The Road Less Traveled: Preface - Identity Crisis, Time, Parenthood. (Part 1 of 7)

My career has been shaped by one important philosophy - choosing opportunities that feed my curiosity for all things consumer + tech and push myself to test the limits of my capabilities and experience.?

This is a double edged sword - on one side, I’ve learned that I can successfully create, scale, and monetize a diverse range of products and services - across geographies, customer types, and business types. The other side is that these choices make it more difficult for others to easily put me in a box; making it tough to briefly and effectively articulate the specific value I can bring to a new organization.

Recently, on the advice of a trusted advisor, I set out to write my career narrative; one that dives into my path less traveled, the highs, the lows, the learnings, and how it has led me to exactly where I need to be, NOW.

Preface - Identity Crisis, Time, Fatherhood

Identity Crisis #2

In 2017, I returned to the US after almost a decade building category creating/defining companies from the ground up in, what will be, the largest internet ecosystem, India. It was the second time in my life I faced an identity crisis.

It’s a TLDR World Now

10 years away from home, my networks in NY were cold. I was an incredibly experienced leader/operator whose career had organically evolved for 20+ years. Getting back into the “network” shouldn’t be hard, right? Wrong! I quickly hit the “TL;DR” wall.

Folks I was networking with wanted to hear about linear capabilities (though every job description emphasized the importance of entrepreneurial experience) or see “badges” du jour on my resume from FAANG/MAANG. It was difficult to communicate the breadth, depth, and value of my diverse experience in the 30-60 seconds they would spend on my profile before putting me in a box of their understanding.

I mistakenly approached my reintroduction to US networking with the thought that my experiences should be enough to demonstrate my capabilities and value in leadership conversations. But they weren’t…

Executive Search

Speaking with a Partner (Consumer Tech) at a leading exec search firm, I thought surely she will understand what I bring to the table and have options for me. The partner was super impressed by my background, breadth/depth of experience, and hard earned operational reps. She herself had moved overseas to broaden her skill set, but she had moved to China to work for Walmart. So she left me with this statement:

“you have incredibly valuable experience, both here in the US and in arenas and ecosystems that presented greater challenges, but you are hard to market here without having some recent, ‘known’ names in your history abroad. Your best bet is to get into something known here that will serve as a bookend (along with Amex, Andersen, IMG in your early career) to your great work abroad building new companies.”

Imposter Syndrome

I saw merit to the Partner’s counsel and started looking at “bookend worthy” companies. I over-indexed on tailoring my experience to each opportunity I was pursuing - the different versions I presented would make your head spin… It was unauthentic, painful, and frankly - depressing.

I developed a major case of “imposter syndrome” while talking to an increasing number of domain “experts” with several years under their belt or having taken a recent ride on a “unicorn.” I didn’t feel comfortable equating several years of experience in one thing to being an “expert” - that would mean that I am an expert in a lot of things…and no one wants to hear or believe that….

Why did I find it so incredibly hard to articulate who I am, what I have accomplished, and what I want to do? Well, writing my story helped me be better at answering these questions.

I hope this is an interesting read, at the least. It’s been cathartic and liberating to write it; and perhaps it can be supportive, validating, or helpful to anyone else who may be going through a difficult time in their career, understanding themselves and their place in the world. It’s taken a lot of reflection, introspection, support, and inspiration…so begins MY STORY.

The Road Less Traveled & Time

Be fearless. Have the courage to take risks. Go where there are no guarantees. Get out of your comfort zone even if it means being uncomfortable. The road less traveled is sometimes fraught with barricades bumps and uncharted terrain. But it is on that road where your character is truly tested And have the courage to accept that you’re not perfect nothing is and no one is — and that’s OK. - Katie Couric .

The breadth and depth of my career come from taking risks, getting my hands dirty in challenging environments, and creating/delivering value across Fortune 100 and other institutions to hyper growth rocket ships like Wework and Jabong and early stage startups. I can’t say that my path was “planned” or carefully crafted, rather, I’ve had the good fortune, for most of my career, to be part of opportunities that have consistently, organically led me to the next step in my learning journey.

I’ve had the opportunity to learn, build and work through some of the most impactful technological and economic shifts over the past 30 years.

• Helping the US government develop strategy around the future of technology and the internet during the early days of the internet (, IQT (In-Q-Tel) );
• Experiencing the impact of the Internet Bubble Crash on my second startup - a technology accelerator
• Witnessing a 70,000 employees company I worked for, being decimated overnight ();
• Building and leading a $3B consumer card portfolio around the time of the housing/financial crisis ( American Express );
• Being a primary contributor to the rise of Digital India and being a pioneer in it’s e-commerce and digital media ecosystems ( 国际管理集团 , Jabong , FREECULTR, MissMalini Entertainment);
• Being part of one of the most dramatic rise and falls of a hyper-growth company, and witnessing what the lack of corporate governance can cause ( WeWork ) leading into the worldwide Covid pandemic;
• Calling on my experiences to take another leap of faith to build and contribute to what will be the most transformational consumer technology shift in my lifetime - .

pip install openai
pip install llama-cpp-python
pip install langchain

{learn, build, apply to the future of a problem that is personal to you}        

I’ll share more depth into the story of my career soon, but the most seismic shift came to me in the form of an 8lb 4 oz baby boy. That kid, Bodhi, and his little brother Axel, propelled me into a a space I didn’t know yet…Parenthood.

New Perspective: Have Babies…Need Time!

Of all the journeys I’ve been on, this is my most important and revealing journey.

?? Becoming a dad has taught me that I never fully appreciated the importance and value of TIME -

to learn; connect with loved ones; and teach newer humans “the ropes” of life.

for experiences; innovation; evolution (personal and professional); and nurturing, my relationships and myself.

Now I think about the value of time every day. Writing my story helped me appreciate the value of my time spent thus far, and helped me realize what I want to do with my time going forward.

?? Next Up: Chapter 1 - Science and Technology Lead to Consumers, Part 2 of 7 - 08/23/23

If you enjoyed this story, follow me Sujal Shah . I’ll be publishing the rest of “my story” weekly over the next 5 weeks, followed by a bi-monthly newsletter I am starting with BandraRoad AI tentatively called, “AI and the Future of Digital Families”