“I loved Paris,” Peterson underscores, and her romance with the French language and dream of writing a book combined to make her single-minded pursuit of living there after graduation a reality. But the practicalities of earning money rather than relying on withdrawals from the “bank of mom and dad” and full-time work permit issues for non-native individuals meant Peterson had to get creative in order to land a proper job.

She combed the college’s alumni list and found one who was living in Paris and working for Citibank. She sent him a letter of introduction emphasizing her writing and ability to tell and analyze stories. “He embraced this idea that writing is a critical skill,” says Peterson and hired her despite the fact that she didn’t know anything about banking.

She did make an important realization in the early days of working for the bank. “Numbers tell stories, too.”

Although Peterson confesses she spent some time crying in the bathroom, she did make an important realization in the early days of working for the bank. “Numbers tell stories, too,” she explains. So she mustered her creative resources, started researching, and asking lots of questions of senior bankers. The result was a narrative analysis that she calls her “debut” in nonfiction writing. During this time, Peterson also pursued an MBA from the London Business School.

It was fun to figure everything out for a while, but Peterson was looking for something more creative and innovative. Naturally, she turned to tech. Sending her resume to a number of businesses in Silicon Valley garnered a call back from Microsoft. Peterson became a business strategy manager for a time before heading into e-commerce at Drugstore.com. Peterson eventually came back to Microsoft and in her current role says she leans more on her writing and storytelling skills than she does on her MBA.