New Job

I have accepted a position as Product Manager for Poken. The company is based here in Lausanne and has created a small, key-chain-like hardware product that connects people on online social networks (facebook, linkedin, etc.) after they have “connected” (touched their hardware devices together) in real life. The goal is to bring a physical, real-world interface to online social networking. The current marketing strategy is aimed at teens with the prospect of moving to professionals (replacing the business card) soon. The company has three ways to make money: 1. Sell the devices at a margin directly to the users, 2. Let major companies purchase the devices and give them away to users as branded “toys,” and 3. Online advertising at the website that users use to manage their connections. The company has $2M of funding and is launching the product in stores in Switzerland right now.

I will be the Product Manager (collecting information from the target audience, creating a coherent product development roadmap, and managing the software and hardware development teams to implement it) at first, evolving in 6 months to either a COO role or a general manager of North America as the product expands to markets outside of Europe.

As many of you know, I agonized over this decision because--as with most decisions--there are both pros and cons.

The good:

International – the position is based in Lausanne, will require travel around the world, and involves managing global operations (manufacturing in China, software developers in Switzerland and Romania, sales and marketing throughout Europe initially and soon elsewhere)

Hardware – this will be a chance for me to broaden my software-only experience to include hardware as well

Growth – The company has a lot of momentum (Evidence: Poken made the front page of digg.com this morning) and I will have the opportunity to participate in its growth

Challenge – Developing an innovation/development process and prioritization methodology that is responsive enough to market feedback that will come very quickly once the product is being used by thousands or millions of people is an exciting order

The bad:

Social Value – I came to IMD to prepare myself better to help change the world; I’m not sure this company really satisfies that criterion

Risk – Companies at this stage statistically usually fail and I would be accepting below-market-value compensation along with that risk--after a year of paying tuition and not earning a salary

Distance – This would keep me thousands of miles away from friends and family in the US. I would own all of the US business partner relationships, which should create many opportunities for travel, but I would still be based far away

After much soul searching I decided that this was an opportunity I just couldn't pass up. I should have a chance to practice a lot of what I have learned at IMD and gain experience in ways that will prepare me to contribute even more to addressing the global energy challenge. Will Poken make me feel like I am somehow making the world a better place for the needy kids I held in Kenya? No, not directly. But will I continue to keep them in mind as I work and network and keep my ear to the ground for opportunities that will? Absolutely.

Thankyou to EVERYone who has supported me throughout my career search. It isn't over--it will be an ongoing process of course--but you have all helped me through a significant career milestone. I won't let you down and I'll prove that to you immediately--I start work tomorrow!

Positive Energy

Yesterday I spent all day interviewing with Positive Energy, a startup software company that helps residential energy users consume less electricity, natural gas, and other forms of energy. It's one of the few opportunities I've found that would really marry my passions for addressing the global energy challenge and innovating game-changing software.

Before the interviews even started, I had a good omen: The major tenant of the building where PE is located is Sparta, Inc., where my father spent much of his professional career designing LASER-based optical guidance systems. I haven't thought about Sparta in a long time and seeing its familiar logo (slightly adapted from when he worked there in the 80s) warmed my heart.

The interviews themselves went well. I had discussions with the CEO, VP of Product (to whom I would report), program/process manager, product managers for different products, and lead software engineer. The software engineer had his chocolate lab with him and he joined us for the interview, which I considered to be another great omen. Furthermore, PE's offices are within walking distance of the original Red Hot & Blue, one of my favorite BBQ joints of all time, even though now it's been overcommercialized and franchised around the country. The VP of Product took me out to lunch there, which further fostered the "good" feeling I have about this company.

The questions that came my way were very diverse: experiential, design thought exercises, brain teasers, and other funky, "out there" conversation catalysts. My impression after a very full day is that A. the company is really trying to hit it out of the park and significantly affect energy demand, B. the team is smart/high-end, and C. it seems like a good fit where my participation could create value for both the company and for myself.

Hopefully they will see things the same way. Even if they don't, however, I'm glad to know that such companies exist. As I've blogged before, I think the "solution" to the global energy challenge has to be one that also makes good business sense, otherwise it just won't be sustainable.

And speaking of the global energy challenge, Gore et al have already offered up a public "challenge" to the Obama administration: US carbon neutrality in 10 years! I love it! Nearly impossible, worthwhile challenges have always inspired me and I view the energy challenge as very synonymous with the space race of the 60s. "Why reduce energy consumption, streamline transmission, and produce energy from renewable sources? . . . Why does Rice play Texas? . . . We choose to achieve a carbon-neutral energy infrastructure within a decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard!" The stakes are higher in this challenge and I am committed to doing what I can to help ensure victory.

