Fractional CIO & Strategic Advisor | Helping Non-Technical Leaders Make Technical Decisions | Scaled Orgs from $0 to $3B+

Strategic IT Leadership for Growing Companies

Helping non-technical founders and small business leaders scale without getting slowed down by their own systems

The Problem
Most companies don’t fail because they dream too small.
They fail because their technology trips them up before they ever hit full speed.

Systems that don’t talk to each other

Vendors that overpromise and underdeliver

Teams that pull in different directions

Operational chaos hidden behind "we’ll fix it later"

Growth without fundamentals isn't a shortcut—it's a detour. Real business expansion is about building systems that scale with integrity, not just adding layers of complexity to a shaky core.

The Outcome
I help you build a stronger, smarter, simpler technology foundation — one that scales with your business, not against it.

✅ Faster operations
✅ Smarter use of tools and teams
✅ Fewer expensive mistakes
✅ A clear, flexible roadmap for growth
✅ More time spent leading — less time fighting fires

My Approach
I’m not here to sell you systems you don’t need or waste months writing strategy decks nobody reads.

I’m here to help you:

Fix what’s broken (before it costs you real money)

Align your people, process, and platforms (so they work together, not against each other)

Build momentum you can actually feel (and measure in real-world results)

I bring 30 years of hands-on experience building and scaling IT in organizations that grew from to over $3B — many times as the very first IT hire, often leading global distributed teams.

What you get is simple:
Real strategy. Real execution. Real growth.

No bloat. No buzzwords. No bureaucratic nonsense.

Services
Fractional CIO Leadership
Part-time executive leadership to align your tech and business strategy, manage vendors, and build internal capabilities without hiring a full-time CIO.

Project Rescue and Turnaround
When critical projects stall, I step in to realign teams, simplify the chaos, and deliver results.

Vendor and System Sourcing
Find the right systems and partners that fit your business — not someone else’s template.

Strategic IT Roadmapping
Clear, practical roadmaps that connect today’s actions to tomorrow’s growth.

Who I Work Best With
Founders and business leaders who:

Are serious about scaling

Know tech is crucial but don’t want to live inside it

Value momentum over perfection

Want a partner who talks business, not just tech

Ready to Clear the Bottlenecks and Build What's Next?
Let's start with a simple conversation.
No sales pitch. Just clarity on where you are — and what’s possible next.

Phillip R. Kennedy

The VP forwarded the CEO's angry email to the whole engineering team at 9:47 PM on a Thursday. 

Daniel's manager replied-all at 9:48: "I'll handle this. Everyone log off."

Twelve seconds. Two completely different leaders.

The CEO's email was four sentences. A client's integration broke during a routine deployment. The client called the CEO directly. The fourth sentence: "I need to understand who is responsible."

The VP read it and clicked Forward. Added the entire engineering distribution list. Twenty-three people. Two words at the top: "See below."

No context. No plan. Just a CEO's anger, amplified to two dozen engineers on a Thursday night, most of whom had nothing to do with the deployment.

Daniel was brushing his teeth when his phone buzzed. He'd been at the company four months. He'd worked on a small piece of the integration three weeks earlier. Close enough to wonder. Close enough to lose sleep.

His shoulders went up. He started mentally composing a defense for code he'd written at 2 PM on a random Tuesday.

Then his phone buzzed again. 9:48.

"I'll handle this. Everyone log off."

Seven words. No exclamation point. No performative urgency. Just: this is not your problem tonight. It's mine.

James fixed it by 11:30. Configuration issue. Not a code defect. Nobody on the team caused it.

The next morning, James emailed his team: "Issue resolved. Config problem. Nothing any of you shipped caused this. If last night's email stressed you out, that's worth a conversation. My door's open."

Daniel saved that message. Not because it was eloquent. Because it was the first time a manager acknowledged that an internal communication could cause harm, and took ownership of it.

The VP forwarded blame at the speed of a click. James absorbed it in twelve seconds.

Same crisis. Same night. Two completely different engineering cultures.

Your team already knows which one you are.

♻️ Repost if you've had a manager whose first instinct was to protect the team, not forward the pressure 

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on engineering leadership that absorbs the hit instead of passing it down

I've spent 30 years watching what great technical leaders actually do.

Almost none of it looks like leadership on paper.

18 things I've seen the best ones do:

1. Say "I don't know" out loud so the team learns it's safe to say it too.

2. Kill a meeting to protect four hours of uninterrupted build time.

3. Put a junior engineer on the project everyone said she wasn't ready for. Then quietly clear the path.

4. Sit in the architecture review and ask the quiet person in the back what they think. Then actually wait for the answer.

5. Walk into a budget meeting and make technical debt visible to executives who only see features shipped.

6. Recognize the engineer who prevented the outage. Not just the one who fixed it.

7. Take the call from the angry stakeholder so the team can keep building.

8. Fight for an infrastructure investment that won't show results for six months. Then fight again when someone tries to cut it in Q3.

9. Tell their best engineer "you should interview for that role" before she'd ever considered leaving the team.

10. Share their own worst production mistake in a retro. Watch the room exhale.

11. Push for a promotion before the engineer asks. Then build the case so well it's undeniable.

12. Translate a forty-five minute technical explanation into two sentences a CFO can act on. Without losing what matters.

13. Block the fourth "urgent" request in two weeks. "Urgent" is not a strategy.

14. Pair a twenty-year veteran with a six-month hire. Tell both of them they're going to learn something.

15. Turn "this is broken" into "what would good look like?" Same facts. Completely different energy.

16. Advocate for sustainable pace when everyone above them is performing urgency.

17. Create space for exploration that might not ship anything. Then defend it when someone asks for the ROI.

18. Remember that the job was never to be the smartest person in the room. It was to make the room smarter.

None of this shows up on a dashboard. Most of it never gets recognized in a performance review.

