The New Job

As some of you may know, I was previously employed at Monitor110.  It was a Financial Technology start-up in New York.  I started interning there in the summer of 2006, and worked throughout the remaining school year to then start up full time in the Summer of 2007.  I worked in a number of roles from managing an offshore financial research team to product and project management in software development.  The company had some trouble getting traction in the market, and funding was cut under somewhat dubious circumstances as the Financial Crisis spiraled towards meltdown in July 2008.  Despite the challenges, I really enjoyed the work and became especially close with my coworkers.  However, I also realized that while Tech start-ups are interesting and exciting, I’m looking for something different at this point in my career.  I’m sure I’ll come back to entrepreneurship, but ideally as a founder rather than an employee.

After spending a few months changing apartments, enjoying the summer and sporadically volunteering for the Obama Campaign, I found a new job.  I’m now working for a Paris based Media Consulting Company.  We perform market research on various industries worldwide.  Our projects are country based, i.e.  Indonesian Textiles or Korean Autos.  Our final product is a series of profiles on key players in the industry and in-depth, analytical reports published in a number of trade magazines as well as the International Business Daily – China’s equivalent of the WSJ or FT.  The job involves a range of responsibilities from networking, attending industry events and setting up meetings, to market research, conducting interviews, and finally ad sales.

The most exciting part of the job is living in each country and experiencing the culture as an expat as opposed to a tourist.  You also get to learn about different buisness cultures and protocols, not to mention become a real expert on industries from Oil and Gas to Pharmaceuticals to Alternative Energy.  Finally, I will meet, and in some cases get to know the leading entrepreneurs and executives in these fields.  The job dovtails with my personal and career interests and I see it as excellent preparation for our truly global economic future.  I’m grateful for such an incredible opportunity and I will do my best to make the most of it!

Return of the Blog

Dear Friends, I’m finally back!

It’s been some time since I posted on this blog and there are a number of reasons for this.  The first and probably most important, is that I never established a posting routine.  There are a number of bloggers who believe in the daily post.  I’m not sure I’m ready for this, but right now I’m committing to a weekly post and we’ll take it from there.  The second reason was that I approached the blog as something of a networking tool and platform for discussion.  I think these are great reasons to have a blog, but they’re just not enough for me.  In order to sustain  momentum I need to be passionate – blogging can’t be a chore.  Now I have a new job and I’m living a radically different life that involves working on 3-9 month projects all over the world. (More to come on the job later)

I’ve got two great new reasons for my blog.  I’m going to use it to document my experiences and discuss living and working in these various countries.  I’m also going to use it as a communication tool to keep in touch with my friends and family.  Now I can save emails and phone calls for the personal stuff, and centralize the communication of my general activities here.  This is not to say I intend on writing a travel or personal blog.  There will still be strains of more analytical and intellectual content.  Lets just say I’m looking for a more holistic approach to the blog.

Here’s to a new start with the year of the Ox.  May it be better than the year of the Rat!