When Clark left Tulane in 1993 with a Bachelor’s Degree in History he planned to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a lawyer. But after listening to advice from his father, he eventually found himself on a different path.

“He gave me some really good advice, telling me to go work at a law firm before going to law school,” Clark said. “And I did it for a couple of years, had an amazing experience, but quickly found out it wasn’t for me.”

This realization came right around the time of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta where Clark was living and he took a job with a sports marketing firm where he handled Kodak and Coca-Cola as clients. It was through those jobs – being in the right place at the right time – that he met people at Lotus and IBM, which is how he got his first position in the tech industry. 

“When you had a Lotus product and you had a problem or question, you looked at the 1-800 number on the back of the box, and that’s where I started in the industry,” said Clark. “So I started by taking inbound questions about our products or things along those lines. And then I parlayed that into an outbound sales job over the phone.”

Answering those questions about Lotus, which was the software leader in spreadsheets in the mid-90s, led to a 20-year rise in Microsoft from Enterprise Account Executive to Sales Manager to General Manager to eventually Vice President, US Small, Medium and Corporate, a position he held until June of 2018. In each role, he made the most of his opportunities.

“Sometimes the entry point into great companies are jobs like answering the phone all day long,” Clark said. “FInding an entry point, being incredibly curious, and continuing to explore what other opportunities may exist. I went from that entry level job to running a multi-billion dollar business at Microsoft. And then I decided to take the jump to Google Cloud because they were doing some really interesting things and we were building a business. 

And it was a great opportunity to move back to the D.C. area and a great opportunity to have my kids attend St. Andrew’s.”

What drew Clark to Google Cloud was the opportunity to “build a business inside a great brand.” Three things enticed him to take the job: The chance to build something special, to play the role of disruptor - which he defines as helping companies to be able to transform and keep up with the times while transforming their products or services - and to establish a marquee brand in the most important markets and cities in North America.

“That was all very exciting to me,” Clark said. “Those are the three things that brought me here and those are the three things that have kept me super excited over the past six years.”

When Clark moved back to the DMV, his son, Will ‘22, was a rising ninth-grader, his daughter, Charlotte ‘24, was a rising seventh-grader, and his daughter, Alice ‘28, was a rising third-grader. In fact, Clark and his wife, Anne, applied their kids to St. Andrew’s before knowing for sure that he would have the position at Google.

Bringing his own children to St. Andrew’s always felt like the right thing for Clark, who enjoyed the fact that some of his own teachers, like John McMIllen and Tracey Goodrich, would have the chance to teach his children. 

“First and foremost, the quality of the educators at the school is off the charts. St. Andrew’s did a really good job for me as a student. It was a challenging environment but an incredibly supportive one. And I still, to this day, stay in touch with many of my close friends from St. Andrew’s. And it was just the right place at the right time for me.

“I was there from eighth grade through 12th grade. Any school that can hold onto great teachers for 25-plus years - that’s a testament to the school itself.”