Hamilton Zanze Real Estate Investments

Associate Data Analyst, Asset Management

Stanford University, Medical Center Development

Program Manager, Major Gifts (Data/Content/Events)

Bank of Montreal, BMO Capital Markets

Sr. Administrative Assistant

Columbia University, Office of Alumni and Development

Administrative Assistant

San Francisco, CA

2019 - 2023

Palo Alto, CA

2016 - 2019

New York, NY

2015

New York, NY

2012 - 2014

At Hamilton Zanze, I was their first hire dedicated to developing their data platforms and initiatives. Prior to my onboarding, the firm had foisted data responsibilities on to employees who were particularly skilled in Excel. While this helped with some of their processes and reporting, it limited their ability to build a truly modern data stack and deliver truly value-add data solutions.

During my tenure at Hamilton Zanze, I was instrumental in establishing a new data stack capable of achieving their goals, anchored by a cloud based relational database in Microsoft Azure and Tableau as a front-end visualization tool to deliver new data resources. I developed and iterated a suite of dashboards leveraging this data stack delivering significant operational efficiencies.

A particularly valuable project I built was an automated version of their monthly cash flow analyses for the company's entire portfolio. Previously, Asset Manager's would run analyses for each of their individual properties in Excel for their slice of the portfolio. This would result in a lack of consistency in analysis across the portfolio, an increased risk of errors and would take up a significant amount of time each month. The cash flow analysis that I built solved for all of these issues and delivered a number of other useful features that allowed for greater insight and flexibility in understanding true cash flow positions for all assets across the portfolio.

I also built and grew the data team while at Hamilton Zanze. I lead the effort to hire and onboard two additional team members both fully dedicated to data resource development. This was a significant milestone at Hamilton Zanze as they'd never had in-house resources like this available throughout the history of the company. The commercial real estate industry tends to lag in technology adoption compared to other industries. In developing this team Hamilton Zanze distinguished themselves from their competitors as leaders in technology and data innovation for their industry and I had the privilege of being one of the primary drivers behind these initiatives.

I was among a small group of people hired to a newly minted position at Stanford University, Medical Center Development with the title of Program Manager. This position supported Major Gifts Development Officers in their fundraising efforts covering specialty areas of medicine within the School of Medicine. Major Gifts is defined as donations in the range of $100K to $1M. The role revolved around three focal areas: data management and reporting, content development and events management. While serving as Program Manager I primarily supported the areas of surgery and cardiovascular health in addition to the general major gifts fundraising team.

During my time working at Medical Center Development I became one of the champions of the various data initiatives on behalf of the organization. Many of our projects were limited by legacy data management platforms. I became adept at developing automated reporting solutions and dashboards with less than ideal tools at my disposal.

A popular project among my Development Officer colleagues was a fundraising pipeline dashboard. Similar to sales a funnel, the fundraising process exists in stages where a prospect moves from initial engagement to eliciting a gift. Our primary database was not capable of providing easily digestible snapshots of a Development Officer's fundraising funnel. Leveraging the legacy database as a primary data source I connected this platform to Excel with Power Query and Power Pivot. I was able to deliver a simple fundraising funnel dashboard that provided better insight into the active fundraising efforts of any given Development Officer.

While at Medical Center Development I also had the opportunity to develop many skill sets. I took advantage of the significant training benefits provided by Stanford University. This is where I was initially introduced to both Tableau and SQL. I received Tableau's Desktop I: Fundamentals training course in-person conducted by Tableau's representatives. I also took several SQL courses through one of Stanford University's many professional training courses available to staff.

While in college I originally majored in economics with an intention of pursuing a career in investment banking. Ultimately I decided to change my major as an upper classman and pursue other career options. Upon entering the labor force in 2015, I wondered what a career in investment banking would have been like. The opportunity to work at BMO Capital Market provided me with the insight I was looking for.

At BMO Capital Markets I served as a Sr. Administrative Assistant supporting primarily the Global Head of Investment Banking and also the Financial Sponsors Group. While my duties were primarily administrative, the role presented significant opportunity to employ my budding data skills. As a member of a C-Suite executives staff, I often built visualizations in Excel for various analyses that would ultimately land in client facing decks. I did not participate in the core analysis, but would often conduct final mile visualizations that were more polished and client ready. Additionally, I had opportunities to develop ad-hoc reports in Salesforce.

As a full-time student at Columbia University I worked part-time as an Administrative Assistant. Many student employees often switch roles and departments from semester to semester. I held one role and supported the same team throughout my years at Columbia. I believe this was primarily due to my work ethic and my developing data management skills. I became the unofficial data guru for the Alumni Relations team that I supported.

I remember one of the Associates I supported bringing me a list of alumni data in Excel that included tens of thousands of rows and asked me to sift through the list and provide some basic summary analysis. I brought back the finished project later that afternoon and the Associate was shocked as her expectation was for this project to be done manually and take several months. This was one of the moments where the team recognized the value I could deliver and welcomed me into the team in a way many student employees don't experience.

I joined the Business Analytics team at Cox Automotive at a very interesting time. The team and the organization more broadly very soon after my coming on board began going through tremendous change and evolution. I was hired primarily to be responsible for leading two large annually recurring projects. The responsibility for one of those projects was shifted to another team rather early into my onboarding. Additionally, a corporate reorganization began across the enterprise and the first shifts of that reorganization began with the Business Analytics team. The team was moved to an entirely different department within the company to align multiple analytics teams under one leadership structure.

This left me in a rather unique position early on in my tenure with Cox Automotive. To the credit and values of my team's leadership and the firm overall, I was consistently reassured that my position was never in jeopardy, something I am supremely grateful for. However, I was put in a position where the responsibilities of my role were not entirely clear. I needed to get creative around finding ways to add value to the Business Analytics team. Furthermore, I am not happy if I am not contributing. I love what I do and I've worked hard to arrive at point in my career where I get to do it. To feel truly satisfied in my job I need to not only be contributing but performing at the highest levels. I am always working towards being consistently reliable and strategically valuable to my colleagues and partners.

With those ends in mind I've developed myself into an asset to the team and it's stakeholders. I've had the opportunity to contribute in several significant ways to our team's web tagging platform migration efforts. As Google has sunset it's Universal Analytics platform in favor of Google Analytics 4 tagging, the Business Analytics team has had to undergo tremendous efforts to transition existing reporting to this new platform and I've played several roles across this project. Additionally, I've become a real asset to the Revenue and Yield team, a group that Business Analytics supports, playing an increasingly involved role in the team's approach to data and analytics. I am regularly called on to deliver ad-hoc analyses and act as a real strategic thought partner in solutioning around issues their team faces. I continue to look for new and unique ways to problem solve and drive new ideas and solutions across the organization.

2023 - Current

Remote, CA

Cox Automotive Inc.

Sr. BI Manager, Business Analytics / Marketing Analytics