Her Story
About Kimberly
I'm currently working in digital technology and data at Cargill, where I'm building the foundational data environment to automate, scale, and enable AI-driven insights that help our analysts, developers, and leadership quickly access what they need and strategize for the future. I just started this role in November, coming from people data and analytics in HR at Cargill, where I focused on the entire employee lifecycle from hire to retire, using digital tools and dashboards to help leadership identify gaps and create strategic plans. My career journey has been anything but traditional. I'm a first-generation Vietnamese-Chinese immigrant who came to Minnesota when I was young, and I graduated from Metropolitan State University with a degree in Management Information Systems while working full-time and taking night classes. I started at SPS Commerce working in electronic data interchange, which introduced me to distribution and supply chain. From there, I moved to Target where I worked in supply chain reporting and forecasting, then business intelligence in store operations, helping to upgrade their pharmaceutical system. One cold Friday night at 11pm, I threw my resume out to sports companies, and Adidas called a month later about a position in Herzogenaurach, Germany. I moved there by myself, not speaking a word of German, and worked in global IT on omnichannel, creating the ecosystem for click and collect and ship-from-store capabilities. I was then tapped to move to Shanghai as a digital IT lead, where we launched all the dot-coms and apps for luxury brands across Asia Pacific, including Japan and Korea. When my dad had a stroke, I made the hard decision to move back, choosing Portland with Adidas over New York with L'Oreal because I'm much closer to sports than beauty products. I worked in business strategy there, intentionally choosing to see how decisions were made upstream after years of downstream work. After getting pregnant with my son, I moved back to Minnesota so he could grow up with family. He was born in February 2020, and the pandemic hit in March, so I'm grateful I had made that move. I worked with Adidas through September 2020, then joined Sleep Number doing digital supply chain work on an internal app that tracked every single scan. An old friend from Target's Asian Business Council called one day asking if I was looking for a job, and after a few conversations, he brought me over to Cargill, where I am today.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Kimberly
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received came from my first boss at Target. I was very quiet and didn't have a lot of experience, and whenever they needed someone to write down meeting minutes, I would always volunteer because it was something to do. He pulled me aside and said, 'I'd like for the next time that I ask that, that you not volunteer. Just pause.' He told me it was going to be very uncomfortable, but to allow someone else to take that space. He said, 'Just because you're new, and just because you're a woman does not mean that you should be the one taking the meeting minutes.' That was a game changer for me. It was the start of self-reflection and figuring out how to navigate my career. Another mentor later told me about The Bamboo Ceiling and shared a story about hiring someone from finance into R&D who was quiet for three weeks. When he asked if the person had made the wrong decision, the guy said he wasn't the expert in the room and didn't have a lot of experience. My mentor told him, 'I hired you not because you're like everyone else, I hired you because you aren't like anyone else, and you bring a different perspective, and you bring your own experiences and your own skill sets.' That advice has stuck with me throughout my journey.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say don't let the fact that you don't have the experience hold you back. A mentor once told me that when you're hired into a role, people are looking for someone curious and wanting to learn. The rest of it has to be you. You have to be curious, and you have to be able to be open to that change, but you also have to be brave and bring you, your full self into that space. I went through a tough time when I was in distribution because it was very male-dominated, and I felt like I wasn't bringing much to the table. Everyone was cutting me off and speaking while I was trying to speak. But my mentor shared a story about hiring someone who was quiet for weeks because he didn't feel like the expert in the room. My mentor told him, 'I hired you not because you're like everyone else, I hired you because you aren't like anyone else, and you bring a different perspective, and you bring your own experiences and your own skill sets.' That's what I would say to somebody trying to get into a space and trying to learn and nervous about that. Be authentic, bring your authentic self, and remember that you were chosen because of what makes you different, not because you're like everyone else.
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