In today’s Member Spotlight, I get to sit down with someone who can’t sit still in the absolute best of ways. Antowan has done a little bit of everything, and it’s all been driven by his curious nature and love of economics. It only takes a few minutes to understand what the power of curiosity and a genuine desire to learn can do for someone’s career.

From an apprenticeship as an electrician to transitioning into healthcare and eventually landing in logistics, Antowan’s journey is a testament to the power of adaptability. His academic pursuit in economics combined with his hands-on experience in finance, systems analysis, and logistics, has shaped him into the versatile professional he is today. Currently working as a system analyst at Dollar Tree, he’s taken on projects that leverage both his financial and technical skills, all while continuing to grow academically with an MBA and FMVA certification.

Tune in as Antowan shares how his unique path has shaped his success and how he’s used continuous learning to unlock new opportunities.

Transcript

Meeyeon (00:11)
Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of CFI FinPod Podcast. We’re doing a member spotlight today. Today I’m joined by Antowan Batts. Hi Antowan where are you joining us from today?

Antowan (00:22)
Hello. Nice to see you all.

I’m joining from Norfolk, Virginia. I live here, although I work in Chesapeake, Virginia, which is one city over because I work for Dollar Tree stores and a corporate office.

Meeyeon (00:36)
I am so excited to have you here today because you’re the first person that I’m interviewing who has a background in kind of all the academics that precipitate our designations. So by that I mean a lot of people who are interested in our FMVA

have careers in finance and have taken academic pursuits, whether it’s undergrad or master’s in economics. And you pursued and studied economics, but you are in a logistics role right now, which is very kind of data focused. So I’m so excited to be able to talk to someone that is interested in both data as well as kind of finance as well.

Antowan (01:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

So like you said, I work in logistics currently. am a system analyst. Originally, when I graduated with my undergrad in economics, I came out, and I was a financial analyst in logistics, right? So it was very similar to some of the stuff you would see in corporate finance, but it was from, you know, the logistical standpoint.

So I focused on stuff from like outbound, which would be our getting stuff from our DCs to our stores. But I was soon transitioned over to the current system analyst role and much of that was because I was able to complete the BIDA with you on your platform.

Meeyeon (01:54)
Nice. So this is where you are kind of now but let’s start from the very beginning because you have you pursued a lot of academics so I want to kind of understand that and then how you started in your first role and how you’ve kind of gone from financial accounting or being a financial analyst to where you are today. So like take us through what’s your origin story like how did it all get started was it right from like your early days in undergrad that you knew you wanted to pursue what you are doing today?

Antowan (02:19)
Mm-hmm.

No, not at all, actually. My origin story is completely weird. If you ever see my resume, it’d be one of the strangest you’ve ever seen in your life. out of high school, out of high school, I took up a trade. I actually went through an apprenticeship and became an electrician. I worked on naval vessels for seven years, for six and a half years. And I worked at Norfolk Naval Shipyard. It’s over in Portsmouth, Virginia. And it’s a government-ran shipyard. And I went through their apprenticeship, graduated.

Meeyeon (02:50)
You…

Antowan (02:51)
And once I graduated, stayed on for another three to four years. And after that, I finally left the organization. Ironically enough, back then, I actually wanted to be an electrical engineer. Yeah, know, shocker. But after that, I made a next big leap, and I wanted to health care. Because I wanted to

Meeyeon (03:08)
My god.

Antowan (03:17)
save the world, right? Everyone has that point in which they want to save the world, but I wanted to do it via healthcare. I ended up working for a local hospitals. I’ve made it’s our biggest hospital in the city, Norfolk general. And I worked there for a year as a medical assistant. It just so happened that year was 2020.

Meeyeon (03:38)
My god, and I think we all know what happened in 2020. Unforgettable.

Antowan (03:44)
Yes.

Yes. So it was a lot of work and stress, and eventually, I was like, okay, maybe healthcare is not for me. at the same time.

Meeyeon (03:54)
Healthcare is not for the faint of heart, it’s a crazy field.

Antowan (03:58)
It was a lot. It was a lot. I know it’s better today because like, you know, pandemic’s over, but at the time it was just a lot. So, during my time there, I also got an IT job at the university I was attending. And as soon as I left there, I had a very strong quantitative background at the time because I was like, this was actually before I went directly into economics, but I did have like a strong background from my prior experience, thanks being an electrician and other things that I had done.

And I was able to eventually get a research assistant job at my university. They have a research lab. It’s called Virginia Modeling Assimilation Science Center. It’s Vmask. And it’s a sub-branch of Boulder Mennon University, which is the university I attended for undergrad. And I was actually studying like vaccine hesitancy there. Yes.

