Tech: Tesla, Zoox, Clean Marine Energy (Sales/Marketing/Retail Dev./BizDev/Operations) Tuck MBA, Entrepreneur, Investor, GLG Advisor (Business Consulting) Ironman Triathlete, Outdoor Enthusiast, Music & Food Lover
While working for Tesla in 2009, I moved to NYC to open Tesla's first retail footprint outside of California. I was tasked with building the market from Boston to Miami with 1 Roadster and no budget. I found and negotiated our first retail location (25th St in Manhattan), built a team and all the while grew brand awareness through creative guerilla marketing and PR techniques.
Do you wonder whether getting an MBA is right for you? This is the most frequent question I get when I mention my degree. It's a great question to ask, and the answer is that it depends on several factors including your personal financial situation, your goals for post-degree, your current skillset, your risk tolerance, etc. It's good to have an outside perspective as you mull this decision.
I've directly managed large teams of 20 people at a fast-paced Silicon Valley stealth mode startup (Zoox), smaller teams of inside sales and store sales staff at Tesla and worked cross collaboratively with numerous small groups in a Business Development capacity at Clean Marine Energy. Growing up in a family of six, I learned the value of teamwork early on and have carried those skills through my career to great success. Through my Tuck MBA I learned the finer points of motivating teams and individuals as a leader (I focused on leadership at small companies and startups).
The main challenge of any business is communication: how you tell the world about what you do, how you cultivate relationships with your customers, how you rally others to join your cause as employees, partners and stakeholders. I've been immersed in branding and brand identity at each of the companies I've worked for (Tesla, Clean Marine Energy & Zoox), studied branding as an MBA focused on Entrepreneurship, articulated my own brand vision for startups that I've built, and advised others on brand strategy. I can provide a fresh perspective.
I've worked at several startups (Tesla, Zoox, Clean Marine Energy), dabbled in Entrepreneurship myself, earned an MBA with a focus on Entrepreneurship, invested in several startups and advised many more. I have a passion for the high-level questions that startups face when creating their product service, an appreciation for how important it is to explore those questions sooner rather than later and an understanding of the value of an outside perspective at this stage in a company's life.