Frank Cappelli
What company do you currently work at?
Oracle Corporation
What is the title of your current job position?
Senior Solutions Consultant
What year did you graduate?
2011
What were you involved with at Tech?
PSE – President and Business Horizons – Corporate Correspondence Chair
What have you done post-graduation?
Booz Allen Hamilton - Primarily supported the National Institute of Health with software procurement and implementation initiatives. I worked for Booz Allen as part of a pilot co-op program during the spring semester during my junior year, and I continued to have an active role in the program as a mentor to new co-op participants when I worked for Booz after graduation.
Ceridian - Held three different positions in the 5 years I worked at Ceridian. Worked primarily with the Human Capital Management platform Dayforce. At Ceridian I sold the HCM product, was a Solutions Consultant and then became the product manager for strategic integrations between Dayforce and other enterprise HCM and ERP software systems.
What were some of your biggest professional accomplishments since graduating?
Led the product release of two software integration product offerings for Ceridian who was going through a successful IPO at the time
Multiple Presidents Circle award winner
What did VT Marketing (PSE) do to prepare you for your professional career?
PSE - Every semester we would travel to a regional or national competition where we would be able to compete in a number of different sales/marketing competitions. The process of getting the case studies, preparing the business proposals and delivering them to groups of professionals is something that anyone - regardless of profession - would benefit greatly from.
Market Research/Data - I owe this one completely to Donna Wertalik! Even though I was not a marketing major, Donna knew that I had an interest in working with data so she let me assist her and the Marketing Department on a market research project which was my first real exposure to how Big Data and Marketing are so closely tied together.
Leadership - I was really fortunate to hold leadership positions in two great Pamplin organizations (PSE and Business Horizons) which has proved invaluable professionally as a leader of individual teams
Would you like to include any pieces of advice for VT marketing students?
Get Involved! There are tons of ways for you to get real world experience in all of the different facets of marketing while you are in Pamplin. It will allow you to figure out if what you are working on is something you will want to do professionally after graduation. Learn how to use Excel! You will be using excel far more then you ever imagined in the real world.
Most rewarding thing about your career right now?
In my current role, I get to work with customers who are looking to improve their Human Capital Management software systems/processes - Human Resources, Payroll, Benefits, Learning Management systems etc - which requires me to do in depth analysis of their current processes and rebuild them for customers. It is really fun to get to work with such different organizations and get an understanding of how they operate - from NFL HR departments on how the need to manage their Employees(players), Multi-National Manufacturing organizations on their Union agreements, to some of the largest breweries in the world and the initiatives they take on to engage and inspire their employees.
Most challenging thing about your career right now?
Keeping up to date with the rapidly changing technology that we work with on an everyday basis.