And so I was studying what are called vulnerability indexes. so those are things that like, like those are things that affect like underrepresented people in a society. And so like, how does access to like a working car and all these other things such as like childcare, how does that affect people’s ability and willingness to go get the vaccine? And so I did that along with the IT for about a year and a half,

two, almost two years while I was finishing up my bachelor’s degree in economics. Just so happened, during that timeframe, I also signed up for the internship at Dollar Tree. And it was a little weird because I was like 28 going into an internship, but it was also because, you know, I still had to get in somewhere, right? And so once I once I got into the internship, I let those two jobs go.

I was pretty confident in my skills and ability to find a full time position and I let those two jobs go and went into the internship. Luckily as soon as the internship ended I was actually hired on and my role as the logistics analyst for the financial team for Dollar Tree. I was actually the company’s first intern they ever hired.

Meeyeon (06:11)
My gosh.

Antowan (06:14)
Yeah, so yeah, think after like a year and a half at the financial analysts like during that time, I took the BIDA and then we had an open role because our self department was suspending and we had this open role for the system analysts come available and I applied and was able to secure this position where I am currently.

Meeyeon (06:33)
And so to take it all the way back to the very beginning, to finish an apprenticeship and do a trade job, that takes a lot of dedication and a lot of… That’s a fairly kind of intensive and rigorous program. But becoming a full-fledged electrician, would you say that there’s things that you learned from that part of your life that you still find yourself…

Antowan (06:42)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Meeyeon (07:03)
kind of using the skills you develop then today.

Antowan (07:08)
Yeah, I think the most important skills I developed were probably in the shipyard so far. was like, you know, doing that, was the time management, working under pressure, cause it’s, know, and then like, since I worked on very expensive equipment, right? You have to have that sort of like ease of hand and confidence in yourself in order to do that type of work. Right. And it was a very rewarding career. And it’s, you know, it’s a lot of people keep asking, why did you leave? And so I’m like, it’s not that.

I left, yes, I did enjoy my trade. It’s just something was always calling me in academia. fundamentally, it was economics, because I always loved economics, even back when I was an engineering student. And I just felt, yes, I do love what I do as an electrician. However, I feel like there could be something better. But I do credit a lot of the very important skills I have with my time at Norfolk Newell Shipyard.

Meeyeon (08:05)
So when did you get your first interest in economics?

Antowan (08:08)
So I’m very curious about it too because my best friend, ironically, was one of my, if we first met when he was one of my instructors at my community college that I was going to while I was an electrician.

And he said, I don’t know how, but like you’ve always been interested in economics, even when he was an engineering student, he was taking my environmental class. And I was like, yeah, but I don’t know where it came from. It just started in like, around like 2013, 2014, and it just blossomed and kept persisting.

Meeyeon (08:42)
Was there like a specific topic though? Was it like micro or like, is it macro or is there anything that you can kind of recall that sparked your interest? Because for me economics, like I wasn’t, so I’m from a business major background for undergrad and I didn’t really even, like I couldn’t even verbalize the fact that I had an interest in economics until I took an economics course. And when I took it, I was like, okay, I think I prefer the macro stuff, but.

Antowan (08:47)
Mm-hmm.

Meeyeon (09:11)
Yeah, wasn’t like it wasn’t as if I were in high school thinking, what it’d be great to know about, you know, y equals c plus i plus g plus all those equations from back then.

Antowan (09:16)
Mm-hmm. No, you know, I think it’s I think it’s like there was a book of because I I think that’s makes sense where it like it started around that time because I had a co-op not a corporate but I had a classmate he gave me a book I’ve kept the title the author’s name is has lit and he was American journalist that wrote about economics and it’s very ironic because if I I think last time I reread his book I was like I disagree with you a lot of these things but but

I think that was the guiding spark that got me interested in it. Now, it is so like, for me, it’s always weird because like I care more about macro than I did micro, which is I guess what I write because most of the stuff I work in is always my sort of micro related. But then again, if you think about it, national defense and naval vessels is macro related. So maybe that’s where the other connective tissue is. But I think that book is what was the sparking catalyst.

Meeyeon (10:18)
And then you’ve probably worked off a lot of Paul Krugman books, right? Paul Krugman, he’s everywhere in economics.

Antowan (10:22)
Yeah, no.

Yeah, actually, yeah, I really love his, his, his international economics textbook, think is probably the best Econ textbook I’ve read.

Meeyeon (10:36)
And you didn’t stop there. You did further educational pursuits, right?

