Robert shares how his parents and early childhood experiences influenced his entrepreneurial drive and his desire to be a builder. He recounts the influence of mentors early in his career who helped him explore his skills and values, the decision to move to Silicon Valley to start a venture early in his career, a deeply authentic commitment to philanthropic efforts spurred by tragic circumstances, an intensely personal personal decision to leave eBay, and his perspectives on the future of marketing and brand as the CMO of Atlassian.

How can you discover and articulate your purpose? How can you make difficult career decisions? How can you incorporate your values into the professional decisions you make? How can you be a better marketer, mentor, and leader? Robert shares his perspective and insights on finding a sense of purpose and making purpose the driving influence in career decisions.

Guest Bio:
Robert is a marketing executive with a passion for building early-stage and large-scale consumer platforms. Deep experience in driving revenue growth through performance marketing and consumer branding.

“I believe that technology serves as a force for positive change in society. My passion is building businesses that foster human connections, create hope, and expand opportunity. I lead with empathy, and focus on attracting, retaining, and growing great talent and world-class teams.”

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chatwani
Twitter: @chatwani

Building Blocks:
Reflect on, and write down, what you love and your “why.” Robert suggested that it’s a worthy exercise to take out a piece of paper and write down your reflections on two things: what you love most, and your reason for being. It won’t be easy, and it might take some time. But, speaking from experience, it’s worth it! It helps provide a ton of clarity on how to think about prioritizing your time, effort, and energy. Plus, it will help simplify your life and will help make you more memorable, distinctive, and compelling to others. Check out the Simon Sinek TED talk on this topic, and Brian Solis’ book Lifescale, to get started.

If you’d like to share, get it out there on social with the Hashtag #BreakthroughBuilders. Or, if you’d prefer to not share it publicly, go ahead and email it to me at jesse@breakthrough-builders.com. I’d love hearing from you and learning from what you built.

Helpful Links:
The seminal Simon Sinek TED talk on Starting with Why
Reflections from Robert on his story at the Atlassian Work Life Blog
Robert’s Author Page on the Atlassian Work Life Blog
2-minute interview with Robert speaking about Atlassian at TieCON 2019
Robert quoted on marketing’s role in driving brand-led growth at CMO.com
Daniel Pink on Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose here (article) and here (video)
Creating a CMO Transformation Agenda: Thought Leadership from Prophet here
Four Priorities for CMOs to Reimagine and Rignite Marketing: Thought Leadership from Prophet here

Research Reference:
Qualtrics' 2021 Labor Shortage Study: https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/labor-shortage-study/

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