But the engineers remember. And they become leaders who do the same things.

That's how you scale more than systems.

♻️ Repost if you've had a leader who did one of these and it changed your trajectory 

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on technical leadership that builds people, not just products

He texted me eighteen months after leaving the company. 7:32 AM on a Tuesday. "Congrats on the promotion. You earned it."

He had zero organizational reason to care.

James had been my CTO for three years. Left to start his own company. Most former bosses disappear when the org chart changes. Within a month, the relationship becomes a LinkedIn connection you scroll past.

James never did that.

When I got stuck on an architecture decision after he'd gone, I almost didn't reach out. He replied in twenty minutes: "Coffee Thursday?" Asked three questions that reframed the problem. No lecture. No "remember who helped you" energy.

When a product manager kept changing requirements mid-sprint, James said something I still use: "Your job isn't to stop the changes. It's to make the cost visible to the people requesting them."

When I left for a startup, most of leadership went quiet. That silence tells you which relationships were real. James responded in an hour: "Exactly the right move. Need references?"

The promotion text came a year later. His own company, across the country. My career had zero impact on his.

I've had many managers. Most competent and forgettable. James is the only one whose influence outlasted his badge access.

He never managed from the org chart. The authority was incidental to the relationship. When the authority left, the relationship didn't.

Most leaders aren't this way. Not because they're bad people. Because organizations reward transactional leadership. When someone leaves, the incentive to stay connected disappears.

Leaders who stay were always outside that system. They invested in the person, not the role.

The test that matters more than any review: would people who used to work for you still take your call? Not because you can help them. Because it was never about that.

♻️ Repost if you've had a leader whose influence outlasted their title

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on leadership that survives the org chart

She said she was "doing fine" and "learning a lot." Two weeks later she put in her notice.

I'd asked all the right questions. How are you settling in? Anything blocking you?

Surface-level questions get surface-level answers. And surface-level answers hide problems until they become resignation letters.

That exit taught me first 1:1s aren't introductions. They're the moment you earn honest communication or guarantee you'll never get it.

Most leaders fill that meeting with org charts and project updates. Nobody gets uncomfortable. Nobody learns anything.

After thirty years, here's what actually surfaces truth:

"Walk me through the last time you dug into someone else's code." Tells you more about team culture in three minutes than any survey. Listen for colleagues who help vs. territory that's guarded.

"What's the most frustrating part of getting your work done here?" Not "any concerns?" That gets "everything's great." Ask what frustrates them, then sit in the silence. The pause tells you whether honesty feels safe.

"When you disagree with a technical decision, how does that play out?" If the answer is "I don't usually disagree," that's not harmony. That's someone who learned speaking up costs more than staying quiet.

"If a friend asked whether they should join this team, what would you honestly tell them?" People rarely lie when it's framed as advice to someone they care about.

"How do you know when you've done good work here?" If they can't answer, your org hasn't made it clear.

You don't need ten questions. You need three honest ones and the discipline to stop talking after you ask them.

The engineers who answer carefully are often your best performers trying not to get fired for saying what's broken. The ones who say "everything's great" in week one say it again in their exit interview.

♻️ Repost if you've learned more from one honest answer than a dozen safe ones

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on leading teams with better questions

He'd been the fastest developer on the team for nine years. Last quarter, a mid-level with half his experience outshipped him three to one.

She wasn't a better coder. She'd quietly changed what her job was.

Rachel started using AI agents the way a good manager uses a team: delegate predictable work, provide context, review output, redirect when something drifts. Agents handled integrations, test coverage, docs. She focused on architecture and judgment calls between what agents produced and what the system needed.

Still an IC on the org chart. Her daily work looked like management.

David coded line by line. Nine years of it. Genuinely good. He'd see no IDE on her screen and assume she was slacking.

Then sprint reviews told a different story.

Rachel shipped three features in a cycle where David closed four tickets. Not because she was smarter. Because she'd changed the ratio between thinking and typing.

His response is one I hear constantly: "That's not real engineering."

I get it. If you built craft through your hands for a decade, watching someone achieve more by orchestrating feels like a violation. Not just a career concern. An identity one.

But stripped of hype, here's what's happening.

The IC role is shifting from production to orchestration. From writing every line to directing, reviewing, and integrating work AI produces. The skills this demands aren't new. They're management skills. Providing context. Reviewing with judgment. Knowing when to intervene. Maintaining quality when production outpaces review.

Every engineer is becoming a manager. Not of people. Of systems that produce at a pace no human can.

The IC track isn't dying. It's evolving. More judgment. More context. Less typing. More thinking.

For engineers willing to make that shift, it's the best version of the job they've had.

♻️ Repost if your role is quietly shifting from building to orchestrating

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on the real AI shift in technical work

She accepted an offer for 15% more. Her manager started a counteroffer. I told him to stop.

The money wasn't the problem. He just didn't know what the problem was.

Days before notice, her fix prevented a major outage. Week before, her refactoring cut response times in half. Her architecture decisions saved thousands in cloud costs monthly.

Her manager knew none of this. Not because he didn't care. Because he was a non-technical founder at a $12M company and nobody taught him what to look for.

He saw tickets closed. Features shipped. Through that lens, every engineer looked the same.

She didn't feel underpaid. She felt invisible.

This is the pattern I see most in growing companies. The founder is sharp. Competent in their domain. But they evaluate engineering like a restaurant kitchen: if food comes out, everything's fine.

