Background and Approach
My career progression in support operations has been intentional, and my experience uniquely positions me with a deep understanding of customer experience and support infrastructure. I pivoted my career into tech following my passion for people and innovative technology, and spent the last 7 years helping Microsoft customers navigate challenges across cloud services and supporting Microsoft's cloud platform. I entered the technology space with an established foundation in leadership, operations, and customer service. While learning the support platform, I was also evaluating processes, identifying opportunities for improvement, and viewing operations through a business lens. That perspective accelerated my success and provided a framework for developing a deeper insight and understanding of how to drive customer support and operational excellence.
As the site support operations lead, I was responsible for enabling support engineer success, process and workflow optimization, ticket backlog health across the site, and ensuring timely resolution of customer's issues. When I stepped into the role, the U.S. team was the lowest performing site globally. We carried a backlog of more than 1,200 cases, with nearly 60% aged beyond 30 days. Working closely with the Technical Leads, I implemented a series of targeted process improvements that reduced the backlog by 70%—from 1,200 to 350 cases—in just three weeks. Customer satisfaction scores improved significantly and the U.S. site reached performance targets for the first time in five years. The performance turn-around received global recognition and drew attention from Microsoft leadership.
Heather A. Rousseau
"I am always seeking to understand, whether it's how something works or how someone thinks. I'm drawn to people and the perspective they provide"
I'm known for my ability to see past the issue sitting on the table to understand the bigger picture, and identify a solution and best path forward. I'm not content on the surface data and enjoy digging deep into data to spot the patterns that others miss and the insight that matters. I am always seeking to understand… whether it's how something works, or how someone thinks. I love learning from others My knowledge is built upon experience and perspective from the time I've spent walking in other's shoes.
Focus Areas
and Expertise
Customer Focus
Knowledge
Great customer service is knowing the customer, understanding the issue, and seeing what the customer needs to succeed even when they don't. Listening to what the customer says, then stand in their shoes to understand how they feel. Communicate with clarity, set realistic expectation, and follow through on every promise - even when nobody is watching.
Passionate to share knowledge — not just information on a screen, but understanding that comes from experience. Trained ability to translate complex technical concepts and communicate understanding through extensive study of Adult Learning Theory and how people think and grounded in deep cloud architecture expertise. Experienced building and managing a scalable learning platform, and fostering a culture of continuous learning where knowledge sharing drives team growth.
Data Analytics
Leadership
Looking beyond the line graphs tracking metrics in a performance dashboard. Reaching deep into the data to uncover the hidden patterns that others miss and surfacing insight that matters. Relating patterns to behaviors to see "behind the scenes" of the story told by the numbers, and using this insight to drive outcomes and deliver results.
Approach is centered on leadership, more than management, and belief that people perform best when they feel supported, trusted, and accountable to a common goal. Team development starts with shared ownership and building a culture of collaboration where success is measured by team performance and where individual contribution drives collective outcomes.
Guiding principles
"When you took the time to recognize my good work and give me tips to make it even better, things began to change for me professionally and personally. I became more confident in my work and the man I am."
- Former Colleague, TeKnowledge
Set Expectations,
Don't Chase Metrics
Driving the right expectations is the foundation for building successful support teams.
Performance metrics measure how well a team is doing — they give leaders a measurable outcome and insight into what's working and where to improve. But many leaders miss the relationship between data and behavior. When a team misses its KPI targets, leaders often default to blaming poor management or weak process, and respond by working harder, adding more control, and layering in rigid process. That rarely fixes anything.
The real problem is often the effort put into chasing the target in the first place.
Early career
Heather grew up in Colorado, where the scent of pine and the quiet hum of nature shaped her sense of home. Today, she works remotely from a desk that looks out onto the same kind of landscape that raised her—open sky, tall trees, and the steady calm that comes with knowing exactly where you belong.
Early in her career, she dedicated herself to nonprofit work, ultimately serving for ten years as the Operations Director of a retreat and conference center situated on 400 acres of meadows and ponderosa pines. In this role, she oversaw guest services, dining operations, and a year‑round and seasonal staff of up to 30 employees. She also managed more than a dozen historic buildings, including structures originally part of artist and philanthropist Alice Bemis Taylor’s summer estate.
Heather directed all financial operations, processed payroll, and served as the organization’s HR administrator. Among her notable achievements was securing a place for one of the campus buildings on the National Register of Historic Places and the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties, as well as writing a successful restoration grant. Embracing the property’s rich history, she partnered with the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and the Bemis School of Art to develop a popular day‑camp program, and collaborated with local historians to raise funds and organize a conference that welcomed Ute tribal members back to ancestral land.
Throughout her tenure, Heather coordinated dozens of community events and generated more than $500,000 in additional annual revenue through fundraising initiatives and donor development. After the Black Forest Fire of 2013 devastated the surrounding community, she helped establish the “Black Forest Strong” organization, a seven‑point recovery plan offering grief counseling, community resources, victim assistance, preservation efforts, reseeding projects, and mitigation training.
In 2009, Heather co‑founded MeadowGrass, a three‑day music festival created in partnership with a local NPR station and several foundations. As producer and event manager, she brought national headliners to the property each Memorial Day weekend for five years. The festival’s success led to the creation of a new foundation to continue its production, and MeadowGrass—now in its 17th year—is a well‑established destination for music lovers across the United States.
Heather considers her greatest accomplishment to be the growth and success of the people she worked with. She attributes her own achievements to the wisdom, encouragement, and small moments of insight shared by others throughout her life—interactions that shaped her perspective and strengthened her sense of purpose. These experiences taught her the profound impact words can have and inspired her commitment to making a positive difference in every interaction, regardless of role or title.
She values genuine connection and invests deeply in helping colleagues, customers, and communities thrive. Outside of work, Heather enjoys photography and expressing her creativity through painting. She is actively developing a series of children’s books and writing a novel—one of her lifelong ambitions.
