My Journey

While planning the launch of Arlast Capital, I took on a high-impact consulting engagement with a large retailer. They had a problem: their pricing and promotions capabilities were antiquated, costing them tens of millions in lost margin. They brought me in to diagnose the situation and chart a path forward.

I researched 22 software providers, assessed their capabilities against client needs, and conceptualized future state scenarios. Then I authored and led the RFP process with seven qualified vendors, ultimately projecting $28M in achievable annual savings.

The highlight was designing and facilitating an interactive workshop for the CEO and executive team. We walked through current issues, explored solutions, and mapped out an expanded $100M+ opportunity. It was strategy consulting at its best: taking a complex, technical subject and making it actionable for C-suite decision-makers.

I was promoted to CEO at a critical juncture: the private equity owners decided to sell, and I was tasked with preparing the company while keeping 1,000+ employees engaged through uncertainty. We managed ~30,000 multifamily units across three states with $300M in annual gross rent collections.

The challenge wasn't just operational. Team morale was fragile and competitors were actively poaching our best people. I designed and launched a comprehensive retention program that reduced pre-program attrition by 80%. We successfully navigated an 8-month sale process and handed over the portfolio to new ownership.

On the operations side, I introduced purchasing cards company-wide with an expense management system, giving us unprecedented visibility into spending and eliminating $2M in miscellaneous annual costs that had previously been hidden.

I was recruited to transform operations at a private equity-owned property management company that had outgrown its legacy systems. The business was running on paper-based processes, spreadsheets, and tribal knowledge. It was fine for 10 properties, but not sustainable for 150+.

My first priority was an Accounts Payable crisis. I inherited 12,000+ outstanding invoices with 81% actionable delinquency. Vendors were frustrated, relationships were strained, and we had no visibility. Within 60 days, I transformed the process, reducing outstanding payables to ~3,500 invoices with zero actionable delinquency.

Next was HR digitization. We replaced paper-based HR and payroll processes with Paycor HR and iCIMS ATS, eliminating 70% of HR administrative hours. This freed up the team to focus on strategic initiatives rather than pushing paper.

I also led our migration from Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace, achieving 74% annual cost savings while significantly improving employee productivity and collaboration.

I joined the corporate strategy team at this Fortune 500 consumer goods company just as the world was about to change dramatically. When COVID-19 hit in early 2020, I led enterprise-wide forecasting and modeling efforts. Our early projections enabled protective measures that secured supply agreements and strengthened workplace safety, allowing us to achieve 100% uptime.

Beyond COVID response, I executed a comprehensive Latin American business unit assessment, diagnosing issues across 17 market-category combinations and identifying ~$120M in immediate revenue improvement opportunities.

I also focused on making the strategy team itself more effective by building a knowledge management system, collaboration guidelines, presentation style guide, and onboarding process that significantly improved team productivity and reduced new hire ramp time.

After my tenure as Chief of Staff in Mountain View, I was ready for my next challenge. I moved to Boulder to lead strategy and operations for Google's Customer Success organization, supporting Professional Services teams serving enterprise advertisers. This role was all about taking a complex, global organization and making it more effective through better metrics, processes, and systems.

My biggest win was introducing customer-centric metrics at executive, management, and frontline levels. This shifted the organization's focus from performing activities to delivering outcomes, resulting in a 10-point improvement in seller satisfaction and $9M of new investment from sales leadership.

I also captained a 20+ person project team building an all-new reporting platform for global service coverage and utilization, transforming how leadership allocated resources and ultimately enabling more impactful deployment of 20% of existing headcount.

On the people side, I launched a comprehensive career development program for Boulder, including lunch-and-learn series, shadowing programs, and executive panels. 100% of participants reported being satisfied, a nice validation that investing in people pays off.

Fun side note: I finished 4th out of 176 submissions in Google's internal "Shark Tank" competition, winning the Americas region with a YouTube inventory monetization idea projecting $1.2B in revenue over five years. Sometimes the best ideas come from giving people permission to think big.

My first role at Google was as Chief of Staff to the Customer Success team within the Americas Advertisers organization. I was essentially the right hand to leadership supporting ~800 employees across eight divisions assisting Large Customer Sales.

I drafted QBRs and monthly executive communications to regional sales Presidents and VPs, ensuring leadership had the insights they needed to make decisions. I chaired weekly staff meetings of the Executive Leadership Team, keeping initiatives on track and creating accountability.

I also partnered with managers on seven high-priority special projects, including a job ladder conversion program, skills curriculum development, and feedback gathering initiatives. The role taught me that effective chiefs of staff are force multipliers. They create leverage by handling the critical work that leaders need done but don't have time for.

One of my favorite parts was mentoring 18 frontline managers in storytelling and executive communications and being able to watch them gain confidence in presenting to leadership over time.

After graduation, I returned to strategy consulting at Booz & Company (now Strategy&). This was my second tour in consulting, but I was now leading workstreams rather than just executing pieces of work.

I was promoted early to Engagement Manager and led full project lifecycles for Fortune 500 clients: scoping the problem, managing teams of analysts and associates, developing insights, and delivering recommendations to C-suite executives. The work spanned strategy development, operational improvement, and organizational transformation across industries.

What I loved about this role was the intellectual rigor combined with practical impact. We weren't just creating slide decks. We were solving real business problems and seeing our recommendations implemented. The experience honed my ability to structure ambiguous problems, build fact-based cases, and influence senior executives.

I took a break from consulting to earn my MBA at Columbia Business School. I was fortunate to receive a merit-based scholarship from the university as an incoming student and later earned the McGowan Fellowship, a merit-based full-tuition scholarship during my first year.

The two years were transformative. I dove deep into finance, strategy, and leadership while building relationships with incredibly talented classmates from around the world. I focused my electives on corporate strategy, finance, and real estate, which provided the foundation for everything I would do afterward.

I graduated first in my class, which was an honor, but the real value wasn't the GPA. It was the frameworks for thinking, the exposure to diverse perspectives, and the network of peers I would learn from for years to come.

My first job out of undergraduate was as a Business Analyst in Accenture's Strategy Consulting Group. This was my boot camp. It is where I learned how to think analytically, build executive-quality presentations, and work on high-stakes projects with Fortune 500 clients.

I started building financial models, conducting research, and creating slide decks. I quickly progressed to leading workstreams, interfacing with clients, and taking on more responsibility. By the time I was promoted to Consultant, I was managing small teams and owning full project components.

Those four years taught me the fundamentals of how to structure a problem, work under pressure, deliver quality work on tight timelines, and collaborate with smart, driven people. It was the perfect foundation for everything that came next.