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Looking back, Jeff Coulter is not exactly certain how he landed a spot on a team tasked with designing and implementing the first-ever budgeting and reporting processes responsible for tracking Procter & Gamble\u2019s marketing dollars on a single worldwide system.

\u201cP&G had hundreds of disparate setups that we had to bring into one system globally,\u201d explains Coulter, recalling the effort behind the information systems upgrade with SAP software that many at the time (the year 2000) deemed to be a historic milestone not only for the packaged goods company but also for industry at large.

Coulter had been plucked out of Procter & Gamble\u2019s Iowa City office, where he had been working as a cost analyst for such products as Pantene and Scope. The new assignment required Coulter to relocate to Cincinnati, where for the next 2 years he became involved in multiple aspects of the implementation, including the rollout of SAP end-user training across P&G globally.

\u201cAt the time, any career management at Procter & Gamble was essentially the result of a benevolent dictatorship\u2014you were basically told where you were going to go next,\u201d remembers Coulter, who adds that the experience and training that he gleaned along his P&G way made his time there a very worthy investment.

Still, Coulter was eager to return west. Living close to family had always been a priority for the young finance executive, and Cincinnati turned out to be not so short a stint.  

Consequently, while geography is perhaps not the first reason that people give for having joined Intel Corporation, for Coulter\u2014who would first join the chip maker\u2019s Portland, Oregon, complex\u2014it was certainly among his top three impetuses.

To move from a consumer products company to a technology company may seem unconventional, but Coulter tells us that his love for learning and his growth mindset helped him to adapt quickly at Intel, where he would remain for the next 6 years. He emphasizes the versatility of finance, which allows professionals to work across various industries.

Says Coulter: \u201cI love learning business models and figuring out how they\u2019re making money and how to optimize that.\u201d \u2013Jack Sweeney