BP3. From 2007 to present I've been part of the founding team at BP3. In 2007 I joined Lance Gibbs to start BP3 (a.k.a. BP3 Global, Inc.). I started as CTO and wing man to Lance's CEO. We started out building a small but very capable practice around Lombardi Teamworks and the concept of managing businesses through process orchestration software. More than 17 years later, that concept still drives BP3's business today, despite the fact that the technology stacks have changed dramatically. Beginning in 2016, I became CEO of BP3 and in my tenure at BP3, led us through two outside investment rounds, at least 8 acquisitions, and expansion into Europe and South Africa.
The best part about building a business like BP3 is that you get to recruit your team, and work with people you love and respect. And you get to run the company the way you think is best. You can set up the healthcare plan to cover 100% of insurance premiums for employees and families. You can set up the 401k to match right from the get-go. You can give equity to team members. You can run internship programs and recruit and train and professionalize college graduates. You hopefully can find projects that are exciting and motivating to work on, and make a deeply positive impact for your clients. You can make friends for life both inside and outside the building. You can go and win Best Place to Work awards locally and nationally. I'm proud to say that at BP3 we've managed to do all of these things.
I feel even more fortunate that BP3 offered me the opportunity to run an international business. It was quite an honor to lead and support teams on both sides of the Atlantic and to get to know teammates, clients and partners on 5 continents. I learned so much from this experience, and it has greatly evolved my world view.
Thanks to BP3, I had the opportunity to volunteer with the Magellan International School in Austin, TX. This is the school my kids attended through 8th grade, and where we all learned the value of an International Baccalaureate education and language immersion. Without BP3, I doubt that my daughter would have taken the opportunity to attend IE University in Spain. BP3 gave my family the opportunity to spend time in Europe and Asia, and Magellan gave my children the gift of fluency in Spanish and conversational Mandarin.
Magellan International School. From 2012 to 2021 I served on the Magellan International Board. For 4 years as Treasurer and for 5 years as Chair of the Board. During my tenure with Magellan, our student body grew from 40+ students to over 580 students today. We expanded to a new campus, then raised money and purchased a new campus to create room to grow for the next decade. I had the pleasure of working with two great Heads of School, and countless amazing board members, senior staff, and faculty. This school, the dream of Erin Defosse and his founding head of school, Marisa de Leon, has had an amazing impact on our family and is having an amazing impact on Austin. I had the pleasure of meeting Marisa before the school opened, and leading the hiring committee that brought Scott Hibbard, our current head of school, to succeed her when she went to Stockholm to run the international school there.
One of the gifts of Magellan is how it makes language learning a core competency. And while working with Magellan, I had a personal insight that I am sure is not unique, but it was new to me: that learning a language changes the way you think. And if you turn that around, anything you learn that really changes the way you think, is probably a language.
- Spanish, Mandarin, and English are all, clearly, languages. When you learn them, each will shape your thinking, make new connections, and help you understand someone who speaks those languages at a more intuitive level.
- Music is a language. Learning to read and play and compose music - and appreciate music - changes the way you think.
- Math is a language. Understanding how to think and solve problems mathematically changes the way you think.
- Art is a language. Understanding, appreciating, and creating art changes the way you think.
And now for two more that I think qualify:
- Coding is a language. Solving problems with software programs changes the way you think. You can imagine how to solve problems that were previously intractable. If we want to be pedantic we could argue that coding is a subset of mathematical thinking- but I think that misses the nuances of how different these two fields really are.
- Design is a language. If every interpretation of art is valid, and personal, then design's goal is to communicate a specific meaning to the viewer. To be clear, rather than open-ended. To be unambiguous rather than ambiguous.
Inspired by this insight, and empowered by the opportunity of selling part of BP3, my wife and I helped to establish Magellan's Francius Lo iLab for Design + Making - to help bring more design, actions, and entrepreneurial possibilities to the IB curriculum.
Austin Technology Council. ATC helped put Austin's technology ecosystem on the map when it was formed in 1992. I arrived in Austin in 1994 and had the good fortune of attending a few ATC networking events in the following decade. But now Austin's tech scene has more than arrived. So the question is how do we evolve ATC to support a technology scene that is ascendant! A new generation of tech industry leaders will shape the next phase of ATC - and Austin Tech.