And what exactly is a Creative Business Asset (CBA)?
Every thriving organization needs someone who works outside a simple job description, outside a box. Someone who is not only comfortable with but thrives on uncertainty. Someone who doesn’t need an operating manual because he usually has to write it for others to follow. Someone who gets handed an opportunity and then runs with it. Someone who can identify a problem, manage it, then solve it. That’s a Creative Business Asset. That’s what I am.
You will not find CBA positions listed in want ads. The skills, though critical, are considered to be too soft to define. CBA’s are normally hired for hard skill positions and then are “discovered” by their department head, manager, or CEO. They are the “go to” guy for the people around them. Over time they get more and more responsibility until their actual work no longer matches their job description or indeed any description. They love the challenge and the thought of moving the group forward. They wind up with titles like Special Advisor or Minister without Portfolio.
I am a CBA. I’ve worked in Brasil, Italy, England, and the States. I’ve worked in epidemiology, archaeology, government, academics, technology, finance, and foreign missions. I’ve worked for a Member of Parliament, DuPont, West Virginia University, Pepperdine University, Social Security Administration, H&R Block, and my own online businesses, to name a few. I make connections between people and ideas, between problems and solutions. I enjoy the challenge of the nebulous concept needing to take strong root.
My skills, experience, and approach are not easily quantifiable and thus are not valued by the common hiring agent who is required to leave behind a paper trail to explain a hiring. A paper trail that can be used against them in the event of any future concerns. I get that but I’m looking for an organization that thinks beyond that to the level of a CBA.
Contact me if this sounds like something your company has been in sore need of. I’m currently living in Tennessee but in the world we live in, place, time, and distance are not barriers to the open-minded.
Learn more about me in my evolving LinkedIn profile or my online personality resume.
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