Resume
My professional experience.
Education
MBA — University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Graduated with Honors
Concentrations: Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Economics
Completed in 2024
BBA — University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business
Graduated with High Distinction
Concentrations: Finance
Completed in 2012
Role Timeline
2012 — 2014
2014 — 2015
2015 — 2018
2018 — 2021
2021 — 2024
2024 — Now
Role Details
Below you'll find details about each of the roles I've held in chronological order. My goal is to share the “what” (description, responsibilities, learnings) and the “why” (why I took the role, why I left the role) for each role. I believe the “why” is helpful to share because because it gives you context on how I think about my career.
1
Finance Rotation Program Analyst
Microsoft
Description
I completed an early talent development program that consisted of four, six-month rotations in different parts of Microsoft's Finance organization. My rotations were in Worldwide Sales (SMSG) Financial Planning, Windows Azure Product Finance, Investor Relations, and Corporate Strategy.
Responsibilities
In each rotation, I was given one main project to complete. In my Planning rotation, I created a roll-up model to cascade budgets to Microsoft’s global subsidiaries. In Windows Azure Product Finance, I built a price times quantity reporting framework for cloud consumption revenue. In Investor Relations, I created recommendations for how Microsoft should report on Cloud results to Wall Street based on an analysis of competitor reporting trends. In Corporate Strategy, I published a market analysis for senior leaders on free software that competed with Microsoft Office.
Why I took this role
After college, I wanted to work in tech, I wanted a quant-heavy job, and I wanted to be in the Pacific Northwest to have access to the mountains. Microsoft checked each of these boxes. After interning at Microsoft in Seattle between my junior and senior years of college, I accepted an offer to join the company full-time once I graduated from college.
Why I left this role
At the time I completed the rotation program, my girlfriend (now my wife) was in her first year of dental school in Boston. Since she wasn’t able to move to Seattle, I decided to move to Boston to be with her. At the time, Microsoft did not have job openings in Boston that fit my profile, so I decided to take a job outside of Microsoft in order to make the move.
Skills / learnings
Making an impact quickly (6 months is not a lot of time), working with different management styles, working on different subject areas, competitive / market research, financial analysis.
2
Senior Associate
PwC Advisory
Description
I worked on consulting projects that focused on helping Technology, Media, and Telecom (TMT) businesses improve the capabilities of their finance functions through process improvements and/or adjustments to org design.
Responsibilities
Leveraging my experience working in at Microsoft, I identified, recommended, and executed finance-related process improvements for Fortune 1000 companies. My most meaningful project was helping a large entertainment company implement a financial process to accurately consolidate results across their many properties so that they could pass their financial audit.
Why I took this role
Professionally, this role gave me the opportunity to broaden the range of business problems that I could solve by giving me access to different types of businesses, projects, and management teams. Personally, this role gave me geographic flexibility so that I could relocate to Boston.
Why I left this role
I had a desire to own projects for the long-term – to live the decisions that I made, rather than passing them off to other management teams. A mentor of mine at Microsoft offered me a Boston-based role at Microsoft that enabled me to own the finances of a business segment.
Skills / learnings
Client management and expectation setting, scoping projects, people management (managing junior associates to complete work), delivering against tight timelines.
3
Senior Finance Manager
Microsoft
Description
I was the Finance business partner to senior Sales leadership (General Manager+) for the East Mid-Market Sales business (~$800M annual revenue) and, eventually, the US Inside Sales business (~$2B annual revenue).
Responsibilities
I owned the financial rhythm of business for the business segments that I worked with. I completed annual planning (budgeting, target setting) and monthly reporting (actuals analyses, variance to target / budget analyses, forecasting, close-the-gap plans). I also worked on ad-hoc projects for Sales business partners (e.g. analyze areas of strength and weakness and advise on best path forward) and Finance leadership (e.g. improve financial modeling for Office 365 and Windows Azure for the U.S.).
Why I took this role
This role gave me ownership of the financials of a large business segment, and allowed me to define a vision for how I wanted to manage my business with my business partners and execute on it over the long-term. Having ownership over an area was an important step at this point in my career.
