The world is constantly changing and it’s impossible to focus on all the right opportunities with the right resources at exactly the right time. Gaps always exist. I’ve made my entire career by filling in the gaps. I have created five different roles for myself during my tenure at Barclays with the most recent in the digital strategy group by creating my own job description.

Market opportunity always exists when the client has an issue and providers don’t have solutions. The same goes for organizational change. When the organization chart has been drawn up, we see all these boxes with different titles. And for many people promotion means simply you focus on the next box at the top. I never did that. Instead, I focus on all the white spaces in between which a term that I refer to as ‘leadership vacuum’.

It’s really important that you align yourself with the strategic decisions and direction that the industry and your firm is heading towards. Then, you can excel by bringing solutions and proactively identifying opportunities thus filling in those gaps. So, my best advice is to look at your current book of work and identify an opportunity that is widely viewed as a problem for everyone but no one is in the position to provide a solution.

Watch the full interview here: