I am a technical program and business transformation manager with 15+ years driving enterprise initiatives from strategy through execution. I build the operating rhythms, governance structures, and cross-functional execution needed to turn strategic priorities into delivered outcomes. I have led $25M+ platform builds, scaled ARR from $24M to $86M, launched AI solutions, built and sustained operating models that create real adoption and ROI.

🎯SPECIALTIES:

• Strategic Program Management

• Technical Program Management

• Fractional PMO 

• Fractional Strategic Programs

• Strategy Execution & OKRs

• Enterprise Transformation

• AI Program Management 

• Portfolio & Program Management

• PMO Leadership & Governance

• Product & Engineering Alignment

• Operating Model & Governance

• Change Management & Adoption

• Operational Excellence & Process Improvement

• Executive & Board Communications

• Cross-functional Stakeholder Alignment

• Team Leadership, Coaching & Development

Tye Trepanier

I helped build Google Cloud from startup to $106B backlog. Now I'm building something even bigger: activated leaders who change the world.

For 9 years, I was part of the founding sales team that transformed Google Cloud into an enterprise powerhouse. I introduced Fortune 500 companies to cloud transformation, architected strategic partnerships, and drove the adoption that fueled unprecedented growth.

But here's what I learned scaling one of tech's biggest success stories: The companies we build are only as powerful as the leaders we become.

What I Do Now:

► Keynote Speaking & Workshops: Energizing audiences and teams with insights from the frontlines of hyper-growth and transformation

► Executive Coaching: Partnering with leaders to expand their impact beyond corporate boundaries (lilahjones.com)

► The Activated Leader™ Movement: Building a community of leaders who refuse to settle for anything less than their full potential

► Fractional CRO: Activating Organizations through executive sales leadership

My Expertise:
  •  Hyper-growth Strategy: Scaled enterprise sales from zero to billions
  •  Transformational Leadership: Navigated corporate complexity while maintaining authentic impact
  •  Strategic Partnerships: Built relationships that moved markets
  •  Executive Presence: Influenced at the highest levels of tech's most innovative companies

Why I Left Google:

Not because I had to, but because I chose to. After helping build something extraordinary, I realized my next chapter was helping others do the same, whether inside corporate walls or beyond them.

I believe every leader has untapped potential waiting to be activated. My mission is to help you find it, fuel it, and turn it into lasting impact.

The Activated Leader Philosophy:

Your career is not your calling. Your job is not your identity. Your true legacy lies in the influence you build, the lives you transform, and the courage you show when choosing growth over comfort.

Let's Connect If:
• You're ready to expand your leadership beyond your current role
• You want strategies and sales support from someone who's built at an enterprise scale
• You believe in creating impact that outlasts any single company
• You're done playing small with your potential

Work with me: lilahjones.com
Join the movement: The Activated Leader Newsletter https://www.lilahjones.com/newsletter-subscribe


From building billion-dollar businesses to building unstoppable leaders. Your activation starts now.

Lilah Jones

My manager smiled and told me I'd had an incredible year.

Then he told me I'd need to do it again.

Three more times.

Then we could talk about promotion.

I kept my face still.
Said thank you.

Sat in my car for twenty minutes. Engine off. Hands on the wheel. Going nowhere.

Because here's what nobody said out loud — what everyone on that team already knew:

Three more years at that level, in a cyclical sales environment, was almost impossible.

That wasn't a performance problem.

That was a structural one.

And I had to decide: do I stay in a place I genuinely love — great boss, great team, great culture — or do I choose the trajectory I know I'm capable of?

That decision was one of the hardest of my career.

Issue #38 of The Activated Leader just dropped. The full story — including the one question I wish I'd had before I made that call — is live now.

Link in the comments. 4 minutes. Worth every one of them.

I had my best year ever.

Hit every number.
Proved every doubt wrong.

And walked out of that office knowing I was going to quit.

Not because it was bad.

Because it was good.
And I could finally see exactly where good was going to end.

There's a version of stuck that nobody talks about.

