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Anne Moser’s hometown was so small that it had one yellow blinking light. “You blink, you missed it,” she jokes.

Fast forward a few decades, and she’s become COO of the Food Division, Guckenheimer, a leading food service provider for businesses in the US, overseeing operations across North America, leading a complete corporate rebrand in the middle of a pandemic, and managing everything from cashierless cafeterias to sustainability initiatives for global tech giants and Fortune 500 clients.

Loaded and Ready

The day after finishing her undergraduate degree in Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management, Moser did what any ambitious 22-year-old would do. She loaded up her car and drove to the Bay Area, hitting the road with everything she owned.

Aramark hired her into their leadership development program – corporate in name, gritty in reality. She worked in operations as a catering manager, food production manager, and general manager. Then came the training role, which meant flying to different cities to train staff for days at a time.

She loved it.

She eventually oversaw all food service for The Los Angeles Times. After marrying and relocating to Northern California, she joined Compass Group which was rapidly acquiring regional and national food companies and stitching them into a unified operation. Once there, she rose from district manager to regional director to VP for California and Nevada. 

The Financial Crisis and a Phone Call

Then 2008 hit.

“A lot of things had changed both with the company and, of course, that’s when the financial crisis hit,” Moser says. After she left Compass, clients immediately began calling, asking her to come work for them. One of them had moved to Johnson Controls.

There they wanted her to manage facilities instead of food service. The work wasn’t so different – still client-focused, contract-driven, and people-centered. The only real shift was the output: cleaning buildings and keeping them running instead of feeding people.

In her first year, she managed openings, closings, and transitions. Then she was asked to take on a global account in crisis. “It was a dire situation,” she says. They needed someone to turn things around or get out.

One moment stood out. After a small electrical fire during a shutdown, the engineering team wanted to dive into a full root-cause analysis. Moser wanted to address the immediate issue and keep things moving. Different approaches, different priorities - and a sign it might be time for something new.

That’s when the recruiter called about Guckenheimer.

Thirteen Years of Everything

Guckenheimer was at a turning point. The founder had died, his wife had taken over, and the company needed leaders from the industry willing to rethink the status quo.

Moser stayed for 13 and a half years. The first five were pure growth, family-run business style - 35% expansion within the first couple of years. Then a global facilities firm acquired them. By 2020, the business had doubled.

“If you’re in California and COVID hit, you were sent home. So we had no one to feed.”

The company pivoted again. Moser again transitioned from food to facilities, becoming  Head of the Office Division for North America. They provided every service that keeps a building running and she managed it all for two years.

Post-COVID, the firm embarked on a full rebrand – and asked Anne to step in to lead as COO.

Back to School

So, Moser did what any rational person would do…she went back to school.

“It had been a few years since I’d been in college,” she says. “What I didn’t want to do was just memorize and take tests.”

She wanted in-person learning and looked at programs across Silicon Valley, but Leavey had something unique. “I said, ‘I have a lot of big company experience. What I don’t have is all this entrepreneur startup experience.’”

Plus, the Executive MBA format meant real projects with real impact at work. “I wanted to interact, be able to use it in current knowledge,” she says. “And I wanted to get to know the cohort because half of the learning comes from the people you interact with.”

Her cohort was diverse, with people from tech companies and startups. Moser brought operations and big company complexity. “It was very eye-opening to see how different kinds of industries work.”

Midnight on the East Coast

The timing was brutal. She was traveling constantly for Guckenheimer. Group projects scheduled for 9 PM Pacific meant midnight on the East Coast. Then she’d be up early for work.

“That can be challenging,” she says.

But the immediate payoff was undeniable. Marketing classes fed directly into the rebranding work. She pulled Barry Posner’s Leadership Challenge book off the shelf when thinking through stakeholder management. “How do we win the hearts and minds? How do we have the data?”

The Capstone project meant presenting to real investors about how to grow a business, what it would take, what would bring value. Her employer was a global company that bought other companies. “They would ask those same questions. So to be able to really understand what they would be looking for and how to have the conversation the right way was invaluable.”

She learned to give options. “One of the professors said, you need a minimum of two solutions.” It stuck. Years later, when her team wanted to tell a client they had to do something one specific way, she’d ask: “Great. What’s an alternative? Don’t give them yes-no. Give them A or B and what’s the upside of both?”

Her employer got a lot out of those twenty months of school, plus a few years after where she continued to bring forth learnings into the workplace. She could ask questions differently. Understand someone else’s perspective, where they were coming from, how it fit the bigger picture. “The way I communicated with them, as well as understanding their point of view, was super helpful.”

The Advice She’d Give Herself

If she could go back and talk to 22-year-old Anne, loading up that car in Oregon, what would she say?

“Be more confident in yourself.”

Know where you want to go. Know yourself well enough that if something’s not right, you fix it. Or you get out.

And network. “I know that feels awkward,” she admits. But serving on boards and exploring new opportunities has reinforced how powerful those relationships can be. Especially within the Santa Clara alumni network. 

“If you reach out to alumni on LinkedIn with a question, almost nobody will say nonobody says no. They almost always say yes, of course, you’re an alumni.”

And when someone reaches out asking her for ten minutes? She’ll say yes. Then she’ll actively look for ways to help them. “That’s what you need to do to keep networking and find your way to new jobs, new opportunities.”

And then the final piece: “Be daring,” she says. “Go big. Find what fits. Find your strength.”

For Moser, that strength came from being willing to try different things, following instinct, and trusting her ability to adapt. 

The yellow light is still blinking back in Oregon. But Anne Moser stopped watching it a long time ago. She’s too busy teaching the next generation how to keep moving forward.