From Deloitte to a Crossroads
After ten years at Deloitte, I had reached senior manager—just one step from partner. Consulting gave me the kind of platform few careers could: leading major transformation projects, advising global clients, and working across industries from finance to energy to tech. I had the privilege of shaping strategies for Fortune 500 companies and governments, and I learned to manage teams under intense pressure. Those years shaped me as a leader and built a foundation of experience I continue to draw on every day.
Yet as much as I loved the work, I began to see a gap between the projects that energized me and the ones that would get me promoted. The partner track was clear, but I didn’t want my career to become a trade-off between passion and numbers.
Blockchain Wasn’t Enough
When I joined Deloitte’s blockchain advisory team, I felt like I had found my niche. I loved simplifying complex concepts, showing executives how distributed ledger technology could solve real problems, and calling out where it was being forced into places it didn’t belong. Clients trusted me because I spoke with both technical fluency and commercial realism.
But blockchain work, however cutting-edge, wasn’t generating the revenue of multimillion-dollar ERP implementations or long-term technology outsourcing deals. Budgets were small, timelines shorter, and the road to partnership unclear. Deloitte valued the practice for credibility, but I knew my career growth would be limited if I stayed in that lane.
Choosing Passion Over the Partner Track
Mentors encouraged me to pivot into other service lines where the money was, and I tested opportunities across them. Each time, I realized the same thing: I would be compromising my interests for the sake of numbers. I’d seen partners who had done exactly that—financially successful but stuck for years in roles they admitted privately they no longer enjoyed.
That vision of the future didn’t sit right with me. I didn’t want to wake up one day as a partner with strong revenue figures but little connection to the work itself. My turning point came when I realized I had to choose between staying the course or finding a role that matched both my skills and my passion.
Why I Joined Bitt
Around this time, I reconnected with a former colleague who had joined Bitt, a U.S.-based digital payments company pioneering blockchain-based financial infrastructure. Their focus was central bank digital currencies and national payment systems—projects with the scale and impact I had always envisioned. He told me, “We need someone like you.”
I joined Bitt as EVP Partnerships, where I could apply everything I had learned at Deloitte: building trust with senior leaders, explaining complex ideas simply, and leading cross-functional teams through ambitious transformations. But at Bitt, I also had something new—ownership, agility, and the chance to see our work affect entire nations’ economies.
Looking Back
Walking away from Deloitte wasn’t easy. It was safe, prestigious, and filled with people I deeply respected. But joining Bitt gave me something Deloitte couldn’t at that stage of my career: a sense of purpose and direct impact. At Deloitte, I helped some of the world’s largest organizations solve big problems. At Bitt, I’ve been part of a team helping governments modernize their financial systems, shaping how money itself moves in the digital age.
Sometimes the boldest career move is leaving behind what everyone else sees as success to chase the work that excites you most. For me, that leap—from Deloitte to Bitt—was exactly that. Will I ever do consulting again? Maybe…
