What am I looking for?

Once one gets through the “why” question after announcing a big life change, the next follow up question is “what’s next” or “what are you looking for”. As I outlined in my previous blog post, I honestly don’t know.

That said, after a dozen conversations there are some things that I am very confident in saying that I do want which has been helpful in guiding some of my decision making. I thought there would be value in sharing this more broadly.

1. Staying in Waterloo Region – I have spent so much time and effort making this community awesome that you can’t convince me to move. Any opportunities that require me to leave Waterloo Region are a hard no.
2. Great people – I want to work with great people as the primary motivator. Looking back on my career and even previous posts it is the people you work with every day that make the biggest difference. If I can get excited about the property claims insurance business then I am confident I can get excited about almost anything.
3. Leverage what I know – Ideally I would love to leverage so many of the hard fought lessons learned over the past 8 years (Velocity and Encircle) to help a company be wildly successful. We need more local success stories.
4. Staying power – I am looking for something I can really dig my teeth into and where I can stick around for a while (measured in years) to have the impact that I envision.

Beyond that I honestly don’t know. I’m talking to early stage startups, scale ups and some large companies. It’s been great to learn about so many of the successful companies and looking forward to talking with more.