Welcome to the Firm, Bjonda

I met Bjonda on the 16th of July, 2022. SAP. A corridor conversation that had no business becoming a friendship — and did anyway.

Four years of staying in touch. Then, nine months ago, she was quietly working the phones on my behalf, convinced she could place me into the right seat somewhere. She wasn't wrong about the seat. She was wrong about the company.

Because the seat I needed didn't exist yet. I had to build it.

Today, Bjondina "Bjonda" Selimi joins Woodlands as Executive Assistant.

The bar

Woodlands isn't a company I built to flip. The name comes from somewhere personal — a place, a person, a chapter I don't discuss in public. That's the bar I hold the firm to: something I'd put my own name behind on the worst day of the year, in front of the person the name belongs to.

The register

I'm British. I was raised on the idea that business is done properly — over eighteen holes, not a Zoom link. Deals closed with a handshake that means something afterwards. Quality delivered without a discount attached. A team you'd introduce to your family before you'd introduce them to a client. That is the register Woodlands operates in, and it's the register we hire into.

The first proof

Bjonda isn't a classic Executive Assistant, and I'd insult her by pretending she is. She's the first person outside of me who saw the shape of what Woodlands could become — and has quietly put more into it than she's currently taking out. That kind of conviction doesn't show up on a CV. You either bring it to the table, or you don't.

At Woodlands, people will have their freedoms. In return, they deliver work worth signing your name to, and they believe in where we're going. Bjonda is the first proof that the standard holds outside of my own head.

Welcome to the firm, Bjonda. The clubhouse just got better.