Let’s learn about each other! What did your career path to your current position look like?
In summary, for me, it has been a ride!! But all of my roles and experiences evolve around a common subject; helping people.
In university, I studied Linguistics and worked casually at a pharmacy to pay for school. I had the dream of working with organizations to provide medical care to isolated communities. I decided to change my studies to concentrate on pharmacy, and ended up working in hospitals (specialized in biosafety cabinets or ‘chemo hoods’), and in methadone clinics, supporting community members with opioid addictions.
After a few years in that industry, I migrated to working in optics. With my health care background, I thought it was a good fit. Most of my days were spent reading optometrist prescriptions and helping people put in contact lenses. One day, I was approached by a customer, and asked if interesed about joining their team to help coach / train people with dietary issues and concerns. Sounded like a great opportunity that I wanted to explore!
I ended up managing their wellness centre, and moved across the country to open my own!
From there, things switched gears and I got into the tech industry. I worked in FinTech for 4 years, leading Brand Communications and Member Experience. Next, I held the first ever Customer Experience Manager position at a major social media SaaS company. I was able to work with end users, as well as our product and engineering teams to help drive impactful changes to improve any experience or interaction they had across the customer journey.
Then comes ZenHub…
I am so fortunate to be able to contribute my skills and (wide range) of experiences to this team!
p.s. I was also moonlighting in the concert and musical festival industry. Running sponsorship activations to ticket resolutions, and even head of safety and security… Like I said from the start, it has been a ride!
Like many, mine is weird.
I got into open source in 1998 and then went off to university. Started building a community for UK Linux users and then ended up having beers in a bar with a couple of guys who were starting a new magazine called Linux Format. I asked if I could write an article for them and they said, “Sure, but if it sucks we won’t publish it”. I thought this was reasonable, and they ended up publishing it. This then led to my first job out of university, writing articles full time for magazines.
During this time I wrote a piece about a company called OpenAdvantage that was helping people use open source in the British midland where I lived. They liked it and offered me a job. Ready for a change, I took it, and this is when I started learning how to do consulting.
This was a funded project and lasted 3 years, so near the end of the project I needed to find a new gig. I had met Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical when he spoke at an event some friends and I ran. I reached out to him and ended up going to work for Canonical.
Then came XPRIZE, GitHub, and finally I settled on consulting.
The major lesson through all of this: focus on what you love, get out there and meet people, and build relationships. Opportunities will then start to appear.