Google Interview

Yesterday morning I boarded the 8:20 AM train to Zurich. I've done this a few times before to go visit our ICP client. This time, however, I was going to interview with Google for a Product Manager position.

I arrived in Zurich around 10:30 and used the Google Maps Walking Directions feature from my mobile phone to find my way to the Google office. The office was fun and kind of over-the-top but not quite as much so as I expected. Perhaps my expectations had been artificially inflated by all the press this office received (at least here in Switzerland) when it opened back in January. Still, it was pretty cool: lots of game rooms, snack rooms, coffee bars, a fitness center, an aquarium-lined power nap room, all kinds of funky meeting rooms (with Star Wars-based names) and developer areas. I tested out the fire pole that you can take from one floor to another but didn't have a chance to use the slide into the cafeteria. The cafeteria was awesome, definitely IMD-level, and it serves three meals a day. I don't have to tell you how much I would take advantage of that benefit!

I had five interviews during the day, four with product managers and one with a software engineer. They were all very different, some focusing on product design, some on software technology challenges, some on strategy and management, and some on analytical brain teasers. Most of my interviewers were from different countries, they all seemed very sharp, and, best of all, I never really felt like I was being interviewed. Instead we had very engaging discussions about interesting and challenging problems. There was no "right answer" to any of the questions I was asked all day, just mutually participatory discussions, many of which left me feeling really excited. It really felt like the discussions Alex (or others) and I would frequently have about the future of products, technologies, and consumer behaviors. Sometimes those discussions would be about near-term ideas and sometimes they were a little more science fiction-y. Google seems like one of the few organizations with so much talent/resources/users that it can take real steps toward making the sci fi ideas reality.

At the end of the interviews I was informed that I had accessed the secret bonus round and would have two more interviews with Product Management Directors. Although I characterized Italians as lazy to one of them who turned out to be Italian himself (despite having a very German-sounding name!), I thoroughly enjoyed those discussions as well.

I stumbled a few times throughout the day. For example, some of my interviewers challenged me about my stated objective of helping to change the world of energy and how on earth working at Google would accomplish that. My responses weren't terribly eloquent or convincing there; shame on me for not preparing better.

Still, after seven interviews, I finished the day at 7 PM feeling very positive. These really felt like "my kind of people." In my experience there's a certain kind of magic that comes from a great team. Someone starts a discussion with an idea, others critique it, react to it, and add their own ideas. The level of frenetic excitement rises until everyone decides that the idea has to be pursued and then they all get down to business. This was the type of entropy I felt in my discussions all day, which was a very positive sign.

In many ways, yesterday was like my IMD interview day. I came in not really knowing what to expect. The day was set up to simulate some of the daily challenges encountered by the position for which I was interviewing. I had great, enlightening discussions with a bunch of really smart, diverse people. I left still thinking about the discussions and generating new ideas that I wished I had brought up during the interviews but feeling energized, able to visualize myself contributing to and benefiting from such an environment, and hoping they felt the same way. Oh, right, and I had an awesome lunch! So, we shall see!

After the interviews I met up with a friend of mine in Zurich for dinner (overlooking the city at night--beautiful!) and drinks at a cigar bar by the train station. Zurich seems like a really nice town that has the amenities that come with a major urban area (very international airport and accomplished arts, for example) without many of the drawbacks (high crime, for example). It's certainly not a cheap place to live but it also has one of the highest quality of life rankings in the world. Again, we shall see!

Pictures are in my facebook album.

GE O&G

I feel good about the GE O&G interviews yesterday. The people I met with were smart, motivated and were working on intersting, impactful challenges. The company clearly has the potential for major impact on the world's energy supply and carbon footprint. Furthermore it is part of a corporation that also is doing more and more work in wind, water, and solar, as Alex commented on my last post.

The real question here will be fit. How does an entrepreneurial software executive work within the context of a huge, bureaucratic heavy industry company? How does he A. create value and B. not go insane? The answer is non-obvious but after yesterday's discussions I am optimistic. The best matches for my skills and experience seem to be in:

product management - managing the interface between engineering, marketing, and strategy to make sure the company is building products that serve customer needs and support the company's direction

strategic marketing - helping a company that is used to clients coming to it to place orders modernize and be more proactive about market segmentation and accordingly segmented sales processes

sales operations management - working with the globally distributed sales force to create processes and systems to support them for greater communication and efficiency

We shall see; they should be in touch within a week or so with feedback. If nothing else, I finished Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets on the trip, so on to The Prisoner of Azkaban!