The engineer preventing outages looks identical to one doing unremarkable work. Both close tickets. The difference is invisible unless you know what great engineering looks like.

That's not a character flaw. It's a knowledge gap. And it's expensive.

After she left, I told him: you don't need to understand code. You need three sentences.

"I heard your fix Tuesday prevented a customer issue. Tell me about it." Engineers know instantly if recognition is genuine. Specificity is the difference.

"What technical work happened this month I'd never see in a sprint review?" This teaches you what's invisible.

"What should I understand better about what engineering does?" Most leaders won't ask. Feels vulnerable. That's why it works.

The counteroffer would've cost $30K. She'd have stayed six months and left anyway. Her best work looked the same as average to the person signing her check.

Engineers don't leave for better offers. They leave when no one can tell the difference.

♻️ Repost if you've seen an engineer leave because leadership couldn't see it

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for helping non-technical leaders keep great engineers

She stopped getting invited to strategy meetings in month four. By month eighteen, she'd stopped noticing.

That's the scary part.

Not the exclusion. The adaptation. Priya rebuilt their payment system from scratch. Designed architecture that scaled them from 200 to 2,000 concurrent users without adding. When their biggest client threatened to leave over reliability, her monitoring work saved the account.

The CEO texted the CTO about technical feasibility. Never Priya. The CFO questioned velocity at board meetings she wasn't in. Product roadmap happened Tuesdays. She found out Thursdays, after decisions were locked.

She wasn't failing. She was being compressed. Compression doesn't feel dramatic. You don't notice the ceiling dropping. You just start hunching.

By month twelve she'd stopped proposing improvements. By eighteen she was executing what others decided, calling it "being a team player," wondering why she was so tired.

I asked her when she'd last made a decision nobody above her rerouted. Too long before she answered.

Decades of this work. The pattern repeats. The CEO calls engineering "the IT group" at board meetings. Not just a wrong label. Labels shape budgets. Budgets shape headcount. Headcount shapes what Priya gets to build. When systems fail and the first question is "who did this" instead of "what happened," leaders absorb that. Stop taking risks. Stop volunteering hard truths. Shrink to fit.

She left. Smaller company. CEO with an engineering background. Six months later she told me: "I forgot what it felt like to have an idea and be allowed to finish the sentence."

She hadn't gotten smarter. She'd gotten room.

If something in your chest just tightened, pay attention to that. Not every struggle is a skills gap. Sometimes the ceiling is just low.

♻️ Repost if you've felt the difference between being grown and being compressed

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for building environments where technical leaders thrive

They spent eight months building an AI recommendation engine. Beautiful machine learning. Garbage recommendations.

Their product catalog had 847 duplicate entries and descriptions from 2020.

The AI did exactly what it was designed to do. Found patterns and served them confidently. Customers got recommended discontinued products, duplicates of things in their cart, accessories for items no longer sold. Confident wrong answers at machine speed.

This company isn't unusual. They're the norm.

The pattern is becoming too common. The CEO hears AI is table stakes. The board wants a strategy. So leadership announces an initiative while their systems run on spreadsheets, manual uploads, and that one person who reconciles the data every Friday.

Customer records in seventeen tools. Support tickets referencing orders that don't exist in the main database. Three definitions of "active customer" depending on which dashboard you open.

Then they layer AI on top and wonder why it doesn't work.

AI doesn't fix broken systems. It scales them. Wrong answers with perfect grammar. Three versions of truth delivered faster than ever.

The most effective AI deployment I saw last year was boring. Nine months of cleanup before writing a single prompt. Data consolidated. Duplicates resolved. Systems connected. One source of truth.

No press release. When they turned on AI, it just worked. Not because the technology was special. Because it had something sane to work with.

Before you spend another dollar on AI: would a new employee be confused by your current systems? If yes, so will the AI. Just faster and more expensively.

The companies quietly winning aren't the ones with the biggest AI budgets. They're the ones who did the boring work first.

♻️ Repost if you've watched AI get layered on a foundation that couldn't support a spreadsheet

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for technology decisions that actually work

He told the CEO he was 60% sure. The CEO said, "That's 20% more than I had when I started this company. Go."

Daniel had been circling a platform decision for three weeks. Two viable paths. Trade-offs he could model, risks he couldn't. The data said "maybe" in fourteen different ways.

He kept requesting more analysis. Another benchmark. One more comparison. His director finally said, "You're not gathering information. You're avoiding a decision."

She was right.

Daniel could architect systems most people couldn't diagram on a whiteboard. The problem was never capability.

He'd confused certainty with competence.

He believed good leaders decide because they know the answer. So when he didn't know, he assumed he wasn't ready. More data. More time. The team stalled.

The CEO's response broke something open. Every founder who's built something real knows certainty almost never arrives on time.

Daniel made the call Thursday. "Here's what we're doing, here's why, and here's what I'm not sure about. We'll learn the rest by building."

Six months later, two of his assumptions were wrong. The team had adapted. What he'd agonized over mattered less than the momentum of actually moving.

This pattern lives everywhere. The leader who won't commit until every variable is known. The founder polishing the deck instead of making the call. The executive requesting another quarter of data before approving a hire they know they need.

It looks like diligence. Past a certain point, it's avoidance in a professional costume.

Courage doesn't follow confidence. It's the other way around.

Daniel told me a year later: "I used to think my job was to have the answer. Now I think it's to make the call and help the team navigate what we find on the other side."

That's not a technology insight. That's a leadership one.

♻️ Repost if you've made the right call on incomplete data and didn't know it until later 

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on leading through uncertainty

They hit every sprint target for eleven months. Green across every dashboard. The board loved them.

