BY CJ FAIRFIELD

‘Always be thinking about how you stay on the path you want to stay on and have an idea of your path and what’s important to you. You don’t have to have it all figured out, figure it out as you go,’ says Kelly Carter, chief strategy officer at Fulcrum IT Partners.

Kelly Carter has learned a lot over her career. From starting at warehouse company Price Club then moving to Ingram Micro for 26 years to landing at Fulcrum IT Partners, Carter has learned the value of relationships and the importance of speaking up.

“What has led to my success as much as anything was not being afraid to speak up and fight for what I knew was the right course,” she told CRN. “Too often I see women holding back on making sure their voice is heard.”

Carter, chief strategy officer for Toronto-based Fulcrum IT Partners, said while there are strides being made with women in leadership roles in the IT industry, there’s still a ways to go.

“I wish there were more women in tech that were really out there in those leadership positions influencing others,” she said. “We have more of them then we did when I started out, but there still needs to be more. I don't have all the answers for how we get there, though.”

What she does have, however, is advice for women starting out.

“Always be thinking about how you stay on the path you want to stay on and have an idea of your path and what’s important to you,” she said. “You don’t have to have it all figured out, figure it out as you go.”

For Women’s History Month, CRN is profiling women in the channel about how they started out in the industry, lessons learned and what they want to pass on to others.

Here’s what Carter had to say on finding your voice, mentorship and figuring it all out as you go.

How did you get into tech? Did you always want a career in tech?

No, actually. When my husband and I got married we lived in Michigan and wanted to live in San Diego. So we just moved to San Diego and looked for jobs. I got a job with Price Club when they were just starting the warehouse industry. They were the first one before Costco and Sam’s Club. A woman who lived near us worked there so I got a job, and I loved it because it was very entrepreneurial. They were just figuring it out and building these warehouse clubs and memberships. It was a really cool, entrepreneurial environment with some really smart people. I got to work closely with the senior execs because it was still small enough then, so it was an amazing time for me.

I had an accounting degree so they hired me to do fixed asset accounting. I did it for about a month and then went to the to the VP of finance and said, ‘This is really boring. I didn’t go to college to do this. It’s not what I want to do. What else can I do?’ They actually gave me a job working with the controller where I just did all kinds of different things. The controller was amazing and she got me involved in everything. That was probably my first lesson in ‘say what you want’ because it’s amazing what happens once you say it.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

It’s funny—when I was going to school, I had no idea. I always wanted to go into science or medicine, but I just didn’t know. I started taking business classes and I liked them. Then my dad said, ‘As long as you’re going to business school you should get your degree in accounting because that’s something you only really learn in college. It’s hard to learn later.’ I knew I never wanted to be in public accounting, but I always liked finance.

What took me into the tech industry is I love being a part of building things, seeing where things were going and how I can add value to where it goes next. I loved being in the tech industry right away, just absolutely loved it because everything’s always moving and changing. I love the people in the channel, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Who did you look up to when you were growing up?

My dad was great at helping me feel like I could do anything. Anything I was interested in, he would help me get involved and always made me feel like you can shape your life any way you want to. That really had an impact on me forever. He was a huge influence on me that way, and I think it was just a gift to have him there always telling me I could do anything I wanted. I just had to work at it, figure it out and meet people. He always talked to me about relationships and how important they are.

Did you have any mentors early on in your career?

That whole executive team at Price Club was amazing because they let me get involved in whatever I wanted to get involved in and made me feel like I could do anything that I wanted to. It was really hard for me to leave that environment and when I came to Ingram Micro, it took me longer to find those mentors, but I definitely did over time. For me, finding a mentor has always been just watching who I’m really impressed with and who was doing amazing things so I could learn from them. When you are in a finance role, you often get put in a box, but one of the really great things at Ingram was I started building relationships with executives in the sales team and they really welcomed me in, like ‘Let’s figure this stuff out together.’ We learned from each other, and that was really awesome. Just watching other people through the years that I admired was helpful. And then having those people that spot things in you is always great, people that see things in you and encourage you to do things or try things that you haven’t before.

What’s the best career advice you’ve ever gotten?

This is a minor thing but somebody said to me, ‘Nobody’s ever going to care about your career as much as you do. So make sure that you’re owning it and you’re determining where you want to go.’ That really stayed with me because I always was thinking that other people cared about my career, but nobody’s ever going to care about it like you do. So don’t just let it happen to you. Look at where you want to go, re-evaluate all the time and think about what you want to do and what you enjoy. One of the executives at Price Club said to me early on, ‘Your family is as important as your career and your personal life. Always make sure that you’re taking advantage of all these career opportunities but that it works for your personal life and your family and you’re going to be happy.’

Have you had opportunities to mentor others coming up in the space?

Yes, I remember there was one point in my career where all of a sudden people started coming to me for advice. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. How did I get to be the person that people come to?’ But then you think about all the things you’ve done and the older I’ve gotten, the more I realized how much I am enriched by the people I’m mentoring. When you’re working with younger people, they’re looking at things from a different angle or they have skills I don’t have, and I get so much out of that. At some point it started shifting to ‘I’m getting back as much as I’m giving by working with people at a different point in their career.’

What has been your secret to success?

Other relationships with people. When you build those relationships with people in the channel, you gain people that can help you with anything in your career, and people want to help, and you get the personal satisfaction too. When I think about why I stayed in the channel so long, that’s why. All the relationships and the people, the more they’re helping you the more you want to help them. It sounds a little corny but I love making the channel better for everybody in it because I really love the people.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Don’t get too down on yourself at different times. It’s always good to evaluate how you handled any situation or what you could have done better, but I think when you’re younger you tend to beat yourself up probably more than you need to. I’ve learned to say, ‘OK, that’s fine. You could have handled something better.’ But don’t let that take away your confidence or start feeling bad about yourself. You just have to learn from it and go on. That’s one of the things I tell people I’m mentoring. I say, ‘You’re going to get beat up every day, in some sense, that you didn’t handle something right or somebody else thinks you didn’t handle something right. You’ve just got to take that, look at it logically, ask what you could have done better in the situation but then move on.’ You can’t let it get you down.

What advice would you give to younger women coming up in this space right now?

You don’t have to have everything figured out. I think a lot of people I’ve talked to, they’re trying to map out their whole career and they’re worrying about all these different things that aren't even a factor yet. Be very thoughtful about your career, evaluate, think about it as you go and be intentional in the things you do but you don’t have to figure it all out. All the things that have happened to me, I’ve just taken advantage of things at different times. There are times I pulled back a little in certain areas, like travel when my kids were at a certain age, and I still just was able to jump back into it. Always be thinking about how you stay on the path you want to stay on and have an idea of your path and what’s important to you. You don’t have to have it all figured out, figure it out as you go.

Link to CRN Article