Part of the equity fund’s strategy was to accelerate our growth by acquiring smaller companies that complemented our solution.
The first acquisition was a company on the West Coast building an Mobile Device Management product. We already had a basic solution, but one of my peers, a senior in the team, was assigned to lead the integration since they had developed our own initial product. I have to admit, at first I felt a bit envious. I was hungry to grow and wanted every opportunity to come my way. But I managed to put that aside, focus on teamwork and support them to make the integration successful.
The next acquisition was a company in France, creating a similar solution with a focus on the European market. Integration was again assigned to another colleague. I wanted to be everywhere, but I realized that success comes from working together and dividing responsibilities. “Divide et impera” became one of my favorite principles through out the years and I’ve been applying it successfully ever since.
Being exposed on both integrations taught me a lot about adaptability. The West Coast team used a different programming language and architectural approach and timezones made coordination tricky. The French team had everything in French: documentation, Jira tickets, even method/function names! Adapting to their culture and ways of working was a challenge, but staying curious and learning from my colleagues helped me navigate it.
Looking back, curiosity has been a constant driver for me. A CEO once told me that one of the top three qualities of a leader is to always stay curious and keep learning. Along with self-reflection and challenging yourself, curiosity prevents you from becoming outdated. And I can honestly say all three continue to pay off every day.