Antowan (10:42)
Yeah, so I think about three weeks ago on November 1st, I was conferred my MBA and you know, my Master’s Business Administration. Now, yeah, thank you. Yeah, I completed at Southern New Hampshire University. I really enjoyed my time with the university and I did it mainly because like I really like online schooling. I know a lot of people prefer the traditional in front of someone. Even when I was an undergrad, I actually preferred online schooling. It was more of my thing because

Meeyeon (10:52)
My gosh.

Antowan (11:11)
I had to, when I was a electrician, when I was doing my associates, I had to go to like evening school or was online school. So I always preferred something where I could just reliably do it from home and not have to do like go at that extra mile just to go to a place to sit there for two hours or two and a half hours. So yeah, I have a preference for online schooling, but yeah, I completed my MBA recently.

Meeyeon (11:37)
And now with the MBA, did you do it with any kind of very specific pursuit in mind? Because for me, know that, so the MBA path, at least when I was at my first job, which was in investment banking, everybody had this, it’s kind of like a package A, B or C, like a holiday package.

Antowan (11:40)
Mm-hmm.

Meeyeon (12:01)
where you would say like, okay, for package A, you do an undergraduate business degree, you get yourself a role in investment banking, you do it for a year because nobody wants to do it for any longer. And then after that, you go into either private equity, or maybe like maybe try to go to the buy side. And then after maybe like five years or so, you try to do an MBA because at that point, you start questioning your life and all the decisions you’ve made. And you need this one card to say, okay,

Antowan (12:28)
Mm-hmm.

Meeyeon (12:32)
I was in business school for two years. So I’m going to use that as my point to reset. I’m going to go and look at all these different types of career opportunities. And then no one could question my resume at that point because I’m in school and then kind of use that as a card to say, like, I want to do something different. Did you have any of that kind of intention with your MBA or is it just something that you wanted to pursue because you had the academic interest? And then has it opened up any

doors to kind of like new career paths or or yeah, it’s like, that’s a very loaded question. But basically, did you have any intentions with the MBA going in? And yeah.

Antowan (13:06)
No.

Yeah, no, was aspects of both sides of that, right? So my undergrad in economics is like, it was under our school of business, right? So it was a BSBA, Wolfson major in economics. However, when, and I discovered really quickly after I graduated my undergrad, when you tell people I have an econ degree, you get typically three answers. What’s econ?

Because there’s a lot of people surprisingly that don’t know what econ is for the short like short thing like short nomenclature. you know, what do you want to do with that because they’re not exactly sure what the skills are that you develop in the economics degree and then like, that’s nice, but like, but why are you here type of thing? Like, how did you get here? It’s again, that’s tied with the second one because they don’t really know what the sort of skills you develop in

economics theory. So a large part of me was originally I signed up for Masters in Economics, but after like some, like some thinking and deeper research, even on the like the American Economic Association, they say if you’re considering becoming a business professional, it may be wiser to get an MBA because you’re better, you’re better deepening your knowledge and operational standpoints and like day to day business operations. And I agreed. Like after I had enough of those interactions, I was like, I’m gonna

do the practical thing instead of stacking econ on top of econ. I went for the MBA and it was very rewarding because like it definitely deepened my knowledge for business day to day business operations. And yeah, I mean, it’s definitely opened more opportunities and stuff. ever since I’ve graduated, I’ve been meeting with like leadership within my company and they were like, Hey, you’re perfect for this role now because now you have the data quantitative side, but you also have the financial and operations understanding of it too.

And so there’s definitely new possibilities. I haven’t fully decided what I’m going to do yet because it’s sort of still fresh off the heel. But yeah, it’s already open doors. it was also because I also do have a level of learning, right? it’s the same reason I stay consistently subscribed to y’all platform, because y’all continuously make great content that’s very useful in my day-to-day work in life. So, it was like that, two aspects mixed together is why I did the MBA.

Meeyeon (15:38)
I love hearing that. So take me through the journey that you’ve had with Dollar Tree so far. Has it been two, three years?

Antowan (15:47)
It’s coming up on, yeah, it’s coming up on three years. It’s been two and a half. It’ll be three years in May.

Meeyeon (15:52)
So what’s it been like from when you started to where you are now? Because I know you’ve had a couple of different roles, but you strike me as a type of person where as soon as you’re on the team, people get to know you. You’re super friendly. You’re clearly very hardworking. And so I’d be curious to know whether the roles that you’ve been through have been ones that you’ve said, like, I’m really interested in this and put your hand up for, or people have said, like, I bet you’d be really good at this.

Antowan (15:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so it’s been really interesting because it’s like I started when I was an intern I started in the merchandising department and I got the logistics right very weird right but

Meeyeon (16:32)
I thought being it’s so different. So like, take us through, like, how did you start advertising? What was it like? And then all the transition points in between to where where your logistics today?

