Meet a Helpful Human – Wes Mills

We’re the employees you would hire if you could. Responsive, helpful, and dedicated in ways automation simply can’t be. We’re your team.

Each month we recognize one of our Most Helpful Humans in Hosting.

Meet Wes

Wes Mills is our amazing “mad” data scientist at Liquid Web in charge making the magic happen by curating and organizing the large amounts of data that comes into Liquid Web. In other words, he makes our customer experience better through data analysis and objective process changes.

Wes is obsessed with the behaviors of people and how they connect and intersect, making his work in analytics and marketing the perfect fit for him at Liquid Web.

Why did you join Liquid Web?

After graduating from the University of Texas with a B.B.A. in Marketing and Economics in 2013, I ventured out to find a career that married digital marketing with behavioral economics. Data was plentiful and interesting, which made the choice easy to start my career at an agency.

I continued to expand my breadth of experiences across the business, which led me into other quantitative roles in a handful of other great organizations, including Rackspace.

When the opportunity for Liquid Web presented itself, I knew it was a perfect fit—both in terms of the culture at Liquid Web and the solutions required for the business to grow. I had finally found a role that brought data science and marketing together along with an amazing group of brilliant people."

What draws you to the hosting industry as a career?

I'm drawn to the hosting industry because of two things: first, businesses are moving to the cloud and it's enabling smaller companies to scale their output with minimal cost. Second, as the industry matures, differentiation becomes a lot more important which brings unique challenges and problems to solve at Liquid Web. These are the exact challenges I knew I could help with entering the door at Liquid Web.

Is there something specific at Liquid Web that you just love?

I love that Liquid Web is able to be agile, even in the area of data and analytics. For instance, we’ve adopted new tools that help us gather data from disparate sources, analyze data much more quickly, and tell our stories in a more compelling way with the latest visualization tools. That helps our teams make data-based decisions in real-time, giving us an edge on the competition.

What’s your favorite part about the company culture at Liquid Web?

Customer-facing or not, everyone is truly a Helpful Human in Hosting™. If I'm curious about how something works at Liquid Web, I know someone will be more than happy to walk me through it. And that isn’t common in today’s workplace."

For instance, when I first joined, one of our Software Architects named Mike was patient in explaining how our customers check out online, and he answered every question I threw at him (some even late into the night!).

Through our collaboration and his brilliance, we were able to gain insight that made buying Liquid Web products much easier online for customers. And that’s a win everyone is now enjoying.

In your eyes, what’s the difference between Liquid Web and other employers?

Liquid Web has a culture of allowing all to voice opinions or thoughts—everyone has a voice. With a flat hierarchy, meaning everyone is treated equally whether you’re a manager or a VP. Everyone has a say in how things are done.

This leads to better business decisions company-wide and higher morale for all employees.

What is the biggest milestone you’ve accomplished?

The biggest milestone I've accomplished at Liquid Web is being able to answer questions using data we've never consumed before. With analytics, we can ask better questions and form hypotheses that may solve critical roadblocks hindering achieving revenue goals.

A great example of this is better understanding the value of display ads. Giving marketing leaders insight on the value of display and other marketing channels makes our marketing team run more efficiently through attributing value to marketing channels that are working, and rerouting funds away from ones that are not.

I also loved being part of the National Cybersecurity Awareness Month video series, helping to raise awareness about how data science can secure your data. Check it out!

Tell us about the most positive experience you have had at Liquid Web.

The most positive experience I've had at Liquid Web is expanding the analytics team and scaling the impact the team can have. A two-man analytics team turned into three, which exponentially increased the amount of information we shared across Liquid Web along with the quality of insights shared. In addition, watching our new team member develop and learn difficult skills quickly has been incredibly rewarding.

What are you known for at Liquid Web? What do people specifically come to you for?

I'm known at Liquid Web for being the go-to on marketing analytics, customer behavior, and automating manual processes (who doesn’t love automating mundane work?). For instance, we used to gather insights from a third-party organization on our customers by pulling a manual list of customers. Now, we have automated the process, giving back extra time to the team to achieve more.

Work aside, what are some of your hobbies?

I'm a musician (guitar is the primary tool of choice), and I love GarageBand—you can record, mix, and produce anywhere you are!

What is your favorite TV show?

The Bachelor. It’s like watching a behavioral economics experiment. How do people deal with scarcity? Or, better, how does one deal with excess supply? Let the drama commence.

If you could have dinner with one famous person [dead or alive] who would it be?

Cornelius Vanderbilt, the business magnate known for owning the New York Central Railroad. He was able to shape the very geography of the United States by laying the infrastructure that would make transportation across vast distances possible. He used the latest technologies to organize his businesses differently. This is what inspires me in my career—never sticking to the status quo and always being willing to do things differently.

You can follow Wes Mills on LinkedIn.

We hope you enjoyed our series, and stay tuned for the next Most Helpful Human in Hosting profile.