What's West of Westeros?

If you’ve spent any time with me, whether online or in person, you know that I always seem to crave new information and experiences. I’m constantly reading and love nothing more than a good story. The best stories are seared into my consciousness, offering up a quote or two for every occasion.

This last week, I found myself quoting Arya from HBO's “Game of Thrones”

“What’s West of Westeros?,” asks Arya

“I don’t know,” said Jon Snow.

“No one knows. It’s where all the maps stop. That’s where I’m going.”

I made a decision to leave Microsoft after 6 years and almost 12 years total in the Microsoft Unified Communications ecosystem.

It’s been such an amazing journey. I love to learn, through either reading or doing, and you’ll never catch me doing the same thing for too long. Because of this, I’ve been able to travel around the Microsoft UC business into several ports of call. I’ve been in pre-sales engineering and a hardware solutions architect in the partner ecosystem. I’ve been a technical seller, part of the Skype and Teams product groups and lastly marketing at Microsoft.

I’ve seen this industry evolve, and Microsoft with it. It has been the privilege of my career to be part of the success of Teams, the fastest growing product in Microsoft’s history. I look forward to seeing it continue to grow and become part of the enterprise consciousness and workflow.

Why leave now, when Teams has been such a success? When you are on top of a mountain, the first thing you often see are the other mountains to climb.

So now I’m ready. I’m ready to learn more, to take on more leadership and end-to-end accountabilities. I’m stretching myself to adventure outside of the UC business and into areas that will push me as a teammate and as a leader.

I’m ready for what’s next.

Journey on.