Antowan (16:38)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so I started in merchandising because with my, so again, I was the first intern hired by the company, but we was also the first intern cohort too. So they were sort of filling it out too, trying to figure out how to best place people. And with my degree and skill focus, they thought I would be better served in merchandising than anywhere else, right? And it was really great and rewarding. Everyone there is really, it’s like our merchandising team is a fantastic group of people.

They’re very intuitive, they’re very knowledgeable, and they’re excellent teachers. And I’ve learned so much in just that temporary 10-week period. That was very pivotal for my success with the company that’s still going on to this day.

Meeyeon (17:29)
What was the day in the life of merchandising like?

Antowan (17:32)
So it’s really interesting, a lot of meetings.

Meeyeon (17:36)
My gosh, one of those roles is like professional meeting attender.

Antowan (17:39)
Yeah, so we got to meet a lot of the different people so like the different roles They’re very so there’s of course we met like everyone from like inventory type control things We met like the beginning people like we call a merchandise assistant and they help with like the data the data entry and like tracking for all of the stuff that our merchants or our buyers will be doing so our buyers are like the main people that find our merchandise that we stock in our stores and

know, Dollar Tree also owns Family Dollar. There’s like the whole two different, like, aspects of it. Dollar Tree’s more seasonal type stuff. So you’ll, it’s like the sort of thrill of the hunt. You’ll go look for different items that you may not expect to find at other stores there. Yes, that’s like where I wanna catchphrase it.

Meeyeon (18:20)
I love that phrase, the thrill of the hunt. I’ve never met a person that uses that phrase other than me, but I love using it.

Antowan (18:29)
Yes, and then there’s Family Dollar which serves like your more core everyday type stuff and so

Meeyeon (18:34)
So for the people that aren’t familiar, that aren’t basically us, tell us how big Dollar Tree and the family company is and how many states they serve.

Antowan (18:44)
So yeah Dollar Tree Family Dollar we have roughly 16,000 plus I can’t remember the exact number it’s around 16,700 some stores and we’re in almost every state of course except for like the two discontinuous ones so we’re not in Alaska or Hawaii for good reasons the logistics would be a nightmare.

Meeyeon (19:05)
Logistics to Hawaii is always a nightmare, so always an additional cost.

Antowan (19:09)
Yeah, and actually believe it or not, heard, there was a statistic when I was an intern, they would explain like, we have so many stores in different locations that I think it’s roughly 93 % of the US population is within like one to five miles of one of our locations.

Meeyeon (19:30)
My god. I would love to understand how they got to that statistic. That’d be so fun.

Antowan (19:36)
Yeah, I know. It’s interesting because we can see a map of all our different locations like, I believe it.

Meeyeon (19:44)
And I wonder if, like, I’m gonna see if when we edit this, we could put a little the Dollar Tree logo here because I’m pretty certain that as soon as you see the logo, everyone who’s listening will recognize it even if you’re not based in the US. I’m based in Canada and I immediately recognized it.

Antowan (20:00)
Yes, because we do have some Canadian stores and we actually, we’re doing for it rather well. And I think there may be plans to grow our Canadian footprint too. So.

Meeyeon (20:09)
I’m pretty sure I live within one mile.

Antowan (20:14)
Yeah, but yeah, so I mean, yeah merchandise was really fun it was a lot of like understanding the different aspects of it so like it’s it’s not it’s sort of the sales part of our company, right? but it’s not like sales in the traditional manner because like our sales come through from the like the fact of like Finding items that everyone needs or wants and to make it sure that they’re in stock, right? So you don’t really have like a direct

interaction with the customer per se, interactions done through the actual sales numbers and so on. So you see how much throughput or how much sell-through you have of specific items, and so you know it’s doing well. And if there’s other items that may not do well, you just like swap them out for something different and all that other stuff. So like you learn a lot of different forms of like communicating with consumers, but in a less direct fashion, right? It’s something that a lot of people may not be used to because it’s like you, when you go in a store, you don’t really think,

me picking up this item is telling the company that I enjoy it specifically, right? But that’s sort of what you’re telling them in many ways, or deciding not to go for a specific item is showing that, this thing is not the best substitute or compliment for any sort of thing that you have here, so maybe you shouldn’t carry it.

Meeyeon (21:28)
Yeah, and it’s funny to kind of think about the fact that what you buy or what you don’t buy as a consumer is just like your constant dialogue with a retailer or manufacturer saying, this is good, you need to do more of this, or this is not good, you need to stop doing this.

Antowan (21:47)
Yes, exactly. And yeah.

Meeyeon (21:49)
Did you find that role was kind of, so was merchandising a little bit of a research kind of role? Was it on the merchandising team to understand like seasonality of products, what was in demand, what was kind of selling very well? Or was that a different part of the team?

