Shannon Klick

My success has come from my openness to try new things, to saying yes to new opportunities, and to being open to connection and networking. My adult life has always had two paths, a focus around community, local government, and politics, and a focus around my career in the insurance and now HR technology industry. In both paths I pursued new opportunities when they became available, jumped in usually before I was fully ready for them, and trusted in my ability to figure things out. My reputation grew as someone that acts with integrity and does the right thing. I frequently had a role model or mentor that was willing to guide me. Luckily that started with my Mom, and I have been fortunate to have many women in my life that have been there for me when I needed guidance. One of my goals as a leader is to always look around to other women that may need a hand, and give back in the same way. Beyond my professional work, I co-lead a mentoring group and we talk about things people are dealing with, we learn about new things, and we help each other in our careers. Some of the women we're working with are new to their careers, some are in the middle, some are about to be promoted or just were promoted. As a community leader and Mayor, I look to be a role model to women and girls in the community that may think they can't balance family, career and community. It can be difficult, but I share my story when I can so that others know this balance is possible.

All growth happens outside your comfort zone, and some of the best lessons you learn are when you make mistakes.

Find a role where you are doing the work that excites you and uses your strengths. Evaluate through assessments or trial and error what your unique gifts are to the world and share them authentically. It may take a few steps, but keep moving toward roles where you enjoy doing the work. Don't think too hard about "I want to be an X", but rather think about what you are doing every day. For example, I love the process of connecting with people to discover what is inefficient or broken in their HR processes, strategize how to make their work more efficient and allow them to focus more on the people, connecting them with the right resources at the right cost, and helping them make that case to move forward. Using my strengths every day, in an organization with a great culture, is what gets me excited about work.

The biggest perceived challenges in my industry is that AI will take over a lot of the roles in technology. There are some vendors trying to replace people with AI tools, and their service is suffering. In my opinion there is no replacement for people and connection.

My three top priorities are family, community, and my career. Family is very important to me, and as much as possible I put that at the top of my list. I have a husband of 26 years, 23 year old daughter, and 19 year old son. My daughter lives on her own, my son is at home commuting to college so he can focus on his passion which is martial arts. He competes frequently in tournaments and is representing Team USA in Romania and Spain this year. We travel a lot, and I travel for work as well, so balancing all of that can be challenging, but it is so important to me so I make it work. In terms of my professional values, I'm very much into mentoring and helping bring up other women. I lead mentoring groups where we meet monthly and talk about things people are dealing with, and we're all kind of leaning on each other to share our stories and help each other. I'm also passionate about my community work - I've been an elected official for 10 years and am currently mayor of Rogers, Minnesota. I support local organizations in my community, primarily groups that are helping our veterans, public safety, and our residents in need of food and housing resources.