“If you want to build a great life, slow down. Anyone can caffeinate & push hard toward their next goal. But it’s not sustainable. Long-term energy comes from alignment. And alignment requires feeling the subtle difference between energy created from anxiety and energy created from inspiration.” Cory Muscara, author and psych professor at UPenn.
I failed to recognize the “subtle difference” and spent much of my career in high tech being driven by anxiety AND coffee (thank you Philz!). Surprisingly, such anxiety produced a successful career (and burnout!) allowing me the great privilege of retirement at the age of 49. There are very few - especially women - that can share their insecurities, failures and learnings in a public manner without impacting their current position or future one. I hope that by sharing mine it will help you realize that you are not alone. Getting fired, career codependency, feeling inferior are just a few of the challenges that I faced while navigating the corporate patriarchy as a high tech executive. No doubt that you too have experienced the same. Let’s connect, communicate and come together to help one another.
Who am I and what do I know!?
Like Marissa Mayer, former CEO of Yahoo, I too am from the great state of Wisconsin. Yes, I love cheese. Chocolate more, but that topic deserves a blog post unto its own. Unlike Marissa, I did not attend Stanford and earn multiple degrees in computer science. Instead, the family minivan dropped me off in the "heart of it all" (Ohio, for those unfamiliar with state mottos) where I earned a degree in journalism. Computer science, journalism...same thing. Ahem.
In attempt to "find myself," I jumped around this great nation of ours where I lived/worked in Hilton Head, South Carolina followed by several years in Denver and eventually, like the Mayflower, landed just outside of Boston. I was "found" by Internet start-up, Be Free, and began my affiliate marketing career in 1999 as an entry-level account manager responsible for their biggest client, Barnes & Noble. Boston also blessed me with my brilliant, supportive, New England-bred husband, Daryl, and our daughter, Peyton. One and done on the children front. ;)
While Be Free was being acquired by ValueClick in 2001, getting integrated with Commission Junction in 2004, I was promoted on a few occasions, six times to be exact, and was re-located to SoCal in 2007 to become President of the combined companies.
By 2014, Commission Junction (CJ) was the number one affiliate provider, "by a long shot" according to industry publication, Internet Retailer. Our net revenue was $XXXM as a result of 3,000 advertiser clients (i.e., Gap, Home Depot, Priceline), 70,000 active publishers (i.e., RetailMeNot, Rakuten, Honey) and supported by 450 employees across 14 offices worldwide. In December of 2014, Dallas-based, Alliance Data Systems (ADS) acquired our parent company, Conversant (fka, ValueClick), for $2.3B in which CJ was valued at $1B.
After 16 years at one company, I left soon after the acquisition in the Summer of 2015. It’s now or never Kerri! With the exception of my honeymoon in 2001, I had never taken a vacation longer than one week. So, I took a year off, spending time with family and friends on both Coasts. Finally!
I returned to the workforce in the Fall of 2016 as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at a small browser extension company called Honey, based in downtown Los Angeles. It was a short but lucrative stint as they were ultimately acquired by PayPal in 2019 for $4B. Following Honey, I worked at another LA start-up in the social media sphere by the name of Greenfly, a baseball colloquialism referring to “over-zealous media types.” Shawn Green, a former MLB right fielder, was one of our co-founders. My final curtain call was at Patreon, a membership-based platform located in San Fran, connecting creators with their biggest fans (or patrons) via exclusive content. Joining six months before COVID, I experienced the highs and lows of managing a team and creator base during a global crisis. No doubt, the pandemic accelerated my retirement timeline!
After 28 years, I gave my final bow in January of 2022. Eight different companies, including three start-ups, all of which were led by male CEOs. I worked directly for seven of them. I was exhausted. Having failed to find alignment in the first chapter of my life, I’m now trying to find it in the second. I’ve returned to my childhood passions of writing and speaking along with fulfilling my need for speed via skiing and mountain biking in the Rocky Mountains. In short, I’m searching for my 12-year-old self!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey and please let me know how I can help you!
“I was angry about the human talent that was lost just because it was born into a female body, and the mediocrity that was rewarded because it was born into a male one.” Gloria Steinem