Her Story
About Aly
Aly Blawat serves as Senior Director of Customer Strategy at Blaine's, a family-owned retailer based in Wisconsin. In this role, she oversees customer acquisition and retention strategy, prospecting, the customer loyalty program, a co-brand credit card, customer insights, marketing effectiveness and analytics, and customer research. Blawat brings 18 years of experience in retail marketing, having previously spent 14 years at Kohl's in loyalty, customer experience, digital experience, and marketing technology, followed by a brief stint at Harley where she applied personalization strategies to parts, accessories, and apparel. She studied agricultural business management and is completing her MBA with an emphasis in marketing and data analytics this December. Blawat's notable professional achievements include leading personalization initiatives across multiple organizations to deliver relevant products to customers at the right time, building scalable infrastructure for customer-centric operations. Her career path began with retail work during college, leading to a manager training program at Kohl's before transitioning to corporate marketing, and she aspires to advance to VP within the next two to three years and eventually become a chief customer officer.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Aly
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I have a lot of mentors. Some of it has been, pace yourself. Kind of along with that ambition and desire to do all these things comes patience. You don't have to do it all at once, you don't have to do it all today. Think about today, tomorrow, and what's next, and really pace yourself, and don't be afraid to turn some things down. It's easy to be that yes man or yes lady and just be the person to get stuff done, but that can definitely create a level of burnout. And it doesn't always have the payback you're hoping for. So there's one thing to just be a good partner and a good teammate, but you don't have to say yes to everything, and evaluate what's on your plate every couple months.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
If you want something, you can make it happen. You have to really think about what goes into it, what you're willing to sacrifice, what you're willing to invest in what you're trying to get out of your career. If you want it bad enough and you know what the payoff and the trade-offs are going to be, you can make it happen. You might have to lean on your village and your partners, you might have to lean on your family, your friends, your coworkers more than you might be comfortable with. It doesn't make you weak. It's a team sport, what we do. You can't do it alone. But you can do it if you really want to get it done.
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