Kelly Jean Read

I attribute my success to three things:

First, my mother, Dr. Tess Petix. She was a single mother raising two kids in the 80s and 90s, and she worked relentlessly to make sure we were raised with discipline, integrity, and a deep respect for education. She didn’t just tell us what mattered. She showed us.

Second, the school of hard knocks. I’ve had a great education in life, and it has not been cheap. I’ve made my share of mistakes, some of them significant, but I don’t carry regret. I pay attention, I learn, and I move forward. That’s a win in my book.

Third, my faith. The good Lord has given me both the courage to say what needs to be said and the judgment to know when silence is the better choice. Both have mattered more than I can quantify.

Between those three, I’ve learned that success isn’t clean, and it’s rarely comfortable. It’s built in the moments where you choose to be honest, take ownership, and keep going anyway.

The best advice I’ve ever received came from a former Massachusetts State Trooper who had been struck in the line of duty and permanently disabled as a result of his injuries. He was working as a guard for the governor at the time, while my mother led communications for the Governor’s Office, and he shared this with me over lunch.

He said, "No matter what, be a woman of your word. If you say you’re going to do it, do it."

It sounds simple, but it’s not. That level of consistency, especially when things get hard or inconvenient, is what builds trust. And in my experience, trust is what everything else in business and leadership is built on.

Get very clear, very quickly, on the difference between being liked and being respected. They are not the same thing, and only one of them will build a career that lasts.

Do the work. Learn how the business actually operates, not just your role within it. The people who advance are the ones who understand how decisions get made, where value is created, and where things tend to break.

Be a woman of your word. Follow through. Do what you say you’re going to do, consistently. It sounds simple, but it will set you apart faster than almost anything else.

Don’t wait to be told you’re ready. You won’t be. Take the opportunity, figure it out, and own the outcome.

And finally, find your voice early. You don’t have to be the loudest person in the room, but you do have to be willing to say what needs to be said. That’s where your value is.

The biggest opportunity right now is also the biggest challenge, and that’s AI.

Organizations are moving faster than ever to adopt it, which is creating real potential for efficiency, better decision-making, and new ways of delivering value. But what I’m seeing is that the technology is outpacing the organization’s ability to actually operationalize it.

Teams are implementing tools without clarity on ownership, without alignment on how work should change, and without a clear definition of what success looks like. As a result, adoption is inconsistent, value is delayed, and in some cases, the organization creates more complexity instead of less.

That’s the gap.

The companies that will win are not the ones that adopt AI the fastest. They’re the ones that integrate it the most effectively, by aligning leadership, establishing accountability, and building the operating discipline required to turn capability into real business outcomes.

Right now, the opportunity is enormous. But it will only translate into results for organizations that are willing to do the less visible work of getting execution right.

The values that matter most to me are faith, integrity, accountability, and clarity.

Faith is foundational. It shapes how I make decisions, how I treat people, and how I navigate both success and challenge. It’s what grounds me and gives me perspective when things are uncertain.

Integrity comes right alongside that. Being a woman of your word. If I say I’m going to do something, it gets done. That applies in business and at home, and it’s the foundation of trust in both.

Accountability is a close second. I believe in owning outcomes, not just effort. Things don’t always go as planned, but how you respond to that is what defines you. That mindset has shaped how I lead teams and how I show up in my personal life as well.

And then clarity. Most problems, in business and in life, come from a lack of it. When people understand what matters, what’s expected, and where they’re going, everything works better. When they don’t, things break down quickly.

At the end of the day, these values aren’t situational for me, they’re consistent. Whether I’m leading an organization, working next to my husband or raising my family, the standard doesn’t change.