The Career Search Progresses

It was another productive week for my career search. My plans with GE Energy were solidified and I will fly to Florence tomorrow evening for interviews on Monday. I'm not really sure which position(s) they have in mind; I think it's more of a "let's get to know you and then, if we like you, we'll see where we have a good fit for your skills, experience, and interests." My network has been helpful with GE Energy: a Rice alum in their Houston office helped me understand their product/solution offering, one of my interviewers is an IMD alum, and two of my current classmates have worked at GE and helped me prepare for questions I am likely to receive.

I had my third (if you include my first "fit" interview with a recruiter) phone interview with Google this week and it went well. This one was less about my experience and more about how I think. I had to design another product and work through a few brain teasers. On Thursday I received the news that I had "passed" and an invitation to interview onsite at their Zurich office. According to one of my contacts in Google (whom I know through the Rice alumni network) the economic slowdown has raised the "hiring bar" and making it to the onsite interview is even harder than it used to be so I am particularly honored to have made it this far. The interview should be next week.

The founder/CEO of Poken (IMD alum) and I met again and I remain very enthusiastic about the company. They have big, world changing ideas, cool opportunities for a product manager/COO, and a fun corporate culture. The CEO is becoming overstretched between product management, business development, investor relations, etc. and is looking for someone to share the load. Given that my background is in managing innovative teams of software engineers and working with the marketing and strategy interfaces to ensure that the product vision is headed in the right direction, the role would be a great fit.

I also had a first interview yesterday with Positive Energy, a Washington DC-based startup that builds software to help residential power customers consume less energy. They just closed a major funding round, already have some customers, and have a smart team in place. The VP of Product has a marketing background and is looking for someone to manage the more technical side of their software product. Even though the company is only 20 people strong right now they have a couple of TJ alumni on board so, once again, this really drives home the importance of the network.

This last opportunity came may way through CleanTechies, a cool new site for techies looking to help the environment. I'm doing some side blogging there about how technology can be used to help address the global energy challenge.

So, things are moving along with a few very appealing opportunities and I'm continuing to add more to the pipeline. I'm long overdue for a Board update so will write one soon and post it here.

Some Good News

Monday I interviewed with Google for their Product Manager position. It sounds really cool--basically an internal entrepreneur/general manager with all the capital and smart people you could want to help make great ideas a reality. The people I know who are or have been Google PMs are really smart so I'm honored even to be considered.

My performance in the interview was OK. I suggested some product innovations Google might consider and was quickly shown that Google had already invented or acquired many of them. Oops--someone needs to do his homework better next time. I thought the open-ended question, though, in which I was asked to design a product, went well. In fact, if Google doesn't hire me, I may consider starting up a company to develop that product!

By the end of the interview I felt energized and excited, which is a great sign for me; I felt the same way after the IMD interview and I think it is indicative of a good fit. I don't know if my interviewer was as energized by my ideas as I was but he was at least satisfied enough to move me on to the next round, which will be another, similar interview with another Google PM. This was just a first interview in a process renowned for many interviews (up to 16!) but it still felt great to receive the thumbs-up today from the recruiter.

It's not the only good news I received this week, either. Yesterday I was asked to come to Florence for a second interview with GE Oil & Gas, which is making great strides at reducing the carbon footprint of oil & gas production. Furthermore, GE's renewable energy companies are taking off so they might be an option further down the road.

Monday I talked with a delightful alum from eSolar (Again, many thanks are due the most sophsticated woman at IMD for forging the connection.) and another with Planet Capital. Tuesday, I spoke with a good friend of one of my ICP teammates who has launched CleanTechies.com, where I will soon begin blogging about the use of ICT in sustainable energy. Wednesday I chatted with the Oerlikon Solar and E.ON Renewables. Today I met with another alum, the founder/CEO of Poken, a hardware/software service which will revolutionize the world of social networking. Finally my career search feels like it's really in gear!

Several of my classmates have either accepted job offers or received offers that they will accept. These mostly come from companies that did on-campus recruiting, in which I didn't participate much. Still, it's hard not to feel at least a little time pressure when others are starting to make plans for their living arrangements already! This is what I planned, though, to take my time through the recruiting process, to make sure I explore my options, and to make sure I make the best decision for me and my future employer--not one based on early deadlines or unexplored alternatives.

