In honor of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, Trucker Tools is shining a spotlight on female leaders within the transportation industry. Over the next month, we’ll be interviewing women working in trucking, freight brokerage, logistics and transportation software to learn more about their experiences as women working in transportation.
For the first blog in this series, we spoke with Nora Griffin, Marketing Director of Partner Programs at McLeod Software, to learn more about her career in transportation and how she sees the industry evolving. Griffin has been with McLeod Software since 2013 and currently manages the company’s partner marketing programs, which includes more than 100 different software companies, from the company’s Birmingham, Ala., headquarters.
About McLeod Software
McLeod Software® is an independently owned and operated transportation management software (TMS) provider with a deep understanding of the needs and intricate details involved in carrier, broker and freight management businesses of all types. McLeod’s comprehensive solutions support a broad array of complementary integrations. The organization’s diverse workforce of just over 525 employees is made up of men and women including a variety of nationalities and cultural backgrounds.
“There are lots of opportunities in software and there is naturally a diverse population of talent in software in general and I think, to a degree, McLeod has tapped into that diversity,” said Griffin. “The diversity goes beyond gender and includes various cultural backgrounds and ethnicities, including among our developers and programmers. Our customer base is becoming more diverse, as well. The industry continues to change. There is female representation within transportation in freight brokerage and on the carrier side. And the age demographic is getting younger too, particularly on the brokerage side.”
“There are lots of opportunities in software and there is naturally a diverse population of talent in software in general and I think, to a degree, McLeod has tapped into that diversity,” said Griffin. “The diversity goes beyond gender and includes various cultural backgrounds and ethnicities, including among our developers and programmers. Our customer base is becoming more diverse, as well. The industry continues to change. There is female representation within transportation in freight brokerage and on the carrier side. And the age demographic is getting younger too, particularly on the brokerage side.”
Opportunities for Women in Transportation
In her role with McLeod, Griffin works with partners to build greater awareness of their brands among McLeod customers, helping them to grow their businesses. According to Griffin, what she enjoys most about her job is getting to know the company’s partners and working with a variety of software companies, from startups to multi-million dollar operations. In her experience, the transportation industry is very welcoming to women.
“I have found the transportation software field to be very open and welcoming and it’s wonderful working as a woman in the transportation industry,” Griffin said. “I think when the average American thinks about trucking or transportation, they think of family-owned businesses that are generally run by men. But actually, there are a lot of opportunities for women in the transportation industry and a lot of female executives and company owners. I don’t see a need for women to necessarily break into transportation or transportation software because we already have. It happened way before I even came to McLeod. Overall, it’s been fabulous working in this industry. I really enjoy it. I’ve met a lot of women across many transportation industry verticals and we have several women-owned businesses as customers who are doing really well.”
“I have found the transportation software field to be very open and welcoming and it’s wonderful working as a woman in the transportation industry,” Griffin said. “I think when the average American thinks about trucking or transportation, they think of family-owned businesses that are generally run by men. But actually, there are a lot of opportunities for women in the transportation industry and a lot of female executives and company owners. I don’t see a need for women to necessarily break into transportation or transportation software because we already have. It happened way before I even came to McLeod. Overall, it’s been fabulous working in this industry. I really enjoy it. I’ve met a lot of women across many transportation industry verticals and we have several women-owned businesses as customers who are doing really well.”
Sources of Inspiration
In our conversation with Griffin, we asked her if any women have inspired her in her career. She told us that she’s inspired by many of the female executives in the Allied Committee for the Trucking Industry (ACT1) group, a group of transportation companies that work together to share ideas and support the industry at large. Griffin was a gymnast in college and told us that her experiences with her college team and coaches had a significant impact on her and her career.
“I was a college athlete and my coaches were a husband and wife team,” Griffin shared. “The wife of the team headed up the marketing side and I learned a lot from her because she and her husband turned a small, underfunded team into a powerhouse that produced multi-national champions on the individual level, as well as a team. It was their innovation and the creativity of looking at a challenge or a problem and gathering up every resource to try to solve it. It was mainly learning how to grow a business and watching her as she figured out how to navigate what was at the time a male dominated area. She never gave up. We hit a lot of roadblocks and it was seeing her grit and her husband’s grit, the never give up attitude, that stuck with me. It was a great life lesson of you just have to keep going and keep trying, be open to innovation and you’ll find your way.”
To learn more about McLeod Software, visit https://www.mcleodsoftware.com.
If you’d like to learn more about Trucker Tools’ partnership with McLeod Software, read Partner Highlight, A Leader in Innovation: McLeod Software. Schedule a free demo of Trucker Tools’ real-time load tracking platform, digital freight matching and Book It Now®.
