“So you’re a change agent!” With those words – change agent – the CEO of a European company recently summed up 30+ years of experience on my resume.
Previously, the most succinct description I’ve come up with is this:
I specialize in three areas, startups, rapid expansions, or turnarounds. I either start things, grow things that others have started, or fix things that others have broken.
The “things” being “started / expanded / turned around” include products (from all sorts of industries), sales organizations, factories, divisions, or entire companies. And of course it’s not me who accomplishes all this; rather it’s the incredible people I’ve been fortunate enough to lead.
My boss, Omar Khudari, has been bugging me to start a blog to share……what I’ve learned from these experiences. He’s seen my writing from the numerous ‘Dublin Report’ journals I sent back to the States while recently living in Ireland for four years.
In Ireland, a key part of my ‘value’ was the experience of having worked in American companies. Now that I’m back in the States, Omar feels one ‘value’ of my blog could be sharing the experience of life in Europe and how that contrasts with life in the States.
In addition to passing along “lessons learned” as a change agent, in future posts I will write about topics where I think we Americans might consider doing things ‘the Irish way’ — like how to strike the proper balance between work and family, like how to use simple technology to communicate effectively, or like how to not be a helicopter parent.
Many people have asked for more ‘Dublin Reports’ even though we’re back nearly a year. Hopefully this blog will satisfy their requests.
Change Agent 
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