Iris Pomerance Fields - From Tech Disillusionment to Buying and Rebuilding a Service Business

Iris Pomerance Fields is the Owner and President of The Porch Company, a design-build construction firm specializing in custom porches and outdoor living spaces. Originally founded more than 30 years ago, she acquired the company and now leads its growth while preserving its craftsmanship-focused legacy. Before The Porch Company, Iris worked in business operations at Built Technologies and CareBridge.  In this episode… A career can look successful on paper while feeling strangely disconnected from the work itself. Over time, that gap can evolve into a deeper question about whether day-to-day work feels grounded, tangible, and aligned with personal values. When external success no longer matches internal clarity, what does it take to realign the two? With a background in finance operations and high-growth tech startups, Iris Pomerance Fields found herself increasingly pulled toward work that produced visible, real-world outcomes. After years in abstract, systems-driven environments, Iris began rethinking what meaningful work would look like in practice and explored entrepreneurship as a way to regain autonomy and control over her time and impact. That search eventually led her into business acquisition, where she applied her systems-oriented mindset to an entirely different type of organization. Her key takeaway: clarity often follows action, not the other way around. In this episode of The Decision, Robert Hartline and Eric Jackson sit down with Iris Pomerance Fields, Owner and President of The Porch Company, to discuss career reinvention through business acquisition and leadership. Iris explains her shift from tech to tangible business ownership, how she acquired and restructured a multi-branch company into a unified organization, and lessons from her EO forum.