Congratulations! So, you’ve made it to six months, time to give yourself a pat on the back. But before you pop the champagne, let’s take an audit of your first six months at Sharing Minds…

In such a short amount of time, we’ve achieved some pretty significant milestones. I’m filled with a satisfying sense of pride, and as I reflect I realise that it’s mostly due the tenacity of the team around me and the thought leadership I’ve been part of.

What a wonderful opportunity at the start of 2017: Sharing Minds was looking to expand its brand into Melbourne and I was given the opportunity to take on the challenge as its very first State Manager.

One thing I was adamant on was that I wanted to be part of something huge and not just a remote worker with limited support. As part of the Executive Team, I could provide an outsider view of things that were working and the areas that needed to be adjusted as the business prepares to grow and expand.

Day one, I flew up to Brisbane to meet my new team, a rather uneventful flight, collected from the airport and driven into the office in Fortitude Valley. First impressions, they’re efficient and organised; I had been allocated a desk for my time in Brisbane, my laptop was ready to be configured as was my very first Android phone (was time to unshackle myself from my Windows Phone). First meeting, executive discussions with the CEO and CTO – “So, welcome onboard-- Here is what we think is working and what we think is not-- Would value your opinion and ideas.” Well, talk about baptism of fire. By the way, the things that weren’t right weren’t all that bad.

So we’re now six months in and I’ve been able to not only make suggestions on affective change areas but also see these adopted in very short timeframes - stronger go to market strategies, improved sales methodologies, new partnering opportunities, and a brand new system for tracking our entire business.

This vibrant team I’ve joined is one that’s more like a family, an ever expanding one. In the past six months we’ve added more rigour, more structure, more ability, capacity and agility and maintained the rich family-oriented and fun culture. We have grown as a business, bringing onboard a new communication and marketing department, new sales resources, new senior technical consultants, new service delivery approaches and management, and a large expansion into our support services business, all while maintaining and referencing our core values.

With the business growing at a very fast pace, it’s time to make plans for the next six months. Grow the business, foster the partnering relationships with Interactive, LiveTiles and Microsoft, explore other partnering opportunities.

I am so grateful for this opportunity to truly be part of something special.

Onwards and upwards.