Wednesday, April 22nd 2009, will (most likely) be my last day at IBM.
After 8 years (and 22 days to be precise) at Big Blue, I will embark into a new journey.
When I started out at IBM, at 22 (spot a recurring # here?!), straight out of the army, I already knew a lot about the company (my dad was a 30 year IBM veteran), but little about how my career at IBM will look like, or what would I like to do when I’ll grow up. At 31, with 8 years experience at the largest IT company in the world, I believe I have an answer.
IBM truly is a great place to work in, regardless of what you hear/read on the outside. Over the past 8 years, I’ve worked with some 1,500 people (1/3 of them are at my IM buddy list) under 6 local managers (and 6 European/US managers), held 4 different jobs at 2 departments, worked out of 2 HQ buildings, got my B.A in Finance and MBA in Marketing, graduated (with Distinction) IBM Global Sales School and built an impressive network of friends and colleagues, inside and outside the company.
Summarizing my time at IBM will take place at a different time, and post, but I’m happy to have had the opportunity to work with an amazing bunch of people, learning from the best and being part of a company that has an impressive past (which spans almost 100 years) and literally sets the future (PC, e-business, services and outsourcing, innovation, research, patents, SaaS and our planet) of the IT market.
Being responsible for Lotus Software Sales in Israel was the most challenging job I ever held, but at the same time the most interesting and fun. Fun – because I got to sell stuff I love, digg and totally believe in; challenging – because of the local market landscape and the competition. I believe we left a huge impact on the local market, strengthening the Lotus brand and helped our customers succeed – which is the most important thing. Working daily with our customers, solving business issues with Lotus solutions, was definitely the highlight of my work.
Through this post I would like to thank all the people – friends and colleagues, inside and outside the company – with whom I’ve worked over the years. THANK YOU! It was a pleasure knowing you and I do hope we’ll stay in touch.
I’m not a custom to linking songs in my posts, but there’s one song that comes to mind, to wrap up this goodbye post, and that is ‘My Way’, by Mr. Frank Sinatra.
Shalom, and see you around.