Their production system was rotting from the inside.
I got called after the third senior engineer left in six weeks. The CEO was baffled. "Velocity is up. Deployment frequency is the highest it's been. Why are they leaving?"

I spent a week with the team before opening a dashboard.

Engineers had learned to game every metric leadership tracked. Points inflated. Deployments split into smaller chunks. Tickets closed at "good enough."

The burndown charts were beautiful. The codebase was held together with workarounds nobody touched.

Nobody had raised it. The one engineer who tried, eight months earlier, got told metrics showed everything was fine. Last time anyone spoke up.

The moment I knew the team was in trouble wasn't in a report. It was in planning. A junior engineer pushed back on a timeline. Got two sentences in. The room went still. Not respect. Warning. She stopped. "Never mind, we can make it work."

On a healthy team, that sentence never gets cut short.

The signs that matter have nothing to do with velocity. When something breaks, does the team ask "what failed" or "who failed?" When someone says a deadline is unrealistic, does the room listen or reroute? Does the team celebrate three weeks of database work nobody outside engineering will notice?

These behaviors don't fit in Jira. They're the difference between a team that ships metrics and one that builds systems you can bet a company on.

His best engineers hadn't left for comp. They left because they'd been saying the system was fragile, leadership pointed at green dashboards, and they decided to let the next team deal with it.

Prevention never shows up on a dashboard. But it's the reason you still have a business.

♻️ Repost if you've seen the gap between what metrics show and what's really happening

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for seeing what dashboards miss in engineering teams

I watched him delete a Slack message. He'd started typing a direct answer to an engineer's architecture question, stopped, and forwarded it to his direct report instead.

He'd been VP for eleven days.

James had been a director for three years. Engineers loved working for him. Answered questions directly. Showed up in code reviews to learn. Knew the last five production incidents by heart.

Eleven days in, something shifted. A quiet recalibration of who he thought he was supposed to be.

Stopped joining sprint demos. Replaced architecture chats with "strategy alignment" meetings. When engineers pinged him, he forwarded the message.

He wasn't arrogant. He was doing what he thought VPs do. Every VP he'd watched kept distance. Details were for directors.

The system was turning a connected leader into an abstraction.

I'd seen it dozens of times. The title lands and the operating system changes. Not because the person changed. Because the calendar fills differently. Information arrives filtered. You stop hearing what engineers think and start hearing what managers think engineers think.

Three months in, his team didn't recognize him. Engineers routed through his chief of staff. The architect who used to argue with him had stopped, because James was no longer in the room where those arguments happened.

I told him: "You used to spot the caching problem before anyone filed a ticket. Now you find out in a weekly summary. That gap is where your judgment lived."

He made a few changes. Kept one architecture session weekly. Not to decide. To listen. Stayed in sprint demos for his most critical product. When engineers pinged him, he answered directly.

Small things. But the team noticed immediately: proximity isn't beneath me.

The title doesn't have to change you. But it will, unless you choose which connections to protect.

♻️ Repost if you've watched a promotion quietly rewire someone

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for leadership that stays connected to the work

The CTO told me he'd spent his weekend studying AI augmented development. His background was finance. His best engineers were leaving. He thought the two problems were connected.

They weren't.

Daniel had been CTO for eighteen months. Smart. Great with numbers, strategy, board communication. Zero engineering experience. He assumed credibility meant closing the gap. So he studied. Tutorials. Whitepapers. Architecture reviews full of detailed implementation questions.

His engineers didn't see a leader learning. They saw a bottleneck forming.

Every decision became a research project. Three-week sprints stretched to six because nothing moved until he felt informed enough to approve. He thought he was being thorough. His team experienced it as distrust.

The senior engineer who left first told me: "I don't need my CTO to understand AI development. I need him to trust that I do and make the call."

That's the gap. Not technical knowledge. Decision-making confidence. Daniel didn't need to understand how to setup OpenClaw. He needed to recognize his senior architect had been right about the last four calls and earned trust to make the fifth without a two-week wait.

The hardest part of leading technical teams without a technical background isn't the knowledge gap. It's saying "I don't fully understand this, I trust your judgment, here's my decision." That terrifies most non-technical leaders. It's also what stops your best people from updating their LinkedIn profiles.

We worked on this together. He stopped studying how to technically implement AI. Started making faster calls based on who recommended them and what they optimized for. Approval cycles shortened. His team stopped leaving.

He told me: "They didn't need a better engineer. They needed faster decisions."

His engineers could have told him that on day one.

♻️ Repost if you've learned that leading technical teams is about decisions, not expertise

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on leading technical teams with confidence, not code

His hands were shaking over the keyboard. He'd deployed the change that took checkout offline. Everyone in the room knew it.

Revenue stopped. Tickets stacking. VP of Sales pinging me for an ETA I didn't have.

The room wanted someone to bark orders. Demand root cause. Point at the deployment log.

I sat down next to him. "How many customers are affected right now?"

Not "what happened." Not "whose change."

He stopped staring at the error logs. Pulled up monitoring. "About 1,200 in checkout. Another 300 getting timeouts on product pages."

"Good. Checkout first. Walk me through the rollback."

His hands stopped shaking by the third sentence.

A leader's emotional state during an incident becomes the team's operating environment. Instantly. Walk in radiating urgency and everyone matches it. They talk over each other, chase parallel theories, make decisions that feel productive and create more problems.

Walk in calm and something shifts. The engineer who caused the outage stops bracing for blame and starts working the problem.

The fix took ninety minutes. He found it himself. A config flag that behaved differently in production than staging. After systems were restored, I told the team to go home. Handled the sales update myself. Scheduled the postmortem for two days later, because running a blameless retro on no sleep is how you get a blame-filled one.

