I've been a Chief of Staff for close to two years but I've held similar positions in the past without the title. 

People often ask me "What is it that you actually do?"

Chief of Staff roles have become popular over the last few years, especially in tech. Many of the big companies have a Chief of Staff for all of their SVPs and above, and some even for VP and above. 

I find the Chief of Staff role quite unique depending on who the executive is that you support. I'm lucky to have an amazing leader who I work with hand in hand which allows me to learn and grow. 

But back to the question about what is it that a Chief of Staff does every day. Let me go through a day in my life, however, before I begin I have to say that the Chief of Staff job is so versatile and frankly not every day is the same because the role itself relies on the ability to pivot, adjust and be flexible pretty much all the time as there are often last-minute fires to be put down. So I will focus on explaining the key daily responsibilities. 

A Day in the Life of a Chief of Staff in Tech

Last week, I had the pleasure of presenting at the Digital Marketing Transformation e-Conference on the topic of Disrupt or Be Disrupted. 

It's been a while since I've done some public speaking and even though it was all online due to COVID-19, I loved it. I realised how much I miss it and how energised I feel by the audience and by the opportunity to share what I know. 

I'm a firm believer that knowledge is to be spread and not kept. That's why I am always thrilled when an opportunity to present arises and I jump on it right away. 

In the spirit of sharing, I want to make the video of my talk available to you so if you're curious to hear about digital disruption in marketing and in business in general, take a look at my presentation below. 

I cover four areas, bringing my experience from HubSpot and Cisco: 

1. technological transformation 
2. digital disruption 
3. business models 
4. specific activities you can take

I hope you enjoy the video! 

Disrupt or Be Disrupted [Video]

It's been busy the last few months. 

I've been quiet on this blog and I'm not going to lie, finding time to write between an expanded job role and a now 10-month old still at home has been tough. Juggling is challenging, as I'm sure you'll agree. 

In fact, the whole world would agree that what makes life today truly unprecedented is the pace of change.

Everything is moving fast. There's always something new. And Covid-19 has made it even more challenging. The new normal is different. Juggling is the new normal it seems. 

That's both for individuals and for companies, especially with regards to technology and IT. 

Personal and business mobility, the Internet of Things, the bring-your-own device and working from home revolution, everything in the cloud are fundamentally changing the way we live and work.

And the pace of change continues to accelerate. 

Let me show you today some IT stats to prove this. 

9 Stats About the Unprecedented Pace of IT Change Today

This is a guest post by my friend and former colleague Sam Hirbod. 

This year, INBOUND 2020 - HubSpot's yearly inbound conference - moved to an all-digital immersive format featuring exceptional speakers ranging from Sandy Carter, VP of Amazon Web Services to Chrissy Teigen, Bestselling Author.

The move to digital events is not something HubSpot is alone in doing, it’s been an ongoing trend for the past years but 2020 definitely accelerated the process of having industries digitising their efforts.

When applicable, digitalisation removes the physical barriers of COVID-19, making it easy for people to still meet, albeit online. As a result, people were able to attend INBOUND 2020 from all over the world from the comfort of their own homes or offices.

What’s the downside of digitalisation? From my perspective, although biased as I work within the tech industry, there aren’t too many as it’s all about putting customers first and making sure everything still works the way they want it to.

I was a speaker at a fantastic event called DigitalK earlier this year in Sofia that was all about digital and digital transformation. 

As I'm starting a new job at Cisco next week and because Cisco is all about digital transformation, I wanted to look at various things I've written and participated in about and around digital so I remembered this interview I did prior to the conference in Sofia. 

Take a look at what digital means to me and how I see it impacting the business world. 

5 Questions About Digital

How do you see the world in 5 years?