John Penney, Board Member at Sustain SoCal & Chief Growth Officer at NextGen Foundry

As a senior growth leader, I earned my MBA at Haas late in my career in hopes to transition into an impact context but I didn’t know where or how.

The Challenge

With more than 20 years of leadership experience at leading brands like AT&T, HBO, IMG Global Media ant Twentieth Century Fox Studios, I had decided to go back to get my MBA at University of California Haas School of Business. Coming out of the program I realized that I was trying to make a pretty big pivot into an impact focused career at a late stage in my career.

I was super passionate about this next step but didn’t know how to channel that into practical personal storytelling. I wanted to sit on Boards and grow my ability to drive scalable change at the senior level but within the climate tech space.

I wanted to keep my leadership level of influence and seniority but didn’t know how to translate my career history into a compelling story that would be relevant for my new audience. I didn’t really even know where I wanted to go next exactly. The move into impactful industrial roles needed creative thinking and solid market perspective that I didn’t have alone. I was too close to the historical context of where I had worked that I had no idea how to translate my skills, much less know where I should target.

The Solution

Having a strategic thought partner along the journey of re-inventing my career was instrumental.  Shannon’s deep knowledge of the impact ecosystem, and her extensive network of senior leaders in this space, helped me to gain perspective about where I could add the most value. She challenged me to unpack where I feel most energized and translate that into tangible roles like Chief Growth Officer. We ended up defining climate tech as my sweet spot industry to target.

"Shannon’s deep knowledge of the impact ecosystem, and her extensive network of senior leaders in this space, helped me to gain perspective about where I could add the most value."

The Result

The positive re-creation of my career was so empowering! I was able to keep me leadership influence level while changing my audience. Once I was clear on where I was going things fell into place and I was asked to advise CEOs of startups and lead industry events in climate tech. I had much more confidence in providing potential employers and clients a convincing story of how my skills in business development could benefit them even though I was shifting industry and focus.