Daniel is the Chief of Staff and Director in Financial Services Advisory and a Presidential Scholar and alumni of Northeastern University, based in New York City.

Right when I thought I knew everything about creating cross-team connections and it’s value to high performing teams...I met Daniel. We grabbed coffee to explore how to simplify and accelerate the knowledge sharing moments to democratize the “Partner-relationship mindset” to all levels of employees. Even with the most corporate financial organizations, Daniel keeps it human, fun, and simple and shares his advice in the blog below. 

Why should someone share a coffee (or tea) with someone new - a colleague from a different team or department- in their company? 

Because we're all curious and want to learn something new. And that's what is so great about grabbing a cup of coffee with someone - you're bound to leave energized, excited, and having learnt something!

If you could ask just one question to spark a conversation/learn something from someone new, what would you ask? 

What excites you right now?

Can "coffee" be in person, via skype, or both? 

Definitely both. Often times I grab a cup of tea before my virtual one on ones. 

Who is one person that helped you in your career and what was the ah-ha moment you had with them? 

Michael Heindl was a fantastic leader and mentor early in my career. I owe a lot of my success to Mike! 

What is advice you'd share with other professionals about the importance of meeting new people?

Don't think about it as "networking" and getting contacts or business cards. Think about it as learning and building relationships. It should be fun and painless!

Compare: the job your "18-year old self" thought you'd have vs. the job you have today? 

The 'fuzzy' stuff about leadership that I read in books back then about inspiration, communication, teaming, etc. is actually much more real and high priority in my job today than I ever thought it would be. 

In general for others wanting to grow into a career like yours, how much of it is formal training vs. informal experiences? 

I think it's 10% formal training to learn the hard skills, the methodologies, the approaches just like in college. The rest is through mentorship, guidance, learning from others, etc. 

Ten Thousand Coffees is an enterprise talent development platform for informal learning. We help companies scale and measure informal development by enabling colleagues to learn from each other. Whether it’s for career development, culture transformations, or learning programs - our data-driven smart matching technology connects colleagues based on their goals, interests, and role. The Future of Work is transforming organizations: informal development between colleagues is where talent mobility and culture sticks.