From Advisor to Owner: Making the Leap from Strategy to Building a Business
For much of my early career, I was trained to analyze problems, develop strategies, and advise leaders. Over time, I realized that being good at recommending what should happen is very different from being accountable for making it happen.
My career has taken me from corporate strategy and consulting into operating and product leadership roles at Meta, Shopify, PayPal, and now Automattic, where I lead an advertising business as a GM. Along the way, I had to unlearn some of what had made me successful earlier in my career: waiting for enough data, perfecting the recommendation, and assuming someone else would ultimately make the decision.
In this session, I’ll share what I learned making the transition from advisor to owner: how to build operating credibility, make decisions with incomplete information, take accountability for outcomes rather than recommendations, and create something from 0→1 when there is no established playbook.
I’ll spend the first part sharing lessons and real examples from my own career journey, followed by an open conversation and Q&A with the audience.
How should the session run?
Presentation
Preferred language
English
Who is this for?
Mid-career professionals—especially those in strategy, consulting, operations, product, or Chief of Staff roles—who have built strong careers advising and influencing others but are wondering how to take the next step toward owning a product, business, P&L, or organization. It is also for professionals considering a nonlinear career move and asking themselves: “I’ve learned how to succeed in my current role. What do I want to own next?”
Why the host can lead this
I’ve lived this transition firsthand. I started my career in corporate strategy and consulting, where I was trained to analyze problems and advise leaders, and over time moved into operating, product, and GM roles across Meta, Shopify, PayPal, and Automattic. That journey taught me that moving from advisor to owner is not just a change in title. It requires a different way of thinking—making decisions with incomplete information, taking accountability for outcomes, building without a clear playbook, and learning through action rather than analysis alone. I can speak to both sides of that transition because I’ve spent meaningful parts of my career on each side.
What you will take away
Participants will leave with a practical way to think about the shift from influencing outcomes to owning them. They’ll learn how to identify opportunities that build real ownership, how to develop operating credibility before they already have the title, and how to become more comfortable making decisions under ambiguity. More broadly, I hope participants—especially those in mid-career—come away asking a different question about their next move: not just “What job should I take next?” but “What do I want to own next?”