Beyond the badge

A walking deck without the human is just a résumé in slide form. Here’s what grounds my thinking when I’m not in meetings.

The phrase I use instead of “lifelong learner”

Always on learner. Not because I’ll ever finish learning, but because curiosity is my default setting. Every chance to learn something new, every customer conversation, every initiative, and every transformation teaches me something about what works, what doesn’t, what’s real, and what’s hype.

What I’m doing when I’m not on a call

Father, husband, and friend first. The job is meaningful work, not the measure of a person. Outside of meetings, a few things define how I spend my time and what keeps me grounded.

Music & Creative Work

Playing, recording, producing... the whole process. Creative pursuits that keep me thinking differently. There's something about the studio that resets the brain: you're solving problems, making decisions with incomplete information, and listening for what's missing.

This turns out to be the same skill set you use in a strategy conversation. Some of my best insights come after hours in the studio, not just in a conference room.

Tech Experiments

Building things with code and AI, new programming languages and platforms (too many), even new libraries to experiment with. Hardware! (I love hardware experimentation.)

This experimentation keeps me honest about what's real capability and what's marketing. It's genuinely fun, and it helps me understand transformation challenges firsthand.

Psychology & Sociology

Two genuine passions... and they show up in everything I do. I tend toward Jungian thinking: the idea that our patterns, our blind spots, and even the gap between the persona we present and the self we're still becoming are worthy of honest examination. Shadow work and individuation aren't just philosophy; they're practical tools for self-aware leadership.

Sociology adds the collective dimension: how groups form identity, how culture resists change even when people say they want it, why transformation fails at the human layer before it ever fails at the technology layer. Together they keep me asking better questions about the room I'm in, the people I'm leading, and the direction I'm heading.

Faith and Family

My grounding foundation. The reason any of the rest of it matters in the end. My faith shapes who I am at the core, how I present myself, and my genuine care for those around me. My family is the daily reminder that titles don't follow you home, but character does.

There's a version of this career that consumes everything around it. Faith and family are what keep that from happening. They are not constraints; they are my orientation. When I'm thinking seriously about a customer's long-term transformation, part of what makes me take the long view is that I go home every night to people who are living in that future too.

What I’m reading / studying / learning right now

Human-centered AI and augmentation: The past decade of machine learning, and now AI, has reshaped how I build and think. I use AI to sharpen thinking, accelerate exploration, and extend human capability, not to outsource judgment or ownership. The question that matters most to me is how we apply it while preserving human dignity, agency, value, and flourishing.
The Rust language and ecosystem: It’s not just about learning a new programming language, but about understanding the shift back toward memory-safe, high-performance systems programming and what that means for the future of software development. (Just a note… I’m a C guy… so this is a big deal for me.)
Transformation and change leadership: ADKAR, Kotter’s theories, organizational psychology. The mechanics of how change actually happens inside institutions, not just frameworks, but how you move real people through real transitions.
The Challenger Sale and strategic selling: It’s not just about closing deals, but helping leaders challenge their own assumptions and see new possibilities.
Vision-building and strategy: How do you help an executive leadership team move from “where are we” to “where are we going” and why.

The through-line: The same curiosity that makes me useful in the boardroom fuels what I do outside of work. They’re not separate. They’re the same person.

📌 Not familiar with ADKAR or Kotter's?

ADKAR... a change management model focused on the individual level of change: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement.
Kotter's 8-step process... leading organizational change by creating urgency, building a guiding coalition, and generating short-term wins to sustain momentum.
Both are essential frameworks for understanding how to drive successful transformations in complex environments.