Jerrod Lew
I grew up with a passion for creating. Whether it be music, social media content, live streaming or filming my own videos outside. I had no idea this interest and hobby would ever turn out to be the basis of my career, yet become something that could create money.
Between 2007-2023, I posted hundreds of videos focused on music, gaming and technology. From live streaming video games on Twitch/YouTube, to producing reviews of tech products like gaming peripherals to hardware, this hobby continued to grow.
I learnt many soft skills, that was critical for my future corporate career, such as building communities, networking, creating content in a digital-first world and also public speaking.
If you ever want to get good at speaking on a stage, or speaking on camera, doing dozens of live streams to an audience of zero on Twitch was the start of the process for me.
Now years on, I’ve performed music in front of live audiences and spoken to 1000+ people about the power of new creative AI tools, and how it can help us tell stories.
My entire career is built on pivoting for what is coming next and mixing that foresight with succeeding in the present.
I studied Urban Town Planning and Community Development in Perth, Australia before embarking on a government career in major sporting events, major stadium projects and even a stint with Victoria Police in Melbourne.
My outside projects got me the big leap forward with Philip Morris International (PMI) in 2017. Years of content creation and community building led to being offered a position in social media risk and crisis management - a massive need for a company with a challenging past and future.
I had no idea what crisis management meant when I joined but was able to use this to build something that aimed to protect employees and company reputation. Within PMI I had a willingness to work across multiple departments, whilst keeping my creative side at the forefront of it.
Building social media listening strategies, crisis management tools to working alongside designers and content teams, the aim was always to learn, network but look ahead.
This is why I also took every opportunity to move countries into new teams with PMI, and I took up roles in London and New York City that may not have moved my corporate career forward, but gave me new experiences that I needed for the future.
In 2023, I discovered Generative AI through ChatGPT and Pika AI, a creative tool for AI video. This is when I realized I could use all the soft and corporate skills to build something completely new and forward thinking.
I started sharing AI video experiments and tutorials online. This was not a career move, just a new fascination because I was learning fast and couldn't not talk about it.
This was something BIG. Something I saw hit everybody in the world no matter what their perspective was, their ideas or their careers.
Gen-AI was going to make an impact, and I wanted to get ahead of the game.
Things started compounding. The audience grew. Ten million impressions in a year. Internally at PMI I started working closer with the AI team to help run sessions to train employees on Copilot and Adobe tools.
Big brands started to appear such as Google, Adobe, Runway, Pika, Magnific and beyond.
I was demoing new video models after working hours for marketing teams while still doing my day job. I'd use my annual leave to speak at conferences in San Francisco, then fly home to my desk.
All of this started in 2007, making content and using the skills I had developed then for something a bit more real and tangible.
In 2026, I gave myself the opportunity to undertake this new career path full time. Shifted home to Australia from the United States, and it is an accumulation of 3+ years of efforts, but many years before, that gave me the tools to become a sole trader and work for myself.
My biggest adjustment remained: corporate trains you to wait for permission. Working for yourself teaches you nobody's coming to give it.
If you work you work, if you don’t you don’t - nobody really cares, nobody is pressuring and it is just me and my own ambitions and aspirations.
Today I teach AI video workflows to teams and creators, make sponsored work with tools I genuinely use, and have the amazing opportunities to travel to speak at events around the world about the new technology that is exploding in front of us.
LESSON LEARNED
1. Build the parachute before you jump.
Always be building something that you love. It doesn’t have to be Plan B, but try to spend time making things for yourself as you never know what opportunities are coming next.
2. Your weird combination is the asset.
Corporate crisis comms plus YouTube creator plus AI obsessive looked incoherent on a CV. It looked odd for many years, but now in 2026, having the ability to create content, put myself out there and build communities is such a sought after skill.
None of your experiences are useless, everything can be used to help you reach where you want. Just be brave enough to make those connections and talk about it.
3. Permission is a habit you have to break.
In a big company you escalate. On your own you decide. The faster you get comfortable making calls without a committee, the faster everything moves.
4. Boring consistency beats big moments.
No single viral post built this. I published for years before it paid. Keep showing up, be consistent and this is for any project that you do.