I left Meltwater in April 2006 when I was at a peak in my Meltwater career. I was 28-years old and during the 18 months prior to leaving, Meltwater had lived up to all its promises; I had been given opportunities and responsibilities that oftentimes take years to obtain elsewhere. I had hit all my sales targets, established one office from scratch, managed the Stockholm office and was even promoted to a partner in the company.

In 2006, Meltwater’s management structure was quite flat. As I climbed my way up through the ranks, I wanted to continue getting more responsibility, but at the time, I didn’t see sufficient growth opportunity from where I was. I did not know anything about all the future growth and new career avenues that would arise as the company doubled in size and entered new international markets. I came to the conclusion that Meltwater would not be able to offer me new challenges, so I left to continue developing my career outside Meltwater.

When I left the company, I naively thought the outside world was just like Meltwater. From my sales experience, I knew all about door knocking and rejections, asking for business and at a young age, I knew how to manage people and build a tight office culture. These proved to be very valuable qualifications– so I could cherry-pick between job offers.

For the next 2.5 years, I tried working at some of the largest media houses in Scandinavia. I noticed that the sales forces in these…

more...