Two days later, he proposed the fix: automated config comparison between staging and production. Nobody asked him. He volunteered because the incident room had been safe enough that owning it didn't feel like a career risk.

A year later he led our incident response. Calm. Methodical. Sat next to the person panicking instead of standing over them.

He learned that from a Tuesday afternoon when his hands were shaking and nobody blamed him for it.

♻️ Repost if you've seen calm leadership change the outcome of a crisis

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on leading technical teams through hard moments

We've all made the "perfect résumé" hire. Strong credentials. Nailed the technical interview. Three months in, you realize they can solve any problem except the ones that actually matter.

I've hired hundreds of people over thirty years. The pattern that predicts success has almost nothing to do with algorithms or credentials.

It's curiosity. How someone behaves when they hit a problem they don't know how to solve.

One of my best hires had two years of experience and a community college degree. Struggled in the technical round. But when conversation shifted to a real problem we were facing, he asked diagnostic questions that showed he'd operated systems under real pressure. Not textbook answers. Thinking from the weeds.

A year later, three teams called him first when something broke. Not the fastest coder. The one people trusted to think before acting.

What I've learned about what actually predicts success:

Give candidates a real problem, not a puzzle. Walk them through a challenge your team faces. Twenty minutes of real conversation beats an hour of whiteboard performance.

Watch what happens when they don't know. The best say "I haven't seen this, but here's how I'd start." People who bluff in interviews bluff on your team.

Listen to what they ask about. The system, the users, the team? Or just the stack, the title, the comp?

Look for ownership instinct. Ask about a project that went sideways. People worth hiring talk about what they learned. Not who was at fault.

Create unstructured time. Thirty open minutes surface what no template will.

You can teach your tech stack in months. You can't teach someone to care about the problem behind the ticket.

The résumé says where someone's been. The conversation tells you who they are. Most hiring processes only measure the first.

♻️ Repost if your best hire looked nothing like you expected on paper

➕ Follow me (Phillip R. Kennedy) for more on building teams that scale on trust

Career advice nobody's giving: Quit. Stack Mac Minis. Subscribe to every AI model and claw bot. Emerge in 90 days as something the market doesn't have a job title for yet.

I used to think networking was just for extroverts, salespeople, or people trying to land their next job. Then I learned that real networking—the kind that builds trust, opens doors, and helps people stay and grow in their careers—is just consistent, human connection.

That realization shaped everything I do now.

Today, I split my time between two worlds:

At Retention and Rewards Partners, I work with HR leaders to solve complex problems around compensation, benefits, and employee retention. I’ve led total rewards teams through M&A deals, culture transformations, open enrollments, and board-level pay strategy. But underneath all the spreadsheets and systems is one simple goal: build workplaces where people want to stay.

And as the founder of The Introverted Networker, I teach professionals how to build strong relationships—without small talk, events, or pretending to be someone they’re not. I write a weekly newsletter, lead corporate workshops, and coach people on how to connect with others in a way that feels real and doable.

My work might look different depending on the day, but it’s all connected by one belief: when people feel seen, supported, and fairly treated, they stay. And when they build trusted relationships at work, they thrive.

If you care about building workplaces where people stay and succeed—or you’re trying to grow your network in a way that actually feels good—I’d love to connect.


Here are other ways I can help you:

⇨ Sign up for my newsletter, "The Introverted Networker," to get tips to improve your networking.

⇨ Get my FREE course, "5 Steps To Grow Your Professional Network," to get the exact networking blueprint I follow every week to grow my own network.

⇨ Follow me to learn how to find new connections without going to networking events

⇨ Download my guide "15 Minute Networking"

⇨ Get my book "The Fast and Easy Guide To Networking For Introverts"

All the links for these resources are in my Featured section above!

The best way to contact me is via email: greg@gregsroche.com

Greg Roche

Your network won’t grow meeting 50 strangers at an event.

And, most people who talk about networking won't tell you this, but...

Stop casting a wide net.
Focus on one person at a time.

That's how your network grows.

Start with people you know.

Re-connect with them.
Talk to them about what they're working on.
Share your goals with them.

Who do they know?
Who should you meet?
Ask them to introduce you.

Expand your relationships from there.

It sounds time-consuming.
But, it's more efficient than you think.

This week, find one person to reconnect with.
Give it a shot and let me know how it goes.



I'm Greg, The Introverted Networker!

If you want to become a more confident networker,

Do one of these:
✅ Leave a comment: it tells the algo you want more
✅ Hit "View my newsletter" at the top of this post
✅ Share this post with your LinkedIn network

Doing these guarantees I'll be in your feed.

I teach professionals to connect and build trust. Founder Retention and Rewards Partners. Solving retention and total rewards challenges for HR leaders who need results, not more noise. Aka: The Introverted Networker.

Most people think networking takes hours.
I can do it in 15 minutes.

Can you grow your network in 15 minutes a day?
You can with the right mindset:

The Consistency Mindset.

When you spend 15 minutes each day, 
Over the course of a year, 
It's over 90 hours of networking.

When you do it consistently, you start seeing results.

What can you do in 15 minutes?
• Write a LinkedIn recommendation for a former co-worker
• Send a message to a someone you've lost touch with
• Have a short phone conversation with a connection
• Search for dormant ties thru LinkedIn
• Comment on LinkedIn posts

Any of these will grow your network.

But they only work if you show up, 

And do the work,
Consistently,
Everyday.

Have you spent 15 minutes networking today?

If not, what's stopping you?



I'm Greg, The Introverted Networker! 

