Transitioning between different types of professional roles can be challenging new expectations arise, and fresh ways of seeing the world are required to be successful.
A few weeks ago, I interviewed Anjul Bhambhri of Adobe about how she transitioned from engineering into product, where she now leads the companys customer experience cloud.This week, I chatted with Toby Russell, the co-CEO of online used car marketplace Shift, which generated $135 million in revenue last year and has raised $293 million in venture capital according to Crunchbase.
The company is targeting an IPO in 2021.While we have written a lot about Shift, we have written far less about Russell, whose career spans a model he calls learn, earn, and serve.
He received a PhD in international relations at Oxford, switched to founding a startup, then served in the Obama Energy Department, before heading over to Capital One to lead digital and eventually rejoining his friend George Arison and Shifts co-founder as co-CEO.Across these roles, Russell has had to adapt to very different environments, and we chatted about those transitions, his lessons learned, and his approach to leadership.