Today is a big day at SHIFT.  Today is the day I handed the tiller to somebody else.

Some background:  I worked at SHIFT’s predecessor agency in Boston for many years, and after I hit “VP” I started to feel stale.  I needed a new challenge.  So, I raised stakes and moved to San Francisco with a handful of loyal colleagues, to start a new branch on the West Coast. 

This was soon after the Bubble burst, so as you can imagine, that “new challenge” turned into a Herculean task.  Ultimately we were successful in San Franciso.  But in the 5 years I spent out west, the East Coast organization had started to run aground.  In 2005 I moved back to Beantown to patch things up. 

In the past 3 years, our SF office has been run by Mandy Mladenoff, a woman who started with us as a twenty-something Account Coordinator.  She’s truly grown into the role and is doing a kick-ass job.  Her loyalty, depth and passion have kept SF on a strong and steady course.

Meanwhile, the Boston office’s 2005 travails are ancient history.  And while scores of talented SHIFTers contributed to turning things around, during the process I seemed to grow a new “right hand.”  With increasing frequency, when I needed help on an important task I found myself turning to Amy Anderson. 

Amy started out with us as a Senior Account Executive about 8 years ago.  In the course of rising to VP, she impressed everyone with her quiet competence and good humor.  Today we promoted Amy to Managing Director of our Boston office.  Hurray!!

We are thrilled to have two such talented women helming our two offices.  We are doubly happy about the fact that Mandy and Amy are such stellar representatives of our culture.  We never had the slightest considerations for bringing in outsiders for these critical roles.  Whenever possible we like to grow our biggest stars from within; we like to know that they have taken a big swig from our pitcher of Kool-Aid!

But – now what?  What do I do now?

Well, as much as I’d like to relax a little bit, there are exciting new challenges for me to tackle now that day-to-day management “stuff” will be off my plate. 

SHIFT is growing at a very healthy clip.  With growth comes operational challenges, as well as a host of unforseen, unexpected (but wholly welcome) opportunities to wrangle.  There are new services, new geographies, new partners and new priorities to sort through, develop and maximize. 

As someone else takes the tiller, I find myself increasingly excited about new ways to chart the course.

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