[TheColorYellow]

How'd you climb the ladder to exec?

I'm noticing a situation where stepping away from hard technical skills (i.e. Coding) creates a more ambiguous professional career path. It's completely thrown off what would be my previous reference points for career progression.

[lebuffon]

It was not planned. I was extracted from the cubicle at the small company by the head of sales because I kept challenging the founder on what projects were important to make money. :-) Was moved to managing sales and marketing when the web became practical and shifted all efforts to online marketing. (We made products for engineers so that was a no-brainer strategic shift)

The move to Fortune 500 was because of an old friend a glass of wine and accidentally saying the right things. He took a chance on me for a marketing role. After that I had to deliver the goods which meant motivating a team of people, innovating the product (within corporate limits) and good luck due to a need for the service.

So not all me. Luck and "who you know" played a role too.