The day our leadership team jumped

Thirteen years ago today, the HEINEKEN USA management team went skydiving in Miami. That team remains one of my all-time favorites because we spent so much intentional time becoming a cohesive, high-performing unit. The growth—individually and together—was some of the most transformative of my career.

HEINEKEN is also an organization that loves a legendary experience. We’d already tackled some wild challenges: roughing it overnight in the woods with no tents and racing in a regatta with zero experience. So when someone joked during a meeting that our next adventure should be skydiving, I laughed—until a few months later when we were 10,000 feet up staring out an open plane door.

Skydiving as a team impressed me on so many levels. Two colleagues were terrified of heights – but they dug deep and jumped nonetheless. It still amazes me that a group of people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s willingly strapped parachutes to their backs and took a literal leap of faith in the spirit of togetherness. It was a true expression of trust and collective adventure.

I had skydived once before—when my sister and I surprised my dad on his 50th birthday, much to his dismay. I still don’t know what’s more memorable: the jump itself or my father chain-smoking beforehand muttering, “I never asked to go skydiving.”

When I prepared to throw myself out of the plane with Team HEINEKEN, I thought, well, I’ve done this before, so here we go again. That’s one of the great things about life—you think you know something and then, boom, the universe surprises you. One of my favorite parts of the Miami jump was that we accidentally went through a cloud. I found myself free-falling through a moist, opaque wash of gray and white for what felt like minutes (though it was surely only seconds). I had never even imagined what it would feel like to be inside a cloud. Suddenly, I was hurtling toward the ground—though I couldn’t tell by sight, because I could barely see a foot in front of my face.

I landed in amazement, grateful to be on the ground in one piece, and exhilarated watching my colleagues drift towards the earth behind me, touching down one by one.

What makes this memory so sticky? Pushing beyond boundaries, leaning into fear, feeling fully supported by my team and sitting in the unknown long enough for something magical to appear.