Harley Finkelstein

I really think that most companies end up looking at a buffet of their leaders and looking at the slots that are available and just go like, go here, go here, go there.

And I think it takes a very thoughtful and very often a founder CEO or founder leader like Toby, someone like that to say, okay, here are the players I have.

Here are the things that are most important.

I'm going to skill match them.

So it isn't who's been there the longest or who's had that job somewhere else.

It is who is the very best person on the planet, not in the company, on the planet for this job.

And that person exists here.

That's the job they should do.

It allowed me to recommit for a lot longer to Shopify, to working here, to helping to build this company.

It's made me a lot happier.

Even Lindsay would say that...

Between 2020 and 2022, which I use those years because we're still in COVID and like we're still work from home and I wasn't around a lot of people.

And as a power extrovert, that was challenging for me.

But simply changing my area's responsibility completely reengaged me.

And it's it feels like this is a job that I always should have had.

I think Shopify.

I think Shopify had to get to a particular size and place for me to do this.

It almost feels like Shopify kind of grew into the company that would allow me to be its storyteller.

I couldn't have done this in 2010 or 2013 or 2018.

It had to happen at the right time.