Essential Lessons for First-Time Managers

I spent over a decade as an operations and finance executive building a series of four entrepreneurial, fast-growing start-up companies. Along the way, I helped raise over $12 million in equity and debt financing, hired somewhere between 50 and 100 people, worked a ton of hours with some amazing team members, had lots of fun, and learned more about myself than I thought possible. I was mentored by, and served as a mentor to, some truly incredible people and am very grateful for the quality of teams with whom I had the privilege to work. My role, in each one of these companies, was to be the right-hand executive to the CEO. I joined each prior to funding with my first task being the raise of a Series A round of equity financing. My financial responsibilities initially revolved around the financial modeling and pitches needed for equity funding and then would shift focus to bookkeeping, accounting, and compliance. Some of my responsibilities as the senior operations executive were to help set the standard for a great culture, hire, train and retain high performing teams (product management, analytics, technical services, IT, project management, graphic design, account management, software development, fulfillment, etc.), set up human resources (payroll, benefits, insurance, 401K, policies, etc.), corporate strategy, and enterprise software implementation (ERP, CRM, bookkeeping, etc.). After the first three of these companies were successfully acquired, with the fourth likely to exit in the next few years, I decided to shift my focus to business and leadership coaching. As a coach, I get to focus full-time on my favorite part of company building: helping others grow as professionals in order create great businesses and lead happy, fulfilling lives. I am able to offer both my professional experience and the wisdom learned through my lifelong commitments to authenticity, personal growth, and spiritual truth.