John Cannon doesn’t do things half-hearted. After earning an MBA from Harvard University and a master’s in politics and international relations from Oxford University, he became an investment banker at 26 and started his own consulting firm two years later.
“I was a high achiever, chasing a lot of success in my life and was always dissatisfied with it,” said Cannon. “On paper it was really great, but I was not healthy or happy. I idolized success and achievement.”
After a reversion to the faith, Cannon was all in, pursuing life as a Carmelite monk. He discerned out of religious life seven years later following the pain of his father’s death. “Things can change in very deep ways you may not be able to expect,” he said. “Somehow, after he passed away, I had this desire to be more mission-oriented.”
Cannon’s mission became SENT Ventures, an executive consulting firm that helps Catholic business leaders improve their professional and spiritual lives.
“All of them have this hunger to not have their faith on a shelf and to bring that more fully into how they run their companies,” said Cannon. Some of his early clients included executives of well-known Catholic organizations such as Hallow and Exodus 90, but today SENT Ventures works mostly with Catholics who lead secular companies.
“Entrepreneurship is a big movement in secular society, but there’s almost nothing like that in the Catholic space. This is how the church has renewed itself, ” he said. “I was very drawn to that thesis and felt drawn to do something about it.”
Cannon studied the leaders of renewal movements in the church. “I looked at 50 founders of movements in history, trying to understand their common characteristics,” he said. “There’s been a lot of leadership studies on business figures, but what about St. Benedict, or Mother Teresa?”
The foundation of their success was in the Catholic community and Cannon realized that community was the missing element in modern society. St. Benedict and Mother Teresa were master leaders because they were community builders.
“They were also very entrepreneurial. They found needs around them and ways to address them,” said Cannon, who recognized that many Catholic CEOs were so busy building up their companies, they didn’t even realize they were hungering for community. “There’s a great isolation that comes with leadership, but especially faith-oriented.”
SENT Ventures groups Catholic founders and CEOs into cohorts of eight, with a dedicated coach. Each cohort meets every other week for an hour-and-a-half, starting with prayer. “The first component of the meeting is going through your vision and goals — business, personal and spiritual — then we support each other and hold each other accountable,” said Cannon. “You go to the group and you say, ‘This is what I’m struggling with.’ People pour into each other and help them, so it becomes a community.”
The pain of losing his community hit Cannon hard when he left the monastery in 2019. Alone, with no money or resources, he moved in with his aunt Vera Gast in Vienna. “She was my first supporter and I worked on SENT Ventures out of her basement for the first 12 months,” said Cannon, who remains a parishioner at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Vienna.
The year in his aunt’s basement provided an important lesson. Cannon was able to observe her communal Catholic life, attending daily Mass and regularly participating in prayer groups. “We have to be in communion with others,” said Gast. “It’s the closeness — we pray together, we learn our faith together — I’ve always believed in that.”
“It’s the hardest thing to do — to actually build community — but it’s the most important,” said Cannon. “Your goal in life is not to have a successful business. That may be a part of the journey or a means, but it’s not the end. Your end is heaven and bringing other souls to heaven with you.”
