Kathleen Eatough
Senior Vice President, Sales – HI&I
Barentz North America
Please meet this week's WOTW, Kathleen Eatough! Kathleen joined the industry directly out of undergraduate studies, where she studied Criminal Justic & Political Science. Upon completing her undergraduate degree, Kathleen planned to go to law school, but after starting a job with J. Tech Sales, she quickly changed her mind and decided to stay in the chemical industry while pursuing her Masters of Business Administration. Kathleen was one of the first employees at J. Tech Sales, a small family-owned business, and she quickly gained exposure to different areas of the business with her roles in areas such as Operations, Customer Service, Sale and Finance. J. Tech Sales was eventually acquired by Maroon Group, and upon this acquisition, Kathleen's responsibilities shifted to overall responsibility for the Commercial side of the business.
During Kathleen's interview, we discussed the value of having exposure to different areas of the business to help with career growth, the importance of communication, and the ability to accept a challenge as an opportunity. It was clear that Kathleen has mastered the art of communication with her team by sharing her methods such as always keeping open lines of communication, having an open-door policy, keeping motivation and camaraderie, and always seeking feedback from her team and peers. She believes that moving forward and building success is accomplished by working together, inspiring a vision within your team, providing key resources, clearly communicating priorities and timelines, and creating goals and objectives that align with the company's goals and objective. Kathleen was quite candid on her weaknesses as well during the interview, which consisted of her struggles with work-life balance, especially during times when working for a rapidly growing business. She expressed her need to continue to work on this balance, and she shared some of her best practices including efforts to set aside time throughout the year for family time and using her paid vacation time.
As we wrapped up the interview, we asked Kathleen to share advice for our Women in Chemicals community. Kathleen emphasized the need to remain open and willing to accept challenges and reminded us to always keep our sense of humor, especially with everything we have encountered over the last few years. Interested to hear more about Kathleen and her journey in the chemical industry? View the full interview at the link in our post!
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