It doesn't look like failure.

It looks like a ceiling with good lighting.

I'm telling the full story in tomorrow's newsletter - Issue #38 of The Activated Leader. Tuesday, noon CST.

If you're not on the list, the link is in the comments.

This one is for anyone who's ever been performing at their peak - and quietly known something still had to change.

I already had the job. I went back to school anyway.

Years after walking into Microsoft without a degree.

I remember the exact moment I decided.

Glass-walled conference room. A colleague made a reference to something from his MBA program. The whole room nodded. I smiled and pretended I understood.

That night, I started researching programs.

Not because someone told me to.

Not because I needed it for the next role.

Because I needed to stop feeling like I'd snuck in through the back door.

I got the degree three years later. Not because anyone asked for it. Because I needed to close the gap in my own self-acceptance.

And here's what I want you to sit with this Friday:

Some of the things you think are about career moves, promotions, titles, or money — are actually about belonging to yourself.

You've already earned the room.
You've already done hard things nobody gave you credit for.
You've already figured out problems they didn't think you could solve.

The question was never whether you belonged.

The question is whether you've made peace with the version of you that got here.

That's the work.

And it's worth doing.

Have a good weekend. 🌊

undefined undefined

I flew to Las Vegas for my boss's wedding.

I loved everything about being on that team.

And I still left.

Because loving where you are and knowing you have to go somewhere else, those two things can both be true at the same time.

That's the part of transition nobody prepares you for.

It's not always about running from something broken.

Sometimes it's about having the courage to leave something whole, because you know, quietly, that staying means shrinking.

The hardest exits aren't from bad situations.

They're from good ones.

If you've ever made that call, or you're sitting with it right now, I want you to know:

Leaving something good to pursue something true isn't a betrayal.

It's the bravest kind of faith.

Have a good weekend. 🌊

Three people. Three responses. One almost made me quit.

Earlier this month, I told you the story about being told I wasn’t adding value to the team @ Microsoft. 

I went to every person on that team - one by one - and asked them directly what wasn't working.

A lot of you showed up in my DMs after that.

One of you told me you've been replaying a single sentence from your last review for four months.

I heard you.

This is the next part of the story.

The first response was warm. Supportive. Completely useless.

The second one stung - but it had an address. I could fix it.

The third came from Brent.

Brent questioned every decision management made - out loud, without apology. Killed his number every single quarter and drove a Maserati to work.

When that man tells you that you don't belong in your role?
It lands differently.

I smiled. Said thank you. 

Walked back to my desk

and fell apart.

Newsletter drops tomorrow. Tuesday, noon CST.

Link in the comments.

#TheActivatedLeader

Most high performers can't tell the difference between two very different feelings.

The discomfort that means: push through.

And the discomfort that means: move on.

They feel identical in the moment.

The doubt sounds the same.
The fear sounds the same.
The 2am voice sounds the same.

So people do one of two things:

They leave too early — mistaking hard for wrong.

Or they stay too long — mistaking familiar for right.

Here's the question I use with senior leaders to start untangling the two:

"Are you staying because this is building toward something — or because leaving feels like losing?"

Those are two completely different answers.

One is strategy.

One is ego protecting itself from discomfort.

Neither is wrong — but only one of them is data you can actually use.

The leaders who navigate transition well aren't the ones who decide fastest.

They're the ones who get honest about which question they're actually answering.

Which one do you think you're answering right now — even if you're not ready to say it out?

My manager called me in and told me the team felt I wasn't adding enough value.

He wouldn't tell me who said it.
He wouldn't tell me what it meant.

I sat across from him with a high school diploma in a room full of MBAs.

Nodding. Smiling. Terrified.

That night I had two choices:
Quit and protect my ego.

Or go find the truth myself.

I chose the truth.

I went to every single person on that team — one by one — no HR buffer, no manager sitting in — and asked them directly what the problem was.

Was it uncomfortable?
Absolutely.

Did it work?
Our team won President's Club.

On paper, I'd won.

But here's the thing nobody talks about:

The external win wasn't the real shift.

