Her Story
About Andrea
I started my career in the mental health field, where I spent about 10 years working my way up from receptionist to medical auditor, data analyst, and eventually business office manager. While working on the business side with finances, accounting, and serving as representative payee for individuals who couldn't manage their own funds, I discovered my passion for the financial aspects of business. This led me to pursue my MBA with a focus on finance. After finishing my master's degree, I received a call from Convergint Technologies asking me to interview for an Office and Finance Manager position in Orange. After 7 interviews, they offered me the role, and I took a leap of faith, leaving the comfort of mental health to enter the technology security industry, something completely outside my realm of experience. The first year was very rough as I struggled to understand the processes and what the company was really about. But through trials and errors, I realized I could turn things around, especially in the accounts receivable field. I learned about collections, invoicing, billing, and how the different departments work together - sales, operations, install, and service. I built processes and assembled my own team, creating a system where all departments collaborate with my finance and admin department to optimize cash flow. My main goal has been to reduce the DSO (days sales outstanding) for the office. When I started 4 years ago, we were at almost 60 days, and we're now at 32 days, which is within the ideal range of 28-32 days. Our collections percentage has improved from 41% to a steady 50%. This success comes from building processes from the ground up and ensuring everything starts correctly from sales, with accurate proposals and favorable terms, so that operations can install correctly, we can bill correctly, and customers pay without surprises. I've since been promoted to regional, now overseeing not just Orange County and LA, but also Bakersfield, San Diego, Arizona, Nevada, and Northern California. I manage 3 billers and 4 collectors across the region, ensuring they invoice timely and correctly, collect payments, and remove any roadblocks. I also review all bookings coming in from sales to ensure contracts have favorable terms for Convergint. It's demanding work - I often work 15-20 hour days, sometimes staying up until 2 in the morning to ensure everything gets done. But I'm proud of the team I've built and the culture of integrity and communication we've established together.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Andrea
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would say my hard work, my inability to give up. I'm a person that I own my position on the team, and have that integrity to do what's right. I think that's one of the reasons why I took the leap of faith of coming into this industry from mental health - when the values and beliefs were shown to me, I realized, wow, that is in my core. I own my position, and regardless, in any position that I was, that's the reason why I think I work so hard - because I own it, and if I'm given a task, I'm going to do the best that I can. And you know what? My mom. She taught me all of this hard work. Seeing her, I wouldn't have all this, because she's the one that taught me to work hard.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I'll never forget when I was in the mental health field, the clinical director told me something as I was moving up from data analyst to business office manager. She said, 'Little by little, Andrea, you're moving up,' and then she advised me: 'Don't give up on who you are, the joy, happy person that you are. Because the higher up you get, the lonelier it gets.' I'm very outgoing, very giddy, coming into the office with a 'good morning, everybody, happy Tuesday' type of mentality. But it is very true, and I've always held on to that. The higher up you go in any business, the lonelier it gets, because you do have to have those hard conversations when you become a supervisor or manager - conversations with individuals that aren't performing well. Sometimes that means you may not be liked, or you may not be the favorite at that moment. Always remembering that advice made me realize that I don't have to always please everyone. If we need to do things the right way, and I need to performance manage or coach someone, I have to do it, even if it means having those conversations and not having those friends or acquaintances that I once did at a different level. And that's okay. That's just how it is.
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