Twelve years. One company.
And then I left.

Twelve years. One company. Employee number one to the C-suite. Brussels to San Francisco to build the business from the ground up. It was the ride of my life. And then I walked away from it.

I'm Laurie Galazzo. For over a decade I helped build one company from its very beginning. And I wore just about every hat along the way: product, brand and marketing, sales, customer success, consulting. Basically everything but the code. I built the global commercial organization, crossed an ocean to open our US headquarters in California, led senior teams across three continents, and built the relationships and partnerships that put us in the room with Fortune 500 companies and some of the biggest names in tech. I reached a title I'd once have found unimaginable. I also did it as a young woman - and an openly gay one - in an industry that doesn't see many at the top who look, or love, like me.

There's more to it than the career, of course. The setbacks, the reinventions, the things I've had to rebuild in myself along the way. I'm intense, curious, a little impatient, and still figuring plenty out.

And somewhere in all of that, I learned that the story I'd been telling myself wasn't quite true - that confidence comes first, that arriving somewhere fixes the feeling, that ambition is something you either have or apologize for.

That's where The Ambition Memo comes from.

It's a weekly note about ambition beyond achievement. Not only how to get more, but the career and the life you build around the wanting. I write about hunger and confidence, about leading others, about reinvention and the nerve it takes to bet on yourself. I built real expertise over those years. But I share it as experience because experience is where it came from, often the hard way.

Some weeks that's a story. Some weeks an idea, or a lesson learned. No productivity hacks, no five-step formulas. Just honest and blunt reflections. And if any of it can be the push you need or the little voice reminding you you're capable of more, then this is for you.

Keep scrolling to learn a few things you might not know about me...