The distractions of the career search have an impact on our ICPs as well. It is becoming more and more rare to find all four of our group members in the room at the same time because each of us frequently steps out for career-related calls. In the meantime, our project has taken a major turn. It has evolved from a supply chain project to a change management project. The subject matter is still supply chain, but the obstacle between our client and the $100m+ they can add to their bottom line with supply chain improvements isn't analysis; it is implementation. That is now our focus: how can they conduct sweeping change in a way that works for all the varied (and often opposed) stakeholders involved? We are all very excited about it because it affords us the opportunity to learn and practice skills that transcend industry, function, and geography. But it isn't easy--real world, real learning!

Interview Failure

Today ended four days full of interview preparation and interviews themselves. On Tuesday and Thursday I had my two “big company” interviews with Shell and British Telecom respectively. They were both very structured, including cases, and really more “assessments” than interviews. Insomuch as I wasn’t invited for the next round by either company, I failed both assessments.

As someone who is very performance-oriented, I took both failures pretty hard. Although I recognize that it is the job of these recruiters to assess fit—not just worthiness—and hence it is better to know that the fit isn’t there earlier in the process rather than later, it is still hard not to feel . . . rejected. I had many peers with whom to commiserate as each company took just a few applicants to the next level.

This year has taught me a great deal about failure. My prior attitude was one of avoiding failure at all costs. I was obsessed with winning each and every battle I undertook—perhaps to the point of avoiding some battles that offered low likelihood of success. But there is much to learn from failure and these cases are no exception. Both Shell and BT have offered to share feedback from the interviews with us next week. This will help me understand why there wasn’t a fit so I can focus my career search better. Furthermore, I look forward to learning the strong and weak points of how I came across so I can build them into subsequent interviews with companies for which there is a better fit.

Speaking of which, I also talked with three product managers at Google this week and that position sounds like an excellent fit with both my skills and experience. The recruiting process is daunting, with up to 16 interview and some of them very technical, but then so is the process for attaining most positions worth having!

Blues, BBQ, Football, and Cool Weather

I have fond memories of this time of year in Virginia. As the weather would cool and it would feel more like autumn, I would be consumed by the excitement of heading back to school and . . . the football season! The weekend ritual was wonderful:

Friday night: high school football under the friday night lights!
Saturday morning: drag myself out of bed, tend wounds from the previous night, and watch game films with the rest of the team at school
Saturday afternoon: chores and homework
Saturday night: date or night out with the guys
Sunday: excursion to the orginal Red Hot & Blue BBQ in Roslyn with Mom and Nick, listening to great blues in the car

Those were great times! And, although I'm missing out on the football and BBQ here in Lausanne, the weather is definitely cool and I have Buddy Guy playing in the background as I work on my career search. Life is good!

Yesterday was my interview with Shell, although it was less of an interview and more of an assessment. They're less gung ho about renewables than I would have hoped, but I think there may still be a fit. I'll find out this evening whether or not I've been invited to the second round, which will be a much more intense group assessment.

Today I'm talking with Google, practicing for Thursday's case interview with British Telecom, and discussing opportunities in Italy with IMD's corporate development staff. And probably playing some ping pong too!

Interviews

Day 1 of interviews is over and it went pretty well. Before I left my apartment in the morning I was listening to Bob Dylan's discography. The superb quality of his decades of poetry is the subject of another entire post, but this morning I just had him on for background music. When it came to All Along the Watchtower, I was inspired to swap out Dylan for the Jimi Hendrix rendition.

Oh yeah, that was just what I needed to start the morning off right. It took me back to middle school days, working out with my brother Nick, when we had just discovered a different kind of poetry--the electric kind that came out of Jimi's guitar. It put an extra spring in my step, as did the crisp, clear autumn weather en route to campus.

My scheduled interview with the MTS group, an Italian heating system manufacturer that is going green, went well and there could be a fit there. I met GE Energy at the career fair and they were interested enough in my profile to schedule an ad hoc interview. It went well and we identified some positions where there could be a fit.

It was not all sunshine and rainbows, however. After talking with the Amazon rep, it seems that the position I had identified there was not a great match for me. They clearly thought likewise as they declined to interview me, encouraging me to email a CV and cover letter. Perhaps that's what they told everyone who wasn't a German speaker looking for supply chain positions (for which they definitely were interviewing), but I'm less enthused about the opportunity with them regardless.

