The stakes had never been higher.

As the editor of weekly intelligence reports for Fortune 100 executives, I could not afford a single mistake. Doing so could cost us a client—and could quite literally cost the client an employee’s life.

My work was also quite valuable to Illumina: I contributed to multi-year renewals of annual subscriptions to business intelligence reports for Fortune 100 companies, each worth $50-$60k in revenue per year.

I quickly learned the tools of the trade. To edit analytic work, I had to learn how to be an analyst myself. My supervisor trained me in state-of-the-art analytic methodologies used in the US intelligence community. I learned how to write concise reports based on the presidential daily briefing from people who had briefed presidents themselves. Immersing myself in the analysts’ process, I gained an intimate understanding of their work, allowing me to edit for substance—not just spelling and grammar.

As many of the analysts were native experts in their respective geographic regions, English was often not their first language, and sometimes not even their second. This required me to edit carefully to avoid any ambiguities or mistranslations. I worked collaboratively with them, working to deeply understand each report to ensure precise language the reader could effortlessly understand.

After months of editing, my role expanded to include helping analysts with their research. I worked closely with a senior analyst specializing in Francophone Africa, with whom I eventually collaborated on writing an intelligence report on artisanal cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Per my boss’ suggestion, I taught myself how to use Adobe InDesign, which I used to design the final cobalt report. From then on, I became the go-to guy for InDesign. I also demonstrated that I was an analyst in my own right, bringing more work my way. At 22 years old, I was suddenly briefing Fortune 500 executives myself.