Selected by the COO, I was responsible for overseeing and consulting on international franchises’ local store, warehouse and buying systems. I was part of the founding team for international franchising. As the franchise business was new to the organization, I worked with all departments in the company to assure their areas were well represented in the franchise locations.

As the director of supply chain systems, I managed 5 teams of software developers. Included were the Warehousing (WMS) systems, Purchase Order (MMS) systems, Direct Fulfillment systems, and the Vendor Compliance and Communication systems.

I managed a team of 6-8 developers that enhanced and maintained our furniture and housewares point of sale and inventory management and inventory assignment systems.

I was hired into IT as a business analyst/ quality assurance (testing) associate for the Crate and Barrel furniture point of sale and inventory management systems. Because of a background of furniture business knowledge, I was able to match the business knowledge and curiosity about how things worked into a broad working knowledge about how systems, data bases and processes worked together.

I worked as the assistant to the buyer of seating, dining, bedroom and occasional tables. As her assistant, I was responsible for keeping track of samples, monitoring product quality, and managing vendor relationships.

I managed and coordinated a team of 6 people that handled the custom order business for the entire company. In my tenure we made significant upgrades to the process and materials used by the stores. I also managed the relationships between Crate and Barrel and the custom order vendors.

I managed a store of 75+ associates. Duties included, hiring, firing, scheduling, customer service, and employee development.

I had just had a baby and the commute and hours of running a busy retail store had become detrimental. During that time I worked in human resources, managed our gift registry call center and helped our custom order department enter purchase orders.

Managed a store of 100+ associates in a store in a busy shopping mall in suburban Chicago.

After moving back to Chicago, I was the assistant store manager for the Crate and Barrel flgship store on Michigan Avenue.

I moved to San Francisco in order to be a part of the Crate and Barrel west coast expansion. In that time I moved from department manager, to management trainee, to assistant store manager.

I started as part time seasonal help until I got my "real" Northwestern graduate job. I never left.