It was a deep shock to us all to hear last Friday that Shane Green, our US CEO, had died after a short illness.
Shane’s long term business partner and close friend Tarik Kurspahic has written about his deep relationship with Shane over the last 20+ years here.
I have only known Shane personally for just over four years, but in that time everything that Tarik has said rings so very true.
Shane has a long entrepreneurial record going back to the late 90s. From our perspective, Shane was one of the very earliest entrepreneurs in the personal data space understanding the need for individuals to own and control their own data long before many others did so, including me. He had kept the passion that caused him to create Personal back in 2009 all the way through to now – that is a very special form of commitment; Shane was one of the most committed people I know.
I met Shane, with Tarik, at an Internet Identity Workshop in 2016. We both knew of each other but had not met previously. Shane was one of those people who it was easy to get along with, and who was also very open with his thoughts and ideas. It did not take us long to realise that with our two companies one plus one would make three and we merged Personal and digi.me in July 2017 – it takes commitment and vision to share your business with others to achieve your aims; Shane was always motivated by the end result and could see the bigger picture and what we could achieve together.
Since 2017 I, and all of us here at digi.me, have had the pleasure of working with Shane on a daily basis. Tarik in his remembrance speaks of that relationship so much better than I can put in to words – but suffice to say Shane was: optimistic, but realistic; hard working, but fun; insightful, but inclusive; and I could go on.
I enjoyed working with Shane and assumed we would do so for a while yet – for that to be cut short is most hard for his family and friends, but also for all of his colleagues here at digi.me.
Shane was an early entrepreneur in our space; he saw the future so clearly. I hope that we are able to succeed in our vision so that Shane’s vision can be the reality that he always thought it would be, and can touch countless individuals to provide the value he always thought could be provided for all.
So sorry to hear this, as our troubled world needs first-class pioneering citizens, especially at a time of crisis as we all now have. But their example lives on, as people like Shane set a standard by which others can be judged.