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A Career That Started in the Call Center
Nelson set out to become an artist. She enrolled at the University of Utah after high school with plans to earn an art degree, but a change in circumstances brought her back home to finish school. Art remained her passion, but life took a different turn when she moved with her husband to Dallas and needed steady work. She took a job at Texas811 as a call center representative and gradually moved through the organization, role by role.
About six years in, Nelson was asked to take responsibility for the company's books. The organization's president at the time encouraged her to go back to school for accounting so she could understand financial statements and the fundamentals of the discipline. That was the beginning of what she now calls her accounting bug.
Where Art and Accounting Meet
Nelson sees more overlap between her two disciplines than most people would expect. Both, she said, are solitary pursuits that reward attention to detail: art gives her mind room to wander, and accounting offers its own kind of puzzle to work through. That combination of creativity and precision now shapes how she leads.
The Wander Workshop: Permission to Make a Mess
Nelson developed a program at Texas811 called the Wander Workshop, built to tap into the ideas of the organization's roughly 300 employees, many of whom, she said, have valuable concepts they never voice because they do not feel safe testing them. The workshop gives employees a canvas, tools, and a specific set of instructions, then deliberately disrupts the plan, requiring participants to adapt while still working toward the vision they started with.
The goal, Nelson said, is to break the belief that mistakes are not allowed and to give employees room to push past the boundaries of their usual roles. She piloted the concept with her direct reports first, with the backing of a CEO who has a strong interest in neuroscience. Participants left the half-day session with lower stress levels and, in at least one case, a newfound comfort with their own creative instincts.
The Neuroscience Behind the Canvas
For Nelson, the value of the workshop goes beyond team building. Working with a physical medium, she said, strengthens the connection between hand and brain and builds neuroplasticity, much like a muscle that needs repeated use. That is why she designed the Wander Workshop to be revisited again and again rather than run once. Over time, she said, employees who are used to day-to-day manual work begin thinking bigger and more strategically, with those ideas filtering up to leadership.
Change, Fear, and Getting Ready for AI
Nelson shared these insights during a conversation recorded live at the FEI Financial Leaders Forum in San Antonio, where she discussed how Texas811 is approaching both organizational change and AI adoption. Resistance to change, she said, often traces back to a lack of formal change management and, more fundamentally, to fear. Giving employees clear guardrails and permission to experiment, she said, helps counter that fear.
On AI specifically, Nelson said organizations need a defined vision of success before adding new technology, or the technology risks compounding an existing problem rather than solving it. As an example, she pointed to the accounts receivable function at Texas811, which currently processes payments manually. The goal is to automate that work so specialists can shift into higher-value, more strategic responsibilities, a change that also reduces the need to add headcount as the organization grows.
Leadership Lessons for Rising Finance Professionals
Asked what she would tell someone earlier in their career, Nelson pointed first to continuing education and ongoing leadership development. She also emphasized the importance of clear direction: without it, she said, employees are left to operate in ambiguity, which breeds fear and uncertainty about their roles. Employees want to feel valued and to see how their work connects to the organization's broader goals, she said, and it is a leader's job to provide that clarity.
For financial leaders looking for a low-barrier way to start, Nelson recommended paint by number as an entry point. It removes the pressure of a blank canvas, she said, while still allowing the brain to wander and creativity to take hold, benefits she has seen carry over into the office of finance.
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