Tomorrow I interview with Shell, hoping to learn about their commitment to sustainability and demonstrate to them my "capacity, achievement, and relationships ." Then it is time to focus on off-campus recruiting for a couple of days before my interview with British Telecom. Bring it on!

Fall Has Arrived

It's 50 degrees F, it's raining, and leaves are strewn along the ground. Fall has definitively arrived and I think my days of beach volleyball here in Lausanne are numbered. Good thing I have a trip to Houston, where the beach volleyball season extends from March to December, coming up in a week!

Speaking of Houston, it seems that all of my friends there made it through Ike OK. The power is still out but everyone is safe.

Last week my ICP team presented our results from Phase II to our client in Zurich. Thanks largely to the efforts of Daniel, my German teammate who pulled triple duty as programmer/analyst, slide czar, and presenter, we turned out a quality product. Our client agreed that our project could help them add over CHF 100m to their bottom line! We are very excited about phases III and IV, which commence in two weeks.

First, however, we have a two-week deluge of recruiting activities. It begins tomorrow with a career fair at IMD then continues with multiple rounds of interviews over the next two weeks. I have an interview tomorrow with MTS Group, an Italian heating company that is concentrating heavily on solar thermal, and I hope to get interviews with GE Energy and Amazon at the fair. Tuesday I interview with Shell and Thursday with British Telecom. Should I succeed in the BT interview, there will be another on Friday, giving me just enough time to make it to Paris for the Jimmy Buffett concert. If Shell likes me, there will be another interview the following week--when I'm scheduled to be in Houston. I suppose we'll just cross that bridge when we come to it. I may also have an interview with Google this week but that is still to be confirmed.

This weekend I am spending my time researching the companies with which I have interviews and making sure I have a coherent story about the fit that I see with them. As much as I like to think of myself as a good ad hoc speaker, I'm definitely much better when I am prepared. In the meantime I'm also sitting on 10 companies to which I need to begin marketing myself and over 200 companies that I haven't yet vetted enough to know whether or not they are worth pursuit.

You'd think finding the right opportunity to help change the world wouldn't be this complicated!

Career Strategy Update: Objective and Industries

Following is another email that I just sent my Career Board today:

First, let me elaborate a little on my objective (Change the world through business leadership!) because I know it sounds cheesy. The premise is pretty simple: governments and NGOs are just some of the parties that can address some of the major challenges the world faces today. In a capitalist society, and in a global market-driven economy, I believe very strongly in the power of the business to address them as well. When I look back at the world-changing developments of recent history, many (most?) of them have come from private industry. Furthermore, my professional experience is in business so, if I want to change the world (and I do!), it makes sense for me to focus on this area.

A company like Exxon-Mobil, for example, has a profound ability to change the world. As one of the world’s largest energy producers and global employers, everything it does or doesn’t do has serious consequences for the world’s energy, environmental, and social challenges. It has the power to change the world for the better—or for the worse. Consequently, it is crucial that Exxon-Mobil’s leadership “get it right.” I am not so presumptuous as to contend that I have all the answers about what is “right” or that I am qualified to take over as CEO of Exxon-Mobil tomorrow. However, I consider it my duty to give it my best shot.

Thus my strategy is as follows:
1. Identify industries that have the greatest potential to change the world.
2. Match those industries with my interests and background. About which industries am I most passionate? To which industries can I offer the most value with my own skills and experience. For example, I believe biotechnology can be a world-changing industry but it is not a great match with background.
3. Learn more about my target industries with industry analyses, analyst reports, and conversations with contacts in those industries. Validate my understanding of the industries and what I would bring to each one. Study the business system(s) of each industry and identify the specific activities that are most interesting and/or offer the greatest opportunity to change the world.
4. Identify and target specific companies that are most interesting within each targeted business activity. Criteria include: innovation, financial performance, market performance, quality of work life, quality of leadership, opportunities for learning/mentorship, and geographic location/travel.
5. Market myself to targeted companies by networking, on-campus recruiting, and unsolicited applications.

