We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Justin Ferguson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Justin below.

Justin, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

Success is, of course, a subjective concept. Some people measure it by monetary gains, while others define it through the quality of relationships or personal achievements. But I believe true success starts with understanding why you desire it in the first place. Often, that desire is shaped by cultural, personal, or even subconscious factors, which can lead you down a path that might not truly align with your deeper self. To uncover that alignment, I’ve found it essential to do what many call ‘inner child work.’ This involves addressing the experiences and traumas that might cloud your judgment or misguide your ambitions.

For me, success is happiness, and happiness requires self-awareness—understanding yourself, your environment, and the reasons behind your choices. Without that clarity, progression anywhere can feel like progression nowhere.

A personal example of this is my own journey. By working through those deeper layers of self-awareness, I’ve come to align my actions and ambitions with a vision that feels authentic to me. That alignment has transformed how I approach my work, relationships, and goals. True success, I believe, is not just about achieving external outcomes but about being internally aligned with the impulses and aspirations that drive you

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’d say my career has been anything but a straight line—it’s what some might call a portfolio career. I grew up in PG County, went to public schools, and like a lot of kids at the time, I was coding MySpace layouts in middle school. That curiosity about how things worked stuck with me. I ended up studying Communications at the University of Maryland and started my career at Bloomberg as a data analyst. 4 months in I realized I loved helping clients solve problems, especially when data was involved, and I discovered that this type of problem-solving was a big part of consulting.

At the time, though, I only had four months of experience and a 2.7 undergrad GPA, so I knew I’d have to put in the work to even get a shot. I decided to pursue a master’s in project management at Georgetown while working full-time at Bloomberg. 9 to 5 at work, then 5 to 10 in class was the schedule. With the MBA being the goal, I overloaded my classes and finished the two-year program in 11 months, taking that momentum to get into Maryland’s MBA program.

From there, things started to fall into place. During my MBA, I worked with the Maryland Energy Innovation Accelerator, helping professors commercialize their technologies, and started my first startup. After graduation, I got into consulting, but I realized pretty quickly that I didn’t love the traditional consulting grind. That’s when I found the state of Maryland’s venture capital arm – TEDCO, where I lead innovation in our Venture Development department. This role has been such a great fit because it lets me combine strategy, creativity, and get repetitions (practice) in industry agnostic business innovation. Outside of that, I dabble in real estate and work on a few other ventures I’m excited for the world to see.

If there’s one thing that sets me apart, I’d say it’s that I genuinely love what I do. I also get my competitive nature from my mother (who I just scored 86 points on at Dave & Busters basketball btw). Anyways this work resonates with me on a personal level—it’s not just a job. The resilience it’s taken to get here hasn’t made me complacent; it’s made me even more focused on the journey. I want to keep growing, keep solving problems, and keep making an impact in ways that feel real to me.

Any advice for managing a team?

My advice for managing a team and maintaining high morale is to truly see your team—not just their roles or deliverables but who they are as people. When you take the time to understand them—inside and out—you can find ways to bring out their best, even tapping into their inner child. When people feel safe, valued, and inspired, it creates an environment where they can approach their work with curiosity and creativity, almost like play.

To achieve this, I think work needs a balance of structured free-flowingness. It’s important to have clarity about the path forward—clear goals, expectations, and a shared understanding of where you’re going—but also to create enough flexibility for people to contribute in ways that energize them. Building that kind of momentum requires trust, communication, and an openness to collaboration.

Ultimately, morale comes from alignment—when the work feels meaningful, the team feels connected, and the process feels energizing.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I’m not the best test taker. So when it came down to getting a high score on the GMAT – my confidence took a plunge. Yes I was working full time while doing this – but my issue was how many hours were put in to yield the results. I kept pushing along however – starting a tutoring class etc and improving my practice scores. Although my scores went up – I was never really happy about that experience and the sense of inadequacy that came with it at the time – but this experience built mental fortitude to keep striving.

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jferguson22/