FORT WAYNE, Ind. — Kim McMahon is one of the few female top executives of a North American tire dealership, and she not only brings her financial expertise to the job, but also a bit of a feminine influence.
For example, when she took over as president of McMahon's Best-One Tire & Auto Care in 2008, one of her first directives was to remove tire displays from the store showrooms so customers wouldn't be hit with the smell of rubber when they walked in.
That move created more spacious waiting areas with comfortable chairs, tables and places to connect to the Wi-Fi in the company's five retail stores in the Fort Wayne market.
"It's taken a long time for me to be comfortable in this position and really taking the leadership role and making it my own," she said.
Her husband, Patrick "Bubba" McMahon III, has "a really big personality," and it would have been easier to have him take on the role, she said, "but that's not what the company needed."
Prior to joining the family business in 2000, she was the vice president in the trust department of a bank. The bank was acquired and her job eliminated.
She said the family had been discussing her joining the business, founded by her father-in-law in 1969, for a while prior to her job loss.
McMahon said the current co-owners — she, her husband and Randy Geyer — work together, not side by side, "but we do complement each other. So that makes it much easier. Between Randy and my husband and I, we make a really good leader."
For the past two years the management team has met every Tuesday morning for two hours, and each person reports what activities are going on or problems they are having.
"We're all intertwined on what's going on in the company," McMahon said.
"Doing those meetings was a game-changer for us." In the past she would call each manager to get a report and have the same conversation with five people. "It makes everything so much easier."
For the first 12 days of the month, she works on the company financials, then spends the rest of the month visiting the stores and the employees.
Working at a bank office was quite different from working at a bustling tire dealership with several locations, she said, having to become accustomed, as president, to having people come to her for decisions.
"It was pretty stressful in the beginning, and then put kids on top of that, it's a lot," she said, noting at the time she had two sons in middle school.