Your AI Survival Guide

CHAPTER 2The Rogue Executive

I've been in the business world for 25 years, in the technology world for 20 years, and in the AI world for 14 of those 20 years. My lens is very pragmatic, grounded, and uncomplicated as I grew up from humble beginnings. A child of immigrant parents with no wealth or last name to open doors for me nor, good looks or charm to carry me through, I had no choice but to lean into my stubbornness and extreme fear of mediocrity to carry me forward.

With that as my foundation, and a few pivotal career moments, I stepped into this world and built a reputation over the years. Some positive, some negative.

• I'm a businessperson who is a technologist that speaks “plain English” when strategizing, planning, designing, and developing capabilities across a variety of functions and industries.
• I'm a rogue executive. I never fit into any corporate culture or tribe. I learned to be comfortable with that, and eventually confident with it, and realized my role was to push boundaries and people so popularity wasn’t my priority, my job was my priority.
• I'm a person who learns from failures, unfortunately.
• I have served many industries and many functions, so I have a broad perspective of companies, regions, markets, and organizational cultures.
• I push people past their comfort zone; some love it, others not so much.

The next few pages give you a closer look as to my humble beginnings and how I started. I decided it was important to share this with you. Why? Because ...