"See the silver lining, even in difficult situations." - Melissa Brown, Global FP&A, AWS Howdy friends, today we talked with our good friend and three year Amazon vet Melissa Brown! We discussed her lessons learned in finance, on career progression, and the importance of having a healthy outlook. We also talked about great books and how her passion for French literature led to a career finance , naturally :) Enjoy! Melissa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melis...
"Win the day...but understand what your limitations are." - Keith Klein, AWS Real Estate, Managing Principal, Americas Howdy friends. This a great episode with our pal and 9-year Amazon veteran, Keith Klein. We dive into some great tactics for having success as an individual, how he sets his team up for success, and the importance of keeping family first. We also get into golf, off-roading, and who he'd like to have lunch with. Enjoy! Keith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kei...
“Ask yourself what makes you happy.” - Van Tran, Amazon Treasury, Capital Markets Hello folks. Today we bring you a show with our our good buddy Van Tran, Treasury Manager, Capital Markets here at Amazon and with it, our first look inside the Treasury space. We’ve had the pleasure of getting to work with Van and her team on some recent projects and today we got a chance to step back to discuss her background: growing up in Hanoi, Vietnam, comic books, attending undergrad in Maine, infrastruct...
“All you ca do day-to-day is control the things that are within your power.” - Alex Solomon, MBA Intern, Columbia, AWS Infrastructure Happy new year! We’re kicking off the 2021 season with an interview we recorded at the end of last summer with Alex Solomon. He was an MBA intern on our team. First off, it turns out that Alex and Charlie hail from the same neck of the woods (Long Island), so we spent some quality time digging into the culture ;) (bagels, North Fork wineries, Montau...
“It’s good to round yourself out but double down on your super powers.” - Joe Minarik, Director, AWS Data Center Supply Join The FG Podcast LinkedIn Group! https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13919730/ First things, first, Joe holds the Finance Guys land speed record for guests at 180mph. Yikes. We’re back this week, this time with the fearless leader of our Business team and AWS veteran, Joe Minarik, Director, AWS Data Center Supply.. This episode is where the rubber meets the road, ...
“Try to identify top goals, personally and professionally and work at them in a way that’s meaningful to you. Don’t drive towards output metrics…focus on what you can control and the other things will play out.” - Raj Uparkar, Sr. Manager, DC Capacity, AWS Join The Finance Guys Podcast Group on LinkedIn :) https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13919730/ Whoa there peeps! It’s been awhile but we’re back, finally publishing a new episode we recorded over the summer and today we bring you our g...
“Ask yourself what’s the worst case thing that could happen…it gives you perspective…don’t take things too seriously…be grateful” - Shruti Shah, Sr. Finance Manager, AWS Real Estate Hello there peeps. Today we bring you an episode with our friend and long time (9-year) Amazonian, Shruti Shah. Shruti is a Senior Finance Manager in AWS supporting the Data Center Real Estate team. Today we talk to Shruti about her Amazon origin story, some great thoughts on work-life harmony AND…our mutual...
“Appreciate spending time with friends and family…make sure you like what you are doing…and be happy.” - Mariana Emsenhuber, Finance Leadership Program, AWS Hey folks. In this episode we bring you our first virtual guest - our friend and teammate Mariana Emsenhuber. Mariana is a Senior Financial Analyst on our team providing financial support for existing region data center expansion strategy. We get to talk to Mariana about growing up in Brazil, her experience joining the Amazon MBA fi...
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going…we’ll get over it…and we’ll be stronger” - Sid “There’s always an opportunity that comes out of change.” - Charlie The Finance Guys are back! Whatsup our peeps. We’ve been missing you all since this social distancing began but now that we’ve acclimated to our new routines we are itching to bring you fresh episodes again. In this shorter episode Sid and I reflect on what it’s been like so far. what’s worked well and what’s been challenging, and w...
*Special Episode* The Plaza Of Truth (TPOT) Episode 1 “It doesn’t matter who you are or how much money you make…maybe you’re driving a Ferrari home and I’m driving a Honda Accord but we’re at the same table, eating the same food…We’re all on the same level.” The Plaza of Truth (TPOT) podcast is a new longer-form version of the 1 minute daily TV show from Instagram #ThePlazaOfTruth, @cbkunk It's a project I’ve been thinking about for awhile now, and got jump started by the current situa...
