Off to a New Adventure: I’ve Left HTC & Joined AT&T

 (It’s funny how you can start a blog post with the best of intentions to publish it immediately, then four weeks later it’s still sitting in your drafts folder…time to pull the trigger!)

In the instantly-connected world of social media, it seems like a curious thing to announce a big change on a blog (how very 2008 of me!), but I felt like I wanted to make it official beyond the realm of 140 characters. On April 11th I finished my time at HTC, after 2 years and 8 months at the company. It was an amazing opportunity for me; I learned and grew so much in that role. HTC is an amazing company with tremendous innovation and passion, and I’m deeply grateful to all my co-workers for making my time there so special. As Proverbs 27 says, “iron sharpens iron”. I worked with some smart, highly skilled people and I had to push myself to keep up with them. I’m thankful for the opportunity to learn something new every day.

Being a fan of HTC before working there, I remain one today, and will always bleed green!

Having the opportunity to create and run a world-class VIP fan community, HTC elevate, was the proudest moment of my career thus far. Envisioning, creating, then leading a community of like-minded people was truly a dream job and I’m eternally grateful to my first manager, John Starkweather, for giving me the opportunity. I deeply respect HTC as a company, so I won’t fully explain my reasons for leaving in public, but I will say it was related to me being a Canadian working in the USA and not receiving what I needed to stay with the company long-term. Sometimes you have to make hard decisions to protect your family’s well-being, and this was one of those situations. An opportunity came along that would allow me to do that, and to work with John again, so I took it.

So where am I now? In case you missed the headline, let me make it obvious with a giant logo:

I’ve accepted a role with the AT&T small business team in Bothell, WA. I went from being self-employed to working for HTC, which seemed to me like a “big corporation” at the time (with some 17,000 employees), and now I’m at a company with over 250,000 employees.  It’s been an interesting adjustment to say the least; things I assumed were normal from my time at HTC are most definitely not the norm at AT&T, so every day I’m learning and adjusting to my new surroundings.

I’m doing a different sort of work than I was at HTC, which is adding to my career toolkit and working some new mental muscles. I was hired as a community manager, but since there’s no community just yet on this new project, I’m getting to project manage, direct developers, evaluate UI/UX, coordinate events, and use my technical chops to assist the team I’ve joined. I’m really enjoying it, and while I miss HTC and my elevate community, I’m all-in on this new role and am looking forward to the future!