If you want to see my daily networking tips,

Do one of these:
✅ Leave a comment: it tells the algo you want more
✅ Hit "View my newsletter" at the top of this post
✅ Share this post with your LinkedIn network

Doing these guarantees I'll be in your feed.

Most people quit networking because they can’t see where it’s leading.
 
That’s the mistake.
 
I rarely know exactly what a new connection will turn into.

A job.
A client.
A referral.
Or nothing at all.
 
Like driving a car at night, all I can see is the next conversation.

But, that’s enough.

I'll get where I am going, if I keep going.
 
When you’re building a network, you don’t get a full map.

You get today.
That's as far as you can see.
 
One message.
One coffee.
One thoughtful follow up.
 
Over time, those small moments start to stack.

They create momentum you couldn’t have predicted at the start.
 
You don’t need certainty to move forward.
 
You just need to keep showing up for the next conversation in front of you.



I'm Greg, The Introverted Networker!

If you want to become a more confident networker,

Do one of these:
✅ Leave a comment: it tells the algo you want more
✅ Hit "View my newsletter" at the top of this post
✅ Share this post with your LinkedIn network

Doing these guarantees I'll be in your feed.

One random conversation while Christmas shopping changed how I think about networking.

Most people think networking works like a funnel.
 
You reach out to a lot of people and hope a few good things come out the other end.
 
That approach always felt exhausting to me.
The way it’s actually worked in my life is much simpler.
 
It’s more like a chain.
One conversation leads to another.
 
Years ago I lost my job in October.
For weeks I did what everyone else does.

I applied online and waited.
Nothing happened.
 
Then one day in December I ran into a former coworker while Christmas shopping.

We talked for a few minutes.
I mentioned I was looking for a job.
 
She said, “You should talk to Dennis. He’s in the same situation.”
 
I met Dennis.  Dennis introduced me to Jorge.
Jorge and I were looking for the same type of roles.
 
In my search, I also connected with a guy named Jim.
Jim knew I was looking for a job.

He mentioned a role he’d heard about.
I wasn’t the right fit, but Jorge was.
 
I connected Jorge to Jim and Jim connected Jorge with the person hiring for the role.
 
Jorge got the job.
 
Here’s the lesson:
Networking rarely moves in straight lines.

Conversations connect to other conversations. 
People introduce you to other people.
 
You just keep adding one link at a time to your network.
The opportunities start to appear.

That’s why I don’t try to meet as many people as possible.
 
I focus on one good conversation.
Then the next one tends to appear.
The opportunities follow.

What networking links have you made that got you closer to the opportunity you were looking for?

Tell me your story!


I'm Greg, The Introverted Networker!
If you want to become a better networker,

Do one of these:
✅ Leave a comment: it tells the algo you want more
✅ Hit "View my newsletter" at the top of this post
✅ Share this post with your LinkedIn network

Doing these guarantees I'll be in your feed.

This one thing will make every conference you attend this year worth the money you paid for it.

Most people walk into a conference and hope for the best.
 
They grab their badge.
They scan the room.
They look for a friendly face.
 
And then they feel stuck.
 
Conferences can feel like a full day of small talk with strangers.
 
Here’s what makes it easier:
Do most of your networking before you get there.
 
When I sign up for a conference, I don’t wait until I’m in the room.
 
I look at the agenda.
I connect with organizers.
I reach out to a few speakers I plan to hear.
I comment on their posts.
I trade a few messages.
 
Nothing fancy.
Just simple, real conversation.
 
When I walk in, I’m not alone.
I already have two or three people I can say hello to.
 
That changes everything.
 
You stop wandering.
You stop forcing random chats.
You build on conversations that already started.
 
One simple idea to try:

Before your next conference, 
 
1. Pick one speaker from the agenda.
2. Send a short note.
3. Tell them you’re looking forward to their session.
4. Ask one thoughtful question about their topic.
 
That’s it.
 
If you want to make conferences feel less draining and more useful, I wrote a full breakdown in this week’s 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘳: https://lnkd.in/gJb_b_CA
 
It goes deeper into how to prepare, how to connect in person, and one small badge trick that makes you easier to approach.

Most people use LinkedIn wrong.
Here's what they're missing:

They lurk.
They scroll.
They log in only when they need a job.
 
Then they say networking on LinkedIn doesn't work.
 
Here's the mindset shift you need to make it work for you:
 
LinkedIn is not a billboard.
It is a conversation tool.
 
Your goal is simple.

Start small online conversations with people who sit near the opportunities you care about.
 
That's it.
 
One practical place to start is this.
 
Make a short Target Company List.
Five to ten companies you are curious about.
 
Then search for people who work there.
Start with 1st and 2nd degree connections.
 
If you already know someone, send a short note.
“It’s been a while. How are things going?”
 
If you don't know them, keep it light.

“I see you’re at X company. I’m learning more about it. Would love your perspective if you have time.”
 
No pitch.
No pressure.
 
If connecting feels like too much, Follow them.

If they post, Comment with something thoughtful.

Not “Great post.”

Add a question.
Add an insight.
Move the conversation forward.
 
That is how you become familiar before you ever ask for anything.
 
One question for you.
 
If someone looked at your LinkedIn account today, would it show quiet scrolling or real conversations?
 
I wrote more about how to use connecting, following, commenting, and even your own LinkedIn data in this week’s Introverted Networker: https://lnkd.in/gXb7GJRq
 
If LinkedIn has felt pointless, the full issue walks through a calmer way to use it.

My favorite LinkedIn ‘metric’ never shows up in the analytics.

It's the people who never "like" or comment on any of my posts, but tell me:

"You're post was what I needed to hear today."

I still get goose bumps when this happens.

It's usually someone I know.

