Ben Candea

Experience

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  Noteworthy AI

  Chief of Staff, Fractional

  Dec 2023 - Present

  Noteworthy AI provides fleet vehicle-mounted smart cameras and AI that help utilities evaluate the condition of the electric distribution grid at-scale.

  • Investor relations: Coordinates and prepares materials for board meetings and correspondence, including agendas, metrics, and reports, increasing CEO’s available time for executive work
  • Operations: Created company’s first inventory forecast, providing a much-used tool to better understand cash flows, hardware needs for sales pipeline, and procurement lead times
  • People operations: Recruited company’s first full-stack software engineer, including reviewing resumes, performing initial phone screens, and supporting onboarding
  • Finance: Coordinates and supports monthly and quarterly financial close with external accounting and financial staff
  • OKRs: Manages setting of OKRs, collaborating with team leads to define, track, and measure progress, ensuring transparency and accountability for execution and results
  • Strategic initiatives: Partnered with CEO on application to Connecticut energy program by drafting proposals, coordinating cross-functional teams, and liaising with external stakeholders
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  Arcadia

  Consultant | ex-Manager, Operations and Strategy

  Sep 2022 - Present

  Arcadia is a climate technology company enabling a zero-carbon economy. Its Arc platform combines easy-to-use data and APIs under one roof to allow any company to act on its environmental impact and build the next generation of energy products and climate tech solutions. Arcadia also manages the nation’s leading community solar program with more than 2 GWs under management.

  • Decision support: Leads community solar revenue forecasting and supply-demand balance reporting, partnering with senior leadership to provide critical insights that aided their decision-making in driving $50M+ rev
  • Financial modeling: Decreased monthly forecast-to-actuals variance by 60% ($500k to $200k) by enhancing collaboration among cross-functional teams and improving revenue calculations
  • Business intelligence: Streamlined supply-demand balance report drafting from 10 hours/week to 2 by optimizing data inputs, managing SQL queries, scaling analyses, and automating workflows
  • GTM support: Supported business development team in securing $500M+ in new supply deals through thorough analysis of community solar market dynamics and accurate revenue forecasts
  • Leadership: Created comprehensive truth for supply-demand balance by translating business needs into data requirements and leading and directing data scientists in building out data architecture
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  ESPN

  Senior Manager, Corporate Strategy

  Feb 2021 - Mar 2022

  ESPN is the leading multinational, multimedia sports entertainment company featuring the broadest portfolio of multimedia sports assets with over 50 business entities.

  • Annual planning: Developed annual operating plans for C-level executives by collaborating with and motivating internal stakeholders, analyzing diverse datasets, and presenting recommendations to leadership
  • Strategic initiatives: Supported C-level executives in negotiating $100M+ broadcast rights deal by researching market dynamics, viewership, and fandom and presenting recommendations
  • Project management: Modeled P&L scenarios, analyzed market dynamics, and presented strategy recommendation to C-level executives to discontinue email newsletter that cost 100+ employee hou
  • Partnerships: Supported execution that drove $50k incremental revenue for new College Football Playoffs distribution by collaborating with external and internal partners, analyzing market, and developing strategy
  • Leadership: Secured $100k in resource allocation for TikTok social media expansion by leading production associates in designing audience expansion project and presenting plan to C-level executives
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  ESPN

  Senior Manager, Digital Operations and Strategy

  May 2019 - Feb 2021

  ESPN is the leading multinational, multimedia sports entertainment company featuring the broadest portfolio of multimedia sports assets with over 50 business entities.

  • Business intelligence: Supported content initiatives that grew monthly active users by 22% (90M+ to 110M+) by creating and maintaining dashboards for KPIs and performance measures
  • Strategic initatives: Drove consistent year-over-year user growth for Apple News channel by implementing effective strategies, setting OKRs, managing product requests, and tracking KPIs
  • Business process improvement: Improved report output for three cross-functional teams by 25% through the development and enhancement of a project management system for streamlined data evaluation
  • Partnerships: Secured content distribution deals worth $250K+ ARR by effectively managing vendor contracts, conducting ROI forecasting, and fostering collaboration with multiple cross-functional teams
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  ABC News

  Editor, Digital Content Distribution Strategy

  Jan 2014 - May 2019

  ABC News is the news division of the American television network ABC.

  • Data analysis: Managed a/b testing program, effectively analyzed outcomes, and reported actionable recommendations to content teams, leading to a 30% increase in article click-through rates
  • Cross-functional collaboration: Directed weekend digital editorial staff and fostered essential relationships with newsroom partners, resulting in a 10% increase in content output
  • Product management: Oversaw the development of three internal publishing tools, utilized by over 100 employees, reducing the time for one-line breaking news publication from 90 to 60 seconds - a 30% improvement in speed
  • Partnerships: Increased ROI of distribution deals by 5% by designing scalable workflows and improving communication with partners
  • Knowledge management: Led comprehensive onboarding and training programs and owned team knowledge management, ensuring seamless transitioning for new editors