I have some personal news: I’ve left Augeo, and am taking a brief step back to explore what the next arc of my career should look like.

I’ve been on an unplanned, but fortunate, journey since college - in fact, I chose Hamline University mostly due to their 3+3 Law Degree program. During my time there, my dream of being a lawyer and politician shifted towards business. A chance encounter at a speaking event turned into a decade-long path in the Marketing world, and the series of acquisitions that led me to Augeo.

What a Ride

These last 3 years at Augeo have been amazing, and started even before I officially joined - we won the paid search work for a cool local public company while I was standing in Augeo’s conference room, learning about the acquisition. The first year, I was part of an internal agency, got to keep working with our legacy clients, and had a whole new crop of Augeo Digital clients to work with. We joined up with the Corporate Marketing team in the fall of 2019, forming Marketing and Digital Services as part of an acquisition integration, and that’s when things really took off.

COVID caused my team - now Marketing Technology - to double, and then double again. I got to help build out our Virtual Meeting and Events practice as Executive Technical Producer, partnering with 2 others to figure out how to deliver our planned events for clients with the level of quality Augeo was known for. I was core to the architecture and implementation of the analytics/data stack for the same client we won in the conference room, while we continued to deliver year-over-year improvements in performance. I helped integrate 3 companies we acquired, accountable for the marketing, digital, and technical pieces. I got to work with some big names - Augeo serves over 10% of the Fortune 500, several that we got to help add - and had some really fun problems to work on. By the end of 2021, I managed a team of 7 (who I will deeply miss), key vendor relationships, and several major internal initiatives around data, analytics, and personalization; and had made Vice President.

However, I could feel something wasn’t right - for the past few years, I’ve had questions about my career path, and had a growing sense that I had hit the end of this particular line for me. Between a decade of “agency life,” a renewed desire to build, and frustration with the direction of the overall marketing and advertising industry as of late - there will be another post on that topic - I couldn’t answer the questions my brain was posing me.

What’s Next?

I don’t know the answer, but I knew the fact that this question was ringing louder and louder was something I should listen to. After many discussions with my boss, my wife, and others, I decided that it was time to take a step back, and figure out some answers.

I know that I love solving problems at the intersection of business and technology. I’ve often thought that had to be in Marketing, but it really doesn’t. I love figuring out how we make X happen with Y and Z in the toolbox. I think in systems and interfaces. I’m curious and a fast learner. I love teaching and explaining. I want to get back to building again. While I don’t know exactly what the next path is going to look like, I do think it’s time to fall back to my original tagline and update it a bit:

“I’m a web developer with a business degree” -> “I’m a technologist with a business degree”

I’d love to hear any thoughts this inspired - please reach out!