Celebrating the Women of Trimble for International Women’s Day
As we celebrate International Women’s Day, we want to shine a light on the invaluable contributions of women within the transportation and logistics sector at Trimble. We take pride in the diversity and capabilities of our team, and it’s important to acknowledge the remarkable achievements, resilience and leadership demonstrated by the women who help drive our business forward.
Championing equality and inclusivity has helped Trimble collect an abundance of stellar talent, and has paved the way for innovation and efficiency in designing and delivering our solutions to the industry. Thanks to the women in our workplace, we continue to thrive every day. We’ve interviewed a handful of our leading women employees to showcase their hard work and success. Keep reading to hear their stories!
Kelly Williams, Enterprise Product Lead
Kelly Williams is someone who is driven by passion for the transportation industry she’s come to know inside and out. She has a deep background in trucking, having worked for 20 years at Schneider National Carriers and Breakthrough Fuel in a variety of customer-facing and operational roles, before joining Trimble as our Enterprise Product Lead.
In her current role, Williams leverages her experience to develop cutting-edge technologies aimed at optimizing and transforming how the industry moves freight. Having experienced first-hand the technological disconnect that can hamper the industry, Williams is passionate about creating solutions that better connect the moving parts within a business, and better connect that business to the supply chain. This is especially true when it comes to helping carriers and shippers work together more seamlessly with dynamic freight procurement solutions.
“Individual carriers can no longer afford to operate in a silo,” Williams recently remarked. “Trimble is spearheading and leading the industry toward the connected supply chain by creating pathways for carriers and shippers to collaborate in a secure cloud environment.”
For her proactive, thoughtful leadership at Trimble and in the industry, Williams was recently named by Supply & Demand Chain Executive as one of their 2023 Pros to Know! This award recognizes outstanding executives whose accomplishments offer a roadmap for leaders looking to leverage the supply chain for a competitive advantage.
Speaking of her experience in delivering solutions to customers, Williams recently said, “Given my background, I’m most proud of my work when we demo a new solution and the audience—carriers, shippers, brokers—asks me questions. That tells me that they’re not only interested in what we’re doing, they’re thinking ahead to how they might use the solution in the future and that we’re on the right track. I’m excited to help make those possibilities into realities.”
Caroline Gsellmeyer, Director of Product Marketing
When you need someone who can think outside the box to find a solution, Caroline Gsellmeyer is your person. As the Director of Product Marketing, Gsellmeyer has been with Trimble for just over eight years, and in that time has provided unwavering determination in helping deliver solutions that can transform the transportation industry for the better. In fact, she’s been so successful and determined in this mission that the Product Marketing team was newly created for her and her colleagues!
In her role, she helps develop the positioning and messaging for each new solution we develop, ensuring that throughout the technology’s creation, we’re focused on solving the problems our customers most need to address. She then works across many departments to align internal teams to effectively bring those solutions to market and promote them to industry stakeholders. This can be an arduous task, and requires a breadth and depth of knowledge of Trimble’s resources, Trimble’s competitors and the transportation and logistics industry as a whole.
“Product Marketing was not a function that existed but was so clearly needed so it was a new endeavor for all of us,” Gsellmeyer remarked on her role. “I got a ton of internal support from all teams and grew the Product Marketing function within the organization from the bottom up. As our division has grown, it became apparent that we needed a team with a broad perspective and mandate to ensure a connected mindset and connected goals to drive both our success and our customers’ success.”
Gsellmeyer is accustomed to dealing with high-level executives and complex industry challenges, but when she’s not working, her time and abilities are focused on her family, including her soon to be four-year-old son, Cameron. “Cam is wild, smart, funny and kind. We’re slightly obsessed with him,” said Gsellmeyer.
Tawni Marrs, Lead Data Scientist
Few embody Trimble’s innovative spirit as well as Tawni Marrs, our full-stack Lead Data Scientist, in charge of a team of data scientists, developers and engineers focused on our mission to build a more efficient global supply chain. But if you had asked her years ago where she thought she would be, it would have been in the lab. Having studied biochemistry, she started her career in agriculture.
“In the lab is actually where my interest in data analytics began. But after agriculture and aviation, I looked at transportation and saw it was a tremendously complex system. I love a good challenge and solving complex problems,” Marrs explains. “I feel that transportation is on the verge of a technological and cultural shift that will emphasize the importance and value of data.”
This thesis has been proven true in recent years, as her team has helped bring to market several advanced data-focused technology solutions that are setting the standard for the transportation industry. Trimble customers in North America alone produce millions of data points every day. Marrs' team is responsible for putting this data to work for shippers and carriers in an easily accessible, digestible and actionable solution, all while making the technology as secure and user-friendly as possible.
