What a journey...I'm grateful

When John, Dave and I got together for breakfast in 2011 to conceptualize the idea of creating The IT Media Group, we didn't anticipate the extent of the impacts we'd make on the CIO community. In August of this year, our team, advisory board and partners celebrated our 10th anniversary by virtually opening the Toronto Stock Exchange.?

This is our story.??

In 2006, while at Sun Microsystems, I met John and acquired his services as a tech media personality and CIO community advocate to help gain mindshare within the IT executive community across the country. He was a delight to collaborate and travel with and a fun breakfast companion. So we decided to keep our breakfast ritual going quarterly.

Fast forward to 2011, and John introduced me to Dave, one of our industry's best writers and editors. The three of us had breakfast at Cora's. Over plates of pancakes and fruits, we savoured the idea of creating a business together. We knew what each of us would bring to the table and the communities that would benefit from this partnership.

My former colleagues and friends from Sun have been instrumental in supporting us since day one. We've been lucky to have top talent in Edward to oversee our video content production. Lori helped us accelerate the business plan by giving us our first order for business from Oracle. Within months, we signed IBM and soon after, Frances sponsored us from HP. When my friend Luis joined Hitachi in 2013, he brought us on board, and through Luis, we met Marcel and Paul, who have become great supporters and advocates. My former colleagues from Sun also took us to Symantec, Salesforce, VMware, RedHat and so on, and some brought us to not one, not two, but three companies. To date, 100% of our business is inbound and through referrals.?We don't plan to change that going forward.

In the early days of the IT Media Group, our weekly team meeting was held at our posh Toronto HQ, otherwise known as Richtree Market, where we enjoyed breakfast over long hours. At the time, our biggest challenge was to create a perception that we were more established than an upstart without a considerable amount of marketing dollars. So we did a couple of innovative things. First, we entered a LinkedIn contest for The Best Company Pages award globally, and we won. Seeing the ITMG logo displayed next to the likes of Disney, Adobe and CNBC not only shocked us but supercharged our confidence and credibility. Second, we created a CIO Advisory Board and invited some of our esteemed industry colleagues and friends to join. Helen, Ted, Peter and Frances were kind enough to say "yes" without hesitation and put their reputations behind our little venture.

As our mindshare and communities continued to grow, so did our cross-industry CIO Advisory Board. Over time, Paul, John, Maria, Monique and Ernest joined in bringing fresh ideas, insights and connections to our community. In addition, Jeff joined our leadership team in 2016 with a wealth of expertise in IT consulting, strategy and operations, elevating our CIO programs and research practice to the next level.?

Today, The IT Media Group is more than just bringing people together for conversations and arming them with insights. It's about facilitating collaboration and career advancement opportunities for executive peers. It's about helping our network elevate their personal brands in the marketplace and helping them imagine the art of the possible. I couldn't be more proud of what we've achieved together over the past decade:

• 600+ CIO Conversations
• 3000+ Use Cases
• 400+ Reports & Articles
• 500+ Videos
• 350+ Executive Interviews
• 1000+ Hours of Coaching & Mentoring

As we celebrate our 10th anniversary and reflect on the past decade, I'll share three takeaways:

1. We live in a connections economy. Kindness is the most valuable currency.

2. Sometimes, what makes dreams a reality is simply turning the notion of "one day" into the action of "day one" and letting the rest take shape.

3. Someone once said that the meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. Through the IT Media Group, I found my gift as a connector and a storyteller. I've also aligned with my purpose of helping others succeed by harnessing the power of connections, content, and conversations.

I'm grateful for having met so many extraordinary people during this journey, and I relish the adventures that are yet to come.

#PayingForward #GivingBack #ITMG #TheNext10