I am currently in steps 3 and 4, depending on the industry. I have also subsumed my nanotechnology interest under green energy and commercial space operations. The more I learned about nanotechnology, the more I confirmed that my interests in it were almost exclusively insomuch as it relates to these other two industries. My status for each of my remaining three target industries is as follows:

Green Energy: Step 4
The sub-industries that interest me most are:
Renewables (solar, wind, tidal, geothermal): technology development (e.g. nanotechnology thin-film solar cells), device manufacturing (e.g. wind turbine manufacturing), operations (e.g. wind farm development)
Distribution: technology development (e.g., nanotechnology high-efficiency transmission lines or high-capacitance residential power storage)
Vestas (world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer) and AES (a power generator/developer that includes renewables in its portfolio) recruit on-campus for their leadership development programs. Shell, which has more green energy in its offering than it used to also recruits here but I just don’t get a great “vibe” from them in terms of fit. In Step 4 I am identifying all of the other companies to target as well.

Technology: Step 3
I am most interested in revolutionary web software companies, not IT services companies, but I am still in Step 3, identifying exactly which business activities and sub-industries to target proactively.
Google recruits on-campus and is definitely on my list. Amazon may sign up too. British Telecom has also contacted me and motivated me to open up a little to technology companies outside of my web software scope. They are looking for global leaders to help them expand their concept of “the 21st-century network” worldwide and are offering what sounds like a very appealing leadership development program.

Commercial Space Operations: Step 3
I am still validating this industry to understand whether I should target it or not. It is very nascent, which is both exciting and challenging—there are no industry reports, for example. I have contacts in NASA and NASA contractors but I really need to talk to people IN this industry and they are hard to find. Using online networking tools I have generated some contacts at the Space Island Group (http://www.spaceislandgroup.com/home.html) and am cold calling this week. If anyone has other ideas about how to learn more about *commercial* space operations, I would love to discuss.

My Career

With less than four months (Yikes! How did it pass so quickly?!) left on the program, our thoughts have turned toward our post-IMD careers. Many of us are looking to continue paths that we already started, many are looking for radical changes, and many are seeking something in between.

As this is an integral part of the IMD experience, I will keep my readers (especially those future-IMDers) posted on my progression as I move from a high-level, general strategy to something more focused, to [hopefully] offers, to selecting my next move.

I am pursuing my career search using a corporate model. I am the CEO of my search (I'm also the product that I will eventually be marketing.) and, as such, I put together a Board of Directors to help advise me. The Board consists of one VC, one pilot, two consultants, two entrepreneurs (This is how I’m classifying you—let me know if I’m off the mark.), three CXOs, a banker, a doctor, and a lawyer—I think that provides adequate diversity! The Board members are spread around the US and Australia but I have some informal advisors in Europe as well.

The first emails I sent to my Board members (mid-July) contained variations of the following information. It is general and ambiguous, but it is a starting point. Although I have limited my Board to 10 members, I would certainly welcome comments and criticisms from the rest of my readers. My opening position:

My objective: to change the world through business leadership! I hope to do this by obtaining an influential general management position (with an entrepreneurial element as well!) at a company with the potential for significant global impact.
Skills I bring: founding and leading organizations, communicating and persuading diverse stakeholders, and global perspective, having lived in three countries and speaking three languages
Experience: 7 years in entrepreneurship and general management with software companies serving diverse industries and geographic markets around the world

By definition, general management is awfully . . . general! So my challenge has been to refine my career search to focus on just the areas where there is the greatest fit. After a significant amount of thinking about my strengths, motivations, goals, and experience, I have decided to target the following four industries:

Renewable Energy (solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc.) – I am familiar with the energy industry through having served it with software my whole career; now I see it as an industry with the potential to change the world—for the better!
Commercial Space Operations (space industrialization, exploration) – I have lived in the shadow of space exploration my entire life and it has always been a passion of mine. With the growing number of companies participating, I see opportunities to contribute without working for bureaucratic government organizations.
Nanotechnology – I am specifically interested in nanotechnologies that support renewable energy (carbon-walled nanotubes that transmit electricity over vast distances with little attenuation, for example) and commercial space operations (incredibly light, strong materials that make reusable launch vehicles more practical, for example). Although I have no background in nanotech, Rice is very strong in this area and should provide significant networking opportunities.
Web Software (Internet portals, applications, etc.) – I remain enamored of IT and its ability to change the lives of millions practically overnight. Given my background, this is probably the “lowest-risk” search strategy, but I am committed to pursuing the others with equal gusto.

Geographically I am targeting the USA (Houston, Austin, San Diego, or Silicon Valley), Italy, the UK, or Switzerland. I am open to the right opportunity that is based anywhere, and I anticipate significant travel, but these are my ideal “home bases.”