• Recent connection
• Former colleague
• Friend

But, they never show up at the bottom of my post in the reaction or comment section.

However, they go out of their way to reach out to me in real life to tell me what I wrote made a difference in their lives.

I keep this in mind each time I hit "Post":

Behind every:

• Comment,
• Reaction,
• Email

There's a person who is struggling to figure it all out.

If what I write has an impact on one person,
It was a successful post.

For those who show up and share what they know on LinkedIn, even if your post flops in the usual metrics of engagement, you're making a difference.

For those who are moved by someone's post, let them know, even if it's in a private message.

It's the fuel that keeps most of us LinkedIn regulars going!



I'm Greg, The Introverted Networker!

If you want to become a more confident networker,

Do one of these:
✅ Hit "View my newsletter" at the top of this post
✅ Leave a comment: it tells the algo you want more
✅ Share this post with your LinkedIn network

Doing these guarantees I'll be in your feed.

Over the weekend, most of the U.S. changed their clocks. Arizona didn’t. Yet my schedule still shifted.

It made me remember something:
Time is a made-up system.

We created it so people could coordinate with each other.
Daylight savings makes that obvious.

Most people will be complaining today about losing an hour of sleep.

That doesn't happen when you live in Arizona.
But, that doesn't mean I'm not affected.

Most of the people I talk to each day are in different states.
In one day, all my meetings moved an hour earlier.

Nothing actually changed about the sun.

The only thing that changed was our agreement about time.

I'll adjust my schedule so that I can show up as the same time as everyone else.
 
Networking works the same way.
We have to agree on a time to show up and connect.
 
People wait for the “right time” to reach out.

The right time to reconnect.
The right time to ask for help.
But time isn’t some magical force.
 
It’s just coordination between two people.
 
Most opportunities don’t happen because the timing was perfect.
 
They happen because two people stayed connected.
 
One conversation, no matter what the time.



I'm Greg, The Introverted Networker!

If you want to become a more confident networker,

Do one of these:
✅ Hit "View my newsletter" at the top of this post
✅ Leave a comment: it tells the algo you want more
✅ Share this post with your LinkedIn network

Doing these guarantees I'll be in your feed.

Your best employee is already halfway out the door.
You just can’t see it.

Picture your best employee standing outside, alone.

At her feet is a white line.
Her toes are touching The Line. 

The side of The Line she's standing on is her current reality.
The other side is relief from the stress on her side of The Line.

• It could be the pile of unread emails in her inbox.
• It could be her boss.
• It could be her job.

Something's wrong and it's gotten so bad, she's standing with her toes on The Line.

She's vulnerable.

The next problem, request, or needless meeting is going to push her over The Line.

She doesn't know if life on the other side of The Line will be better or worse.

It doesn't matter.

All that matters is the other side of The Line is different from her current reality.

She didn't get to The Line because someone dangled more money in front of her.

She hasn't even talked to a recruiter or applied to a job.

Some days, when she gets to The Line, she can find a reason to step away.

But on the days when she's at The Line, something new might catch her eye.

She might return that recruiter's message.

She might respond to that email just to "learn more about the role."

At that moment, she's ready to step across The Line.

After that first step, she might take another, 
Then another, and at the end, 
She's telling her co-workers 
She's leaving for something 
New.

Her leaders will say she got offered more money.
They'll say, "we aren't competitive with our benefits."
Her former co-workers will get retention agreements.

They weren't planning to leave, but they'll take the extra money for doing the extra work created by her leaving.

Eventually, they'll get pushed to The Line, too.

They'll be asked to respond to the fire drill.

They'll be told to do one more project because it's a business need.

No work will be taken off the to-do list.

The one-off requests will keep rolling into their inboxes.

Maybe one of these co-workers is the next to The Line

He knows how she got to The Line.

He had never been there himself, but once she left, he took on her work.

He's stepped up to The Line more lately.

He's stepped back, gone to the team offsite, laughed with his co-workers and gone home feeling better about things.

The next morning, when he opens his inbox, there are more things than he can do by the end of the day.

And he feels alone.
With no one to talk to about how he feels
And no one to help him step back from The Line.

Everyone is approaching The Line.

They've all had enough.
They're all vulnerable.

If they get the call or email, they'll step over The Line and start the journey to a new job.

It happens every day. 
It happens to everyone.

Do you notice when you're at The Line?
Do you notice when your employees are at The Line?

Can you step back?
Can you help them step back?

If they can't step back, they're done.
So are you.

If you trained at the gym like you network, would you ever get results?

If not, here’s how to train your networking muscle:

1️⃣ 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁
You don't get your PR the first day at the gym. 
You start light and add weight.

𝗜𝗻 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴:
✅Start connecting with one person.
✅Comment on one person's LinkedIn post.
✅Send one message to a former co-worker.


2️⃣ 𝗣𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝘀
Getting to the gym is a good start. 
Then you have to put in the reps when you're there. 
No wasting time or messing around.

𝗜𝗻 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴:
✅Make your comments on LI valuable. No "Nice post" BS.
✅Find ways to give some valuable to your connections.
✅Make introductions. Connect people to each other.


3️⃣ 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘂𝗽 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗱𝗮𝘆
Consistency brings the gains!

𝗜𝗻 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴:
✅It's ok to skip a day, but don't make it a habit.
✅Track your efforts. Tracking holds you accountable
✅Get an accountability partner. Everyone needs a spotter.

Networking, like working out, isn’t about one big day.

It’s about steady effort over time.

Show up.
Put in the work.
Get the gains.

𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻: 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗴𝘆𝗺/𝗹𝗶𝗳𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗽𝗵𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴?



I'm Greg, The Introverted Networker!

