Chris Cook Email & Phone Number

Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Baltimore, Maryland Area

Supernova (formerly Super Smash Con) is the only event of its kind; not only is it the largest Smash tournament in the world, it's also a full all-ages convention with live music, a huge variety of vendors, a full arcade, and plenty more. We're bigger and better every year (if you'll excuse us for taking a COVID break) With a tiny team of college friends, most everyone winds up doing most everything. That said, I'm *primarily* responsible for managing projects and staff, driving onsite operations, and pushing deadlines throughout the year.

Foremost among the things I learned in my time as Director was how to leverage my ability to connect with those on my teams and motivate each individual with respect to their own goals and perspectives. I also took full advantage of, and had great success with, having remit over long-term strategy; I was (still am!) uniquely proficient at blending my thorough understanding of day-to-day processes with a capable ability to assess our long-term needs. My competence and results enabled me to successfully lead three different operations groups in my short time as a manager.

Baltimore

The transition from client coverage to leadership was an unintuitive one for me at first, but I soon found that it allowed me to focus my energy on developing our talent in the group, executing more robust and efficient processes, and investigating the higher-level questions that we didn't have requisite time to explore before. What I learned in this transition period was crucial for my successful transition into more roles with more responsibility.

Baltimore

Very often, my first job in the Securities Lending biz was very fast-paced, and required attention to detail, quick decision-making abilities, and practiced knowledge of global markets (20+) to succeed. Having ultimate responsibility for the success of trades produced plenty of exciting high-pressure situations, but what I enjoyed most was driving the change that helped to make our jobs easier, and our success more consistent. I mixed in volunteering and helping the campus recruiting efforts as my schedule allowed. Other than that, when I wasn't busy meeting deadlines, I was organizing process improvement, learning as much as I could, and teaching whatever I picked up.

Baltimore

I quickly found myself in a position of leadership in my first job out of college. Within six months of my hire, each of my team members left Baltimore for NY; even my officer left the following year, and he was not replaced. Undaunted by the challenge, I used what experience I had to help guide two generations of Ops Risk & Control Analysts/Associates as they joined the group - a process which involved several trips to NY and many dozens of pages of technical writing. During my time in Ops RC, I was recognized firm-wide for my contributions to the campus recruiting program, re-engineered most of the group's processes and worksheets, helped eliminate and streamline several functions, and interacted closely with a lot of worldwide senior management.