“In a world that’s going so fast, if you can find the space in yourself that can truly slow down than everything else you’ll find is a lot clearer.” In this episode Sid and I got a rare chance to sit with our friend Ryion Pun while he was with us in Seattle from the Singapore office. Ryion is the Finance Director of Data Center Operations for the APAC region here in AWS infrastructure. Today we talked about quieting the mind, keeping life uncluttered, and learning to use the least amount of f...
“THE SECRET IS SIMPLE…DO THE STUFF EXACTLY HOW YOUR MAMA USED TO TELL YOU, DRESS CLEAN, BE HONEST, BE ON TIME, DO YOUR WORK, BE RESPECTFUL….IF YOU DO THAT EVERYTHING WILL FALL INTO PLACE” Today Sid and I got to sit down with our friend Dalmar Sheikh, the leader of the APAC Data Center Expansion Strategy team and an eight-year Amazonian to boot. Dalmar tells us his awesome story about growing up in (at least) seven different countries (I lost track). Yemen, Somalia, Uganda, Italy, Iran, Nige...
“Do stuff anyway, even if people tell you no…just keep going.” Today Sid and I got to talk with our friend Valery Gross, the inspirational Head of Data Center Demand Planning here in AWS Infrastructure and a 9 year veteran of Amazon. This was a great episode about many things but especially getting to talk about women in business. We talk about the founding of the WIFI, (the Women In Finance Initiative affinity group at Amazon), the long term game of networking, and waking up at 4:30am...
“Be conscious of your tradeoffs…if you’re perpetually doing things not aligned with your priorities, that’s a recipe for unhappiness.” Today Sid and I got to sit down with our friend Brent Holley, Senior Finance Manager of Data Center Construction here at AWS Infrastructure. This episode was like a fireside chat (a campfire actually). Brent talked to us about adding value as a finance partner and shared his philosophy on being conscious about how you spend your days. He told us a about a rece...
“Life’s what happens when you’re planning other things.” John Lennon via Lincoln Booth Today Sid and I get a rare opportunity to sit down with one of our business partners, Lincoln Booth, a Global Expansion Manager for data center supply who has recently relocated from Singapore to Dublin. Linc and his team are the people who make sure Elastic Cloud Compute is actually elastic. Today we talk a little about that magic behind the cloud, we talk about Linc’s awesome story about how he’s m...
“THERE ARE NO RULES, ONLY THE ONES YOU SET FOR YOURSELF.” Today Sid and I sit down with…ourselves. Sid flipped the script and peppered me with a few of the typical questions we usually ask our guests. We chat leadership, hacking the Amazon recruitment process, and a little story about driving to the Arctic Ocean from New York via Mexico. We thought that could tied you over until we come back next week with some new guests. We hope you enjoy! 8:00 | Sports + being a nerd growing up 13:45 | B...
“ALWAYS BRING YOUR WHOLE SELF TO WHATEVER IT IS YOU’RE DOING.” Today Sid and I sit down with our old friend, Bunmi Omotowa, Finance Manager on the Insights, Planning, Analytics, & Technology finance team for AWS. Simply put, they tell the C-suite what’s going on in AWS daily. I told you we’ve got important friends. We get to dig in today to see how Bunmi learned to embrace fear and she shares with us an operating philosophy that would serves us all to heed. Very fun and very wise! Please ...
“Make progress every day…even one small win can be enough.” Today Sid and I interview Oisin Hughes, Head of Global Data Center Portfolio Management here in AWS Infrastructure. Oisin has a really unique history. Long story short he once traveled around the world…on his motorcycle. That was his 2nd major overland trip on a bike, the first being the entire length of the Pan American highway. He is the author of 2 books documenting each adventure and made a documentary on Youtube about th...
“Lifelong learning is important…go find something (with a plan!)...follow your passions.” Today Sid and I interview Sr. Finance Manager, Andrew Wilson here at AWS Infrastructure. Andrew also happens to be….our manager. Best behavior! (not really) Today Andrew talks about his lifelong pursuit of curiosity and explains how riding to work on a unicycle is a perfectly good way to read the newspaper. Please enjoy! 1:45 | On riding a unicycle to work (while reading the paper) 4:05 | Ch...
“If you’re not having fun then you probably need to find something else.” Today Sid and I interview our very own Finance Director here in AWS Infrastructure, Gretchen Stephenson. Today Gretchen drops some sage advice about shaping a career in tech finance. We also chat about Texas, baseball, and why the ideal dinner party involves Barbra Bush, Lenny Kravitz, and The Rock….can you smell what The Rock is cooking? This was a really fun show, we hope you enjoy! 3:18 Growing up around educ...