Before You Take Your Next Step

Today we welcome the very inspiring and interesting Michael Merchant. Michael shares with us his experiences from working at IBM to starting his own consulting company and his lessons learned during the process including some very interesting projects and personal development. We also discuss his non profit work, people analytics, some tips on networking and engagement, his strategic approach to taking a career leap, finding great partnerships and the biggest lessons learned as an entrepreneur.    Takeaways: [1:22] We welcome our guest today, Michael Merchant. We met in Chicago at the Enterprise Innovation Conference, and he stood out to me when he was asking some very insightful questions to the panelists.  [2:55] Michael started his career as a software engineer at IBM, then joined their consulting firm where he found himself interested and committed in people analytics. He was so inspired to work in this field full time that he left to find his own clients.  [5:08] Michael has been very active in non profi