Accomplished Leader with 20 years of experience building happy, high-performing teams that support developers and customers alike. Extensive and diverse entrepreneurial experience includes:
- Grew teams and developed a system of documentation and training to decrease on-boarding from six months to six weeks for Tumblr.
- Built distributed customer support staffing services at The Yeomen years before remote work was normalized.
- Created Pro Forma, pitch materials, and supporting investment docs for a craft cannabis opportunity in Michigan.
- Managed mobile development projects with Fortune 500 companies to establish goals and expectations, developed plans to meet them, kept partners updated through status reports and demos, and delivered successful apps.
- Supported Michigan cannabis businesses with Process, Data, and Modeling to help leaders make better decisions in a competitive market.
- Currently overseeing API-first projects to transform businesses with latest technologies and platform thinking.
Technical Skills:
Business Management (Finances, Recruiting, Operations, Sales, Leadership Development)
Project Management (Agile, Scrum, Atlassian Admin, SmartSheet, MS Teams, Google Admin)
Account Management (Scope, Budget, SOW, Change Requests, Conflict Mediation)
Sales (Lead Generation, Proposals, Pitching, Cross and Vertical Selling, Hubspot, Salesforce)
Product Strategy (Discover, Definition and Prioritization, User Testing, Market Analysis)
Process (Evaluation, Creation, and Optimizing SOPs, Handbook and Documentation Creation)
Customer Support (Zendesk Customization and Integrations, Trust and Safety Policy)
“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”
Engagement Lead, Terazo, Richmond, VA
June 2022 – present
- Leading project discovery with engineers and designers, building backlogs, and managing agile projects.
- Partnering with the sales team to identify new opportunities to impact our clients.
- Building resources in support of EL colleagues. Examples include a budgeting tool that provides clientsbetter insight into project progress, and transforming the “Tech Questionnaire” into a proper discovery document that will help Sales and Delivery teams start projects with confidence.
Business Development, Eclipse Canna, Lansing, MI
Apr 2020 – March 2022
- Created revenue models, Pro Forma, business plan, and investment materials for cannabis cultivation company.
- Built expertise on Michigan cannabis industry laws and regulations.
- Created business team to support operation.
Project/Engagement Manager, Shockoe – Mobile by Design, Richmond, VA
Apr 2019 – Aug 2021
- Grew client portfolio to second largest in first year.
- Manage scope, budget, and resourcing to build apps for Mobile Workforce, Inventory & Asset Management, and Customer & Brand Loyalty.
- Oversaw project health, negotiated change orders, managed client relationships.
- Work with clients to identify new opportunities and develop roadmap for future projects.
Content Strategy Manager, Unboxed Technology, Richmond, VA
Apr 2018 – Mar 2019
- Manage team members and client projects to develop innovating training for the world’s top companies, which included working directly with client leadership to prepare the company for steady, scalable growth.
- Worked with a global sales training company to efficiently move existing training into a better delivery solution. Iterated on a client’s existing training, which cut the cost and timeline of projects in half.
- Directly managed the professional growth of team members, oversaw client relationships and training deliverables during projects, and created internal training and reference material to improve the quality and consistency of the work. Assisted in sales calls and developed proposals for potential clients.
President, The Yeomen, Inc.
Aug 2013 – Oct 2017
- Built a distributed customer support staffing service, which offered implementation services focused on building help desks for clients, with staff located in Germany and Australia along with a US-based team. The implementation services had a 100% profit margin and incorporated 30% of the overall revenue of the company.
- Created a company culture that embraces collaboration, compassion, flexible work, and excellence.
- Developed a “Field Guide” that provided helpful resources for employees working remotely, which included hosting virtual happy hours, pizza parties, and celebrations. Encouraged teams that were based in the same city to support each other outside of work.
- Developed a recruiting process that evaluated customer support and writing skills to ensure the best quality candidates for our clients. The team returned customer satisfaction ratings consistently in the mid 90%.
- Provided complete, multi-tier support for most of our clients, which included identifying, tracking, and reporting on bug reports and customer feedback.
- Worked with Vimeo to expand their support team from NYC to a global team that continuously staffed their help desk by leveraging a distributed team to keep the cost down and overhead low.
- Utilized Slack, video chats, shared documents, and other technology to keep teams informed and connected, which resulted in the Vimeo team handling 90% of inquires received from customers.
- Supported clients across industries (including GIPHY, DJO Global, FiftyThree, and Blockstack) handling thousands of inquiries a day.
- Employees took part in developing the company’s values statement and “field guide,” which spoke to ideals and the practical daily life of a remote worker, resulting in a testament to our commitment to a healthy culture.
- Customized customer support platforms and documentation to empower teams to work with increasing integrity and efficiency.
- Set up and customized platforms for SAAS, “box & ship” product, and “brick & mortar” businesses.
- The Yeomen was a preferred partner of Zendesk.
Director of Support / Manager, Tumblr
Feb 2011 – Jul 2013
- Grew the support team and developed a system of documentation and training to decrease on-boarding from six months to six weeks.
- Developed metrics and reporting to increase the quality of performance to a CSAT score of 87% satisfaction.
- Met the challenge of keeping real people answering Tumblr user questions as Tumblr grew exponentially from 2011 to 2013 by implementing tools and refining processes to increase the team’s efficiency.
- Brokered the reorganization of the team by transitioning from an “everyone does everything” method into two specialized groups resulting in an immediate 11% increase in productivity (and a happier team).
- Leveraged technology to keep the two teams located in Richmond and NYC unified while growing a culture unique to the Richmond office. Team members in NYC loved coming down to work with us and noted that they appreciated the “vibe” of the office and team.
- Developed a set of KPIs that provided a nuanced snapshot of performance.
- Managed a team that addressed the worst offenders on the platform and arranged for both group and individual therapy to help them develop healthier approaches to our work and better coping mechanisms.
- Prepared the support team for transition to Yahoo.
English Teacher/Instructional Technology Resource Teacher
Henrico County Public Schools, Henrico, VA
Sep 2004 – Feb 2011
- Initiated a county content management system and customized open sourced blogging software for individual teachers.
- Transformed curriculum to leverage computers in the classroom, which made the experience more engaging for students, and provided a baseline sense of dignity in the classroom.
- All of my students passed the standardized tests, and every one of them found an author they loved to read, which helped them understand why writing was a meaningful way to express ideas and share stories.
Other Work
Misfit Champions Sustainable Business Basics: The Reflective Entrepreneur by Art Espey & Jim Coe