Antowan (22:11)
So there is a different part of the team that does that. there’s different sub teams within each, within merchandise. then there’s like technically different categories and each category of like a team will have different people in a specific role. like category may have like, allocation specialists and like, and maybe someone that does like demand forecasting for specific items and stuff. And that will, that team will make up a long wolf, like a merchant, that team will make up a category per se. Right.

And so like different parts of the role has some aspects of that research where you’ll do like, you’ll look through the data and you’ll see, okay, this is not doing well. This is probably not going to do well. Hey, we should reconsider this. And they always come together as a team to discuss it. They have reviews and they’ll be like, okay, what’s doing great? What do we need to keep? Where can we expand and what needs to go?

I think those sort of critical questions is what helps make the company really successful. there’s been a lot of like, there’s a lot of innovation down in merchandise as much as there is anywhere within the company. So, but yeah, my start off was in merchandise and I think it was very useful because like you meet a lot of people. That’s sort of like I said, our core business is selling merchandise, right?

So they interact with pretty much everyone within the company. And so you’ll meet people from all throughout the company. And I think that networking played a very important part for me helping me get into my logistics analyst role.

Meeyeon (23:41)
And then so the Merchandising was only a 10-week type of role, you said?

Antowan (23:48)
Yep, yeah, was an internship. yeah, it was a tenner. So that’s when, so literally the internship ended on a Friday and that Monday I started as my, as a financial analyst within our logistics department. And like I said, I work in, I work in outbound. And so what that means is we deal with everything that goes from our distribution centers, distribution centers for anyone that don’t know. It’s like a warehouse, but it’s not. Warehouses are for like long-term storage and…

Meeyeon (23:49)
And then so after 10 weeks, where did you go next?

Antowan (24:14)
typically larger amounts. Distribution centers are for short-term storage. You typically get your stuff there and you ship it out soon after. But outbound is anything from your distro center to like your stores. And that’s where I started off in our financial department. And so like that included a lot of things for like KPIs tracking like our run rates and all the different KPIs and finances for different carriers, but also going back and forth carriers and ensuring

that they are getting invoiced properly, making sure that there’s no discrepancies or anything in any of the financial reports before we send them payment.

Meeyeon (24:55)
And then how long was this one? Was this role more than 10 weeks?

Antowan (25:00)
Yeah, this one was a year. This one, I think I was there for like a year and three months. And that was like, you know, that was when I actually swapped over to a current job, which is like ironic because it’s on the same same sub department. I only really just moved teams. even kept the same desk. Yep. And so it’s very connected with my original first role because now like I’m a system analyst, but I’m on the

backside of the billing department. like our financial department. So all our systems where they query data from or do any sort of like financial auditing and everything, I’m there to help troubleshoot and make sure it’s running day to day. And I actually have a coworker, he and I actually got together last year and we had to redesign a whole sort of invoicing system and invoice tracking system. And it was a very interesting project because like it took a lot of work

trying to figure out how to collect all the data we want and where to store it to. So we had to get together with a lot. We had to get together with the IT team, get like a whole new server space, like allocated and everything. So it was a really fun project because it’s like, I had to stretch my skills a lot. I learned like I kept really good at VBA, like VBA for Excel something a lot of people.

Meeyeon (26:16)
My god, that was my perfect nightmare back in the day.

Apparently now ChatGPT is very robust at helping with that, but I just remember in 2013 when I was in capital markets being like, god, this is so painful. Anything like database, when you say database, it’s very triggering for me. I remember from my asset management days being like, my gosh, select star from, and that’s where I would stop.

Antowan (26:39)
Yes, no, I understand. But it’s really interesting because it’s like, again, all of that stuff was like, it seems like it gets in like alien territory sometimes. But like the reason I was able to transition so easily was partially because I did the BIDA with y’all.

Meeyeon (26:57)
I was going to ask, how did you get, how did it come to you? Because those skills, at least for me, I didn’t learn them in undergrad. I could have taken a computer science course and I honestly probably dropped in for like two days and I was like, nah, I don’t want to take this. This is like not for me. I deeply regret that today, but to learn BBA and like database querying and all that stuff, did you do that all on the go or did you learn any of it in academics or did you

already have an interest, a personal hobby that you pursued or were you just learning this on the go? It was really on-the-go training.

Antowan (27:32)
It’s a combination of all of them. So, fun fact: at one point, I was like a CS student back in college.

Meeyeon (27:39)
My gosh, what were you not?

