February 3rd 2022. That was the date I lost $100k in a single day. But don’t feel bad for me, it could have been a lot worse. My boss actually lost a lot more than I did - he lost $30m on that same day!

Sorry - did I say $30 million? I meant $30 BILLION!

You see it was the day Facebook, now known as Meta, announced their quarterly earnings and had reported a decline in user numbers for the first time in over a decade. To make things worse, the company had also spent $10b building their new metaverse business - and so far they had nothing to show for it but a new name and logo.

I’m standing at the counter in a coffee shop in the middle of Bali. The aroma of freshly ground coffee beans mingles with the sticky morning air. Outside, scooters speed down the narrow dirt lane as the local residents prepare to go about their day.

Facebook’s Amer Iqbal argues that young strategists contemplating which direction their careers should take – to be a generalist or specialist – should also consider asking an additional question: Are you a purist or a pragmatist?

“Your phone is already an extension of you. You are already a cyborg. Most people don’t realise they are already a cyborg – that phone is already an extension of yourself.”Elon Musk’s Neuralink device, a tiny implant into the human brain, aims to eventually serve as a high bandwidth interface to the brain such that we can be symbiotic with AI.

Innovate or prepare to fail - Amer Iqbal believes this, and you should too. As Head of Digital Transformation at Facebook, Amer spends his time teaching corporates how to combine the strength of a large organisation with the fluid mindset of a startup. He explains how companies must continually grow and adapt, plus a word of warning if you feel you’re working for a business that isn’t willing to do this.

On May 15 2019, Amer Iqbal (APAC Head of Digital Transformation, Facebook) participated in a panel discussion in Singapore alongside Stephanie Nash (Chief People Officer, ChapmanCG) and Dr Mark Hon (Entrepreneur and Investor, Founder of Sugar Venture Capital). 

Often when companies scale to a certain size, the structures and systems that previously yielded great results no longer have the same level of impact. Innovation is not immune to this scenario, so hat happens when an innovation initiative outlives its effectiveness and moves into the legacy phase? It doesn't necessarily mean the cause is lost; it just might take a little bit of reinvention.

According to an executive coach for companies like Apple, Adobe and eBay, more than two thirds of C-Level meetings are actually failures. How can you stand out and impress?

Ex-Googler buys a traditional neighbourhood bank in Kansas, fits it out with a tech backbone to streamline the operation, and now packages the banking license + tech combination in a white-labeled offering to power many fintech startups around the world.