Name: Kellye J. King
Occupation: Product Marketing Analyst
Place of Work: Sprinklr
Years in Austin: a lifetime.
Why did you initially join YWA?
A good word, and a strong believer. Heather Caraway, a former Board Member, aligned membership and involvement with the Young Women’s Alliance as much of the answer to a huge gap in my growth, that I wasn’t sure on how to fill or where to begin.
A professional network, emerging leaders in the community concerned about the same personal and professional growth issues that I was facing, strong guidance from a tight knit group of women well established and truly at the helm of shaping the city that I love – all of it – is YWA.
You are the VP’s of the Marketing Committee. What made you want to lead this committee?
We can’t be everything to everyone. However, YWA presents a vision of a community with limitless opportunities, where every female can reach her full potential. This resonates.
It’s an honor, and a mission, of using my industry knowledge and professional background to aid in defining, shaping, and ultimately executing the voice of our brand in a manner that inspires, and strengthens our pillars so integral to our members.
What are you most excited to accomplish in the 2014 – 2015 year?
Creating structure and a scalable assessment of our program offerings. I need to ensure we can sustain ourselves and mature as an organization, while the way our members (current and prospective) discover, engage, and communicate with brands changes in the digital age.
What is something that you have learned about yourself through your involvement with YWA?
Jack Welch once said “before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”
Now, when I look back to 2011 – I recognize that Heather Caraway saw something raw and unrefined in me; Potential. However much time and persistence in growing that has propelled me forward to an undeniable force where my focus has shifted entirely to strengthening the organization, now with the confidence and experience someone once tapped into beginning with a simple spark of Potential.
Tell us something you are most proud of.
Pride is fickle. In my short time it’s ranged from entitlement of rank to education and degrees. Right now I’m on the precipice of a huge mountain I’ve just scaled, and recognize along the horizon that the most profound answer to this is that I am proudly humbled in how much more I need to accomplish by leveraging those aspects of entitlement and education to feel comfortable with it.
Do you have a bucket list? If so what’s on it?
I’ve never really been the “bucket list” type. I infatuate over dreams, whittle away at them, and find purpose in my surroundings to align with. While I’m not too keen on having “jumping out of a plane” or “run a triathlon” be chapters in that tale, I would like to transcribe my digital mind-info-trash into a moleskin journal, in hopes that someday someone can hold my thoughts in their hands and imagine what I must have been like in attribution to my scrawling. I think we’re all looking to leave a piece of ourselves on this world and find comfort that the journey, in this life, is laced with opportunities, people, and places that add to the richness of the story.
Oh, but for the record; I still plan on rewriting Paris, and I’d like to see who wound up with my message in a bottle in Cataluña … but, you’d have to go back to chapter 3 to find out why. Living my life with purpose, and meeting the individuals to complete that map is the essence of “the list” for me.
How did you end up in Austin?
For this, I think my father says it best, I’ll employ a phrase he uses; “you better thank your lucky stars you were born in Texas.”
