Today, January 26th, 2026, PeopleMetrics turns 25.
That is a milestone I never expected to reach, and one I am deeply grateful for.
When I started this company, I had no idea if it would last 2 years, let alone 25!
I was not following a long-term plan or some grand vision. I simply believed that rigorous research methods could be combined with real time feedback and that this could create real value for organizations.
At the beginning, our focus was on the employee experience (hence the name “PeopleMetrics”). We helped organizations listen to their people at a time when listening was hard, slow, and expensive. That work mattered, and in many ways it still does.
Then September 11th, 2001, happened.
I remember walking back to the office from a meeting that day and realizing that everything had changed. Almost immediately, it became clear that the questions organizations needed answered extended far beyond employees alone. We pivoted quickly to include customers, and from there guests, patients, healthcare professionals, and many others. These were people too! Here is an Inc magazine article on that journey.
Over the past 25 years, PeopleMetrics has gone through several strategic shifts. Markets changed. Technology evolved. Client needs grew more complex. Through all that change, three things have remained constant.
The first is the people.
I have been incredibly fortunate to work alongside remarkable individuals. When I think about the talent, care, and commitment of the people who have been part of this company and are part of it today, it is overwhelming. This journey would not have been possible without them, and I am deeply thankful for every person who chose to spend or are currently spending part of their career here.
We would certainly not be here today without a group of insanely talented people who joined PeopleMetrics in the early days. I want to honor the incredible work of Deanna Golden, Sanjeev Dixit, Natalia McDade, Gary White, Heather Donahue, David Wenger, Faheem Abdul Mohammed, Muralikrisha Setty, Ripal Patel and Kate Feather. To this day, I don’t know why you all believed in me, but I am grateful you did!
The second constant has been technology.
From the beginning, technology has enhanced what we do and the value we deliver to clients. We have never chased it for its own sake, but each meaningful advance has helped us listen better, understand faster, and deliver more value. This is serving us well now as AI becomes front and center, but more on that in a moment.
The third has always been our focus on clients.
Across every chapter, our commitment to clients has never wavered. Their trust shaped our standards. Their challenges guided our work. Their success has always been the point. Some early clients that believed in us/me when few did include Shelley Easton-Leadley, Alasdair McKenzie, Dilpreet Kaur, Stan Lashner, John Roberto, and Rob Rush. You all are the best and I will always cherish the work we did together!
I am proud of that history, and grateful for it.
But anniversaries like this are also moments of clarity.
Longevity does not come from protecting what you built. It comes from being willing to rebuild when the world changes.
And the world is changing again, faster than ever.
My guess is AI will drive more change in the next 5 years than we have seen in the past 25 combined. Software is moving from something we visit to something that works alongside us. Systems are shifting from recording information to interpreting it and acting on it. Insight no longer waits. It shows up in the flow of work.
PeopleMetrics, like most companies of our generation, was built for a different era. We helped organizations listen when listening was difficult. That still matters. But the form must change.
If intelligence can interpret feedback in real time, surface what truly matters, and prompt action proactively, then our role is no longer to deliver data or reports.
Our role is to bring insights to life.
That requires questioning assumptions, workflows, and technology. It requires letting go of familiar approaches that no longer serve us. It requires designing for continuous understanding rather than episodic reporting.
This is not an upgrade. It is a rebuild. And I am betting the company on it.
Rebuilding is uncomfortable, but it is also clarifying. It forces focus and creates opportunity.
If PeopleMetrics is going to earn the next 25 years, it will not be by defending what worked in the past. It will be by redesigning the company around how understanding is created, delivered, and acted on in an AI driven world.
So, as we turn 25, I am not looking back.
I am grateful for every step that brought us here.
And I am treating this moment as day one.
