How did you find your way to where you are today? Share a little about your professional journey.

Once I graduated from Furman, I pursued my Masters in Accountancy and got a job working for a Big 4 firm in Charlotte, NC. I knew that public accounting would be a great background for whatever my professional future would look like, and I had always planned to use it as a transitional job. After only a year and a half, I started looking for a career that would leverage a bit more critical thinking and problem solving than what I was experiencing in public accounting. I was eventually referred to my to my current employer in Denver, CO – A big data analytics company where I serve as a manager in the management consulting practice.

Was there a catalyzing experience be that critical meeting, research or discovery, being recruited, failing, starting over, or major event, that shaped your career? What advice would you offer someone in the same situation?

I had decided to move to Denver to help launch a new church in the area.I was just under two years into my professional career when I went in for this interview, and I've since conducted a lot of interviews on the other side of the table.

For the line of work I'm in, your resume will generally get your foot in the door for an interview, but once you're there (while technical ability certainly is still very important), the success of an interview is often based on how well you connect with the employer. These are the people you will be working with for 40-60 hours per week, and they are often times looking to see whether or not you are a good culture fit. In an interview setting, look to display more of your soft skills and personality, while also taking a moment to examine whether you would enjoy working with them as well. Even if you end up not enjoying the day-to-day work you perform, (though I do in my career), a great team will make your experience worthwhile.

When providing advice for professional development, what are some tools or resources one should consider?

Generally speaking, I highly recommend reading anything and everything. I read roughly 50-75 books per year across multiple genres – non-fiction, personal development, leadership, and even the guilty pleasure young adult novel every once in awhile. I also subscribe to 13 different podcasts that I listen to regularly, including Freakonomics Radio, Planet Money, This American Life, and Stuff You Should Know. Although this is often regarded as a cliche, one of the greatest skills to have in the management consulting world is the ability is the ability to interact well with a wide variety of people from different backgrounds. This means knowing when to talk about sports, pop music, history, and the latest news story off the cuff. I try to stay on top of as many things as I can, in an effort to effectively contribute to whatever conversation I may encounter.

How would you recommend someone interested in the same career/vocation pursue a similar path?

I'm a big proponent in trying to "redeem time" as much as possible. This means that I'm always finding new ways in the car during my commute, at the gym or on a run, and even shopping at the grocery store – listening to information, scanning headlines, and trying to take time that may otherwise be a bit mindless and use it to download as much as I can mentally. I'd also recommend that for every one book that you read by business gurus, read two by comedians. Humor is often the greatest link to a cordial relationship with a business partner, and it can help tear down social walls and skepticism in many professional relationships.

I'd also advise trying to think through ways to break down really big problems. The old proverb of "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time" applies very much to consulting as well. Management consultants are generally hired to solve problems that a client cannot solve with their own resources but to assume that the company hiring you is "missing the obvious" is naïve. Therefore, it's helpful to train yourself to think through problems in a new and unique way. You can practice these skills by thinking through large scale problems, such as "How would we solve climate change?" or "What could we do to increase education levels across the nation?" At this point, the answer itself isn't as important as sharpening your analytical thought process is. One of the first steps in the recruiting process is to pose a large question. This helps us evaluate how a potential employee would break down a problem-- is their answer standard or creative? Does it take all factors into consideration? Does it pass a "reasonableness test"? When I was interviewed, I was asked to figure out how many golf balls were sold in the US each year, without any outside resources. In my field, it's all about being able to approach a large-scale problem and break it down into smaller components to be analyzed.

How is success defined in your career field? (How did Furman prepare you to be successful?)

In my field, success is most tangibly defined by client Return On Investment or ROI. My field looks to understand, analyze, and uncover insights from "big data journeys" by either performing the analytics ourselves, managing a client's suite of analysts examining their own data, or consulting the business on their analytic strategy. The tangible outcome of "journey analytics" most often results in operational cost reduction, increase in customer satisfaction (CSAT/NPS) scores, process efficiency, revenue growth, improving predictive models, enhancing existing BI tools, etc.

Intangibly, success is often centered around the health of a client relationship. If I need something from a client, or if they need something from me, a healthier relationship results in better communication channels, a more transparent relationship, and overall an enjoyable work experience.

Furman prepared me to be successful by not only helping me think critically, solve problems analytically, and develop "outside-the-box" thinking, but also by allowing me to complete my college tenure with a balance of both academic and extracurricular activities. It's these extracurriculars that most fueled many of the necessary soft skills (e.g. leadership, communication, administrative/operational, etc), that I believe help make me successful today.

What do you wish you would have known getting started in your field?

I wish I had a bit more of a technical background in the computer sciences. About 75% of my colleagues are on the data architecture, application support, and engineering side and know a variety of programming languages, and/or modeling tools. Hard skills like SQL, R, Python, and other tools that help with machine learning, predictive modeling, and regression analysis can certainly help you rise above the pack, but are not a requirement.

How could Furman help with getting someone started?

Furman could help by striving to introduce students to more start up opportunities. In my opinion, Furman thrives at many of the "one-word career" options: lawyer, doctor, professor, etc. It also seems to graduate many entrepreneurs and small-business owners. However, I've also found that many of my Furman friends enter into careers that are more aligned with their extracurricular involvement than their academic pursuits. I'd encourage Furman to seek out opportunities with smaller, more creative ventures and companies. In my opinion, these not only accelerate a career growth because of the varying types of work that are done, but they also require more of a generalist perspective than necessary for a specialist.

How has your liberal arts background shaped your career path or supported your success?

As mentioned earlier, the biggest strengths in my field are critical thinking and problem solving. This is a sweeping generalization, but a more traditional university education seems to often hone the learning experience to a very narrow perspective that makes students really successful in a very specific field. However, a liberal arts background often makes people really successful in a variety of fields, and particularly successful in my field, where analytical ability almost always beats technical knowledge. Those with a university background often try to solve a problem by forcing an answer out of a formula or "the way I've always done it." The liberal arts student, however, puts their feet up on the desk, leans back, and says "let me think about this for a moment." Most of my colleagues have liberal arts backgrounds, and we have found success from those who majored in everything from mathematics, political science, economics, history, and even Asian Studies.

What was your major(s)? And how have you applied it in your career field?

I triple-majored in mathematics, economics, and accounting. Accounting provided the business acumen, mathematics brought some of the technical ability, and economics really provided the perspective to view data from a social engineering lens – looking at trends based off of incentives and really trying to understand the true "why" of an issue, rather than simply looking to see what came out on the other end of the equation.

Were there particular courses within the economics department that were especially useful in helping you identify your career or that ended up helping you to be successful in your career (maybe unexpectedly)?

I've found myself quoting items I learned from Sports Economics more than any other class – but I think that's mostly because it helps drive conversation around a dinner table in many settings.

Were there particular projects or activities from any of your economics courses that were especially useful?

Even though it was one of my poorest graded assignments in the department, Dr. Hennessey had us pick an economic policy (I think?) and write a huge paper on the economics of that policy. I picked Social Security. While I didn't do the best job of explaining all the economics of it, I think it really helped me learn how to explain a really complicated topic to a non-economics audience. In my field, it's really helpful to be able to think of analogies and metaphors on the fly to explain complex ideas in a new or unique way – and that helped!

Any other "highlights" from your experience in economics?

When Dr. Cook closed the first day of International Trade Theory by quoting Jay-Z's "I'm not a business man, I'm a business, man" and then letting us out early. That, or any of Dr. Cook's pop culture references.