The real shift was quieter. And it came from doing something most high performers refuse to do.

Issue #37 just dropped. The full story — including what I actually did to close the gap — is in today's newsletter.

Link in comments. 7 minutes. This one hits different.

There's a kind of stuck that's hard to explain to people.

Because from the outside, everything looks fine.

Good title. Good company. Good team.

But you've done the math.

And the math isn't adding up to the future you actually want.

That's not ingratitude.

That's not ambition, being selfish.

That's clarity trying to get your attention.

The leaders I work with aren't failing when they come to me.

They're performing.

At a high level. In a role that fits. With people they respect.

And quietly knowing that something has to change, without being able to name exactly what.

If that's where you are right now, comment CEILING below.

I'll DM you the details on how I work with senior leaders navigating exactly this.

“You should be in sales operations, not sales.”

There was a guy on my Microsoft team named Brent.  He questioned every decision management made - out loud, without blinking.

Brent killed his number every single quarter. 

Brent drove a Maserati to work.

You know the Brent in your office. The one with so much credibility from results that nobody can touch him. The one who says what everyone else is thinking but won't say out loud.

When I went around to every person on my team asking for real feedback - Brent was the last conversation.

He looked at me and said:
"I'm going to call a spade a spade. You're in the wrong role. You shouldn't have gotten this job..you should be in sales operations."

Person 1 told me I was great. Warm, kind, completely useless.
 
Person 2 gave me something that stung - but it had an address. I could fix it. 

Brent told me the truth I wasn't ready to hear.

And I almost quit because of it.

Today's issue of The Activated Leader is the full story - and the question I now ask every leader sitting on feedback they don't know what to do with.

It is going out at noon CST.

Link in the comments if you're not subscribed. This is Part 3 of the Microsoft story series - prior issues linked there too.

#TheActivatedLeader

I got my dream job with $36 in my account.

The borrowed suit. The rooftop. Derek, my good friend screaming "you idiot, call her back and accept the offer!"

You loved that story.

But there's a part I've never told publicly.

The part that happened after I got the job.

The part that was actually harder than being broke.

I'm sharing it in tomorrow's newsletter, Tuesday, 12pm CST.

If you're not on the list yet, the link is in the comments.

This one is for anyone who's ever been in the room but didn't feel like they belonged in it.

Which, based on my DMs... is most of you.

The man who told me I didn't belong in my role became one of the people I've learned from most in my career.

About how close I came to dismissing him.

To decide he was wrong and move on with my ego intact.

About what I would have missed.

Brent had nothing to prove and nothing to protect.

Which meant when he told me the truth - the hard, unfiltered, devastating version - it was the purest gift anyone in that building gave me.

Because here's the thing about the feedback that lands hardest:

It almost always comes from the person paying the closest attention.

Not the person who needs something from you. Not the person managing the relationship.

The person who looked up saw exactly what was happening and decided you were worth the discomfort of the truth.

Those people are rare.

And if you can stay in the room when they speak - If you can get curious instead of defensive - If you can ask "what if this is the thing that moves me forward" instead of "how do I make this stop hurting" -

That's where the shift happens.

Not in the easy feedback. In the kind that costs something to receive.
You are not the worst thing that's ever been said about you.

Happy Friday. 🌊

#TheActivatedLeader

Most of the feedback you receive isn't designed to help you.

Here's what it's actually designed to do:

Layer 1 - Protect the relationship. Most people soften the real thing inside something kind. Not because they're dishonest. Because they're human, they round the edges off the truth until it's no longer useful.

Layer 2 - Protect their position. If your colleague needs something from you - access, approval, support - you will not get the full truth from them. You'll get a version designed to preserve their access to you.

Layer 3 - And this is the one most people miss: People pre-decide what you can handle before they decide what to say.

Which means the feedback you receive is often filtered through the most fragile version of you - not the version actually sitting in the room.

So when someone shows up and gives you the real, unfiltered, specific thing - even when it lands like a punch - that is a gift.

