He built billion-dollar companies – and still finds LinkedIn awkward.
This week, I had a call with a CEO who spent 26 years building things – teams, products, billion-dollar exits. He’d led global P&Ls, grown a $30 million business into a $1.5 billion one, and sold it for four times that.
Now he was brushing the dust off his LinkedIn profile and wondering what the hell to write in a headline.
“It’s like dating again after a 20-year marriage,” he said. “Except I never really dated in the first place.”
And here’s the thing: it wasn’t forced. He wasn’t fired. He didn’t flame out. This was a self-inflicted inflection point.
He left, not because he had to, but because he couldn’t ignore that itch any longer. The quiet tug that says, I’m not done. But I think I’m done here.
And he’s not alone.
There’s a growing wave of senior leaders stepping back, not because they failed, but because they’ve outgrown the current game. They’re not “off the market.” They’re just between chapters. Still ambitious, still deeply capable, but craving something bigger, better, or downright different.
Here’s the thing no one tells you: this phase, the awkward, identity-shifting, what-do-I-even-want part, isn’t a problem to be solved.
It’s the portal.
Because when you’ve spent two decades chasing the next deal, the next quarter, the next org chart shift… it takes real courage to hit pause and ask: What would be worth building next?
It’s disorienting. And weird. And weirdly exhilarating.
Some call it a gap year. Some call it limbo. At Marlin, we call it the messy middle. The part where nothing’s clear – except that something’s about to change.
And if you’re here? Welcome.
You’re not selling out. You’re tuning in. And the right thing tends to show up once you’re brave enough to stop pretending you have it all figured out.
In your corner,
Kate xx
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