Humans of Haas: Paul Callaghan
Written by Michael Xia.
Paul Callaghan is a Berkeley Haas alumni (FTMBA ‘81) who is COO of education technology company pi-top. He has previously led operations at Motorola EMEA and Premier Farnell and is the president of the Haas Alumni Network UK Chapter. In his free time, Callaghan enjoys theatre, reading, and travel.
What’s your vision for 2020?
My personal vision is to continue to scale the startup that I work for, so that it delivers project-based learning into schools especially focused on the US market.
Personally, I’ve been living between London and Barcelona for awhile, so we’re relocating there. There I’ll develop a portfolio of activities to focus on startups, to engage the Haas alumni there, and also continue mentoring.
What are you passionate about and why?
Personally, I’m passionate about transformations and helping people—whether it be companies or teams or individuals—to prosper and develop their potential and also achieve their missions., My style would be say, collaborative and to co-create solutions with them so that we help people—individuals or teams—develop their full potential.
How do you stay grounded in your day-to-day life?
I wish I was doing more yoga and gym. Yoga is fantastic; they’re both really important so I’m going to try to increase those. But otherwise, I do a daily meditation. I also journal, which helps me manage my focus, my actions, appreciation, and also to monitor how I’m doing, how I’m dealing, as well as get stuff done.
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about yourself?
I’ve benefited many times from mentoring and coaching in my career. Sometimes accidental, sometimes on a very personal level. I’ve done it in companies with boards. Also, reverse mentoring, where people exchange skills and knowledge which may be between the generations or between hierarchies or whatever—that’s really really helpful. That’ssomething I’m open to do, so if Haas students want to contact me, I’m interested in that—both from what I can learn from it as well as what I can offer.
