Features July 2018

The first time Eric Masson had to ponder his future, during a high-school career day, the beach-loving teen took what he thought was the easy way out: a day long trip to see a Coast Guard recruiter for a career-report assignment. Enamored with the mix of service and seafaring adventure, Masson would spend the next […]

Commute to campus, attend class, commute back home, put in eight hours at work, find time to study—repeat. In the simplest of terms, this was Julie Elliott’s undergraduate college experience. And it’s not unlike that of many degree-seekers. With more people of all ages and a diversity of backgrounds attending college, the so-called “non-traditional” student […]

Daniel Perez-Cirera rarely feels nervous anymore. Nervous was going to bed Sunday night ahead of another 80-hour workweek, or flying to Finland for that first meeting at Nokia headquarters. As he walks once again into the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (SCT) in Mexico City, Perez-Cirera isn’t gripped with doubts. But he’s aware of the […]

Just a little over 30 years old as a financial institution—and only seven of those as a validated bank—Grupo Financiero BASE is downright young when it comes to the banking industry: Its competitors and contemporaries have many more decades, very often centuries, of experience behind them. But youth also means there is ample opportunity for […]

Jose Eduardo Salgado knows the deadline. It’s been marked on his mental calendar for months, circled in red so many times he could stretch the line out and measure the height of his ceiling. December 1, 2018: the day his debut novel—800-plus pages and more than a decade in the making—will finally be finished. Blending […]

A generalist with a knack for adjusting to changes in the marketplace, Wylie Strout was putting both of those attributes into practice in early April, while taking time to chat with Vanguard. Her employer, the Long Beach, California-based Laserfiche, is noted for being ahead of the high-tech curve when it comes to providing the safe […]

With her crew’s interplanetary spacecraft safely landed, Tammy Brandt grabs a flashlight and points it towards the strange flora in front of her. A friendly-seeming amphibian—a kind of cat-frog hybrid—emerges from the shadows. Minutes later, a herd of massive dinosaurs passes by in the distance, right before a terrifying, toothed-and-clawed creature, eyes aglow and eager […]

Accounting was Jay Cain’s first interest, but as a young professional he realized he could double his value with a juris doctorate. So, rather than continue with a choice position as an energy industry certified public accountant, in 2011 he opted to enroll at Texas Tech University School of Law. Just a couple of months […]

Time was when professional conferences were confined to boardrooms, but that was before such innovations as Salesforce, Dreamforce, Google I/O and Amazon Reinvent allowed executives worldwide to put their heads together. But for every process that’s been simplified, another inevitably arises with its own complexities. Larry Samuelson, the tech-savvy general counsel and senior vice president […]

Lily Tsen was drawn to medicine. Or so she thought. Tsen chuckles while recalling how she tortured herself with math and science as a University of Melbourne undergrad, while others recognized her potential in law, commerce and anthropology. Not too many years later, the woman who became the first general counsel for packaging giant Amcor […]