MBA transformers: Lisa Lissandrello

Once: Math Teacher/Ski Instructor, Jackson Hole

Now: Senior Financial Analyst, Amazon.com

For a while, Stacy Lissandrello (MBA 2011) didn’t really care to have a career at all.

“I wanted to be a ski bum,” she admits.

After studying mathematics at Colby College, Lissandrello moved to Wyoming to ski. She gave ski lessons and did math tutoring to fund her skiing.

Tutoring led to a job teaching calculus and statistics and, eventually, heading the math department at a private school in Jackson Hole. But eventually Lissandrello’s vagabond existence wore thin. She wanted a career both challenging and rewarding, and thought finance might make a good transition. “I figured an MBA would be the quickest way to jumpstart my career,” she says.

It was a comfort to find that she was not alone in her non-traditional path to the MBA. And from her first finance course, she knew she had made the right choice.

So did Amazon, which hired Lissandrello as a senior financial analyst. She began working on the company’s fulfillment supply chain and now covers retail health and beauty products.

It’s a dream position for someone who, like her employer, tends to be data-driven. “I have this great job in the city,” she says, “and the mountains in my backyard.”

Update: Now working at Microsoft as the senior finance manager for the Surface Tablet, Lissandrello continues to combine finance work at a data-driven tech company with proximity to great ski slopes.

Find out about the other alumni who transformed their careers via the MBA Program.