Forging Change

Today, I changed my LinkedIn heading. While this might seem like a trivial event, it marks a change in my career path after 18 years. I am writing this article as my abbreviated story, yet also an opinion on what it now means to Forge Change.

BLUF: After an 18-year career spanning roles from help desk technician to professional services director, I've embraced the identity of "Disruptive Change Architect." This change reflects my comprehensive experience and ability to help companies transform and achieve their aspirations.

BLUF for a similar career path: Do what it takes to get into the room where decisions happen. Then look around; your goal is to sit in every seat. Once you've achieved that, you can choose what you enjoy most or, like King Arthur, unite various perspectives to lead effectively and be paid to break the mold.

My early beginnings were like so many others in the technical field. I had a position right out of college on a help desk team—running around changing hard disks, calling Dell for replacement devices, and taking over the LAN at night to play StarCraft. Then one day, a friend gave me an undeserved opportunity—a role where 5% of my job would be cybersecurity with read-only access to the firewall. Gotta start somewhere.

Since then, I have been a Sales Engineer for a cybersecurity vendor, Business Line owner, Merger & Acquisitions technical advisor, Product Manager, Marketing Manager, Professional Services Director... but everything changed when I learned how to program. For those reading this who may find themselves on a similar career path, allow me to describe why this matters so much.

For the first 10+ years of my career, I was purely on the technical side of the conversation as an engineer and architect. Then, when I was so frustrated that all the business people were wrong by not following my design or recommendation, I went back to school to get an MBA to prove them wrong. After finishing my degree and then having ~6 years of practice, I came to realize that we were both right—the technical recommendation was sound, and the business leader made a decision based on a wider, unseen context.

Now, fast forward to learning Python. Learning how to program helped me realize that there was a third leg of the stool that I did not consider since they were not always present in the room—operations, business, and now development. I had spent years as a Help Desk analyst and hundreds of hours on large NOC/SOC floors. Yet, I could not see the relevance nor appreciate the difficulty of what it takes to develop an idea into something real—systems integration, workflow, user experience, monitoring, and so much more. But that is just getting a service shipped—now you have to manage scale, lifecycle, compliance, human languages,...

Back to the present—I have noticed a trend not only in why I get hired (position) but who and how. With this full-spectrum experience, leaders seek me out when they have an idea of where they need to be—yet don't know how to get there from here. This is why I've changed my title to "Disruptive Tech Pioneer" rather than "cybersecurity...", "systems engineer", or "product manager" because I can perform all those roles proficiently—yet they don't describe who I am. Companies hire me for who I am, to help them become who they aspire to be.

P.S.: If you are a small or disadvantaged business, I provide complimentary advisory services to help you figure out new technology, how to architect your needed change. Reach out to me via LinkedIn to find out together what is possible.

>> My own words. Edited by GenAI.

>>AI image created by me and my genius son.