Chapter One - 1.1 Diary of a Yaletown Girl ~ Lunch with Mr. Perfect ~ The IT Executive

On Friday, I had lunch with the CEO of a Vancouver based IT Consulting firm. Let’s call him Mr. Perfect, the Consultant.

Honestly, when I first met him five years ago, he was the perfect man ~Handsome, intelligent and generous. We first met at University of British Columbia where he was lecturing.

At the time, I was engaged to another Mr. Perfect so my intentions were honorable and purely for career guidance purposes.

Mr. Perfect, the Consultant, provided the following advice throughout our class:

• Network with successful people
~ Rarely does any executive turn down a lunch appointment

• Rather than having a “build it and they will come” mentality,
~ Just “pick the best blue prints and build it from there”

• Read what the experts are reading
~ Ask what they would recommend

Fast forward five years later, lunch advice with Mr. Perfect, the Consultant is as follows:

• Time Management:
o When you have a family, you need to manage your work, life balance
~ 8 hours of work & professional development
~ 8 hours of family life & community
~ 8 hours of sleep, healthy & fitness
o You are single now, go full force in achieving your career objectives!

• Acquire Knowledge:
o Try to target two books per month
~ Someone successful wrote a road map to success, read their story and learn from their mistakes and successes

• Goal: The Top 40 under 40 requires a combination of the following
o Be at the Director level in a large corporation
o Be a business owner
o Be a leader in your community
o Milestones must be set to achieve these goals

Today, my intention of meeting Mr. Perfect, the consultant, was not just to chit chat; it was to achieve the following:

• Mentorship: You see, Mr. Perfect, the Consultant made it to the Top 40 under 40 in our City at the age of 35. This is a goal I want to set for myself. Given that we have similar career aspirations, we’ve work on the same projects (I’ve PM-ed a large project for a large insurance corporation, while he provided the 3rd party consultants), we were trained in the same profession, it’s a professional match made in heaven!!

• Corporate Sponsorship:
o Ask if the Perfect Consulting IT Co. has a charity they support.
o Ask if there are swag/books that can be donated eg. autographed books from an author

o Propose an offer he can’t refuse:
~ Co-author in a book
~ Joint charity event

• Results:

o After speaking to Mr. Perfect, the Consultant, about my fundraising initiatives for 2011 ,
I have uncovered the following:

Perfect IT Consulting Corp. supports BC Cancer every year; however, this is on a personal level. Mr. Perfect supports his close friend, who now has cancer of the eye. There will be a pub night charity event held in the distant City of Surrey in late January.

In an afterthought, I too am hosting a BC Cancer Charity event at the same time in the little town of Yaletown. I've made my “twin” charity event proposal to Mr. Perfect and he says he will speak to his friend and get back to me.

• Next Steps:
o Since Perfect IT Consulting Co. is the top company in BC to provide monkey wiping services, I shall ask Mr. Perfect to accompany me to the Top 40 under 40 Dinner Gala.