From Class President to Presidential Innovation Fellow
By: Vivian Lee
Tags: Career Change, Civictech, Digital Advertising, Government, Digital Marketing

Microsoft

There’s a lot of history between third grade and senior year at Harvard, and that can realistically be summed up as, “Vivian dreamed of helping the world, set herself up for success by studying hard, became jaded by ‘real life’, and decided to go work at Microsoft.” That’s probably a pretty cynical and reductionist view of all of the incredibly enriching experiences I had, but for the sake of this piece that’s all you need to know. While I would strategically tell interviewers that I proactively chose to go into marketing because I loved the balance of qualitative and quantitative thinking (which is true), I really landed in marketing at Microsoft because I fell into it. Luckily, I was pretty good at marketing, and it seemed like a lucrative enough career that I also enjoyed. My dreams of dedicating my life to service would continue to lurk in the background while I focused primarily on being a corporate-ladder-climbing Ivy League graduate (which was enjoyable in its own way). Either way, my dreams of maybe being president one day was simply a hazy childhood memory.

Flash forward to an incredibly successful and enriching six years at Microsoft. This from a quintessential millennial who told herself she would “try out” a bunch of companies for a few years before deciding to settle anywhere. Over the course of six years, I would have opportunities afforded to me that I would not have gotten anywhere else. I worked on million-dollar advertising campaigns, achieved first-name basis with executives I admired, helped government organizations through a pandemic, and made friends who are now my friends for life. But if I were to track my career in any way, it would be by the rebirth of my desire to do something bigger for the world.

Of all the evils, Microsoft is definitely one of the lesser. Within Big Tech, Microsoft continued to show up in ways that mattered to me — we were more transparent about privacy, we were going carbon negative, we were paying our hourly on-campus workers during the pandemic. But a lot of those commitments felt too far above me and I wanted to be directly involved. During my first few years at Microsoft, I found myself becoming more and more drawn to the idea of doing something meaningful without any strings attached. Microsoft is undoubtedly doing amazing things for the world, and I was lucky to be able to participate in those activities. I launched a campaign focused on drawing attention to the staggering gender gap in STEM and helped state CIOs envision a new future for constituent engagement. Microsoft was the conduit for me to start flexing my do-gooder muscles again and the spark for my renewed interest in doing something good for my community.

What I didn’t realize and appreciate at the time was that I was actually building a robust skillset that would equip me to serve in a way that I would never have imagined. The roles I had, from Global Advertising to U.S. State & Local Government, were setting me up for an opportunity that was only possible because of the skills I developed. And I’m not just talking technical marketing skills…I’m talking about learning how to manage a campaign team, collaborating with stakeholders across the company, mentoring early in career hires and reverse mentoring executives, knowing how to deescalate conflict. Microsoft gave me the skillset to confidently make a leap into a new, impact-oriented space.