Brenda Spencer
Brenda A. Spencer is the Director of Sales Operations and Marketing at Virtual Supply, where she leverages over 40 years of experience in retail and distribution to drive growth, innovation, and team collaboration. Passionate about people and product, Brenda sees retail as the perfect combination of both. Throughout her career, she has worked across diverse industries including food, fabric and textiles, and consumer electronics, developing expertise in marketing, merchandising, inventory management, sales, and operations. Her approach blends creativity, analytical insight, and a customer-focused mindset, ensuring that every initiative delivers both results and meaningful experiences.
Over the last eight years, Brenda has focused specifically on the distribution side of retail, leading high-performing teams and embracing cutting-edge technology. At Virtual Supply, she champions a culture that blends AI with the human element, emphasizing the importance of people, culture, and human-centered leadership in making technology work effectively. Brenda believes that bringing passion and confidence to her work, whether in consumer electronics or fabrics, drives engagement and inspires teams to excel. Her leadership has contributed to Virtual Supply being recognized as one of the fastest-growing private companies in Oregon and SW Washington.
Outside of her corporate work, Brenda channels her energy and enthusiasm into her role as a Zumba fitness instructor, reflecting her love of people, community, and movement. Whether leading teams, mentoring colleagues, or teaching fitness classes, she is driven by the same principle: it is all about the people. Her career is defined by a commitment to excellence, innovation, and fostering environments where both people and products can thrive, demonstrating that passion, dedication, and human connection are the keys to long-term success.
• Zumba Fitness Instructor
• University of Puget Sound - B.A., Business and Economics
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to my passion for both people and the product. I genuinely care about understanding and supporting the needs of others, and I bring that same dedication and enthusiasm to delivering high-quality solutions. This combination drives me to excel and continuously improve in my work.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've received has to do with confidence and passion. A really great mentor of mine early on taught me to be confident and passionate about what you're doing. Whether I'm in the food industry, the fabric industry, or consumer electronics, I can be just as passionate about consumer electronics like walkie-talkie radios as I can be about food or textiles. It's about being passionate about whatever you're doing. One specific piece of advice my mentor gave me was that when you go into a meeting, or you go to present something, whether it's to a board of directors or your boss or whatever, already know the answers. Already know your answer. That's confidence. So to me, it's confidence and passion that were part of what a mentor gave to me.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
One of the best pieces of advice I would give is to be curious. Ask questions. If you don't know something, ask about it. You don't know how something works, ask. Don't just take direction - that's great, but ask, ask, ask, ask. Be curious about the process, be curious about the product, be curious about the people. That's what I look for when hiring people on my staff - are they curious? Obviously, I've said passion a million times and I look for that too, but I like to see people that are curious. And I would say this to anybody, not just necessarily a woman, but be curious and be heard, because sometimes our voice isn't heard when we're sitting at the table. So be curious and be heard. Have a voice.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest opportunities right now are that there's a lot of newness happening. There are a lot of new products and new categories happening in the retail world, so there are great startup companies coming out that want to be in retail. There's an abundance of opportunity with newness out there - there's always something new on the horizon. As for challenges, the challenge is always the global environment. It could be anything from costs to tariffs to the political landscape out there. I think you can look at AI as a challenge or an opportunity, and a lot of people might say it's a challenge, but it can also be an opportunity. I think it's an opportunity because we currently, in the company I'm working for, embrace AI with what we call HI - human intelligence as well. You have to have the human part of AI to make it work. We're really focusing on our people, on our culture, and the human side, and the opportunity of AI is amazing to enhance the human side. So to me, AI is an opportunity because when you blend it with the human side, it's just going to make us all better at what we do.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The value of integrity is most important to me. Trust and honesty are very important, both in business and personal life. Transparency and communication are right up there as well. Those are the values that I probably hold most dear. For me, transparency and communication go hand in hand they're a little bit different, but they go hand in hand.