Even when it doesn't feel like one.

The question isn't just "am I getting feedback?"

It's: "Am I creating conditions where people feel safe enough to tell me the truth?"

That's a completely different question.

And it changes everything you receive.

#TheActivatedLeader 
#FeedbackCulture

Most people don't get fired.

They slowly get made irrelevant.

And the wild part?

The highest performers almost never see it coming, because they're too busy performing to notice the system shifting around them.

I didn't see it. Not until I was already on the other side of it.

This week's newsletter is about the moment you realize your wins aren't protecting you anymore.

It's the story I wish someone had told me two years earlier.

Drops Tuesday at noon.

The VP across from me was pissed. At herself.

"I've been faking it for 11 years. Eleven years."

On paper: crushing it. Two promotions in three years. Team loves her. Board knows her name.

In her words: "I still wait for someone to tap me on the shoulder and say I don't belong here."

She wasn't sad. She was furious — at how long she'd let it go on.

That's the moment everything shifts.

Not when you "feel more confident." When you finally get angry enough to stop pretending.

Most leaders I work with are doing the opposite:
➤ Collecting credentials hoping the next one will be enough
➤ Rehearsing their "confident voice" in the car every morning for years
➤ Performing expertise in rooms where they feel like a fraud

The doubt doesn't go away on its own. I know. I lived it at Microsoft with a high school diploma in a room full of MBAs.

Here's what I'm offering:
Comment BELONG below.

I'll DM you a short survey — 5 questions, takes 2 minutes.

Based on your answers, I'll send you a personalized voice note with the one pattern I see and exactly what I'd focus on first.

Not a sales pitch. Not a PDF. A real response to your real situation.

I'm limiting this to the first 10 people who comment. After that, I'm closing it to make sure everyone gets a thoughtful response.

If you've been "figuring it out" for more than 90 days, you already know something's in the way.

You just need someone to say it out loud.
BELONG 👇

More wins. More praise. Same voice in my head at 2am.

I thought if I just achieved enough, the doubt would finally stop.

It didn't.

I've coached enough C-suite leaders to know I'm not alone. The quiet voice doesn't care about your credentials.

Here's what I've learned actually works — and it's not a confidence hack:

You have to get specific about what you're actually afraid of.

Not "I don't feel like I belong."

That's a feeling. Not a problem you can solve.

The solvable version sounds like:
➤ "I don't understand the financial language in the room and I'm pretending I do."
➤ "I've never managed a team this size and I'm winging the people part."
➤ "My peers have 20 years of technical depth I don't have, and I avoid the conversations that would expose it."

When I went to each of my Microsoft teammates and asked them directly what wasn't working, I wasn't being brave.

I was being strategic.

I needed the specific problem so I could solve the specific problem.

Vague fear is unsolvable. Named fear has an address.

What's the specific fear you've been calling "impostor syndrome"? 

Name it below — the real one, not the polished version.

The harshest feedback I ever received came from the person I learned from most.

At the time I thought it was cruel. With distance I know it was the most generous thing anyone in that building did for me.

His name was Brent. You've heard me talk about him this week.

Two weeks ago I posted about the moment my manager said the team didn't feel I was adding value.

A lot of you showed up in the comments. Even more showed up in my DMs.

You told me about your own version of that moment. The feedback you're sitting on. The performance conversation you're replaying. The transition you're navigating where you can't tell if what you're hearing is the real picture or the filtered one.

I built something for exactly that.

Three diagnostic questions I use with every leader I work with who is navigating transition, sitting on feedback they don't know what to do with, or performing confidence they don't feel.

➤ Comment FEEDBACK below.

I'll send you those three questions directly - along with a short note on how to use them.

No funnel. No pitch deck. Just the questions.

Because the feedback that almost ended my career became the foundation of the work I do now. And the only reason I could use it was that someone helped me ask the right questions about it.

👇
#TheActivatedLeader 
#LeadershipTransition 
#ExecutiveCoaching

I was one email away from canceling.

