BEFORE WE MEET
Not a résumé. Not a cover letter. Just a few thoughts about how I think.
Most people begin by introducing themselves through their experience.
Where they’ve worked.
What they’ve studied.
The roles they’ve held.
The projects they’ve delivered.
Those things matter.
But I don’t think they’re where the story begins.
I believe we understand people better through the questions they keep asking than through the answers they’ve already found.
I’ve always been more interested in understanding something than simply solving it.
When I encounter a process, I want to know why it works the way it does.
When I discover a new technology, I’m less interested in what it can do than in how it changes the way people work.
And when something feels unnecessarily complicated, my instinct is to look for the system behind it.
Not because every problem needs a new solution.
But because I enjoy understanding how seemingly unrelated things connect.
Looking at my career, it may appear as though I’ve changed direction several times.
From finance and international operations to Human Resources, global workforce topics, automation, artificial intelligence and the future of work.
People sometimes describe that as a career change.
I’ve never really seen it that way.
To me, it has always felt like the same curiosity, viewed from a different perspective.
Finance.
Shared Services.
Human Resources.
Automation.
Artificial Intelligence.
Content creation.
Music.
Community building.
At first, they looked like completely different worlds.
Today, I see them differently.
They’re not separate interests.
They’re different chapters of the same story.
Each one has taught me something about how people collaborate.
How systems evolve.
How complexity can become clarity.
And how ideas become more valuable when they connect disciplines instead of staying inside them.
Looking back, I don’t think I’ve built several different careers.
I think I’ve gradually learned to see the same world from more than one perspective.
I’ve never wanted to become the expert of a single field.
What has always fascinated me is understanding how different worlds connect.
Perhaps that’s why I keep noticing the same patterns.
In different organisations.
Different teams.
Different industries.
Different conversations.
They look different.
Yet they often tell the same story.
Learning has never been a phase of life for me.
It’s simply how I move through the world.
That’s why I returned to university.
Why I continue learning.
And why I’m equally curious about people, technology, international work, organisational systems and the future of work.
This website isn’t organised around job titles.
It’s organised around ideas.
Some pages document projects I’ve completed.
Others explore questions I’m still trying to answer.
Because that’s what this portfolio really is.
Not a collection of achievements.
But a collection of thoughts, experiences and questions that continue to shape the way I work.
If you continue reading, I hope you’ll discover more than what I’ve done.
I hope you’ll discover how I think.
“Before you discover what I do, I’d like you to understand how I think.”
A Note
This piece isn’t meant to be final.
I hope it never will be.
As I continue learning, growing and changing, these pages will evolve with me.
Not because today’s thoughts aren’t true.
But because I hope they’ll become more complete over time.
This isn’t a definition of who I am.
It’s simply an honest snapshot of how I think today.
—
Adrienn Simon
This article also exists in Hungarian.
It isn’t a direct translation.
It’s a more personal version, written in my native language.
