About Us

To Our Athletes & Veterans.

We will find you a career that you love, over prepare you for success, and connect you with great companies where you will grow, learn, and earn consistently.
To Our Partners.

We will help you find the best candidates in the world that will outwork, outlearn, and outperform your highest expectations. We will work closely with you to match our candidates to your leadership style, your culture, and your expectations for performance.

An Introduction.

Shift Group was Founded by former D1 Athletes with large networks in both athletics and in technology who intimately understand both sides of the market. The premise of the company came from founder JR Butler’s experience as a sales leader at an early-stage start-up and the expensive struggles of retaining sales hires in a fast-growth well funded company. Coming from an elite athletic background, he has personally witnessed the challenges of transitioning out of sports and into the real world. Prior to starting Shift Group, Butler worked closely with dozens of former professional hockey players to make the transition into tech sales – helping them with their resume, LinkedIn and utilizing his network of sales leaders to make introductions. He turned this successful process into the company we see today. Shift Group’s enablement and educational content have taken shape through their Board member and Adviser John P. Davis, who codified the process he used in his late 20’s to transition careers from banking into tech sales. His process is outlined in a best-selling book that every Shift Group candidate receives for free.

We focus on two key outcomes.

Shift Group | Outcomes | About Us | Technology Sales — Training and enabling athletes to be ready to get great sales jobs and flourish in those jobs

Shift Group offers the experience, network, and roadmap for a smooth transition.

JR Butler, Founder

Prior to starting Shift, JR was Chief Revenue Officer at Pillir, a low code platform company based in Chandler Arizona. He joined the company in the fall of 2019 to take over go to market. He built a successful partnership with AWS - achieving the top status as an ISV Partner and the #1 ISV in terms of new logos for AWS’s SAP on AWS team in 2020 and built a scalable and repeatable sales process for the early-stage company, being chosen as one of CRN’s Top Channel Chiefs for 2021.

Prior to Pillir, JR was an early employee at Turbonomic. JR helped grow the company from 200 to 3000 customers and <50 to 650 employees. JR led teams that were top regions in revenue for several quarters in a row in commercial sales – winning the Top Impact Player Award in 2014, and Manager of the year in 2015, before being promoted to Area Vice President in 2016. Partnering closely with the head of sales to build out a commercial sales model based on a high number of transactions with a low cost of sales, high forecast ability, and rapid scalability before moving into the Enterprise and Global Strategic account segment. After leading the #1 region in the company for revenue as Regional Director of the year in 2018 he was promoted to Regional Vice President for enterprise east before finishing his time at Turbo as head of Strategy and Operations for the Enterprise Sales Organization helping spearhead successful OEMs with Cisco and AppDynamics and helping scale go-to-market partnerships with AWS and Microsoft. Turbonomic was acquired by IBM in early 2021 for a reported $2B.

Prior to Turbonomic, JR spent several years as an IT infrastructure reseller in the Greater Boston area. JR attended the College of the Holy Cross where he played hockey for the 2006 team that upset the top-seeded Minnesota gophers in the Midwest regional.

George Hughes, Career Coach

George Hughes, known as a "smooth-skating, offensive defenseman," was an American professional hockey player. Before turning Pro, Hughes played NCAA Men's Division 1 hockey for St. Lawrence University, where he was a 2-year team captain. In his senior year of college in 2012-2013 he was named an All-American after leading the NCAA in defensive scoring - putting up 37 points in 38 games - and ultimately ending his collegiate career with 105 points in 150 NCAA games played. He made his professional debut at the end of the 2012–2013 season with the San Antonio Rampage of the American Hockey League and ended his career after a full season of playing for the Bakersfield Condors in 2013-2014. After hanging up the skates, Hughes worked in sports media broadcasting for the NHL on NBC Sports, breaking down film, building highlight segments, and pitching storylines for 6 years. After leaving NBC Sports, Hughes Co-Founded “Next Shift Hockey” a media company that focuses on the transition to life after hockey and sports. He is also still on the ice serving as Head Coach of AAA Mid Fairfield Jr. Rangers Midget team in Connecticut. Hughes has found a deep sense of purpose working with The Shift Group where he is recruiting and guiding athletes into outstanding careers in technology sales as well as connecting companies with new hires. The Game Never Ends…This is Just Your Next Shift!

