CD (Chris) has been fortunate to work in roles of influence and with amazing teams at 11 companies that have disrupted various industries and survived. Of the 11, 3 filed for IPO and 3 were acquired. 7 achieved valuations of over $1B. CD also serves as an advisor and coach. Outside of work, CD has coached players and sports teams to winning nationals and competing in world championships.Of all 11 companies, most, if not all faced a point of existential crisis at least once. Several came to the point of paying out the last payroll before recovering. One went from paying out the last payroll to achieving a $26B valuation. Some say you learn from failures, other suggest you learn from success. CD’s experience has taught him the best learning comes from failures and challenges that you survive and recover from.CD is a believer that success can often have a large luck component. He also has recognized the truth behind “what got you here won’t get you there.” Each new company is like starting over with a new set of challenges, people and circumstances. It’s less about what you know and more about how you acquire the knowledge you need to succeed.CD left tech altogether on a sabbatical to become a K-8 teacher. He then returned to tech as an individual contributor at Intuit to lead several projects culminating to lead one as a director that became the foundation of QuickBooks Online.CD is a leader with extensive experience spearheading engineering, and product development in high-growth tech companies. He has a proven track record leveraging innovative technologies including AI & ML to drive business growth and operational excellence. He is adept at building and leading diverse global teams with executional excellence & high impact.On a personal note, having survived two near-death-experiences (NDEs), CD has gained an appreciation of how transformative those experiences can be. He sees parallels to startups going through near-death-experiences and coming out the other side as stronger. As Andy Grove put it: "Bad companies are destroyed by crises. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them."