Antowan (27:43)
I know, right? But it was, yeah, so yeah, when I was working at the hospital, like when I decided like healthcare wasn’t it, like I was still in school and I had to keep making progress. So I was like, I guess I’ll try CS. And I was a CS student for like two semesters. I left because I did not want to be a developer. And that seemed like, that seemed like the main like option. And it’s not, it wasn’t, but like, it just seemed like the main option at the time. And I was like, I’m good.

Meeyeon (27:47)
Mm-hmm.

Antowan (28:12)
I do not find coding that interesting. I am out.

Meeyeon (28:16)
I just love, though, that you had the confidence to be like, yeah, like this is not necessarily my cup of tea. I’ve learned a lot, but I’m moving on from this.

Antowan (28:21)
Good.

Yeah, it’s so ironic because a large part of our econ degree they teach you are as a development package for like doing statistical work in our econ. So, and so it’s really weird because I had that CS semester and the first language they teach you is like C++ and C, which are two of the hardest and oldest languages to learn. And so, and

Meeyeon (28:50)
I had to learn C and it was not fun. It was my first and last programming language.

Antowan (28:59)
No, that’s not a statable. And so when it went to, now I got to learn R, it was nothing compared to like learning C++ just from like, you know, out of nowhere, which was my first language, right? And so I…

Meeyeon (29:11)
Like Python is so much more intuitive, right?

Antowan (29:15)
Yeah, yeah, definitely more than C. I actually still prefer, at least for data stuff, I prefer R over Python. I know I probably just started like a spike, like a, like a comment war possibly, but like, there was like a lot of people that was like, you see, if you say that, they’re like, you’re insane.

Meeyeon (29:32)
Yeah, my husband’s a firmware developer, so he does like the low level programming. so I want to say C, C sharp are, and maybe C plus are what he mainly works in. He told me, and obviously I’ve forgotten, but a lot of those C languages are very difficult to learn, but they’re super useful today.

Antowan (29:34)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, especially C is like the underlying one for like a lot of software. But yeah, so like, I was able, like I got a lot of it through like academia and like, and like doing a course through like, I learned a lot more R and as a research assistant at Vmask where I was studying, like I said, the vaccine hesitancy. That’s also where I learned Tableau. So like, that’s why I like, started picking up there. It was like a lot of stuff I wanted to go and it was a lot of stuff I had to learn really quick because

Like there was, you know, I had a high demand for it at the time because yeah, we had to do reports for our grants and everything. I was a research assistant, I’m like, okay, I need this. need to figure out how to make it look like this and so on and so forth. And like I said, it was before ChatGPT. Luckily, ChatGPT came on when we were revamping our, like our, was the system. Yes. Which is why learning VBA was easier, but it was so interesting because it’s just like C++ to me. Like there’s a lot of similar aspects for it.

Meeyeon (30:40)
Just in the nick of time.

Antowan (30:51)
And so it wasn’t too hard for me. It was an interesting thing. feel like everything was tying perfectly. Even though certain things didn’t follow through, those choices came back as an advantageous thing for me in the long run. So I didn’t do CS, but learning C++ was very advantageous. It had a great advantage for learning R. And then I use R and Python and stuff today. And so, yeah.

All those things kept coming back to assist me in my growth.

Meeyeon (31:24)
And then with the accounting role, did you also develop a pretty strong financial accounting acumen as well? you probably, did you develop any previous knowledge in your academic studies? Because financial accounting is pretty rigorous, I find.

Antowan (31:38)
Yeah, so I did. And another part of it was also like I didn’t I didn’t mention it. But like when I was also a college student, I used to volunteer as an accountant for a nonprofit that was local and they’re called Up Center. And so like I was able to like I actually had a stronger like accounting background, partially because like my econ degree was a business administration, like business, a bachelor’s in science. So like you do have like the core classes you have to take.

And you had to think up through like intermediate accounting one in order to complete that degree. And along with volunteering, a lot of time with the UP Center was like a great advantage when it came to going to the financial role.

Meeyeon (32:20)
I don’t get how you find the time to do all this. Like, I feel like you’ve lived two, like, multiple lives.

Antowan (32:27)
I know right. My, I think my supply chain teacher used to say it best. She was like, I know you, you like to keep busy. And so like, here’s like, she would always start off with whatever I asked for advice. She’d say, I know you, like to keep busy. Here’s my recommendation.

Meeyeon (32:45)
And then was keeping busy what got you into from financial accounting, that role to where you are today.

Antowan (32:52)
Yeah, because I always wanted to, yeah, because I’ve always wanted to of like bridge the finance and like data stuff. So, and that’s why we want to skip this.

Meeyeon (32:59)
Because then that would be like a marriage of all your other things that you’ve done in the past, right? Where you did like CS and like whatnot and then all that kind of comes together into the logistics role.

