When Sheryle Gillihan re-entered the business world, she wanted a job that gave her a purpose.
Gillihan joined the U.S. Army while she was in college. After boot camp, she trained for over a year as an Arabic translator for the military. But with her first child on the way and nearly eight months pregnant, Gillihan felt the pressure to choose between being a mother and a career that would require her to leave her baby. One month before she completed training, Gillihan was honorably discharged.
Then, after seven years as a stay-at-home mom raising two kids until they were school-age, Gillihan was ready to get back into the working world. She sought opportunities working with nonprofits, but found that the sector paid less than she was expecting and her qualifications on paper only translated into entry-level positions.
“It was really challenging because I joined the military just after my junior year of college,” Gillihan said. “I was still working towards finishing my degree and struggled to find a good job without my bachelor’s and without paid work experience for the seven years prior to my job hunt.”
But a friend recognized her work ethic through her countless hours of volunteering and gave her a chance at Due Diligence Online, a company specializing in virtual data rooms similar to Dropbox that focused on mergers and acquisitions.
Eventually, Gillihan learned the online platform and the requirements for M&A transactions. She worked her way up to become the company’s Vice President of Operations. Being on this career path allowed her to complete her bachelor’s degree and offered stability for her family. However, over time, the stress of the 24/7 global service company overwhelmed her and she began to feel like her work didn’t have a meaningful purpose.
In 2010, her husband, Michael, found the perfect job for her. CauseLabs was looking for a project manager for a scripture translation project, a role that leveraged Gillihan’s linguistic background, management skills, and aligned with both her faith and her search for meaning.
There was just one catch — the job posting was on Craigslist.
“I remember saying ‘That is such a scam,’” Gillihan said. “You don’t find good jobs on Craigslist.”
Gillihan interviewed with CauseLabs several times — most of the calls just to make sure this was, in fact, a real job — and she took the leap of faith to join the team in December of 2010. She’s held many roles at CauseLabs from project manager to Director of Project Management, Director of Marketing, and Director of Partnerships. In November 2016, Gillihan was asked to accept the position as CEO of CauseLabs.
“Everything that I did at CauseLabs revolved around ‘How do we define our mission? How do we create positive impact? What partners do we chose? How do we connect with people?” Gillihan said. “I wake up loving my work, which is powerful. But also I found my purpose at CauseLabs and as the company evolved, so did I. The fact that I’m CauseLabs’ CEO today is a testament to the notion of ‘starting in the mailroom’. There’s value in understanding the different roles and perspectives in a company. There’s also value in our relational approach to projects. While it allowed me to serve our clients better, connection and alignment has always been very important to me.”
Today, Gillihan serves on several advisory boards, the United Way of Tarrant County’s social innovation committee, and is in her 10th year as a Girl Scout leader. Gillihan is also the Purpose Ambassador for PurposeWP, a WordPress agency and product company that creates solutions for nonprofits, which her husband Michael founded in January 2016.
But Gillihan isn’t bogged down by the added load of helping so many nonprofit organizations. Instead, it’s her way of giving back after the help she received as a child.
“You’re not born knowing that you’re poor.” Gillihan said.
Gillihan grew up in poverty in Angeles City, Philippines. One of her most vivid memories is the excitement her great aunt had for their shower, which was just bucket overhead that dumped water when a rope was pulled.
“The bucket above was empty at the time, but I imagined the gush of water I would have felt,” Gillihan wrote in a blog post about her relationship with water.
Gillihan was sponsored by the Pearl S. Buck Foundation at the age of 18 months, which helped her get life-saving medical treatment, a fact she wouldn’t learn about until her 30’s.
“It’s through the philanthropy of others that I’m even here today,” Gillihan said in an interview for Forbes. “And so I’m glad to be to be a part of that for somebody else.”
At the age of six, Gillihan’s parents married and they moved to the United States. While she has never forgotten where she’s come from, she didn’t fully understand poverty until her work at CauseLabs parallelled her childhood experiences. Nor is she willing to sit on the sidelines while others go through similar situations.
“Technology is changing the world and I want to be a part of using that technology for good,” Gillihan said in the Forbes interview.
Gillihan isn’t 100 percent sure what the details of her Saturday keynote talk will be about for WordCamp DFW. She does know that she wants to talk about purpose and community.
“WordCamp is about community and how the people in the room come together, even it’s your first time coming to a WordCamp and even if you haven’t touched WordPress before,” Gillihan said. “The experience of the two days is going to be what we make it, who we meet, and how we continue to connect with each other long after the event.”
And she hopes people come away with “the confidence to start something.”
“Whether that be a business, a new project, a new conversation, or a new blog on WordPress,” Gillihan said. “Whatever that might be; I hope people gain the confidence to start something.”
Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 11-12. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!