come here, spend time, invest energy and my family's money to try and help move the club forward. I'm really proud of what we're doing, I think we made a terrific appointment with this gentleman (Russell Martin) here.
"I see in the development of the players, the tremendous growth personally that they've undergone. I don't know specifically how to win over anyone except to do what I say I'm going to do which is to show up, put my heart into this and try to help move the club forward. That's all I've done and that’s all I’m going to do."
Why can the owners put so much money into DC United and yet we don't see that investment into our club?
JS: "I understand the frustration from the outside, seeing that our ownership group owns multiple sports assets around the world. To feel like one is treated differently, I understand why that would feel bad, but that's not the case.
"DC United is a different ownership group. Yes, its Jason, Steven and myself, but we have a different group of investors around us than we do here. DC United has a very different business model. The revenue structures, the television deal is quite different from the Championship, the economics are fundamentally very different.
"We're not looking at one pot of money and saying 'we'll put some into Swansea and some into DC United'. That's not how it works. They’re separate businesses with separate investment structures with separate profit and loss statements and different engines of economic growth attached to them.
"We try to make rational thoughtful business plans for each business. Nothing we do at DC United comes at the expense of Swansea and nothing we do at Swansea comes at the expense of what we do at DC United.
"I'm not sure how else to address that misconception. I assure you, it's the truth."
What reassurances can you give on the commitment to the playing style if Russell Martin leaves?
JS: "We want Russ to be here for a long time and I think we are early in the adventure of what we are building here with Russ.
“We are committed, whether with this manager or his eventual successor, to this style of football. We also think it's part of the foundation that makes Swansea special and unique. As I say, we want Russell to be here a long time and I think we can all see the growth in the players working with him and his staff.
"We are in the process of making sure the development teams are learning to play ‘the Swansea Way’ so that as they make their way through the youth ranks and eventually into the first team, they're not having to rewire their instincts in the way that footballers who grow up in other organisations have to when they come here and try to learn to play our way. We are deeply committed to this. Please be reassured."
Why Swansea?
JS: "I got to know Jason and Steve through Major League Soccer because my family used to have an ownership stake in Houston Dynamo. I served on the board with Jason and Steven as a result of their ownership with DC United. We got to be friendly and were on some committees together and had professional respect for each other.
"After a few years of being involved in professional sports and deeply falling in love with what it meant to be on the ownership side of the table, I decided that I wanted to look hard at making an investment in European football.
"I was looking at investing in a different Championship club where I would have been the majority shareholder and it was an interesting opportunity. I was thinking very seriously about it.
"One day I pulled Jason and Steve aside and said I was thinking about doing it and asked them for their experiences from Swansea. They asked me some really good questions on what my motivation was in investing in the EFL pyramid.
"We had a very honest conversation that went much longer than I expected because we started comparing philosophies and I was explaining the vision I had for what I wanted to do at a Championship club.
"I wanted to try and build something that was unique and had an identity and was sustainable and financially stable where the young players who come through are not just terrific footballers but terrific human beings who are mentally tough, resilient, emotionally strong and intellectually flexible.
"I wanted to build a football programme where it imparted all of those skills. Jason and Steve said what I was saying was really exciting to them and asked if I was interested in partnering with them in Swansea.
"I was really taken aback; I hadn’t considered this, I had other partnerships that were extremely frustrating and I didn't feel aligned with my partners. So I was a little hesitant, but as I continued the conversation I realised there was a natural fit.
"As I dug in and understood the club and its history and the unique identity Swansea has, I got really excited because I realised there was a natural opportunity to get involved in a place that already had a lot of the characteristics I was hoping to build on. That's how I ended up getting involved and I'm really thrilled to be here."
Is your long-term plan to become majority shareholder?
JS: "Will I buy Jason and Steve out at some point? I'm not sure it makes sense to speculate about that. We're all in this for the long haul.
"We’re partners, I know people may think about us differently. They've ben around longer than I have, but we’re really close. I speak to Steve every day and I talk to Jason four or five times a day. We've developed a real friendship and partnership on the strength of what we're doing here. We’re truly partners in the best sense of the word."
If current form continues into the New Year, will funds be made available in the January window to cement a Premier League push?
JS: "Our plan is to continue to develop young players and trying to be very thoughtful in the transfer market, act if we think there are rational opportunities where we can create value on the pitch and hopefully, eventually down the road, for the club.
"What happened with Flynn Downes was a terrific example of the cycle we're trying to build. He helped us an enormous amount on the pitch, and he helped us to balance the books as he moved on to West Ham, which was a great move for him.
"Our plan is to invest in an ongoing way, but not to throw money in an emotional or fear-driven mindset. We want to try to do this in a way that protects the long-term financial stability of the club.
"We've invested £13m or £14m over the last two years. That was meaningful money and we've used it to help deal with the fact that the club has losses, we've used it to invest in players, we've used it to acquire young talent, and that's what we'll continue to do.
"In terms of January, I hope we will be right in it when the January window comes around, I hope we will be clearly in the hunt for the play-offs.
“That’s what I hope, and if that is the case then we will defer to Julian [Winter] and Josh [Marsh] and our football team that we trust to talk about who the transfer targets are, what the right business for the club is going to be in a holistic way.
“How do we make a sensibly make a push this year without compromising the club’s future health and rolling the dice too hard in one given season? We have seen that happen at so many clubs and they end up in real financial trouble. We are committed to ensuring that does not happen.
“We have to measure the inclination to really go for it with the deep responsibility to make sure that if we do not get there the club is still financially healthy.”
Are there any more commitments you can make regarding ambition and is there a timescale you'd like to reach the Premier League by?
JS: "I totally understand the passion and desire to know when we're going back to the Premier League. I also would love to know that!
"We don't control that. Part of the point I'm trying to make is that it doesn't directly track towards throwing money at it, because, if it did, you could always predict every year who would go up. There'd never be any surprises.
“The way I believe we’re going to go up, and I hope it’s soon, is by building on this system and by continuing to develop our young players.
"The way Ben Cabango has grown in the last 14 months, just to name one, Ollie Cooper, these are unbelievable transformations. Ollie is like a new signing, it’s been amazing. So I think the way to reconcile financial stability with us going up and a place where we are very ambitious is to figure out how to do this differently, to invest in our young players, to have them be more than the sum of their parts because they play beautiful and brave football together."
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