This Friday will be my last day at Novell.

It feels pretty weird to write those nine words. I've been at Novell nearly seven years – the single longest stint of my professional career. (That doesn't even include my summer internship here during b-school.) Without a doubt, it's been one heck of a ride.

I'll look back on these seven years with a lot of good feelings. I know that I learned a lot during my time at Novell, and I hope that I accomplished a lot as well. But the number one thing that I will remember about my time at Novell is the quality of the people. The people at Novell are simply amazing. In fact, the people here are the one thing that almost prevented me from saying "yes" to an absolutely amazing career opportunity. (More on that opportunity below.) The people at Novell are genuinely good people. They are committed to the company. They are concerned about the welfare of others. They are dedicated to doing what's right. They are by far the most ethical community of which I've ever been a part. I've truly enjoyed coming to work each day to spend time with these people, and I am going to miss a great many of them.

Since the news of my departure was announced internally last week, in many ways it has felt that I've been an attendee at my own funeral – people start talking about you in the past tense and memorializing everything you've accomplished. I've joked that there are two kinds of departures – the kind where everyone is sad to see you go, or the kind where everyone is happy to see you go. There really is no middle ground. People either focus on all your positive qualities and brush away the negative, or vice versa. I'm happy to report that (I think) I fall into the former category, as, all of a sudden all sorts people are saying these amazingly nice things about me (or at least they are to my face).

What's even more amazing is that these people seem to be genuinely happy for me. They are excited for what this move means to my career, even though it means that we will no longer be working together. I've been deeply touched by their response. 

Many companies profess to being a meritocracy, but few deliver. Novell delivers. People who work hard and deliver results are rewarded with new career opportunities and new challenges. For me, that translated into three jobs in six years – each one a promotion for which I probably wasn't ready, but Novell management rolled the dice on me. For that trust, I am sincerely grateful. I absolutely made my fair share of mistakes along the way, but I like to think that I paid off their trust with demonstrable results.

If you were to ask me to name my biggest accomplishment at Novell, I would tell you that it was creating and building the Solution & Product Marketing organization. About three years ago, Novell CMO John Dragoon and I started discussing how to standardize Novell's go-to-market approach. We had multiple business segments, each with its own approach to marketing, and very limited product marketing process. After working with John to design the organization, he then made me turn around and interview for the position to lead it. I'm happy to say that John and the rest of the management team thought I would be the right person to lead the new SPM organization, and the rest is, as they say, history. It was an 18-month construction job, as we had to find the right people and build out our processes together. But the team committed itself, put in the necessary work, and delivered the results.

Over the past three years, I've had the privilege to hire nearly 30 people out of a roughly 45 person organization. The best part of my job is that I got to literally choose the people with whom I worked each day, and I've loved every minute of it. It's been such a thrill to watch these people grow as professionals and make true impact on Novell's business, and it's an honor to have been their teammate. I'm going to miss them all.

Although it was truly a difficult decision to leave Novell, I am very excited about my next role. On January 31, I'll be joining GE Healthcare IT, as the General Manager for Marketing in their Clinical Business Solutions group. I'll be responsible for leading the marketing team for GE's Centricity Electronic Medical Records (EMR) product line. EMR is a tremendous market opportunity – according to a recent survey from the Harvard School of Public Health, only about 12% of all hospitals are using EMR software today, but more than 80% of hospitals are planning to do some sort of EMR implementation in the next five years, according to the office of the National Health Coordinator for Health IT. The opportunity to join a market leader like GE to deliver a high-quality, innovative product to customers in a blazing hot market was just too good to pass up.

My decision to take the new role at GE was not so much about leaving Novell, but rather about pursuing the opportunity at GE. Whenever people ask me for career advice, I always tell them to run to something, and not to run from their current job. "Running to something" is exactly what I am doing with GE. I was (and still will be for the next four days) quite happy at Novell. I'm still bullish on the company, including the potential transformation that could come from the proposed merger with Attachmate. But when GE came knocking on my door with this opportunity, I had to consider it. The more I learned, the more excited I became about the potential of GE to lead the EMR market, the high caliber of the team that GE had assembled to pursue this market, and the role itself – both in terms of what I could contribute and what I could learn. GE will provide many growth opportunities, both professionally and personally. I just couldn't say "no."

So this is the proverbial end of the road for me at Novell. It's been a great journey. However, the technology community is very small, and the Boston tech community is even smaller. So while I may not be coming to Waltham every day, I'm not looking at this as a good-bye. Rather, I'm viewing this Friday as a day to say "See you later" to my colleagues and to thank them for everything. I've had a lot of fun, I've learned a lot, and now I can't wait to see where my GE journey takes me. This is my personal blog, so I will continue to post here. I invite you to keep reading and follow along with my new adventure.