The last time I saw some confusion around why an executive was making a change in industry was back in 1997 to 2000. This was the dawn of the “internet age.’ Executives were leaving traditional industries like financial services, management consulting, retail, and even manufacturing, because there was a new thing called the Internet that was going to “change the world.” In the early years of 1996 and 1997, there were the early adopters. These executives were truly missionary. Money hadn’t been made yet in the Internet sector, and trails hadn’t even been blazed. Those early pioneers had caught a glimmer of a powerful distruptive technology, and were keen on experimenting with it, with the aim of changing the world as we know it, and how things get done.
There are some industries that have always been missionary, and have attracted a consistent flow of executive talent toward them. The education industry attracts innovators who want to find a better way to sculpt and expand the minds of our children and young adults. The medical devices industry wants to help innovate tools and components that will allow us to repair our bodies, or extend their useful life. The biotech industry wants to find new ways to pinpoint the reasons and sources of disease and develop novel ways to cure those, whether seeking the cure for cancer, cure for Altzheimers, or other terrible human diseases.
Clark Waterfall