If you want to become a more confident networker,

Do one of these:
✅ Hit "View my newsletter" at the top of this post
✅ Leave a comment: it tells the algo you want more
✅ Share this post with your LinkedIn network

Doing these guarantees I'll be in your feed.

By day, I help companies retain talent.
By night, I learn from people who've already finished their careers.

By day (and honestly, a lot of nights too), I've been focused on building my business Retention and Rewards Partners. 

I help companies with total rewards, employee engagement, and retention strategies.

At the same time, I keep showing up as The Introverted Networker.

Writing about networking, publishing my newsletter, and creating new resources to help people connect and grow their careers.

Two different themes. 

Both fueled by the same passion: 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀.

Recently, I've started writing (privately) about being a non-retired person who lives in a retirement community.

Focusing on what it looks like to do the work you want to do while learning from people who have already passed the work phase of their lives.

Not sure if it's right for LinkedIn, so I'm asking that question today:

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻?



I'm Greg, The Introverted Networker! 

I talk a lot about networking, building more connected workplaces, and maybe living with retired people.

If you want to see more of me

Do one of these:

✅ Save this post so you can come back and find me later
✅ Leave a comment: it tells the algo you want more
✅ Share this post with your LinkedIn network

Doing these guarantees I'll be in your feed.

What do you want me to write about on LinkedIn?

The author can see how you vote. Learn more

If networking keeps getting pushed aside,
Try this 15-minute reset.

When I get busy, it’s the first habit that slips.
 
Nothing dramatic happens.
But I feel it.
 
A little disconnected.
A little out of rhythm.
 
Here’s what I’ve learned.
The problem isn’t networking.
 
It’s scale.
 
When something feels big and strategic, your brain says, not now.
So I shrink it.
 
I set a timer for 15 minutes.
That’s it.
 
No grand plan.
No strategy session.
 
Just a container.
 
I open LinkedIn messages.
I scroll old emails.
I search the name of a former coworker.
 
Then I ask one question:
 
Who have I meant to reconnect with?
 
I pick one person and send something simple.
“It’s been a while. How have you been?”
 
No ask.
No update.
No pressure.
 
That’s Step 1 and Step 2 of The Connection Loop.
1. Start with someone you already know.
2. Restart the conversation.
 
The 15 minutes isn’t the relationship.
It’s the ignition.
 
Once you send the note, things move.

Replies come in.
Coffee gets scheduled.
Calls happen.
 
You don’t need intensity.
You need consistency.
 
If you’ve felt a little off your networking lately, try this.
 
Set a timer.
Send one note.
Stop when it rings.
 
I wrote more about this in this week’s 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘳 newsletter if you want the full breakdown.
https://lnkd.in/gg6k5ivr

After 27 years in corporate, I quit my job. My first client showed up 24 hours later.

Not because I got lucky.
 
Because a couple months, I had a conversation with someone I'll call Katie.
 
We both worked in HR in Denver.
Different companies, different roles.

We stayed in touch.
No agenda.
Just a professional relationship I kept up over time.
 
When I was thinking about leaving corporate after 27 years, Katie was one of the first people I called.
 
I told her exactly what I wanted to do.
The specific problems I solve.
In the words a client would use.
 
Then we went on with our lives.
 
The day after I resigned, she texted me.
 
"Do you know anyone who could do fractional total rewards consulting for a client in Denver?"
 
I texted back: "Yeah. Me. I just resigned yesterday."
 
That was client number one.
Then she hired me for a project at her own company.
 
Two clients.
One relationship.
One conversation I'd invested in before any of this was real.
 
Here's the lesson:
 
When you're networking for a job, you connect with people at your target companies.
 
When you're networking for your own business, you connect with people who already serve your target client.

Either way, you have to get specific about what you're looking for.
And, tell people what it is.
 
They become your advocates, your referral sources.
You're not selling yourself.
They're doing it for you.

But you have to start the conversations to get to the part where you tell them what you're looking for.
 
I tell the whole story in this week's issue of The Introverted Networker: https://lnkd.in/gsR7fdVb



I'm Greg, The Introverted Networker!

I talk a lot about networking. 
And building better workplaces.

If you want to become a more confident networker,

Do one of these:
✅ Leave a comment: it tells the algo you want more
✅ Hit "View my newsletter" at the top of this post
✅ Share this post with your LinkedIn network

Doing these guarantees I'll be in your feed.

Ever feel like you need just one hour to get started with your networking?

I've got a solution for you!

Join me and Shayna Cavanaugh next week for You Can Sit With Us!

It's an our dedicated to anything you are working on when it comes to job search. Including networking!

You put the event on your calendar
Block the time
Show up and get more done in that hour than you have all week.

It's a great way to get help and get yourself started.

Join us!

Details below!

Interview Prep, Salary Negotiation | Helping burnt-out professionals to not feel like crap at work | Real HR Experience/Real Results ✨

Not sure where to start when it comes to networking?
 
Spoiler alert: it’s easier than you think
 
Join us for our next co-working hour on Thursday, 3/5 where Greg Roche, The Introverted Networker, will share some simple tips and strategies for intentional networking.
 
You’ll leave with real strategies to help you:
➜ Network in a way that feels natural (even if you’re introverted)
➜ Build genuine connections without small talk or events
➜ Create trust through simple, human conversations
 
RSVP through the event below and be sure to share with your introverted job search bestie!
 
P.S. – Raise your hand if you’ve ever overthought a LinkedIn message before sending 🙋🏻‍♀️

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Greg Roche

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The Battle

Phillip R. Kennedy

Greg Roche

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Phillip R. Kennedy's LinkedIn Performance

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