Goodbye Career, Hello Success

Like every other ambitious, Ivy League-educated baby boomer, Randy Komisar wanted to climb the corporate ladder--any corporate ladder. But he just couldn't bring himself to play the traditional career game. Instead, Komisar made up his own rules, taking a series of jobs that sparked his passions and made him happy--and successful. Today, the charismatic 45-year-old is a "virtual CEO"--an off-site but supercharged consultant to flesh-and-blood CEOs at a number of start-up companies in Silicon Valley and beyond. But that was only after he'd worked his way through 11 companies in 25 years--a crazy quilt of jobs as a music promoter, corporate lawyer, CFO at a software start-up, and chief executive at a video game company, just to name a few. Komisar's success came by not having a career--at least, not in the traditional old-economy sense of the word. He realized there were alternatives to marching your way straight up the corporate ladder and that success in the new economy can involve a series of twists and turns. In this first-person account, Komisar describes why a nontraditional career path such as the one he unintentionally took may appeal to more businesspeople than might suspect it themselves. He tracks his professional journey along a sometimes tense, often enlightening, and ultimately prosperous course. He shares lessons learned along the way. Komisar also makes a strong business case for pursuing the passion-driven career; such a career, he says, makes supreme sense in the new economy because it's flexible and challenging--both for an individual and for the companies he chooses to work for.

• Career advancement
• Organizational values
• Entrepreneurship
• Economics
• Career planning