In case you didn’t know, March is Women’s History Month! This year, we’re highlighting the next generation of trailblazing women on our Blawg with our Ladies Who Lead interview series. Today, we’re highlighting Kristin-Marie Pernicano of KmP Consulting, LLC.

Vital Stats:

Occupation: As a COO for startups, I work to develop, implement, and operate frameworks—strategy, systems, processes, policies—all the infrastructure pieces needed to help companies scale for success. I think about all of the things I wish I had known about what tools, questions, processes, and risks would have helped my family grow and hold onto a thriving business. Then I invest my heart, brain, and time into helping companies and founders whose missions are aligned with my own values to not make the many, many, MANY mistakes that amazing ideas without amazing support environments might otherwise encounter.

Background: Daughter of strong, independent, remarkable Brazilian-Italian woman. First generation college graduate. SUNY Albany: English & Political Science Majors (graduated in 3 yrs). Former Finance: Trading Compliance Officer @ Goldman Sachs, Citi, Merrill Lynch (made VP at age 26- for a non-finance-trained Latinx in institutional finance, it was sort of a major milestone…at the time ;). NYU: Master’s in Sports Business. Founded management consulting firm 12 years ago to help other underrepresented entrepreneurs with foundational alignment as an outsourced COO. Adjunct Professor @ NYU.

Power Lunch: Avocado toast w/poached egg & a bit of red pepper from DUMBO House (I can and used to eat it 2-3x per day if the chefs would entertain my request for as long as I was working on site, haha).

The Good Stuff: 

1. Was your path to your current work linear, or did it take twists and turns? OMG….sooooo NOT linear. I remember the day I told my family I was going to stop taking interviews to be a hedge fund CCO (chief compliance officer), but instead was going to “help people” bring great ideas to life. If they didn’t know how determined (ahem, stubborn) I was, as well as how much I needed to actually CARE about and make an impact on others in a new way, I think they would have been worried I was having a quarter-life crisis.

When I tell my story now, the narrative is quite clear, how each failure, bump on the head, and (silent) battle to be valued for contributing to something bigger than self is why I excel at what I do, but it was/is the furthest thing from natural to the concept of work that my immigrant family could imagine, but they always, always, ALWAYS believed in me, so I could believe in myself. 

2. What does leadership look like to you? It looks like so many amazing humans I know, encounter, and respect, starting with Kellie Wagner, CEO of Collective, where I am fortunate to be sitting COO right now. Kellie embodies compassion, honesty, infectious joy & determination to carve a path that has not yet been cleared in materially different ways to create a diverse, equitable, and more just humanity—in work and in life.

I studied org behavior (and thought about a phD in IO after grad school) because I was certain that unlocking the key to successful orgs lay in making humans thrive in society, motivating, equipping, and empowering individuals to see themselves life-size (a phrase I borrowed from tremendous human and former CEO of the Girl Scouts, Frances Hesselbein). I struggled with how to use my (seemingly limited) practical skills & lived experiences to make that happen, and often the fight for equity is just that—always a fight, not a conversation—and in fights you may win a round, but that doesn’t mean you win the match. Our societal structure perpetuates the injustices and allows us to be complacent (and often compel us to accept crumbs of perceived progress by their very design) and continue to marginalize, dehumanize, and commoditize humans who don’t come from the same schools, communities, or means.

Am I still answering a question about what leadership looks like? YES. It looks like every single human who has, can, and will use their voice, their position, their resources, and their HEARTS to move the needle (day to day, lifetime to lifetime) in making others’ lives more equitable, more just, giving more dignity, more grace, more compassion, more time, more love to others than we may ever seek/hope/expect to get in return. And doing it with a smile. a real smile, derived from an internal joy to see others heal, grow and LIVE a life of dignity.

3. What is your biggest motivator in your work? When I know I have eased the burden of one of my founders, when I have contributed to leading (quietly and from behind the camera) to their success, to new milestones previously only imagined, whose paths were not quite as clear before…and knowing that my dedication is truly appreciated, not just for what I can do for a top priority or bottom line, but because of who I am.

4. Can you describe a time when you faced a challenge or setback in your work, and how you overcame it? In my 20+ professional years, I have failed over and over and OVER again, so it’s hard to describe just one. If I look at the body of big, horrifying, seemingly not-gonna-call-it-a-comeback-because-you-aren’t-gonna-make-it-back FAILURES I have lived, the golden thread that connects them all lies in the lessons (I know, so cliché, I went there)…but it’s 100% TRUE. Every single stupid decision I made, trusting people without having a contract, agreeing to equity over compensation, believing someone had my back because I had theirs, thinking I had to work for free to build credibility and validation, all the dumb things I said or didn’t say, all of the doubts I had but never voiced, all of the ways in which I could counsel and help others but forget to do for myself…geez, I could write myself right out of a career!

