Great Relationships Build Great Businesses

By Robert Green Atlanta Trend

• Sep 29, 2024

To Kim Osborn, the Chief Administrative Officer of Elavon, the secret of her successful career is simple. “Great businesses are built on relationships and great relationships are built on trust,” she says. “Achieving goals requires you to trust that your partners are working to achieve the same results.”

Kim Osborn was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. At Bishop Kenny High School, Kim ran cross country for one of the most respected high school cross country programs in the state of Florida. “We had a fantastic program with nearly 100 people on the team and we all supported each other,” she said. “The discipline required was great for learning to set and achieve goals.”

At the University of Florida Kim majored in advertising and says that she was drawn to the creativity and to understanding what really motivates consumers to make product choices. “I felt it was important to learn how thoughtfully designed experiences can drive business growth,” she says.

Her first job out of college brought Kim to work for BBDO Atlanta, the worldwide advertising agency, but she quickly moved to Young & Rubicam and JWT. “I was proud to get solid agency experience from some of the best people in the business,” Kim says, “Most importantly, I learned how to build valuable partnerships and develop trust with my other team members.”

In 2009, Kim was a founding member of the Young Professionals of Atlanta for the American Cancer Society. Officially formed to bring community-minded young professionals together to network and raise donations for the ACS, it established a clear focus aligning with the vision of the American Cancer Society and helping to advance its mission. 

Kim served as the Communications Chair and her group became a top provider of measurable volunteer hours supporting ACS programs. This leadership position helped extend Kim’s business network in significant ways. “Greg Cohen, another of the founding members of Young Professionals for ACS, is the person that connected me with the job opportunity at Sparks Grove,” she says.

At the time, Sparks Grove was a new Experience Design Agency. “I was employee number 11,” says Kim, “and had a seat at the table with leadership determining how we were going to grow the company. Our process was to use insight, strategy, design, and development to transform businesses to more human-centered, purpose-driven organizations.” The company had many great clients and was integrated into North Highland, a global consulting firm, after a few years.

While North Highland provided more structure to the young startup, it also provided the resources to work on larger projects with larger companies. “The principals at North Highland were well known and opened a lot of doors for us,” says Kim. “We did work for Wells Fargo, Bank of America, SunTrust and Equifax.” Another one of Kim’s clients, in 2012, was Elavon. “That planted a seed,” she says. “I admired their culture from the beginning.”

As the sixth largest payments processor globally, Elavon sits in the heart of what the payments industry calls “Transaction Alley.” The range of payments companies across Atlanta has built a critical mass of both industry expertise and companies to make it one of the world’s epicenters for payments. Elavon, in particular, works with eight of the 10 largest global airlines – including fellow Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines – and six of the 10 largest hotel brands.

After nine years at Sparks Grove & North Highland, in 2018, Kim learned that Elavon was looking for a Chief of Staff to the CEO. The duties included developing an operating model for the senior leadership team and to make sure that they were prioritizing the goals of the CEO. “From the beginning I was heavily involved in communications for both Jamie Walker, the CEO, as well as Elavon as a whole,” she says. “I also ran the senior leadership meetings and our top 100 leaders forum.”

Kim’s Chief of Staff role began to evolve after a year and other responsibilities were given to her. “I’ve always been very detail oriented with an ability to organize resources to help them be more effective,” said Kim, “and a strength of mine has always been adapting to the changing needs of the business.” She was placed in charge of Employee Experience, Corporate Marketing & Events, Inclusive Growth & Community Impact, and Organizational Change Management. Her role had greatly expanded.

After many conversations regarding the right structure for Elavon’s senior leadership team, it was decided that the teams Kim was leading should begin to serve the entire organization and not just various parts. As the new Chief Administrative Officer of Elavon Kim would be doing just that. “I was excited to be leading and supporting these passionate people,” she says. “If we are going to maintain our position as a payments leader, we have to fully support our colleagues to grow, transform, change and be more collaborative.”

Kim and Elavon both believe that they need to co-create solutions in a partnership between company employees and customers. “We don’t have years to reshape things,” Kim said. “We want to become a change organization, a company good at making changes, because change will be the constant both today and into the future.” 

She sees a lot of good in this type of employee engagement. “I love the people-centric aspect of what I am doing at Elavon. Just like I was empowered at Sparks Grove, I want to empower our team members to have their say and a seat at the table,” she says, “while we continue to evolve with the pace of payments.”

“It’s all about relationships, in how we serve our customers, partners and the community. Finding out how we all win together.”