Matt Mueller, Career Coach

Matt Mueller comes to Shift Group after playing and coaching college football for nearly 20 years. He's helped athletes at all stages of the recruiting process. In his most recent coaching stint at Michigan State University, he helped recruit Rose Bowl and Cotton Bowl Championship teams, culminating with a college football playoff berth in 2015. Mueller moved on to a recruiting role with Next College Student Athlete, in this position he helped student-athletes in 32 sports realize their dream of competing in college at the highest level. Mueller's enjoyed working with athlete's transition into a post-athletic career with Shift Group. "This has been a very rewarding experience working with JR and our team here at Shift Group. I love getting to know each candidate and hearing their story. Every single one has the competitive drive to succeed, I love helping them find that next step in their careers."

Anthony Flaherty, Director Of Sales

Prior to Shift Group, Anthony played hockey at both the professional and college level. A 2017 National Champion, he understands what it takes for a team and individual to go from good to great. After a few years of playing in the minor leagues, Anthony decided to transition to life after sports.

He spent the first 5 years of his career in demand generation and quota-carrying roles at fast-growth technology companies.

Anthony started his sales career in Business Development at an Israeli start-up in the Observability space. Known for his high motor, resiliency, and revenue-creation success, he quickly climbed the ranks as a leader on the sales floor. After a little over a year, he was promoted to Account Executive and tasked with leading the GTM strategy for the west-coast SMB & Commercial team.

After a successful tenure, Anthony was recruited to join a hypergrowth cyber-security company specializing in anti-virus, ransomware protection, and network detection + response. He was again tasked with growing their West-Coast presence in a very competitive market with the likes of Crowdstrike, Sentinel 1, and Arctic-Wolf. He describes this time there as an invaluable learning experience where he gained an appreciation for what it truly means to be an elite seller.

Born and raised in South Boston and a product of the Inner-city, he attributes much of his success to his rugged upbringing.

Austin Plevy, Director of Marketing

Austin joined Shift Group in 2022 after a successful professional & college hockey career. After graduating from Northeastern, where he won a Beanpot and Hockey East Championship, he played in the SPHL for the Evansville Thunderbolts and Knoxville Ice Bears of the SPHL. As a rookie, he led the SPHL in scoring and was named Rookie of the Year and League MVP. During covid, he joined the Ice Bears, where he was voted a team captain and led the team in scoring. In his final year back in Evansville, he was voted team captain and again led the team in scoring. After his playing career, Austin joined the Shift Group team, sharing the passion of the rest of the team to help former athletes and veterans transition to the next step in their journey. As a former athlete, Austin understands how challenging this can be and is committed to growing the Shift Group brand and helping as many athletes and vets as possible transition to a new career.

Sean Hurd, Veteran Coordinator

Sean joined Shift Group in Early 2023 to help stand up the Veteran's to Sales program. Before joining the team, Sean successfully worked as a SaaS and manufacturing sales professional closing over 2.3 million dollars in revenue. Prior to his sales career, Sean served 22 years in the United States Army and retired as a Sergeant Major. Sean spent his entire time in Special Operations as a US Army Ranger and a Special Forces Operator (Green Beret) with 8 combats tours to various conflicts in the Middle East. Sean started his sales career as a successful Sales Development Representative (SDR) and is passionate about helping veterans explore Sales as a career post service.

John P. Davis, Board Member, and Advisor

John P. Davis is the author of How to Get a Sales Job, a #1 Amazon Best Seller in the US & Canada. His book helps people from all backgrounds transition into sales. John has led sales teams internationally, played NCAA Football, earned an MBA, and is currently based in Toronto, ON.