Living in Lausanne

I haven't posted in awhile. This is not because I have been under major deadline pressure, my traditional reason for latent posts. Rather it is because I spent the last week just living a normal life in Lausanne. There hasn't been anything too extraordinary to report, the weather has been beautiful, and just poking around Lausanne has been blissful. This is really a nice place to live--even if it took me six months to discover it!

Although I've been meeting friends/classmates for drinks in the evenings (How novel!) I have been working throughout the days on my career strategy. With the academic portion of IMD behind us, it is now time to turn our attentions toward life after IMD. As we approach such weighty decisions, we are encouraged to call upon the skills we have developed in the business world. This means viewing ourselves as products and each conducting a thorough product specification, market analysis, and targeted market campaign.

I am taking it a step further and running my search like a business. I am the CEO of the business and thus I call upon a board of directors for help. My board consists of one VC, one pilot, two consultants, two entrepreneurs, three CXOs, a banker, a doctor, and a lawyer spread around the US and Australia. The role of this board is to help me bounce around career ideas, audit my strategy, and hold me accountable to my objectives and process. I will keep my readers updated on my career strategy as it develops and will hope to have good news to report by the end of the year!

Mock Interviews

Yesterday we received our final grades for the "Building Blocks" (academic) portion of our year here at IMD. I did very well overall, but I am most proud of the improvment I deomonstrated in the areas where I came in with the least background. As I have written before, I certainly don't know it all--if I did, what would be the point in sacrificing $200k+ for an MBA? The best that I can do is identify my areas for greatest improvement (and those of greatest interest) and work hard to develop them. Although grading is only one, imperfect way of measuring competency, it indicates that I have improved significantly in my weaker areas and exceled in those that I think are critical for my future career. This gives me confidence not only in my skills today but also in my ability to improve and grow constantly throughout the rest of my life, which will be crucial for my effectiveness over time.

Today we continued in the Career Services vein by practicing our interviewing and networking skills with IMD alumni. We were given the opportunity for one of three types of interviews: industry, consulting, or finance. I chose industry and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The feedback I received from my interviewer was very helpful (The areas for improvement, such as- making better use of silence--diplomatically put, are all areas I can improve with practice and preparation.) and the entire session was videotaped, so I will have the chance to review my performance next week.

The day finished with a party on the restaurant patio. There I met many other interesting, successful, diverse alumni and had a great time to boot. Several of our professors came too and it was fun to "party" with them now that grades were out of the way.

Luxury Disillusionment

Today was the official start of on-campus recruiting. Several companies made presentations throughout the day about who they were, what they did, what positions they offered, and why we should work for them.

Most of the companies participating in on-campus recruiting this year are outside of my target industries (technology, energy, space exploration, sports, and wine--very focused, I know!) so I will spend the majority of my job search pursuing opportunities off-campus. However, I was intrigued by two luxury brand conglomerates that presented today, one because it owned several wine brands and one because we studied one if its major acquisitions in Strategy.

I was curious to find out if these companies were really just about luxury and image or if they had more . . . "substance" to them. Did they offer anything of value to society or did they really just exist to fulfill the desires of the upper class? I asked the presenters questions about environmental and social responsibility but was disappointed in the responses. I'm sure their PR departments have good arguments but the fact that their recruiters didn't know them indicated something about the cultures of these two companies. More pointedly it indicated that they weren't places where I wanted to begin the next phase of my career and mission to change the world for the better.

I think this is the real benefit of on-campus company presentations: not helping you decide which companies DO interest you, rather learning enough about industries you don't know well to decide firmly that they do NOT interest you. That is helpful to the students and to the recruiting companies.

Third-of-the-Way-There Update

When I left the US for Switzerland, many people asked to be updated by email every once in a while about how I am doing over here. I finally sent out my first update, one third of the way through the program. The content was as follows:

To those who expressed interest in receiving periodic updates from me, here is my first. As I near the end of my fourth month in Lausanne, I feel incredibly positive about my decision to come here. This program is exactly as advertised: intense, international, very personal, and 100% focused on leadership. On paper it was exactly what I was looking for; in reality is has turned out to be that and more.

