Brett Christensen Email and Phone Number

This was a print-on-demand Ecommerce business. It was in its initial stage but we did make sales in 4 countries. However, I had to step away from this business to focus on some family health issues.

After years of consulting both for clients and internal corporate strategy teams, I wanted to put strategy into practice, so I co-founded a D2C e-commerce startup in the early childhood education industry. After raising initial funding via Kickstarter, my partner and I built the business from the ground up, from 0 to six figures in annual sales at a 20-30% net margin. As the day-to-day manager of the business, I was responsible for strategy, operations, marketing, finance, and content creation. We outsourced everything possible to people with the right skills, so I led a large team of 30+ people across all aspects of the business. Using both deliberate and emergent strategy, I tested out various target customers with a variety of marketing mediums, analyzed the data, and invested more in the ones that yielded results. With this approach I was able to identify and implement new sales channels that brought in >70% of revenue.

After about a year, I was promoted to manage projects as the project team leader. I worked directly with firm partners and clients and was responsible to manage all project resources and present client deliverables. I led project teams of anywhere from 3-20+ analysts and subject-matter experts and was responsible to spend the budget on the right resources, compile insights and key takeaways, and present final findings directly to clients. Over my time as a consultant I managed over 50 projects (typically leading 3-5 projects simultaneously) for clients ranging from the largest, multi-billion dollar companies in the space to small, investor-backed startups entering new markets. I led projects in a wide variety of areas: M&A analysis, due diligence, market entry strategies, strategic planning, pricing strategy, distribution strategy, post patent competitive threat analysis, market research, and others.

After my MBA I accepted a job doing management consulting in the agribusiness industry. I wanted to continue to work on high priority strategic initiatives, this time for clients. I was also excited to apply my skills in an industry with a major impact on our daily lives, and with the premier consulting company in the space. I started out as the senior analyst on projects, working with clients and helping coordinate with junior analysts. I also frequently utilized my financial modeling skills to quantify the impact of various initiatives. During this time I did projects for both domestic and international clients who were looking to expand into new product categories and grow both organically and through major acquisitions.

I enjoy being involved in the community and want to do more of this in the future, so during the 2nd year of my MBA I applied for an externship to serve on the board of a non-profit. I attended monthly board meetings and did special projects. I worked with other board members and a BYU strategy professor to overhaul Habitat for Humanity's 3-year strategic plan, including a re-work of their overall mission, vision and values. We established goals and plans for financial sustainability, fundraising, operations, staffing levels, succession planning, marketing, budgeting, and community involvement as part of the 3-year strategic plan.

During my MBA I did a corporate strategy internship with Toyota. I worked on a variety of initiatives, but for my primary project I analyzed Toyota's exports to South America (which were mostly ad hoc at that time) and made recommendations on relevant criteria for assessing the attractiveness of different export markets and which markets were most attractive based on those criteria. I presented my findings to senior leaders.

After two years in the leadership development program, I was promoted to be the buyer for the $65M Kmart appliance business across 1,300 stores. I was responsible for product portfolio, merchandising, pricing, marketing, internal financial reporting, and in-store presence. Some major initiatives during my time as buyer included testing out various pricing strategies and re-focusing the assortment on the most profitable items + a few new items that made sense for our customers.

The business analyst program was a leadership development rotational program focused on corporate strategy roles for a $50 billion Holding Corporation. I chose this role because I wanted a broader experience than strictly corporate finance. Over my 2 years in the program, I proposed growth strategies and created cross-functional tools for 3 different teams: the Transformation Management Office (a team set up to manage Sears' transformation to independent, autonomous business units), the brands business unit (a business unit created to manage flagship brands Kenmore, Craftsman and DieHard), and the home appliances business unit (the business unit responsible for major appliance sales). I was able to utilize my finance expertise to build financial models and quantify the impact of strategic initiatives.Select highlights:-Without being asked, I created a process to reduce quarterly market share updates from 2 days to 2 hours by designing Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint templates to “automate” the data analysis process. It was so well received that I trained a team of analysts to utilize the templates and deliver key information throughout the organization more rapidly.-I provided strategic insights for a major update to the DieHard brand that resulted in a new slogan, logo, packaging, ad campaign, and distribution strategy.

Since my degree was in corporate finance, I did an internship as a financial analyst for Rio Tinto, a $30B+ multinational metals and mining corporation. I created complex financial models to calculate the net present value of multi-billion dollar capital projects. For example, I worked on a valuation model to quantify the value of refining molybdenum (a copper by-product) on-site rather than using a 3rd party refiner.

I trained and taught over 130 volunteer representatives from about 50 different countries. I helped them prepare for full-time missionary service in the United States by teaching various classes on gospel principles as well as essential skills like teaching, planning, leadership, and goal setting.