From sales to private equity, to corporate finance, and ultimately, to the Finance Department at Harver, Luis's career journey has been a unique and inspiring one. In a recent conversation with Alex, Luis shared how he started his career in sales, which he believed would be the best opportunity to understand how business is done in the US. After working in sales for five years, Luis got a chance to work in a more strategic role in sales, where he was given a revenue channel to manage.

Luis's interest in data-driven decision-making led him to learn SQL queries and work with Excel. This allowed him to create models to optimize his book of business and work with product and BI teams to develop better product strategy. Luis's pivot to corporate finance came when he started his own advisory company, where he helped small companies manage their lead generation campaigns and raised capital or sold the company altogether. In the process, Luis self-educated himself in private equity, venture capital, and corporate finance.

After running his own company for a while, Luis decided to get into finance and got into Wharton, one of the most successful MBA programs in the world. Luis's private equity role after business school gave him the investor perspective, but he missed being on the operating side of the company. Luis's current role at Harver involves driving their M&A and corporate development strategy while also growing their FP&A group. Luis's story shows that a non-traditional career path can lead to success with hard work, self-education, and a willingness to pivot.

‍