Why I joined Moov: Henry Kivett

I’d wanted to be a writer from the day I discovered it was an actual job. I was a shy and anxious kid, so putting words on paper was how I spoke to, and about, the world around me. It made everything make sense. It was a connection to someone—even if just one reader, and even if hypothetical. What I wrote mattered.

Now, decades later, writing is still my best tool for making sense of the world. It’s my way to find and build connections. Only now I’m not just cranking out a weird story du jour; writing on a marketing team is my actual job. Sometimes, it’s writing to teach, entertain, and expand horizons. Other times it’s crafting stories to inspire, inform, and engage.

I know what you’re thinking. Marketing? Ew. But it’s not just marketing. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) All writing is music. It’s mysterious. It’s magical. And writing to support and express something you believe in with people you feel connected to is a special kind of magic. That’s what I get to do every single day at Moov.

Of course, there were some pivotal chapters between Weird Kid and Content Marketer. I tried my hand at graphic design—because I wanted to rearrange and reshape words to tell stories. I earned a degree in comparative religion—because of the stories, mystery, and magic lurking in cultural and theological texts. I tried project management—because I needed a paycheck. And I eventually earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing.

Then, magically, that student-loan-funded graduate degree granted me a massive salary and a life of comfort and quiet contemplation among like-minded artists.

(Did you laugh?)

Alright, so not all magic is real.

The industries that had fed me in my home state—newspapers, department stores, and independent publishers—were collapsing under the weight of change. So, my wife and I packed up our three kids (and a confused semi-feral cat) and moved to Austin, TX. The startup/fintech economy of the place was, to us, another kind of magic. Within a couple of months, I had a new gig at a rapidly growing financial software company.

On top of those previous jobs, I’d done a lot of freelance writing over the years. Every week there was a new client, technology, vertical, brand, and voice to navigate. I loved writing, but doing it while standing on shifting sand is exhausting. So, when I landed a full-time writing position at a company where I could take a deep dive into who they were, what they did, and how to tell their story, I felt like the mothership had called me home.

Over the years, my coworkers became friends. Some moved to other companies, but we remained close.

In fact, we decided to play a weekly virtual Dungeons and Dragons game and even started a podcast. (Yes, Weird Kid has loved D&D his whole weird life. Big surprise.) The game became a bright patch during a truly awful pandemic and the players became some of my favorite people in the whole world. Telling a story together through roleplay is yet another kind of magic. And it’s an exercise in learning to trust your fellow players. So, when one of them started singing the praises of Moov, I listened.

I learned about how Moov’s team members had ownership of their projects—they weren’t order takers, subject to random whims, or told to work on something “just because.” Instead, it was strategic; every project counted. As a writer, that meant every word mattered. If you’ve ever written for a large company, you often find yourself sitting at the bottom of a giant funnel packed with opaque assignments. Who’s this for? Why does this matter? You begin to question your purpose.

Nothing’s done just for the sake of doing something. We decide what gets done, then we get to choose how to build, improve, and rework it to be better.

And, of course, the perks: we’re fully remote (I don’t know how I survived as a parent before remote work), we support each other’s growth, we get learning and home office stipends, we even get to tell our stories.

It was too much for me to resist: A place where I could both understand and help shape my purpose; where I could contribute with the full breadth and depth of my talent and experience; where I could let my Inner Weird Kid scribble his brains out, finding and building real connections—and to have it matter to actual readers. That sounded like a whole new kind of magic to me.

That’s what led me here. That’s why I chose Moov, and why you should too.