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In Conversation with
Ryan Padget
A Techronicler interview with Ryan Padget, President of IGEN
Techronicler: Thanks for joining us, Ryan! Well, a lot of careers look like straight lines on LinkedIn. How was yours different? Was there a pivotal moment or ‘happy accident’ that actually steered you toward your current role or niche?
Ryan Padget:
My career has been anything but a straight line.
In college, I was adamant that I would never go into sales. Both of my parents worked in sales, and I was convinced I wanted a different path. A few weeks later, I signed up for a summer internship selling books door-to-door.
My first week was brutal. Out of roughly 3,000 students, I ranked near the bottom. I worked 87 hours and made $100. I wanted to quit. Instead, I stayed with it and spent the next several years learning how to connect effort, performance, and personal growth. I finished in the top 1% of the 3,000 students.
That experience changed the trajectory of my career. It taught me that most people are capable of far more than they initially believe, including me. It also taught me to think about performance as a scorecard for impact.
The path from there included enterprise software, insurance, startups inside large companies, entrepreneurship, and eventually IGEN. The common thread was never the industry. It was building teams, solving complex problems, and helping organizations grow.
Excise tax compliance may seem like a niche space, but I was drawn to it because it sits at the intersection of business risk, operational complexity, and transformation. Most organizations recognize compliance as important. Fewer recognize how much value can be unlocked by improving the systems behind it.
That challenge continues to keep me engaged today.
Techronicler: What is the one problem or project that is taking up 80% of your brain space this month?
Ryan Padget:
The biggest thing occupying my attention right now is how artificial intelligence is reshaping the way work gets done.
Most conversations focus on the technology itself. I’m more interested in what remains unchanged.
Technology continually changes the “how.” The “why” tends to stay remarkably consistent.
Organizations still need to serve customers. Teams still need to create value. Leaders still need to align people around a common purpose. Those fundamentals do not disappear because a new tool arrives.
The challenge is helping employees, customers, and stakeholders navigate a period of significant change without losing sight of those foundations.
AI represents one of the largest shifts in how knowledge work gets done. The opportunity is substantial. The responsibility is making sure we apply it in ways that strengthen decision-making, relationships, and outcomes rather than simply accelerating activity.
Techronicler: Tell us about a time you had to make a deeply unpopular technical decision (e.g., killing a feature, swapping a tech stack) that turned out to be the right call. How did you handle the pushback?
Ryan Padget:
Early in my time at IGEN, we were investing significant resources into a product designed for very small businesses.
On paper, the opportunity looked compelling. The potential market was large, and considerable time and money had already been invested. There was understandable momentum behind continuing development.
After spending time with customers and evaluating the market, I came to a different conclusion.
The issue wasn’t market size. The issue was problem severity.
For many of these organizations, the compliance challenges simply weren’t complex enough to justify the investment. The product wasn’t delivering transformational value, and continuing to invest would have diverted resources away from problems that mattered more deeply to our customers.
The decision to stop development was unpopular. There were sunk-cost arguments, customer concerns, and understandable emotional investment from people who had worked hard on the product.
Ultimately, we made the decision to focus on areas where we could create greater long-term value. That focus helped us strengthen our core offerings and invest in challenges that were more meaningful for our customers.
Leadership sometimes requires choosing focus over momentum.
Techronicler: What specific ‘quality gates’ or documented pathways have you built to help individual contributors make their first leap into leadership?
Ryan Padget:
I’ve always believed career development starts by understanding where someone wants to go and why they want to get there.
Too many development plans focus exclusively on what people need to do. I think it’s equally important to understand who they need to become.
In previous organizations, I built career frameworks that mapped desired career outcomes to the skills, experiences, and perspectives required to achieve them. Once those gaps became visible, we could intentionally create opportunities to close them.
Sometimes that meant giving someone ownership of a high-profile project. Other times it meant helping them develop skills outside their day-to-day responsibilities.
One example was encouraging aspiring enterprise sales leaders to participate in improv training. Success in executive conversations requires adaptability, listening, and confidence under pressure. Those capabilities can be developed in places people don’t typically expect.
Leadership development is rarely about titles. It’s about creating experiences that help people grow into larger responsibilities before they formally receive them.
Techronicler: What is the single best piece of advice you’ve ever received about negotiating—whether for salary, headcount, or project timelines?
Ryan Padget:
Understand the other person’s “why.”
There are countless negotiation frameworks available, but most become significantly more effective when you understand what the other side is actually trying to accomplish.
Whether you’re negotiating compensation, headcount, budgets, or timelines, the goal is rarely to win at someone else’s expense. The best outcomes create value for both parties.
Stephen Covey’s concept of “think win-win” has always resonated with me. When you combine that mindset with genuine curiosity about what matters to the other person, better solutions tend to emerge.
People often negotiate positions. Strong negotiators seek to understand motivations.
Techronicler: What is the one book every leader in tech should read this year?
Ryan Padget:
The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker.
Some readers dismiss it because of the title, assuming it’s only relevant for senior leaders. In reality, it’s a book about effectiveness for anyone whose work depends on knowledge, judgment, and decision-making.
The book was written decades ago, yet many of its principles remain remarkably relevant.
Technology changes. Markets change. Tools change.
The ability to focus on meaningful work, make sound decisions, manage priorities, and execute consistently remains timeless.
As artificial intelligence changes how knowledge work gets done, those fundamentals become even more important, not less.
Techronicler: What is a piece of ‘common wisdom’ in the tech industry that you completely disagree with?
Ryan Padget:
I’ve always disagreed with the idea that you should hire the person you’d most like to have a beer with.
It’s a memorable phrase, but it can lead organizations in the wrong direction.
A leader’s responsibility is to build the strongest possible team for customers, employees, and the business. That means putting the right people in the right roles, not searching for future social companions.
Some of the best people I’ve worked with were very different from me. They challenged my assumptions, brought different perspectives, and strengthened the team because of those differences.
I’ve also worked with close friends whom I’ve eventually had to manage through difficult performance conversations.
Hiring decisions should be grounded in capability, contribution, and team fit. Friendship is a bonus, not a hiring strategy.
Techronicler: How do you evaluate ‘potential over polish’ during the hiring process to ensure a more equitable team?
Ryan Padget:
Polish has value, but potential often creates the greatest long-term returns.
I’ve hired many people whose resumes weren’t the strongest on paper but who demonstrated extraordinary levels of grit, determination, curiosity, and self-awareness.
Those qualities are often better predictors of long-term success than a perfectly rehearsed interview.
I also believe strong teams benefit from diverse perspectives and experiences. Different backgrounds, industries, cultures, and ways of thinking help organizations solve problems more effectively.
If every person on a team approaches challenges the same way, blind spots become inevitable.
When evaluating candidates, I spend significant time understanding what motivates them, how they’ve responded to adversity, and whether they have the capacity to grow.
Skills can be developed. Experience can be gained. Drive, resilience, and a compelling sense of purpose are much harder to teach.
Ryan Padget is President of IGEN, where he helps organizations modernize complex tax and compliance operations through technology, automation, and data-driven decision making. With more than 15 years of experience building and scaling technology companies, he brings a practical perspective on navigating regulatory complexity while improving operational performance. Ryan frequently shares insights on compliance technology, digital transformation, governance, and the evolving role of compliance in business strategy.