Lauren Tang, 27

Lauren Tang was a demand-planning analyst at L’Oreal when a recruiter asked her to consider a job with Heineken USA in White Plains. Though cosmetics and beer are “very different worlds,” she went through the interview process and made the switch in 2015, becoming a sales & operations analyst. “It seemed like the right leap of faith,” recalls Tang. With a degree in mathematics and economics, Tang makes use of a rare ability to bridge technical expertise with interpersonal skills. She quickly rose in the company, from analyst to operations. In her current role, she’s charged with overseeing Heineken USA’s processes for forecasting demand for all the company’s products in the US. Tang has put in place a unified system of sales reporting, which had been done differently among the various regions and brands, “to get a better grasp of the business as a whole.” She has also established a stock-keeping-unit rationalization process, which is a systematic method for understanding the value that each product adds to the company’s portfolio of offerings.