37 min
Episode #28: A Mentor’s Legacy with Papanii Okai Missing Conversations
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- Business
Pam Fox Rollin and Elayna Alexandra talk with Papanii Okai, CTO of Venmo Engineering at PayPal, about lessons on leadership from the late Marc Smith Sachs. Marc, a principal of Altus Growth Partners and an extremely valued member of our team, passed away in June 2023.
Over the years, Marc mentored and inspired numerous leaders in many organizations. His memory and legacy lives on through the success of these great leaders around the world.
In today’s conversation, we explore:
The conversations that go missing when working remotely
Exploring leadership styles and finding the right fit
Leadership and personal growth after losing a mentor
The importance of gradual, long-term coaching to build leaders
Lessons learned from Marc, both personal and professional
About Papanii Okai: Papanii Nene Okai is CTO and VP of Venmo Engineering at PayPal. He has over two decades of experience in the tech world, working at numerous startups. Before assuming his current role, Papanii was Senior Director of Engineering and Chief Architect at PayPal, where he helped build the next generation of Venmo’s payment platform. Papanii is a software engineer at heart who loves to build solutions that delight customers. Whether it’s building mobile apps or backend distributed platforms, monoliths or microservices, Papanii happily immerses himself in both new and old technology.
Papanii gained a unique perspective from growing up and studying in Africa, Europe, and America. He holds multiple degrees from the University of San Francisco in Computer Science and Internet Engineering. Papanii loves to develop and mentor the next generation of software engineers and leaders, because he attributes a significant part of his success to the mentors who helped him develop not only as an executive but as a person. He loves good food, learning new languages, and Japanese anime.
In Memory of Marc Smith Sachs: Learn more about Marc
About the book, Growing Groups Into Teams: How do you turn a group of individuals into a highly effective, productive team? Growing Groups into Teams is an unusually useful book written by a team that has helped thousands of groups become effective teams.
Through real-life stories combined with pragmatic advice, this book strengthens your ability to see what’s needed and take effective action:
What two promises turn a group into a team
How to engage people to make those promises
How to invite responsibility and accountability
How to include and inspire people across differences
How to build and rebuild trust, and more!
Regardless of how productive your teams are today, the insights in this book will help you grow to the next level to drive your business or organization forward. Order your copy today!
Order from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Groups-into-Teams-Real-life-ebook/dp/B0CJLC23VS
Order from IngramSpark: https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?l8SxF4Aexn9gq08iz7jFBbwutleujrftoZ2wAOFzCVH
If you're looking to expand your leadership influence, shift your results, and develop a highly engaged, accountable team, we’d love to talk to you. Schedule a conversation with an Altus Team Member here: https://altusgrowthpam.as.me/Zoom30min
Follow us on social media:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/altus-growth-partners/
https://www.facebook.com/AltusGrowth
https://www.instagram.com/altusgrowthpartners/
Keywords: #TeamCulture #TeamGrowth #Leadership #BusinessBook #LeadershipBook
Pam Fox Rollin and Elayna Alexandra talk with Papanii Okai, CTO of Venmo Engineering at PayPal, about lessons on leadership from the late Marc Smith Sachs. Marc, a principal of Altus Growth Partners and an extremely valued member of our team, passed away in June 2023.
Over the years, Marc mentored and inspired numerous leaders in many organizations. His memory and legacy lives on through the success of these great leaders around the world.
In today’s conversation, we explore:
The conversations that go missing when working remotely
Exploring leadership styles and finding the right fit
Leadership and personal growth after losing a mentor
The importance of gradual, long-term coaching to build leaders
Lessons learned from Marc, both personal and professional
About Papanii Okai: Papanii Nene Okai is CTO and VP of Venmo Engineering at PayPal. He has over two decades of experience in the tech world, working at numerous startups. Before assuming his current role, Papanii was Senior Director of Engineering and Chief Architect at PayPal, where he helped build the next generation of Venmo’s payment platform. Papanii is a software engineer at heart who loves to build solutions that delight customers. Whether it’s building mobile apps or backend distributed platforms, monoliths or microservices, Papanii happily immerses himself in both new and old technology.
Papanii gained a unique perspective from growing up and studying in Africa, Europe, and America. He holds multiple degrees from the University of San Francisco in Computer Science and Internet Engineering. Papanii loves to develop and mentor the next generation of software engineers and leaders, because he attributes a significant part of his success to the mentors who helped him develop not only as an executive but as a person. He loves good food, learning new languages, and Japanese anime.
In Memory of Marc Smith Sachs: Learn more about Marc
About the book, Growing Groups Into Teams: How do you turn a group of individuals into a highly effective, productive team? Growing Groups into Teams is an unusually useful book written by a team that has helped thousands of groups become effective teams.
Through real-life stories combined with pragmatic advice, this book strengthens your ability to see what’s needed and take effective action:
What two promises turn a group into a team
How to engage people to make those promises
How to invite responsibility and accountability
How to include and inspire people across differences
How to build and rebuild trust, and more!
Regardless of how productive your teams are today, the insights in this book will help you grow to the next level to drive your business or organization forward. Order your copy today!
Order from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Groups-into-Teams-Real-life-ebook/dp/B0CJLC23VS
Order from IngramSpark: https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?l8SxF4Aexn9gq08iz7jFBbwutleujrftoZ2wAOFzCVH
If you're looking to expand your leadership influence, shift your results, and develop a highly engaged, accountable team, we’d love to talk to you. Schedule a conversation with an Altus Team Member here: https://altusgrowthpam.as.me/Zoom30min
Follow us on social media:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/altus-growth-partners/
https://www.facebook.com/AltusGrowth
https://www.instagram.com/altusgrowthpartners/
Keywords: #TeamCulture #TeamGrowth #Leadership #BusinessBook #LeadershipBook
37 min