Kim Moore, Senior Consultant – State and Local Government Solutions
Here at Impact Makers, we like to shine a light on the incredible people we are lucky enough to call coworkers and friends. Today, we explore the life and career of an incredible woman who has recently been serving as a leader on a massive engagement with dozens of individuals reporting up to her and depending on her guidance.
Kim Moore is someone who has championed her own success through meaningful relationships and hard work in a dynamic career in both the private and public sector. Enjoy this chat with Kim, and learn more about her life before Impact Makers, as well as everything she’s learned as an integral member of our team.
Tell us about your career arc and how you rose through the ranks.
I was in corporate America for 27 years in the financial industry and I didn’t always like it: I found that math and science are easy, people are hard. It is not always about what to do in business, but about what is the right thing to do.
In particular points in my career, I was very fortunate to have managers who went beyond “the right thing to do.” These individuals would not only say that I was good at my current job and should be considered for the next one, but they would take on a more active role to champion me through my attempts to climb the corporate ladder. These individuals would actually go in front of decision makers to try and move obstacles out of my way. They took on risk, they staked their reputation on belief in my merits and ability to succeed in various roles.
You certainly have to earn that kind of championship, and you start by taking the time to develop relationships with people who may one day be your champions and pay it forward by supporting your coworkers, mentees, and even your own role models to champion their ambitions as well.
What is your team working on right now?
I’ve been at the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) since 2015 where I’m standing up a very important project to get a new electronic health records system in place for the women’s facility. We’re now hoping to do the same for the men’s facility, and it’s been incredibly complicated due to issues regarding funding and technology.
Funding is a complicated process because it has to do with taxpayer money and changing administrations. I’ve been at the forefront of the agency to advocate for its projects all the way up to the Secretary of Public Safety, Secretary of Health, and even the Secretary of State.
That is the value of Impact Makers. We are not just contractors; we are people that have bigger skillsets than just doing the work. We are trusted advisors and very experienced in the areas we are working.
What is the most exciting thing happening in state and local governments right now?
State and local governments are trying to embrace technology in a secure way that will help them remain responsive to the taxpayer and provide the same levels of customer service with better data in place to back these processes up.
The public sector is behind the private sector in terms of technological advancement for good reason. There are many more restraints that make them more delayed in adoption. For example, they have a lot of stakeholders who are all looking at each other to determine who or what group will take the risk of an unsuccessful change, since that risk of failure is high.
However, there are always opportunities for people to move into the public sector, and the potential to bring in fresh ideas from the private sector is very exciting. It always comes back to the people part: we are at a point in time where new people are moving into the public sector and trying to move long-established ways of doing things.
Long-time public sector employees are feeling excited in certain spaces to adapt and not be 25 years behind anymore. We are specifically seeing this with many agencies trying to move to the cloud along with the rest of the world. They are finally embracing the cloud and saying we need to be here too.
What changes have you seen unfold at Impact Makers since you started here?
Impact Makers is succeeding working in the public sector by providing thought leadership and that can-do leadership.
What keeps you motivated to do your job?
What motivates me every day: I get to somehow find a way to make a difference every day with the people I work with – and that’s really important. Also, it’s fun at VADOC! If it wasn’t fun and I didn’t feel like I was making a difference, I don’t know if I could have been there for more than three years.
I feel like I really do solve problems and love the people I work with. My current client recently told me “I don’t know how we would have gotten to this point without you,” and I made sure to pass that along to the people I’ve been working with, because everyone in the public sector has been a wonderful person trying to make a difference every day as well.
Do you have any advice for prospective candidates, looking to join the Impact Makers team?
What I would say here is that you need to have a little less of the self-oriented mindset, you need to think about the bigger picture and what it means to establish relationships where you become a trusted advisor, where you are motivated to help people solve their problems.
The right candidate for Impact Makers understands our focus on others – whether that be the nonprofits we partner with, the clients we support, the Richmond community – the right person is constantly asking themselves: “How do we make their lives better?” That to me is the best candidate, and further implies that they will work well with others.
After all, I can teach someone the technical skills and how to do individual tasks, but we cannot teach people skills. If you don’t have them already in your DNA, then there’s not much help to teach you how to effectively interact with people, in my opinion!
Tell us a hidden talent!
For most of my young life I hated physical activity. Could not stand gyms, I was an egghead! Books, reading, school. I did not see physical exercise as part of that equation, but when I met my husband he got me involved in biking and running.
So, my hidden talent is that I have qualified for Boston Marathon four times and run it twice! I had no idea; I was a couch potato! I got started later in life (around age 29-30). For peddling I would sit on a trainer and pass out after five minutes and now I’m President of a bike club with 1,000 members in Virginia. What a surprise, which is why I call it a hidden talent because here are two of my greatest passions, hidden from me for so long!
Learn more about Impact Makers or check out our open positions.