Why I left this role
After three years in role, I started thinking about the direction I wanted my career to take. Did I want to commit to Finance for my entire career, or did I want to lateral into another function to add to my skill set? I decided that personally and professionally it made sense to diversify, so I began to look for roles outside of FP&A that were analytics-focused.
Skills / learnings
Working with senior leadership (Director, General Manager, VP), messaging business results, telling an overarching narrative about financial performance, financial modeling, financial planning, forecasting, budgeting.
4
Analytical Lead
Description
I owned data analytics and digital advertising measurement strategy for a sales pod that sold digital advertising solutions (Search, YouTube, Display formats) to large Automotive companies (Hyundai, Kia, Mitsubishi, Ford).
Responsibilities
My mission was to help our clients understand the return on investment of their advertising spend with Google. To do this, I used Google’s large data sets and advertising measurement solutions to create compelling sales narratives. In order to defend and increase my customer’s investment, I delivered narratives to my senior stakeholders on the marketing teams at the automakers and analytics teams at the automakers’ selected advertising agencies.
Why I took this role
Early in my career I learned the value of having a sales skill set in a business role. In my rotation program, for example, I noticed that the senior leaders in Finance were often selling their ideas across teams or to customers. I didn’t consider myself to be a natural seller, so I wanted to take a role in sales and build my comfort with selling.
Why I left this role
After spending time in Sales, I realized that Engineering and Product teams tend to be the center of power in many of the largest tech companies. I wanted to get experience working closer to the Product teams to understand how to manage a tech roadmap, make decisions on which features to prioritize and deprioritize, and bring a product to market.
Skills / learnings
Telling compelling stories with data, sales, sales strategies, customer management, marketing strategy.
5
Product Strategy Lead
Description
I led product go-to-market and commercialization efforts for digital advertising experiments in the Americas. I owned initiatives to accelerate usage of experiments with customers, and I also worked with Product teams to define market needs and create a compelling product roadmap.
Responsibilities
My role involved balancing the needs of three groups – Product Management / Engineering, Sales / Google customers, and GTM leadership. For Sales / Google Customers, I conducted trainings on new products / features, resolved escalations, consolidating customer feedback, and provided advice on how to best use our tools to solve customer challenges. For Product Management and Engineering, I shared market feedback, prioritized features according to market needs, and partnered to put together a roadmap. For GTM leadership, I defined metrics that mattered, created reporting infrastructure to track progress, and shared progress against product commercialization OKRs.
Why I took this role
I wanted to round out my experience in Tech by working with Product teams. After selling products and reporting on the performance of products for many years, I knew that I needed to get product experience to be respected as a well-rounded leader in a technology organization. This role helped me gain this experience and grow my skill set.
Why I left this role
While I enjoyed working for large organizations, and they afforded me significant role and geographic flexibility early in my career, I always wanted to get experience working at a smaller company. I became particularly interested in working in a generalist role, which would combine all of my experiences, at either a PE-backed or VC-backed company. This experience would allow me to flex in new ways in a smaller organization.
Skills / learnings
Working cross-functionally, owning product strategy, owning product roadmaps, conducting product commercialization / go-to-market, growing product adoption, creating and tracking success metrics.
6
Corporate Strategy Principal
Cloudera
Description
I lead initiatives to drive profitable ARR growth. My role sits at the intersection of Product Management, Sales, Finance, Operations, and Marketing teams. I focus on bringing these teams together so that all teams' efforts are aligned to hitting our overall company goals.
Responsibilities
I wear many hats in this role. I work with Product Management to build business cases for product features. I work with both Product Management and Sales to define sales plays that position Cloudera to win in the market. I work with Marketing to define media strategies that secure leads for Sales. I work to explore and secure partnership opportunities for Cloudera. I prepare board-level presentations and keynotes for senior executives. My role continues to evolve on a regular basis according the business need.
Why I took this role
I took this role to get experience working in a smaller organization working across different functions (note that Cloudera is still a relatively large organization – >$1B annual revenue with healthy margins).
Skills / learnings
Working in ambiguous situations, delivering against tight timelines, defining an overall vision for a company.
Made by Will Moeller in Chicago 🏙️