The thread—the thing that forever follows me- picks me up, dusts me off, convinces me I am more than my grandparents/ancestors/mother’s wildest dreams—is ALWAYS tied to my unwavering faith in God, in myself & in my willingness to learn from every failure, every criticism, every rebuke, every error in judgment. I don’t just want to fix a mistake—some things cannot be fixed—but I refuse to quit, to give up, to not put 150% into learning from the failure, resolving to do better next time (there is often, not always, but often a next time) and to stand on the boulders of my countless mistakes on my way to the other side of the mountain….I am constantly evolving as a leader, as a woman, and as a human, and am certain that if I didn’t have failures to serve as my guardrails on the journey, I would never fully be free to reach higher and with the confidence (and bruises) that wisdom of these lessons has emboldened and equipped me with.

5. What advice would you give to others who want to create a purpose-driven or innovative space in their industry, but aren’t sure where/how to start? Start with WHY. Simon Sinek did (what might have been one of the first most salient) TEDTalks on the golden circle. “People buy WHY you do something, not what you do.” I use this when teaching competitive strategy in marketing, not because others haven’t said similar things before, but because it rings true over and over and over ad infinitum. Know WHY you exist—your brand, concept, idea—and then answer the Most Important Questions (Peter Drucker & F. Hesselbein).

There are 5 Most Important Questions, and I will add 1 more: are you willing to Fail, and fail huge? If you aren’t willing to fail, you cannot possibly fathom success, much less reach it. And I don’t mean 1x success…I mean 100x success, I mean success that others say, “Wow, I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t in my life” sort of success. And this doesn’t mean you must be world-renowned—at all. It means you must strive for your WHY to be more important to more than just you. It means you have to care so deeply, so passionately, so intensely about something that NOT doing it is literally impossible. You cannot galvanize others around an idea if you don’t feel it to your core. You CAN absolutely encourage others to augment the skills and resources you need to see the mission realized.

How? You must walk and live and speak and breathe with the immense purpose of WHY you need to create something +++ the unwavering certainty that the path WILL present obstacles—enormous and sometimes seemingly insurmountable obstacles—and that even if you aren’t fearless (we all fear something), nothing that you face will be as horrible as NOT seeing your WHY actualized. The strategy, milestones, market segmentation, plans, ROI, KPIs, those are all really important components of a great execution of an idea, but these are just components that do nothing on their own because their functional significance and value is fleeting without the mission….your mission, your WHY.

6. Are you one of those people who “enjoys” networking? What tips do you have for others who are a little less enthusiastic about it? Let me say this, because I had to learn this if I was going to run my own hustle and hope to eat, keep a roof and afford to live in NYC—network in the way that is authentic to you. If you don’t like crowds, seek out 1×1 introductions and conversations (yes, actual words, not texts, not LinkedIns, not emails after the first outreach). be willing to compromise on how you communicate in order to se the stage for where you get the chance to connect with others. I hated going to large group networking things for 100 reasons, but if you got to meet me 1×1, I could be myself, so I would seek to engage on common grounds (for me it was at my co-working space) that made me comfortable and allowed others to really see me.

It takes longer, for sure and not every 1×1 coffee or lunch (all now virtual of course) resulted in more than a bill and a ‘thanks for connecting,’ but it also gives you the chance to think about what you learned, liked and would do differently the next time you connected with someone else. I also joined groups that had similar values, people looking to celebrate one another’s successes, not always compete to outshine one another. Also, look to give before receiving…I try to leave every 1×1 with a clear sense of what the other person considers a ‘win’ and if there was/is a way I could introduce or connect them with a resource that didn’t necessarily benefit me but made the intro/referral/assist memorable and was within my reach, I did it. Because it felt good to lift others up. And because kindness always finds its way back.

7. If you were going to embark on a new business opportunity, who would you want to be your co-founder, and why? So funny, I started a bakery with my mom this past year… because it is her legacy, my retirement plan (no really) and because if I could take every single lesson I learned while helping others and pour it back into a woman who gave everything for me to have the opportunities I had, there was no way I could pass it up. Also, she is an actual CREATIVE CULINARY GENIUS!!!! And…after a lifelong career in banking, biscotti & all the artisan desserts that are part of our cultural and family narrative can now be part of building our culinary cookie (and pastry) empire.

8. Any resources you’d like to share with our readers that will help them level up their leadership skills and empower them to keep changing the world? I would say start with being curious about others. Read/watch/research origin stories. I think the thing I love the most about biographies are seeing how humans saw themselves, how others saw them, and how their successes and failures were shared in order to inspire us…not to become them, but to challenge our own assumptions about our limitations.

How to Support Kristin-Marie: 

Social Media: Follow her on Instagram @kmp.consulting.

Thank you for challenging us to think differently, Kristin-Marie!