Who am I and what do I do?

After completing the exit from my 12-year run as President and COO of our hockey stick growth company, I shifted my focus from operating a single large organization to building, investing in and advising businesses at the intersection of technology, convenience services, digital media and workplace engagement. Much of my work today is rooted in the same principles that shaped my earlier career: identifying overlooked opportunities, building practical solutions around them, and creating business models that can scale.

My primary focus has been the development of BreaktimeTV, a digital out-of-home media and communications platform designed for workplaces and other environments where people regularly take a break. What began as a workplace media concept has expanded into a broader platform serving breakrooms, micro markets, fitness centers, laundromats, hospitality, retail and other high-frequency environments. The work has required building everything from operator partnerships and advertising relationships to technology, deployment systems, revenue models and audience analytics.

Along the way, I have also helped develop complementary businesses and capabilities involving real-time device and data management, audience intelligence, supplier marketing, retail media and promotional programs. This has put me at the intersection of operators, technology companies, consumer brands, media buyers and location owners—often helping each side understand how to create more value from assets and audiences they already have.

I continue to work directly with entrepreneurs, ownership groups and established companies on growth strategy, partnerships, new revenue opportunities, commercialization and operational challenges. I am particularly drawn to situations where a business has a strong core operation but needs help determining what comes next—whether that means launching a new product, creating a recurring revenue stream, structuring a strategic partnership, entering a new market or turning an idea into an executable business model.

Today, my perspective combines more than three decades of operating experience with the lessons of building businesses again from the ground up after an exit. I understand both the challenges of scaling an established company and the realities of starting with limited resources, finding product-market fit, raising capital, winning enterprise customers and adapting when the original plan changes. My role is rarely simply to offer advice; I prefer to work alongside leadership teams to help turn opportunities into something measurable, executable and ultimately valuable.

As a leader I touched every aspect of our companies.  I zeroed in on breaking down our business in to these areas:

• Products
• Projects
• Processes
• Pricing
• PEOPLE
• Profits

By establishing principles around each of these areas for every department, every team member knew their role, what they were responsible for and when it needed to be done to complete their role in our mission.  

So you may ask "Patrick, what's the deal with the photos with Katie Couric, Mike Tobin and other big time media folks?"  And second, you may also ask "why that montage photos in black and white on the cover page?"  They  highlight my biggest success and failure as a leader and possibly the biggest lesson I can teach you.  

One of my favorite PJM'ers (my acronym for one-liner) is "At some point you need to stop learning lessons and start executing".  As a leader in any department, company or just your own life, you should always be learning.  Yet, if you don't apply the lessons consistently, you will lose at whatever you're doing.