My journey begins

8th of April 2025

Five years ago, almost to the day, I was scheduled to fly to Chicago for TransUnion’s annual Financial Services Summit; and since my wife’s best friend had recently moved to  Chicago, we decided to buy 3 more tickets and make it a family trip.

By then, about a week before we were due to depart, Covid arrived, airports were closed, and our trip was delayed.

We, still naive to the true scale in those early days, assumed that the delay would be measured in weeks and so, when Aer Lingus offered us a 100% refund in cash or a 110% refund in flight vouchers, we took the latter.

That delay was not measured in weeks.

In fact, it went on so long that I quit my job at TransUnion and moved out of Yorkshire. And so, when airports reopened, we kinda forgot about those flights, right up until the end of their 5 year expiry period.

Which brings us full circle, to me sitting in Dublin airport, drinking a pint of Guinness at a time that would be inappropriate anywhere but an airport, getting ready to fly to Orlando. The first week of this trip is family time, but then I’ll join up with Christo and hit Austin, Boulder, Reno, and the Bay Area in search of innovation.

We do still have a little bit of capacity for more meetings, especially before or after normal business hours, so if you are in Austin, Boulder, or the Bay Area and you’d like us to buy you breakfast or a beer, there’s still time to make something happen.