Highlights so far have included (roughly chronologically):
· Outdoor leadership/group dynamics exercises in the snowy mountains
· Very personal, very deep analysis of myself, my subconscious, how I behave, how I react, what motivates me, etc. by psychologists, psychoanalysts, transactional analysts, Jungian analysts, professors, leadership coaches, career coaches, and amateur students—and amateur me!
· Very personal, sometimes painful, but incredibly useful feedback from peers, professors, and coaches regarding my leadership style and effectiveness
· Lunch every day at a campus restaurant that would give even the finest private restaurants a run for their money
· Learning so much from my classmates—89 successful business leaders from 44 different countries and a wealth of professional/educational backgrounds
· Contributing my own experience/perspective to their learning
· Running along the gorgeous lake with snow-capped mountains as a backdrop
· Excellent courses, cases, and projects from world-class faculty
· Developing personal relationships with said faculty
· Weekend-long, sleepless group exercise to test our performance under extreme stress (another one is scheduled for next weekend!)
· Visits from friends and loved ones—especially my birthday weekend in Lugano
· Helping the CEO of a fledgling startup software company analyze its market, choose an appropriate strategy, raise money, and implement the recommended strategy
· Helping the CEO of a huge, global chemicals company save hundreds of millions of euros by optimizing its supply chain and procurement organization

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, however. Aside from the toll taken by the constant barrage of work, there are some additional downsides to being here:
· I miss my friends and loved ones. The people here are wonderful and I’m sure that many of the relationships I’m forging will last a lifetime. However, they are no substitute for the wonderful people already in my life.
· I miss my alma mater. Although I still serve on several Rice alumni organization boards remotely (via email and conference calls), it’s not the same as being involved in person. This year will be the first that I have missed Beer Bike, Commencement, and—probably—Homecoming. Missing baseball season is tough enough (The Owls are currently ranked #4, go Rice!) but football season will be even harder.
· There is not time to do everything I want to do while I’m here. I spend most of my time working at school or on school-related activities. As a consequence, my French isn’t improving much, I haven’t met too many locals, and I really haven’t traveled at all. For that matter, there are some courses on which I am not focusing as much as I would like, again due to time constraints. A great deal of this program seems to be about forced prioritization: you can’t do it all so you’d better figure out what really matters to you and do that really well.
· My wine consumption is down—WAY down. Certain informants keep me apprised of the menus of the wine dinners at the Petroleum Club of Houston so I can at least live vicariously through them. However, Lausanne is so beautiful that it’s a crime not to be spending each sunset on the lake with a picnic dinner and some great wine. Once I have a chance to come up for air I may have to make up for lost time!

One question I receive from a number of people back home is “What will you be doing after IMD?” December, after all, isn’t that far away. We spend a significant amount of time here working with coaches to think strategically about our careers. What careers, roles, industries, and geographies are the best fit for our personalities, ambitions, motivators, lifestyles, skills, and values?

My goal is to leverage my success in leadership and entrepreneurship to make a big, positive impact on the world. This could be by staying in technology but leading larger and more global organizations. Or I am also open to working in areas that match with my interests and experience: energy (especially alternative), nanotechnology, the arts, wine, football, and space exploration. A great fit, even in an established company, would be a role that entails some form of entrepreneurship and innovation--perhaps an American company with a new initiative to go international or vice versa to build on my international background.

Another path that interests me is venture capital. I could use my entrepreneurial experience and the constant influx of new projects would appeal to my desire for a dynamic work environment. It probably wouldn’t offer many leadership opportunities but there may some firms that take a more “hands-on” approach with their investments by providing a management team. I’m still investigating this option.

I believe that the US (Houston, Austin, San Diego, and Silicon Valley are most likely.) will be my ultimate destination but I am open to taking the “scenic” route and working in Europe (UK, Italy, France, or maybe even Switzerland) for a while first. This is all very much in flux so I offer no guarantees that it won’t have completely changed by my next update!

Career Services

A major part of this program is career services. We spend significant time not just focusing on the "how" aspect of finding our next career but, more importantly, the who/what/where/why. What fields really motivate us and which of our skills are most valuable? How can we merge those and other factors, such as culture, to identify the ideal industries, companies, geographies, and roles for ourselves? Then how can we identify (or create!) opportunities that meet those criteria and secure them?

This has all been incredibly interesting so far and I will keep you updated as I progress along my own path. However, in the meantime, let me share with you the results of another career services function: marketing the MBAs! They have recently published the Class of 2008 Profile Sheet. This is seen by executives and recruiters at all of IMDs client companies so I'll hope it finds itself in the right hands. For example, if someone out there is hiring for the CEO position of the first NFL franchise on Mars, I'll be expecting your call . . .