Antowan (33:03)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, exactly. And exactly. That’s why this is like, like, really like ideal job because it’s like a marriage of, like you said, if they were thinking I’ve been developing over time and you know, there’s like, there’s always like opportunities to develop other skills like so I still work with the finance team when like streamlining our budget files and like all of our documentation, how it’s getting like I’ve we use different systems. I don’t know if you know about a software called Alteryx is sort of like so yeah, it’s like a

ETL is a Strat, Transform, and Load for the data terminology. It’s like an ETL software. You use it for pulling data, performing any sort of computations or any math you need, and then you can put it wherever you need it. It’s a very intuitive program because it’s interesting because it’s like… So ETL is the technique, but the software is called Alteryx, A-L-T-E-R-Y-X.

Meeyeon (33:59)
What is it called? ETL?

You think I’ve actually seen that logo somewhere. I can kind of see it.

Antowan (34:13)
You probably have.

Yeah. So it’s great. It’s actually very popular, but like it’s really useful and it’s weird because like it’s very intuitive. Like they have little tools that you drag and those tools are where you like perform specific things. So you’ll have like a, you’ll have a tool where you load your data in. You have a tool where you’ll like clean it in different tools. You’ll have like one tool could like, I don’t know, remove sort of like headers that don’t want to transpose your data and so on and so forth. Right.

Meeyeon (34:42)
Then you get to the blessed data set.

Antowan (34:45)
Yes, right. Exactly. And so we use a lot of that in order to automate a lot of our sort of KPI and PNL type stuff. And we’re working on it again for our larger sort of data sets and stuff because it’s still sort of a little bit more hands-on as of right now. We started with the smaller accounts, but now we’re moving up to the larger ones since we have a little bit more time to work on it. Plus we’re trying to more refine our tracking for the system, like, high data. So, yeah.

Meeyeon (35:17)
So what’s your day-to-day like in this role? It sounds pretty different from like merchandising, for sure.

Antowan (35:20)
Hmm.

So my day to day is very interesting because like part of it’s part of it’s system performance and like, you know, troubleshooting for so we support teams. Me and my co-workers support any other teams that have to use our transportation management system. And so that’s like a big software where we do a lot of our logistics works and so on. So whatever you like planning routes and stuff like that.

So, me and my coworker, we support any sort of issues that may arise in that. And so if there’s any, we get emails, we have like a shared box, we run through like what our issue is and we’ll either resolve it. And if it’s something that’s simple and that the person can like do on their own because they have access to specific requirements or permissions, we may offer to train them or send them an SOP on how to do it. And so, like, there’s a course, so there’s a potential training part for it, too.

There’s like ad hoc reporting. Sometimes people need data from our CMS system or just in general. So we do like offer ad hoc services for mostly anyone that asks, so long as they like actually have a need for information. And then like a large part of it’s also like setting up for a new system, which we’re getting eventually, which I’m not really sure how much I can say about, but like, yeah, we’re working on it.

Meeyeon (36:47)
Yeah.

Antowan (36:48)
Yeah, a new system. And then also, like I said, a large part is also the sort of innovation and automating part for any sort of stuff we may have. So any other old workflows or any sort of old systems that may be cumbersome for everyone to use, we’ll try to find a way to make it easier, whether it be just streamlining it or just trying to use, like I said, alteryx or maybe removing hands from the pot, right?

Like telling people, telling us people like, hey, let’s just leave this to these two people because they’re the ones that better understand it. Not everyone has to update it anymore. So just forward it to them.

Meeyeon (37:30)
And now I know you like to keep busy and so I’m wondering, do you think you have any plans for further academic pursuits in the future? what do you think you have planned for your career in the next year or three, five? I feel like you always have to have something on the go apart from just work.

Antowan (37:52)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, so academic-wise, I’m technically already working on like that applied econ masters I told you about at the same university. Yeah, because when I I saw through the MBA, my Econ classes, I had already taken counted towards my MBA. So now, like I’m technically about 50 % done already, already done with my econ masters. And I was like, wow,

Meeyeon (38:03)
Ha-ha!

Antowan (38:21)
Why not finish it? Like I get tuition reimbursement and I get a corporate discount because I work for Dollar Tree. So it’s an incentive to actually go finish that now. Yeah, exactly. I’m actually close to finishing the FMVA with y’all. think. Yeah, I’m on the final test. I did the first one and I was close. I was like six points off. So.

Meeyeon (38:29)
Win-win!

That’s a big one.

Antowan (38:48)
I’ve been studying for like the last month. think I have four days until I can take it again, but I think I’ll get it the best.

Meeyeon (38:53)
That’s a real, that’s like a lot of time requirement. That’s a lot of dedication.

