Chris Anderson has been involved in TEI for ten years and has, in the last several years, stepped up in leadership. Right now, Anderson is vice president of the Silicon Valley Chapter, and next year he will serve as president. In addition to his local chapter duties, he is also TEI’s Financial Reporting Committee chair. Anderson is currently vice president of tax operations at Meta, a role integral to all activities of the tax department.
As a leader of the TEI Silicon Valley Chapter, he says, “I think the most important thing is to connect professionals together in a way that they can collaborate and build a community where people can really get practical application and problem-
solving skills and connect on problems that we see in industry.”
Building community allows his colleagues to “see the broader landscape,” Anderson says. “Can you see around the corner and understand what your peers are doing and maybe think about different ways to solve problems?”
On the Silicon Valley Chapter
Anderson shared that the Silicon Valley Chapter has a deep focus on the tax community in the tech world. It’s a place where if you don’t know anyone—as Anderson didn’t when he arrived in the region ten years ago—within a few years, you’ll have a network of colleagues you can rely on. Anderson says that as someone who wasn’t from the area at all, or even from the tech industry, he felt very welcomed.
What Anderson finds most challenging about supporting his TEI chapter isn’t the tax work itself, but the administrative burden of running conferences, finding hotels, and other time-consuming tasks. But to him, it’s all worth it, because they help to create the networking that he feels is so important to the tax world.
He’s very proud of the chapter’s Federal Tax School, Software Day, and other events, which, as he puts it, “are for a lot of small and mid-sized companies that don’t really have a great community. . . . The national events have just taken off, and we just started the international one that seems to be doing really well.”
Anderson’s attention to creating community really shows in his passion for connecting others. Anderson says his chapter’s roundtable events have created even more community discussion and learning. These roundtables are available for all TEI members and cover a wide variety of topics. These are “the connections you want,” he says, “people getting to know each other and talking about issues that they face on a practical nature.”
Anderson balances his life with activities ranging from mountain biking (the Santa Cruz Mountains are his favorite) and volunteering for the board of the BD Performing Arts (its premier program being the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps).
Anderson sees a big connection between his past in music and in tax. There’s always a hard deadline, he says. Whether it’s time for a performance or if it’s the end of a fiscal quarter and he needs to focus on getting his documents in order, he’s always ready to do what needs to be done.
In terms of work-life balance, it may not always feel easy, but it’s clear that Anderson gains immense joy from learning as he works with these organizations and his colleagues at work. He sees everything as a transferable skill, and that makes him an excellent leader.
Anderson says that, for him, leadership in TEI is gratifying. “Seeing a group of people get engaged and grow up in the chapter—from just being someone who showed up to committee meetings to becoming committee chairs, becoming officers—that’s really rewarding. You see them grow. The first time someone shows up as a committee chair, they’re kind of nervous, not sure what to do, and look a little uncomfortable. And two years later, they’re professionals who jump in and handle things left and right.”
