This month our faculty feature highlights Peter Commons, Operations and Information Management Senior Lecturer at the Wisconsin School of Business! Peter’s expertise is rooted in his almost 30 years of industry experience in CTO, CPO, and VP level roles, leading the design and development of customer-impacting and revenue-driving software for multi-billion-dollar companies including Apple, Amazon, Groupon, and Zendesk. Peter designs his courses to be both relevant and applicable to the industry by sharing knowledge and anecdotes related to his professional experience. For the MS in Business Analytics students, Peter teaches a course in project management.
From Software Engineer to Product Lead
Peter began his career journey as a software engineer before beginning to gravitate towards roles where he could develop both products and people. During his time at Amazon, Peter had the opportunity to work on multiple teams, switching to roles in differing arms of the company as his interests and skills evolved. “Taking on a new challenge can be fresh and interesting and provide a new perspective,” Peter says on his progression, mentioning work done on everything from the Kindle team to Amazon Fresh Grocery. However, one thing that remained constant for Peter was the selection of roles that allowed for leadership of both the tech and product teams. Peter explains wanting to drive not only a good build process, but a good customer focus where he was able to make a difference in the user experience. This customer centric focus drove him to move to Chicago and take on the CPO role.
A Calling to Teach
A passion that didn’t go unnoticed by Peter during his career was his desire to teach. “When I switched in from an individual contributor role to a manager role, I realized that one of the things I loved doing was growing and developing people,” Peter shares. Leading his team and stepping in to teach corporate classes helped Peter determine the trajectory of his next career move. During the transition period brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Peter found a serendipitous opportunity to join WSB. “It’s definitely been a career change; I’ve had to learn a lot. Teaching a 2–4-hour corporate class is very different from teaching a semester long class, but I’ve been very much enjoying it,” admits Peter.
Combining his aptitude for teaching with his expertise on how analytics are used to drive decision making in the business world, Peter provides unique value to every student he encounters. A key focus in his courses is on building beyond the raw skills needed and teaching students how to effectively develop a thoughtful, rational approach to propose projects to leadership at a company. “You can’t just have a good idea; you need to be able to present it,” Peter emphasizes. Peter explains that his professional experience contributes to numerus anecdotes that are applicable to almost every class concept, allowing him to bring things into a real-world perspective and help students anticipate challenges they will potentially face. Peter ensures students know how to set themselves up for success in their careers while also emphasizing the necessity of preparing them for the inevitable possibility that things won’t go as planned. In-class interactive simulations create a dynamic that emulates the real-world with ambiguity, building a skillset that includes efficient adaptability.
Making an Impact
Peter shares the most impactful part of his job is seeing the difference he has made for students. “A student emailed me and said, ‘I just finished your product management class and we’re in a team meeting in the office. What you taught me was invaluable and I’ve been able to lead the discussion in a much better direction by leveraging some of the skills I’ve learned.’”
Growth over Grades
Leaving current and future MSBA students with advice from the perspective of his role hiring at multiple organizations, Peter says to prioritize an accumulation of learning experiences during your time at the University as opposed to focusing solely on optimizing your GPA. “School is an opportunity to just learn a bunch of stuff, so what I would encourage people most is to be brave and try new things because this is the environment where you can do whatever you want and learn whatever you want.” Peter explains that using these learning experiences to elaborate on the “how” and “why” behind your decision-making process helps exemplify your ability to adapt in interviews, an especially important skill in a consistently evolving industry.
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