When she first started in transportation, Marrs sought to create a unified solution that could solve all of the industry’s complex problems with one data-driven piece of technology, but learned that the major impediments are often common, routine tasks that cost companies’ time, efficiency and money. Still, she holds onto the idea of unlocking value through simplicity and works to imbue every Trimble solution with that philosophy.
Marrs' team leverages data from numerous Trimble sources via a modern analytics data warehouse, as well as the Trimble Transportation Cloud, a proprietary and scalable framework that hosts web services, APIs and workflows, along with computing resources for algorithms and machine learning models powered by Microsoft Azure. Looking to the future, her team is focused on how Trimble can facilitate its partner and customer data integration at scale and continue to grow its data science initiatives.
Susana McLoughlin, Director of Sales for Appian
From her time in college earning a BS in Business Information Systems and onward, Susana McLoughlin was always interested in the push and pull of sales. Today, she’s our acting Director of Sales for the Appian line of products and has been with Trimble for 12 years. McLoughlin manages a team of Regional Sales Managers, Regional Account Managers and Solution Engineers, all focused on guiding prospects and customers on a solution-oriented journey that helps them overcome their challenges and meet their goals.
As a first-generation American, McLoughlin prides herself on her Spanish heritage, and the life she’s built here in the United States. She lives with her husband of 18 years and her two children, and teaches them to be well-rounded members of their community. She considers her background to be an essential asset to her work, as it has given her a unique perspective on the transportation industry.
“As a child, I was very fortunate to get the opportunity to spend my summers in Spain with my grandparents and extended family. This is where I learned to love and understand the importance of family, culture, tradition and great food,” McLoughlin said. “Farm to fork was never truer. My Uncle was the town butcher and almost everything we consumed we grew or raised ourselves, and he then transported to market.”
Speaking of her role in the organization, McLoughlin remarked, “The work we do here really impacts the way the world works. It's truly meaningful to be part of these positive impacts and help organizations work towards enhancing their operational performance through the use of transportation technology.”
In addition to her degree, McLoughlin is also a Certified Transportation Professional (CTP) through the National Private Truck Council (NPTC) Institute. And with this certification, she brings a deep well of knowledge to every customer interaction as she helps private fleets navigate a complex market. To learn more about McLoughlin and why route optimization is critical, check out our recent interview with her.
Sejal Kadakia, Vice President of Microsoft Partnership at Trimble
Leading in transportation and logistics requires a broad perspective informed by experience, and Sejal Kadakia brings all of that and more to her role as our Vice President of Microsoft Partnership. For the past 26 years, Kadakia has dedicated herself to understanding and improving commercial transportation, which she calls “a dynamic industry that serves as the heartbeat of the global supply chain.”
Kadakia started at Trimble as a senior software engineer, then became business area manager for carrier TMS, then held several different management positions across her time. Now, she oversees our strategic partnership with Microsoft and is focused on discovering new and creative ways to enhance Trimble’s solutions with Microsoft technologies. Having earned an MBA and a BS in Computer Science, Kadakia understands the myriad of forces shaping the transportation industry and the technologies it needs to thrive.
In her words, she works “at the intersection of both technical and business tracks,” ensuring Trimble’s products exceed customer expectations while delivering maximum value. Kadakia grew up in India, surrounded by a “rich tapestry” of cultures that taught her to appreciate the power of diversity, especially after her family moved to the US. “In my early years, working in our family business taught me the importance of serving customers,” says Kadakia. “While my professional journey began in software engineering, my background always led me to prioritize customer service, regardless of the technical aspects in any role. Embracing a commitment to excellence, my aim is to stay at the forefront of technology in this ever-evolving realm.”
Kadakia is actively involved in the Trimble Foundation, dedicating time to the Female Empowerment and Education Committee. “Drawing inspiration from my diverse background, I am deeply committed to contributing to causes that resonate with my and my company’s values,” Kadakia remarks. And beyond professional achievements, Kadakia takes immense pride in being a mother of two girls, and sharing life’s journey with her husband. “These roles outside of work have instilled in me a profound sense of responsibility and commitment,” she adds.
Women Help Move the World
These women (and countless others) have made our success possible. And beyond our organization, they’ve had a major impact on the transportation and logistics industry as a whole, helping to develop and deploy the technology that moves the global supply chain on which we all depend.
As Gsellmeyer put it, “The world only thrives if transportation keeps it moving. From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed, every item we touch comes from a truck. The bed and pillows we sleep on, the coffee machine and beans, the toothpaste, toothbrush, clothes, car, cell phone and onward. Transportation is important to me because our world depends on it.”
Whether you’re in the cab or the shop or the office, if you’re a woman in transportation and logistics, we thank you for your contribution. As we celebrate International Women’s Day, and honor those who work to keep the world moving, we encourage you to take a moment to appreciate the women in your life that move you.