Chief Change Officer
#215 Ian Myers: Scaling Careers & Businesses (With a Hint of Tintin)
Wed, 5 Mar 2025
What do Tintin and talent recruitment have in common? Just ask Ian Myers. As founder and CEO of Oceans, he’s on a mission to connect Sri Lanka’s top professionals with U.S. businesses—scaling his company from zero to $10 million in just two years. But his career isn’t just about business; it’s been a full-blown adventure. From banking and venture capital to gaming and entrepreneurship, Ian has navigated industries (and continents) with one simple rule: trust your gut and keep moving forward.Key Highlights of Our Interview:Why Tintin Beats Tech Titans: Ian’s Unconventional Role Model“My role model is Tintin. He’s always up for an adventure, exploring new places, and embracing different cultures. That’s the kind of life I want to live.”Zen and the Art of Leadership: How Buddhism Shaped My Approach to Chaos“Buddhism has a lot of excellent teachings that are applicable to running a business… It’s at its core, a method of grounding yourself through honesty in your reality and the potential of everything around you.”Comparison Anxiety: Why Scrolling LinkedIn Might Be Ruining Your Life“I talk to young people today, and they’re always comparing themselves. They’ll say, ‘Oh, this person who went to my college is now a vice president. My life is ruined.’ I’ve never really worried about my career; I just follow what’s interesting.”Experiencing Ageism Across Cultures: From Japan to CEO at 26“In Japan, age almost becomes the most important thing about you—your track record and success play a much smaller role. That was something I couldn’t personally tolerate.”Skeptical by Nature: Why Ian Questions AI Hype“The technology is impressive and important, but like most great innovations, the adoption curve will likely be much longer than people expect. If you look back at tech predictions, the timeline for changing the world is almost always too short.”Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Ian Myers______________________--**Chief Change Officer**--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Deep Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives, Visionary Underdogs,Transformation Gurus & Bold Hearts.6 Million+ All-Time Downloads.Reaching 80+ Countries Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.100,000+ subscribers are outgrowing. Act Today. --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.12 Million+ All-Time Downloads.Reaching 80+ Countries Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>140,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: Who is Ian Myers and what is his background?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist humility for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today, I'm chatting with Ian Myers from New York, founder and CEO of Oceans, a modern talent agency connecting high-skilled talent from Sri Lanka with US businesses.
On most podcasts, you'll hear him share stories about scaling his company from zero to over $10 million in revenue in under two years, or his insights into venture investment. But today, I'm not interested in those stories. They are surely impressive, but not the full picture. What fascinates me about Ian is that, like me, he is a fan of Tintin.
Tintin's spirit of adventure clearly impacts Ian's own approach to work and life. From the US to Japan, from literature to banking, venture capital to entrepreneurship, and gaming to launching a talent agency, He's been on a true journey. What is his secret to success? It's not about over-calculating.
It's about doing what feels right, collecting data points and experiences, adjusting course as needed, and simply forging ahead. Let's dive into the ocean of Ian Myers.
Good morning, Vince, or good evening.
Good morning, Ian. Yes, it's evening time for me. Welcome to our show. You got a lot, a lot of things to share today, but let's start with your history, your background. You're fairly young, so let's start with your academic background. Then we'll move on to your professional experiences.
Yeah, and the reason I think it's important to talk about college is it's something that people are increasingly not interested in doing these days. Also worried about whether or not it's going to help them get a job, not get a job, waste of money, waste of time. For me, I just wanted to spend four years studying something that was interesting to me.
So I studied literature, and a big part of my journey has just been Following what was interesting in the moment and not necessarily thinking about my career as a series of points on a line that I had to achieve, which I think a lot of people do, and it actually might have served to hurt people more than it helps them. So I studied literature in school.
I went to grad school for international policy because I loved interacting with people from all over the world. I had lived in Asia for a little while, studied abroad in Japan. And that brought me to work with a Japanese asset manager who was investing in venture funds in the U.S. And that was quite a cross-cultural experience.
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Chapter 2: How did Tintin influence Ian Myers' career?
Your ideas, your initiative, your drive, your success, your track record plays a somewhat minor role in your ability to succeed inside large organizations relative to tenure, which is another way of saying age. And so...
in societies like that i encountered something that caused me frustration and put me on the path to entrepreneurship which was you're not looking at my ideas and my results you're looking at how old i am that was something i couldn't personally tolerate Now, I became a CEO when I was 26. I had a team of 30 people by the time we exited the company.
Most of my leadership team was 10 years plus older than me. And I worried about that sometimes, but it never manifested itself. I think nobody ever saw really age. And today I am still the youngest person on our leadership team at Oceans, but it's pretty varied and pretty diverse, both in terms of gender and in terms of age. And. It's a great thing.
You have a lot of perspectives that are extremely experienced. There is some knowledge and decision-making and instincts that just come with experience, which is another, again, way of saying age. But there's also...
the challenging the fresh the kind of new perspectives that can come from youth that are important and so i built a culture where age is not really a factor in anything that we do because that's important to me but i have experienced it before that's an interesting example you brought up about japan i actually just got back from japan myself
and had a conversation with a good friend there. He's 49. He has exited his last business. And now he's building a new venture focused on closing the gender gap. He mentioned that as a man, he has enjoyed all the benefits from the system, but he has a 17-year-old daughter, and he wants a society to be more welcoming for her when she enters the workforce.
In Japan, alongside ageism, gender inequality is surely a significant issue. Now, as a company leader and founder, you have the autonomy to shape your team with your own values. But when it comes to sourcing talent for your clients, do they mainly focus on cost efficiency, just looking to fill positions at the lowest cost possible? Or among your 300 clients,
Do you see a genuine interest in prioritizing diversity when it comes to factors like age and gender? I'm curious how your clients approach these issues.
I would say that it is an interesting business in the sense that we field a lot of interesting questions that come across as ignorance issues. But in reality, most of the time are simply a lack of exposure or experience working with cultures abroad. Our team is over is, I think, 76 percent women. So it's a very dramatically different ratio than most companies, even at the leadership level.
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