Something has been showing up in my LinkedIn feed lately that I can't stop thinking about. Senior people. Directors, VPs, CTOs, COOs, Co-founders. Executives who built and scaled world-class teams. Stepping away from those roles to go back to smaller companies, sometimes even building things directly. Not retiring.
A few days ago, on one of my regular long-distance commutes to HQ, I ran out of podcasts and found myself with something that has become surprisingly rare, a bit of quiet thinking time. My mind drifted back over the last few years, across time spent in early-stage startups, companies
Burnout is not a bad week. It’s not a tough quarter. It’s not something a long weekend magically fixes. In this episode of Mistakes Were Made, Michelle Stalimeros joins me for an honest, grounded conversation about mental health, burnout, identity, leadership, and recovery. Michelle shares her personal experience
Some lessons in your career arrive slowly. Others hit hard. This is one of the latter. It is the lesson that changed the trajectory of my sales engineering career, reshaped how I build relationships and fundamentally shifted how I lead. The Moment Everything Shifted Very early in my sales engineering
I’ve crossed paths with Rhody Hill a few times over the years, first during the VMware V-Champions days and again in various roles across the tech ecosystem. Every time, I walk away a little wiser. She has built partner ecosystems in big tech, led teams across the Asia Pacific
Every week I talk to someone early in their career who’s hungry for growth, they want the next step, the promotion, the recognition. The ambition is fantastic, but there’s one small problem: career growth isn’t something your boss does for you. It’s something you drive yourself.
I’ve always liked the Beatles, but I wouldn’t have called myself a die-hard fan. That changed one random afternoon when I was scrolling through my local second-hand vinyl shop's newsletter and saw someone had posted a box set of every Beatles album. On vinyl, in near-perfect
One-on-ones are one of the most underappreciated tools in leadership. Too often they drift into glorified status updates, or worse, get cancelled when things get busy. But when they’re done well, they’re the quickest way to build trust, clarity, and momentum in a team.
I used to roll my eyes at personality tests. Early in my career, I loved the idea of them and treated it like a life hack, but over time, it rarely delivered an aha moment or behavioural change that was promised. Then Ross Rotherham reached out and nudged me to
Stepping into leadership for the first time is both exciting and unnerving. You’ve finally been recognised. You’ve probably been promoted. And now, you might find yourself managing people who were your peers just last week. Somewhere in the back of your mind, there’s that creeping question: “Do
Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to work with and learn from some truly exceptional people. Mentors who’ve challenged me, friends who’ve pulled me into big (and sometimes chaotic) things, and peers who’ve helped me figure out what kind of leader I want to be. And