Shawn's Story
Shawn began his professional career in law enforcement. After a brief stint with the University of Denver's Campus Safety Department, he joined the City Of Lakewood as a Police Agent. He graduated top of his class, and Shawn was excited to help his community. After nearly a year of policing, he found he wasn't helping in the way he expected.Shawn returned to the University of Denver as a first-line manager to pursue a Master's Degree. Shawn quickly became a leader in the department helping with managing projects, training development/delivery, and policy writing.After graduating with a degree focused on risk management, project management, leadership, and planning, Shawn joined the soon-to-be Inc 5000 company (#762), Epicenter Innovation.Here, Shawn found a home among other lifelong learners and innovators. He quickly rose from intern to the company's Operations Lead. Handling everything from day-to-day business operations, managing the virtual assistant program and serving as the lead project manager.Shawn was fortunate enough to be responsible for managing exciting projects including a Fast Company World Changing Idea project, and the creation of the world's only psychometric assessment on resilience and innovation.In April of 2023, he accepted a job at Harvard Medical School as a Program Operations Manager. Here he supports the execution of HMS's global cohort of doctors striving to learn how to serve their communities better through best-in-class leadership programming.
Education
Shawn has a Bachelor's of Science in Sociology from the University at Oneonta. He has a Master of Science from the University of Denver. This degree focused on project management, leadership, and risk management. Shawn is currently working on a Graduate Certificate in Project Management at Harvard University.
Skillset
Shawn has a passion for helping teams and organizations reach their full potential through high quality project management and operational optimization. As such, Shawn's skillset is primarily project management and operations.Beginning his career learning traditional project management (Waterfall), Shawn quickly experienced it's limitations. This led him to explore the Agile project management space and ultimately, become a Certified Scrum Master (CSM). Shawn prefers a hybrid project management model but it depends on the use case.Shawn has had the honor to build multiple project management systems from the ground up. These systems have been built by blending best practice with organizational needs to help teams with no project management experience develop a system that works for them.Shawn has also built the operational infrastructure of a company as well as managing and optimizing numerous operational processes.Shawn has a depth of software expertise including:
-Monday.com
-Notion
-Zoom
-CVENT
-Pipedrive
-PandaDoc
-Slack
-Microsoft Office
-Google Suite
-& Much MoreShawn is a productivity nerd. After reading Daniel Pink's When, he completely changed how he works. Shawn is working to develop a productivity system called Hybrid Productivity. Hybrid Productivity focuses on energy management and leverages individual differences in a structured planning approach to maximize your output.
Speaking
During his time with Epicenter Innovation, Shawn also began public speaking. As an introvert, Shawn was anxious about public speaking and wanted to change that. He has given numerous talks to audiences ranging from 7 to 500. Shawn speaks on resilience, professional development, productivity, and more. Seeking to hone his speaking prowess, Shawn joined his local Toastmasters chapter and volunteered as their Sergeant at Arms leading flawless operational meeting execution.Shawn speaks at local industry conferences and workshops on productivity, professional development, and career mapping.Shawn has also appeared on a few podcasts.
Interests
Shawn has a number of interests. His SparkType is "The Maven". This means that he spends his free time researching interesting topics, learning new skills, and finding his next obsession.Shawn recently accepted an Assistant Coaching position with Endicott College's men's rugby program.Shawn is a book nerd who is usually reading 3-4 books at any time. Shawn also spends his free time reading on the beaches of New England, bodyboarding, running or biking the greater Boston area.
Shawn's Work
- 6 Critical Threats in 2023 and How They Impact You: A Comprehensive Guide
- In The Mud: What Rugby Taught Me About Life & Work
- Breaking Your Self-Imposed Ceilings
- Resilience Innovation: A Case for Coaching with Shawn Gerard
- Doing Twice The Work In Half The Time
What Shawn's Working On
Currently, Shawn is working on a new podcast (Runaway Thoughts coming soon!).As he finishes up his Project Management Certificate at Harvard, Shawn is exploring the pursuit of his Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification.Shawn is also fine tuning a productivity system, the Agile Life.