Simple question. How many people do you know who went from teaching in a public school system to leading cloud software teams? Well, I met one. Her name is Sejin Mong, a teacher once and lifelong student now, who traveled from Ann Arbor to Cambridge on a winding road from education to startups to build a career in the world of growing technology companies.
Campbell Brofft loves being part of a team. Whether it’s leading from the front as the oldest of five children, walking onto the Squash team in college, or building products for millions of people Campbell keeps taking on big challenges and smashing them for winners.
Stephanie Roulic grew up in Massachusetts before her career as a Founder, startup event organizer, and early startup employee. It’s easier to just leave it there for a new audience than to detail the first three years of her childhood growing up in Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Or the chapter in Malaysia where she attended preschool & part of kindergarten before moving to Thailand to finish kindergarten and attend first grade. After all that she boomeranged back to the Bay State where she was born to settle in Billerica. Whew.
Nick Abate has always been drawn to high growth experiences. Whether it’s the bustle of a city, the hard work and discipline it took to play soccer at the collegiate level, or the explosion of e-commerce over the past decade he’s always sought bar raising challenges.
Jack McDermott is an athlete. Or at least that’s how he saw himself earlier in life. It was a lot easier to self identify that way on the football or lacrosse field where he confidently performed instead of the classroom. You see, Jack had a stutter. Growing up, he kept getting pulled out of class to go to his speech therapy sessions. And from an early age he noticed that classrooms and our education system weren’t always designed for a kid like him. He had a problem he needed to solve.
Sheila Connolly had a dream. Her love of politics was going to propel her through undergrad, onto law school, and across the Atlantic Ocean into a career as an international human rights lawyer at the Hague. She did make it across the Atlantic Ocean, but not quite as far as the Netherlands. We’ll get there.
I’m honored to introduce Laina Crosby, a Product Manager at Toast. Full disclosure, Laina & I used to work together once upon a time. While Laina works at Toast, she is not Toast. Toast is not Laina. She is a person far beyond her professional identity. Lest we forget.
I’m really excited you’re here. MGMT Boston is a project I’ve been working on for a few months but thinking about for much longer. Some of the details have shifted but the core focus has always been the same – what’s the best way to highlight the operating leaders who help startups grow? If Founders, Executives, and Investors are the atomic units of a startup ecosystem I’ve always felt that an equally fundamental ingredient is strong operating leadership. That’s what returns capital to shareholders and grows ecosystems.
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled Boston operators! I’m looking for the leaders behind the scenes – not the founders or execs – who drive growth at the best local startups. Reach out at mc@mgmtboston.com to be featured in an upcoming newsletter.
