I believe the best strategists are the best teachers.
It started by solving a problem, not just selling one.
My career in higher education edtech began in sales, which led to leadership roles managing sales engineering teams and driving product innovation. But I felt a disconnect. I wanted to truly understand the educators I was serving and find a more personal way to empower learners. So when an opportunity arose to teach an "Introduction to Computers" course on Saturdays at my local community college, I leapt at it.
This is where I learned the craft of teaching: the patience to deconstruct a complex idea, the empathy to find the sticking points, and the skill to coach students.
I saw the gap from both sides, every single week.
I didn't leave the corporate world for the classroom. I lived in both at the same time. This dual role gave me a 360-degree view of the entire edtech ecosystem. On Friday, I was in corporate strategy meetings where the focus was on sales quotas and feature-led marketing. I saw teams pushing complex "digital solutions" to drive adoption, all of it wrapped in corporate-speak that was completely detached from the reality of teaching. On Saturday, I was in the classroom, on the receiving end of those exact messages—and seeing firsthand where they often fell short. I wasn't just a vendor anymore; I was the customer.
The gap between what companies were selling and what teachers actually needed wasn't a crack; it was a canyon. I lived on both sides of it.
My methodology: The synthesis.
