The Final Post

It’s Been Fun!

Hey - It’s been 103 days since my last post. Reflecting on 2024 and writing out the “big swings” I want to take over the next few years, I noticed that “keeping up with the newsletter” didn’t even occur to me. I’m always evaluating the basket of activities I’m doing and want to do, optimizing for things that matter most to me over a given period. I think a lot about Tim Urban’s post quantifying life phases, particularly how about 90% of a kid’s in-person time with their parents happens from birth until age 18, and I have. There are only a few years left with my kids until we hit that 90% number. All of this said, it’s deeply important for me to sharpen my focus on the most fun and useful professional and personal activities. So it is bittersweet to say I’ll be retiring this newsletter, effective today.

I’m very grateful to everyone who read this newsletter and gave me words of appreciation and encouragement in the past several months. The posts were an invaluable activity to me during my sabbatical last year, and I enjoyed the process of crafting each post, but as you can see from my 3+month silence, I’ve been busy with a host of other exciting things that I’m attending to:

1. Continuing the rapid expansion of my advisory firm, Apex Catalytic. After launching late last year, I have a ton of momentum following some incredible projects spanning AI, impact investment strategy, growth-focused R&D, ESG software, creating circular supply chains, and more. If you’re grappling with a novel + tough sustainability problem, please reach out: [email protected].

2. Building out new and enhancing my existing software and data products. I created what I think is the world’s biggest circular economy database, which I’ve been using to support my project work with Apex Catalytic. I also built a powerful decision support tool that helps corporates effectively evaluate and properly invest in data, AI, and software to help them move their sustainability actions faster. Again, if you’re interested in learning about this work, reach out at [email protected].

3. I am continuing my work to enable 10,000 sustainability professionals by 2030 (I’m about 20% of the way there based on work last year).

4. Advancing other writing projects. I’m putting energy behind a couple new and exciting writing projects, including Apex Briefings (timely and targeted insights on new developments relevant to impact investors and corporate sustainability leaders, which I send directly to personal and professional contacts), and writing a book (I have a couple outlines and am deciding on a publication route).

Thank you again for reading; please get in touch with me on LinkedIn or via email to stay connected. I don’t know the protocol for ending a newsletter, but I thought these lines sum things up at this point: