- Challenge
- Daily pricing for funds representing 45% of Nasdaq-reporting mutual funds, with hard individual market-close deadlines.
- Built
- A "Follow the Sun" model across Massachusetts, Krakow and Hangzhou, plus the governance, SOPs and onboarding behind it.
- Result
- 24/6 live coverage at approximately 70% lower labor cost, with a 47-person global team.
Cover Story
How I got here, and where I'm going
I do my best work when I'm building something. Seeing the finished result gives me pride, and that pride keeps me motivated. I learned that about myself in my youth, and it has guided every career choice I've made since.
I grew up in a family that built and ran plumbing businesses across three generations. I was welding pipe by age 11 and rough-plumbing houses on my own by 15. That work taught me work ethic, but it also taught me something about myself: when I finished a piping system and could see the whole thing come together, I felt real pride. That feeling gave me motivation and a sense of purpose, and it still does today.
I carried that into Nichols College, where I earned a Bachelor of Science in Accounting. I enjoyed the work and felt a real sense of accomplishment in it, and it proved to be the right choice for me. It gave me the numbers-first foundation I have relied on in every role since.
I spent the next 22 years in global institutional banking operations at State Street Corporation, where the building just took a different form. Early on, during the dot-com boom, I taught myself automation tools that had nothing to do with my job description and used them to streamline the work in front of me. By the end of my time there, I was leading the Global Securities Valuation Center of Excellence, an organization of 47 professionals across three continents, and had redesigned our operating model to run around the clock while cutting labor costs by approximately 70%. Along the way I personally hired approximately 60 people and mentored many of them, and those relationships are what I remember most.
Then I trusted my gut and left the corporate track to build something of my own. I founded, financed, and personally ran a local franchise business, owning the full P&L and every part of the operation, grew it to more than half a million dollars in annual revenue on repeat customers and referrals, and built it into an asset I could sell. Selling it taught me one more lesson: sitting down with the numbers, I realized how much of my revenue had quietly gone to card-processing fees. I researched the industry, found solutions, and spent the next year helping other local business owners cut those costs and improve their margins.
Today I am teaching myself new technology again, this time agentic AI, and I am putting it to work on a problem I know firsthand. I took what I learned about card-processing costs in my own business and built drcmerchantconsulting.com as a real solution for local merchants facing the same problem. Working with those owners and helping them keep more of what they earn has been the reward. I followed my gut into this work, and I found real purpose in it.
Each move, from State Street, to owning a business, to merchant consulting, came from knowing what drives me and trusting it. I know I am at my best when I am building something, can see the result, and can take pride in it. That self-knowledge is why I am confident in the roles I choose, and next I want to bring it to helping businesses transform with AI tools that improve the level of service they provide.
Building has always been my drive. The relationships I develop along the way have always been the reward.
Thank you for reading my story.
