One of my tangible highlights was stopping always chasing revenue growth (something that has been a really difficult thing to change). And a refocus towards profitability, rather than chasing revenue, that was really useful to me, because that was part of my real growth through this process.

I decided that I don't want to be at a single digit % kind of profitability, I want a good double digit profitability, which is in excess of 30%. I started making business decisions (like cutting units, focusing on higher margin clients, focusing on high margin work) that aligned with this goal. I stopped procrastinating on the tough decisions!

After bringing SIS to 40% YoY revenue growth and realising that there was a real divergence of vision with the Board; I decided it was the right time to move on to my next leadership adventure. It was the right time for SIS to reset and find its own way, under new leadership. For me, the team spirit and culture is everything and I'm super excited to move on to my next adventure!

By employing that kind of coaching mindset, as a leader, and also better questioning with customers, we get to the heart of leadership team and customer issues and challenges faster. And I find that people open up quicker as well. For example, prior to this shift in my approach, our sales calls would follow a broad framework of questions, but they never really got to the heart of the issue, which was, in our world, the visceral pain that our prospects feel. Now we do. Both externally and internally.

One major outcome was around dealing with  difficult people. I really took a lot away from the group. It also coincided with me having to deal with an issue within one of the portfolio companies in our group. And I started discussions around it, which really helped, because it was at a time when that situation was live and was real.  I was able to really take action to save one of the portfolio companies that I was dealing with, that was for the better.