The Journey
With over three decades of experience in the digital realm, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing and contributing to its evolution. My journey began in the summer of 1995, when a discussion about the future of the Internet with the head of strategy at a telecom company ignited my fascination with the intersection of technology, human behavior, and business strategy. This fascination has since defined my career, leading me through the digitization of media at Warner Bros., the early days of e-commerce, and the rearchitecture of an omnichannel ecosystem at Nautilus.
My journey spans multiple facets of digital transformation: from the digitization of media at Warner Bros. to building early e-commerce platforms when “brick and click” was entering the business lexicon. At Nautilus, I led the rearchitecture of an omnichannel ecosystem that connected infomercials, catalogs, digital campaigns, customer service, and B2B operations.
My time at Universal Studios, where I headed digital for home entertainment and led the Executive Digital Council (a strategic leadership group focused on digital initiatives), gave me a front-row seat to the transformation of entertainment distribution across TV, Film, and Games. Working with our teams, we aggregated over 150 million fans into a strategic film fanatic audience platform.
At industry disruptor Redbox, we built an ML-driven CRM program (a customer relationship management system powered by artificial intelligence) that connects film, TV, and video game fans through real-time data from kiosks, apps, emails, and websites, demonstrating the power of data-driven engagement.
I’ve witnessed computing evolve from mainframes to quantum, and the Internet transform from listservs and file sharing to our current immersive reality. Digital capabilities have shifted from the periphery of business strategy to its core, fundamentally altering how organizations create value.
After seven years teaching digital strategy at the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business, I’m distilling these experiences into “Overclocked. Digital Reinvention.” The book, website and assessment tools provide a platform for navigating the continuing evolution of digital strategy—from leadership and organizational transformation to customer engagement, channel optimization, and analytics. Each component builds on the understanding that digital is not just about tech or channels, but a fundamental reinvention of how businesses operate and create value.
With a nod to its namesake origins of Overclocking, let’s push the boundaries of our default settings.