Voice of Experience: Kim Harris Jones, Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller Auditor, Chrysler Corporation

by Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

The “Motor City” as it’s affectionately called, is home to Motown, the American automobile industry, and to Kim Harris Jones, the first African-American female Vice President in Chrysler history. “I was born and raised in Detroit and when you’re born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, it’s not hard to be brought into the auto industry. My father retired from General Motors as an assembly line worker, my sister worked at Ford, and I’ve had many other family members who worked in the auto industry, so it wasn’t a big leap,” Jones said.

Of the “Big Three” automobile companies located in Detroit – General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler – two have employed Jones, who graduated with an MBA in finance from the University of Michigan. “I was a person who was very interested in finance and as I was doing my graduate work it became apparent that finance was in integral part of the auto industry. Naturally, I wanted to enter an industry where my area of interest was important. When I came out of school, I worked at General Motors because, at the time, the head of the company was an ex-finance person, which seemed promising to me,” Jones said.

From 1986 to 1992, Jones held various finance-related positions at General Motors before being recruited by Chrysler. So, at the end of 1992, Jones made the jump to Chrysler as Senior Manager of Labor Relations. Despite being a savvy, dedicated business woman, the move wasn’t easy.

“You can learn the same amount from a success as you can a mistake,” Jones said, “And when I moved from GM to Chrysler I made the major mistake of thinking that these two companies in the same industry and in the same town would have the same culture, but I quickly learned that Chrysler culture was very different than GM culture. It was an interesting contrast because I found that at GM success meant fitting in and at Chrysler it meant standing out.”

After this realization, Jones became more proactive about her career, doing whatever necessary not just to stand out to the manager in her department, but to the company as a whole. She took on more company-related extracurricular activities such as becoming head of the mentoring program at Chrysler as well as joining the National Black MBA Association. “Taking on these extra activities allowed me to demonstrate my capabilities to a much broader audience. I looked around and said, ‘What do successful people do here and what are they doing differently than me?’ Proving my leadership capabilities and taking on extra responsibilities caused me to change my whole M.O. in terms of what I was doing at Chrysler. We often want to blame our lack of success on others, but I consciously chose to look inwards to see what I was doing wrong. It certainly proved to be the right thing to do as it made me more successful here,” Jones said.

Many of Jones’ colleagues often joke that she can’t keep a job, mostly because she held several positions at GM and then went on to take over twelve different positions at Chrysler before becoming Senior Vice President- Corporate Controller Auditor in September of 2008. It has been a long, arduous road, requiring dedication, hard work, and most importantly, much of Jones’ time. Having worked in such a demanding, competitive industry for the majority of her adult life, Jones has had to make many sacrifices, much of them pertaining to her family. She realized just how tied to her work she was when she found herself answering a work-related phone call from the Eiffel Tower while vacationing with her family in Paris. After explaining to her colleague that she was on vacation, he apologized and then said, “So, I have a question I need to ask you …”

Many women struggle with trying to balance their demanding careers with the demands of their families and though it requires a precarious balancing act, it can be done. “The one tip I have for a woman in a similar situation is don’t try to do everything and don’t try to be everything to everyone. I can’t be perfect at all things, even though I’m a perfectionist. You must set priorities and stick to them because you don’t want to look back and regret all of the things you didn’t do. Sometimes that means work comes first, sometimes it means that no matter how critical things are at work, I pull myself away to participate in something that’s important to my children. I’ve given a lot to my company, so I don’t feel guilty doing things with my family when then need me,” Jones said.

Although few women, and even more specifically, very few African-American women, see the kind of success Jones has, she remains modest about the hardships she endured and the huge strides she’s made for women in the industry; it’s apparent that, in her opinion at least, success is all relative. “You can’t let someone else define success for you. Not everyone can be or wants to be at a certain level within a company. As you enter your career, decide where you want to go and be realistic about it. Decide if you have the capabilities to be where you want to be and don’t let someone else tell you what being successful is. I felt very successful before I was VP and Senior VP, so I haven’t let this new job title define what success is for me. To me, success means being able to provide for myself and my family and I can do that at a variety of different jobs and job titles,” Jones said.

Jones will be the first to admit that job opportunities for women in her industry are relegated to a certain area because there is a lack of women in general in the engineering field. And as a result, the auto industry – which is a very technical-orientated industry – doesn’t see a lot of gender diversity outside of corporate positions. “There are more jobs in this industry that are engineering-related and it’s a sad fact that we don’t have many women in this line of work. I’d be thrilled to see more female engineers because, based on my experience, I can say that women in this industry do very well for themselves, but mostly in non-technical areas,” Jones said.

Chrysler, which has many female leaders in finance, human resources, and marketing, doesn’t have nearly as man in the product development sector. “We need to see more women coming into this field. We need to tell young women in high school to consider engineering or business orientated types of careers. Your career, after all, is up to you; you can shape it and mold it, but don’t wait for someone to hand you something,” Jones said.

In her everyday life, Jones has a number of personal mottos that she’s followed including: treat people the way you want to be treated; show people that you always give your best; remain humble; and no matter where you are in your career, you’re always replaceable.

That being said, there is something that she stresses more than anything else, something that dramatically shifted the course of her life and opened up more doors than she thought imaginable – education. “My parents did reasonably well given their education level, but it was a different time then. The auto industry put me through college and I’m forever grateful for that. Essentially, I am a product of the Detroit Public School System and I sincerely hope that within my family and with those I mentor I am able to stress the great importance of education and hard work. Nothing was unique about me; it was just a matter of getting an education and being a hard worker. If I can do it, you can too,” Jones said.