The Future Is Alive.

Amid the rare celestial alignments of Winter 2024, today marks a personal convergence: a new week begins and I turn another year older. For many, these kinds of milestones present a profound and fleeting opportunity to tap into a kind of generative magic.

Biloslavo, R., Edgar, D., Aydin, E. and Bulut, C.(2024), "Artificial intelligence (AI) and strategic planning process within VUCA environments: a research agenda and guidelines", https://lnkd.in/ebFzTwYs

Foundations

My professional life began with apprenticeships in my family’s businesses. Here, is where I first grasped the critical role of process in building “big” things.

My father was highly competitive, and a natural at everything. A serial capitalist, he was ahead of his time by miles. He approached his work with a martial artist’s discipline, a master’s craftsmanship and was born with the innate ability to bring value to whatever he was doing. In his garage I gained practical mechanical skills, including the basics of combustion engines, oil changes and tire pressure—my first introductions to motors and systems thinking.

As a teen, I spent summers operating heavy machinery on the family farm and around my father’s construction sites. I managed in his restaurants and assisted his administrative staff. These experiences instilled a strong work ethic, adaptability and operational awareness. This would lay the groundwork for my decision to enlist in the Air Force after graduation.

Core Value DNA

In the military, I embraced the culture of precision systems thinking while navigating high-security engineering environments. The Air Force instilled core values of integrity, service, and excellence—principles that I would later develop as key elements of my leadership DNA. These early experiences taught me the importance of anticipating change and adapting in real time.

Whether calibrating predictive models or optimizing processes under pressure, I learned that leadership only works when it’s able to inspire precise, orchestrated action.

This mindset carried me into roles at UNISYS, Boeing, JP Morgan and Northrop Grumman where I tackled the unique challenges of VUCA environments. Over two decades, these capabilities matured. This time allowed me to grow, ultimately leading high-stakes initiatives that helped shape industries:

? Transforming Industrial Operations: Deployed digital twins and predictive analytics to enhance operational efficiency, achieving a 30% reduction in downtime and delivering millions in annual savings.

? Accelerating Innovation: Streamlined DevOps pipelines and workflows to reduce time-to-market by 40%, enabling scalable, data-driven growth for a global financial services organization.

? Securing Critical Systems: Designed blockchain frameworks and zero-trust architectures for government agencies, reducing vulnerabilities by 50% and enhancing operational resilience.

Each of these milestones reinforced a core truth: leadership is about more than solving problems—it’s about predicting opportunities, building systems for impossible scale and positioning teams to succeed inevitably and continuously.

Birthdays, First Day. New Year.

If today were your first day—your personal New Year—what would you prioritize, redefine, or initiate? How are you positioning yourself to navigate complexity, embrace innovation, and lead with clarity in the face of uncertainty?

Leadership isn’t static; it’s dynamic. The era of transformation is over, the age of intelligence has begun. A world run by automation and new sciences that are indistinguishable from magic, will require a disengagement from obsolete ideas and ways of being. This new world will call for leaders to leave old things behind and instead to build new systems that align with the reality ahead of us for the highest net good of all.

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Whether you’re leading a team, driving innovation or navigating uncertainty—the time to reset and reimagine is always now.

From learning formative lessons as an apprentice to leading teams through The Great Complexity, I realized that leadership isn’t defined by avoiding failure and having all the answers. The way is forged by pressing forward boldly, intentionally—towards the mark of excellence.

My wish today is a simple one: may all of today’s challenges ripen into the harvest of tomorrow’s success.

If you share a similar wish and you’re a leader, technologist or futurist working toward the same —let’s connect, and together maybe build the next big thing.

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What is The Great Complexity?

The Great Complexity refers to the intersection of technological disruption, global interconnectedness, and rapid systemic change. This framework encapsulates the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) conditions that define modern leadership and decision-making environments.

The term highlights the multifaceted challenges of the 21st century, where innovations like artificial intelligence, climate change, and shifting geopolitical landscapes intersect, creating both unprecedented risks and opportunities.

Additional Reading

? “Leadership in the Age of Complexity” (Harvard Business Review)

? “Complex Adaptive Systems: The Science of Adaptation in Business” (MIT Sloan Management Review)

? “The VUCA World and the Complexity of Leadership” (World Economic Forum)

What is VUCA?

VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. Originally coined by the U.S. Army to describe the post-Cold War world, it has since become a framework for understanding the unpredictable, fast-changing conditions leaders face today.

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About The Author

Innovation leader, aligning technology outcomes to capabilities. Delivering secure, predictive solutions in mission-critical environments. SaaS, FED, SLED, Financial Services, Healthcare.

Technical focus in M&A, I\O Modernization. Deep interest in workflow automation, advanced business process engineering, SDLC, PDLC and Platform strategies.

Beyond technical leadership, a motorsports enthusiast. Obsessive about books, and reading. Would rather be in the mountains 9/10 times.

A devoted advocate for the next generation of leaders in technology. A mother of three, balancing innovation with example-ship and family values.

Exemplifying the human side of transformative change.