Friends,

Boy has it been a wild ride. Joining an educational travel company during the heart of a global pandemic was definitely not the safe choice. But now that I can reflect back on 18 months at Context, I can happily say that following my heart and passions has yet again led me down the right path.

我加入了环境，希望在一个以任务驱动的组织中加强我的执行领导才能，试图使世界变得更美好。在任职期间，我从一份全职报告中监督一个功能开始，到了总共28个完整时间和十二名兼职人员的三个功能。我必须参加董事会会议，帮助制定公司战略，采购关键的SaaS工具和领导战略对话。

Perhaps most importantly, I worked with the directors and senior managers reporting to me to think bigger about what our teams could do. Together we set ambitious OKRs and then worked hard to achieve them. We hired and trained, established new processes, implemented new systems, and aggressively executed. Over the course of this journey I internalized a few leadership principles that I’ve reflected on below.

First and foremost, setting ambitious goals that are simple and clear, so that everyone knows what they are and what success looks like, is critical. But once those are in place, you have to hold your team and yourself accountable to those goals.That accountability means doing everything in your power to make sure you and your team as a unit successfully achieve what you set out to do.Unblocking and supporting each player (whether directly, through a manager, or through a manager of managers), advocating for your team needs, and especially leaning in anywhere that’s needed, whenever it’s needed, is all part of the game.

对我来说，这可能意味着进行艰难的交叉功能对话来倡导我团队的需求。或者这可能意味着要花在婚礼前的工作前一周，直到凌晨1点回答客户电子邮件，因为我们的支持团队仍在人员配备人员，如果我愿意以后不愿意工作，请我的团队迟到是错误的。教练，激励和啦啦队都是工作的核心部分。因此，实际上是在做需要完成的工作，尤其是如果没有发生并且没有其他人可以做。每一个挑战都是一个加强并证明自己是领导者和队友的机会。无论您的标题或职位描述如何，这都是事实。

But with that I realized something else — just how much joy I get celebrating the hard work that goes into successfully achieving a set of ambitious goals. There’s nothing better than celebrating wins at the end of a quarter where people acknowledge that at first they didn’t think it was possible. Better yet, is the impact this makes on the following quarter, when you see the transformation in the “what’s possible” perspective start to shift and goals that were once thought of as herculean become a little more commonplace.

Over the course of my time at Context, and particularly over the last year, we worked hard to actively capture the nearly overwhelming demand for our tours and experiences as travel rebounded post-covid. And our hard work paid off. We saw partner sales grow >4500% from 5 to 7 figures quarterly alongside a 38% AOV growth YoY. More importantly, that meant that we let tens of thousands of people discover what everyone at Context knows to be true; that there’s nothing like exploring a city with a world class expert, who can change your perspective and show you connections between people, places, history, and culture that you didn’t know existed.

Even though my tour of duty at Context has come to an end, it’s this mission of bridging cultural divides and showing our shared humanity that makes Context a company that I will continue to support long into the future. The fact that I still have many people I consider friends to be working at the company is just a cherry on top.

Thank you to all my teammates and colleagues for making this professional time in my life so fulfilling, educational, and generally fun. And thank you to Context’s fearless CEO, June. Your honesty, transparency, empathy, and dedication have taught me a lot about leadership. I feel lucky to have had the chance to work so closely with you and know our relationship will continue long into the future. Thank you for taking a bet on me and for giving me this opportunity. I wish you and the Context team every success and triumph imaginable.

With love,

Elon

P.S. One journey ends, but another begins — more to come…