Here are the 3 questions that stopped me — and that I now use with every executive client standing at a crossroads:

➤ Question 1: What is the real cost of not going?

Not the opportunity cost. The compound cost.

Every time you override a commitment to yourself, you pay an Activation Tax — the accumulated interest on every "not yet," every "next quarter," every "once things slow down."

I calculated mine. It was higher than the cost of the retreat.

➤ Question 2: What story am I telling myself — and whose voice is it in?

When I looked at my "I can't go" list, I recognized those objections.

They weren't mine.

They were the voice of a system that rewarded presence over perspective. Busyness as belonging.

I'd left that building. But I hadn't left that mindset.

➤ Question 3: If I knew this decision would matter in 10 years — what would I choose?

Not 10 days. 

10 years.

That question ended the debate.

The most dangerous thing for a high-achieving leader isn't burnout.

It's the slow, invisible erosion of trust in yourself — each time you cancel the thing you needed most.

Go on the retreat.

Take the sabbatical.

Book the offsite for one.

The ROI is real. It just doesn't show up on the dashboard you're watching.

#LeadershipDevelopment 
#ActivationTax 
#ExecutiveCoaching 
#TheStrategicPause

"Change of plans — need to reschedule."

That was the subject line. 
The email was written. 
My finger was on send.

It was a Tuesday night in late January. My daughter was in bed. I had my laptop open and a list of 11 things that felt more important than a yoga retreat I'd committed to three months earlier.

The business was gaining momentum. I had calls stacking up. March content wasn't planned yet.

I told myself: there's no ROI in five days of silence.

Then I asked myself a question I teach my clients all the time — and almost never ask myself:

What is the cost of canceling?

Not the financial cost. The compound cost. The Activation Tax of repeatedly choosing the urgent over the essential.

I closed the laptop.

I went on the retreat.

And somewhere between the first morning practice and the last journal entry, I found something I didn't even know I'd lost.

Clarity.

Not the kind you schedule. The kind that finds you when you finally stop outrunning it.

Today's newsletter goes deeper — what I actually discovered, the leadership lesson hiding inside the decision to go anyway, and the one framework that stopped me from hitting send on that cancellation email.

It drops at noon CST.

If you're not subscribed yet, the link is in the comments. 👇

(And if you are subscribed, check your inbox at 12. This one's good.)

#TheActivatedLeader
#LeadershipDevelopment
#WomensHistoryMonth

The thing I almost skipped became the thing I needed most.

Too busy. 
Too much momentum. 
Too many things that felt more urgent.
I went anyway.

And somewhere in the stillness — I found clarity I'd been chasing for months.

Sometimes the breakthrough isn't on the other side of more effort.
It's on the other side of a pause.

Change your routine. 
Change your environment. 

Even just for a weekend.

You might find what you've been looking for.

Happy Friday. 🌊

Sunday is International Women's Day.

This year's theme: "Give To Gain."

It sounds like a paradox until you've lived it.

I gave up a title I'd spent 9 years earning.

I gained Tuesday evenings with my daughter.

I gave up a calendar packed with proof of my importance.

I gained the silence that finally introduced me to myself.

I gave up certainty.

I gained a life I actually chose.

The women I admire most aren't the ones who accumulated everything.

They're the ones who had the courage to release something — a role, a relationship, a version of themselves that no longer fit — and trust what was waiting on the other side.

That's not retreat. That's strategy.

In 1978, a group of women in Sonoma County, California understood this.

They did something radical — they declared a week to honor women's history.

It started small. Local. Almost invisible.

48 years later, it reaches every corner of the globe.

Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is start something small and trust it will grow.

Who is a woman in your life who gave something up to gain something greater?

Name her below. Let's celebrate her this weekend. 👇

#IWD2026 
#GiveToGain
#ForAllWomenAndGirls 
#WomensHistoryMonth
#TheActivatedLeader

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The Battle

Tye Trepanier

Lilah Jones

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The Battle

Tye Trepanier

Lilah Jones

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

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);}Lilah Jones's LinkedIn Performance

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