They say your first job teaches you everything. For me, that was a sink full of dishes and a lesson in hard graft.
I was twelve and told a little white lie about my age to land a job as a “dish pig” in a bustling Italian restaurant.
I wanted the early shift, the 6 am start. Even then, I understood that the real work, the stuff that truly matters, happens before everyone else arrives.
It’s a lesson that has stuck with me through two recessions, an 18-year tenure building tech teams in a variety of businesses, and most recently a front-row seat to the hyper-growth of a global tech unicorn.
That early grit was essential. My real education in business wasn’t in a lecture hall; it was in the trenches of the Australian startup scene during the turbulent early 2000s.
I spent nearly two decades at Real Time Australia, not just filling roles, but learning the intricate dance of people, ambition, and capital.
You learn a lot about a company’s soul when you’re the one finding the people who will build it, especially when the economy is trying to tear it down. You learn that business isn’t about transactions; it’s about trust, relationships, and understanding the deep, human currents that truly drive growth.
After 18 years, I knew my craft. But the landscape was shifting.
I took on a new challenge leading engineering talent at Canva. It was a different kind of machine, a beautiful, complex engine of hyper-growth. I was helping build the future, surrounded by some of the brightest minds creating AI and Machine Learning systems that were already changing the world.
But I started to see the faint outlines of a new, even bigger shift on the horizon.
The very definition of ‘future’ itself was about to get a radical update.