A former editor of the Murray State News, Kristie Helms is now engaged in international business as Vice President and Global Head of Promotions and Social Business with the global marketing department at State Street Corporation in Boston. Helms is back in Murray tomorrow as a speaker for the 9th Annual Global Alumni Lecture. Kate Lochte speaks with Helms on Sounds Good about her career and about being a finalist in the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Debut Fiction for her book Dish it Up, Baby.
"What corporate America needs today is for people to come in, see what the problem is, figure out a solution to it, and do it. I feel like I've made a whole career on that."
Building a Career at State Street
Helms graduated from Murray State when the first web browser was launched, back in the mid 90s. She said she's been riding on the modern technology wave since its inception and has had a front row seat in the evolution of corporate communication, from developing early websites to the events of 9/11 to the recession in 2008 to restructuring in post-recession recovery.
Social media has been a part of our everyday lives for a while now, but it's taken longer for corporate America to realize its potential for conducting business. This is something Helms works on within State Street, having won a Gold Quill Merit Award for launching a social intranet for businesses. State Street is a global company: 26 countries, 29,000 employees. They needed a way for employees to communicate with each other - across international borders. By using their service, they were able to post a question at the Boston office and have it be answered two hours later by someone at the Sydney office.
A Small Town Girl from Possum Trot
"I've always been someone who just comes in and gets things done. As it turns out, that is a valuable skill for companies no matter where they are," Helms says. She also gives credit to her family for encouraging her every step of the way. She remembers driving around the smokestacks of Calvert City at night, beneath the twinkling lights of the factories and imagining she was in a large city.
The G20 Summit in Seoul
Helms was asked to be her company's communication lead in advance of the G20 Summit in Seoul. For her first trip overseas, she was to spend six months in the Asia Pacific region - Hong Kong, Sydney and Tokyo. Helms said that before she went, she studied their cultures and economies, but when she got there, she found that while she understood them really well, she began to understood herself much better, too.
"When you're placed in an environment that's so different from one that you're from, you realize exactly who you are and what's at the core of yourself. And I realized that at the core of myself: I'm really shaped by being an American, I'm really shaped by being from Kentucky and being very practical and being down to Earth and getting things done... It was a really big learning opportunity for me."
A Front Row Seat in 2008
In the economic crisis of 2008, companies began to learn that they had to be much more agile in how they communicated, Helms said. For instance, changing language like "robust sales" to "sales" in order to streamline corporate and shareholder expectations. It was fantastic to see the change, to watch the people inside the walls grapple with how to do the right thing, she said.
Regarding the Occupy Wall Street protests, there was a very large protest in Boston outside the State Street offices, which she said they took very seriously, observing that these were people who wanted to engage in a conversation about what was happening in the economy. In an effort to hear what they were saying, State Street launched a social media program to interact with them.
"Dish it Up, Baby"
Kristie Helms was named a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Debut Fiction for her book, Dish it Up, Baby. She said one should live one's life in a way that speaks with others, so she wrote a story describing her life experience - grounded in the truth but with some literary embellishments.
Much of the book takes place in the World Trade Center. Helms said she wanted to show people what the world was like before the event of 9/11, when those buildings were still office buildings and not the memorial it is today.
She's currently working on a book set in Metropolis, Illinois.
Murray State Alumna Kristie Helms is among speakers for the Global Alumni Lecture tomorrow night at 7 p.m. in the Curris Center Theatre. Helms graduated with a degree in journalism from Murray State and went on to earn a master of science in communications management from Simmon's College in Boston, where she is currently a vice president with State Street Corporation.