Antowan (38:58)
Yeah, it’s it’s the financial modeling questions that keep getting me. I think it’s I know it’s I’m thinking we’ll get it the next time though. It’s like on like I’ve been doing really good on the accounting questions and the budgeting stuff. So But other than that, I’m looking for like volunteering opportunities. I’ve been talking with I think it’s an international organization. They’re called their name is ALLFED or it’s the alliance to feed the earth All hold on. Let me look it up for you. It’s called ALLFED

It’s a great organization, non-profit, but I always forget how to say their name because it’s a short nomenclature. Okay, so Allfed is an alliance to feed the earth in disasters and what they do is they study food resiliency and making sure, in worst-case scenario, let’s say nuclear war or something happened in these specific areas, how would that affect the world’s food supply stuff?

Meeyeon (39:55)
Nuclear war is always possible.

Antowan (39:58)
Yeah, exactly. So like, it’s a nonprofit. They do really great research and stuff. And I recently started like, working with them on some projects. And it’s really fun. And because like a lot of stuff we work on is logistics based. And so it’s like, hey, like, if this like happened, how are we like this? Like if this happened, how would companies be able to adapt to it? What were some stuff that we learned from how companies adapt during COVID that we could apply?

to these sort of events and then what a recommendation we can make to them to make sure that they better react in time, or react better next time too, right?

Meeyeon (40:35)
So this is a member spotlight and I can’t think of another member that I have interviewed that has such a breadth of knowledge. the fact that you just want to volunteer your time, even though it seems like you have so little of it, at the same time it’s just like based on how much you do it seems just like you would run out of time. But you have had, I feel like just getting to know you like this, people like you. Because I think you are a hardworking, smart guy.

easy to get along with. And so by virtue of that, you’ve had lots of really great connections in your career and your academic pursuits that allow you to marry all of those experiences together into something continuous. And with Member Spotlight, I think it’s really important because people love to find someone that they can relate to.

Antowan (41:26)
Mm-hmm.

Meeyeon (41:27)
If you could give all of our members kind of one piece of advice at any point in their career, what would you say?

Antowan (41:36)
Ha! One piece of advice.

Meeyeon (41:42)
One piece of advice that you think, like, it would have been really helpful had I heard this maybe, you know, like, six years ago type thing.

Antowan (41:52)
Hmm. Okay, so my advice would be try to be the connection that makes someone the life, like, make a life-changing impact with someone right so Try to be that person that changed someone’s life for the positive, right? So I’ve always joked to have this theory called Small World’s Theory where you’re like you’re only ever three

people away from meeting someone that could change your life. And I have no empirical basis for it at all. But that’s what I just like joke about it every time I find out I know someone through someone else because we have a mutual friend. And I always say, small world theory. But I firmly believe, yeah, I firmly believe that you can be someone’s very impactful

Meeyeon (42:32)
I love that.

Antowan (42:41)
or a catalyst for important, like a great change in someone’s life. And it could be in a small way. It’s always sort of, especially like a lot of stuff going on today, it could seem very impossible to make a change in the world, but it’s not true. It can be something really small. You’d be surprised how much of a catalyst it will be for making a big difference. And that’s how I got here to where I am today. It was a lot of small catalysts that helped push me forward and encouraged me to continue on.

And it’s interesting because I’m trying to go back now in hindsight and find some of those people, many of them were teachers, and thank them because without, if it wasn’t for them, I probably may have not have it this far.

Meeyeon (43:22)
My gosh, yeah, that’s such a powerful message and kind of along the vein of be the mentor that you wish you had or the one that you already had. And it doesn’t necessarily need to even be a mentorship, but be the positive change that you want to see in the world.

Antowan (43:31)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, Gandhi, right?

Meeyeon (43:42)
Yeah, exactly. my gosh. god, you really know a lot of things. Love it. Okay, that has been one of the best podcasts. This is, I almost feel like this is one of those, who is that guy that does the podcast? Jay Shetty. Have you heard of that? Have you heard of him?

Antowan (43:47)
Thank

Mm.

I see it a few. It’s interesting. There was like, I had a big podcast. Yeah.

Meeyeon (44:06)
It’s like very inspirational and I feel like that’s what you’ve been on this podcast. Like I’m not Jay Shetty, but like I feel like this has been one of the most like uplifting and like really just inspiring Member Spotlights.

Antowan (44:18)
Yeah. No, I’ve really enjoyed my time with you here.

Meeyeon (44:21)
Gosh, so thank you so much for being on Member Spotlight. I am so excited for this to publish, and I guess until next time, everyone, we’ll see you all later!

Antowan (44:34)
Bye.