At 32, Shawn Moren hopped off the corporate fast track to see the world. Not Paris or Rome, but grittier realms: India, Vietnam, Turkey, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Egypt.
“That trip reframed my whole black-and-white kind of thinking,” she says. “And it’s one of the reasons I’m not afraid to make mistakes. When you’re backpacking alone through India, and stuck in the middle of crowds of people when the power goes out, you know you can recover from anything!”
Today, at 40, Moren continues to seek new horizons. After four years as director of corporate employee relations for Eden Prairie–based SuperValu, she was promoted in 2005 to be a regional vice president of human resources for supply-chain services for the grocery wholesaler and retailer. She’s made it a platform for redefining the role of human resources, meeting with executives and customers to ensure that HR more directly serves their needs. By reorganizing and outsourcing, she engineered a 20 percent gain in productivity and reduced HR expenses by more than 10 percent.
“The status quo just isn’t good enough for Shawn,” says Jim Gilliam, regional president. “She’s constantly looking for new and better ways to do things, always wanting to push the envelope.”
Even at home, where old-house renovation is a hobby, Moren has chosen the road less traveled as the owner of two special-needs pets: a cat and a dog. “At work, you have to be on your game every day,” she says with a smile. “It’s a nice balance to come home, slow down, and just use patience.”
Moren grew up in eastern Kentucky, and earned her BA in human resources from the University of Kentucky at Lexington. She interned in the HR department of Ashland Oil, eventually becoming human resources manager of the Kentucky company’s SuperAmerica northwest region. Before that, she spent four years as a supervisor in marketing, which, she says, fueled her interest in all areas of business and inspired her to earn an MBA at night.
“I loved marketing,” she says. “I thought it was the coolest job ever! I managed P&Ls [profit-and-loss statements], moved capital equipment around, helped manage our clients’ accounts and increase their sales. That business background helped me become a better HR professional. HR is a function where you hear people say, ‘Oh, we don’t get any respect; everyone thinks we are a fluffy department.’ But I am so passionate that HR is a value-added function.”
Gilliam says, “Shawn is never afraid to dive into totally new areas to her and try to figure out what’s going on—and, again, challenge things as they are.” When Moren saw a need for increased leadership development at SuperValu, she bought a book on the subject, read it on a plane, and went to work. Last September, she launched the Leadership Consortium, designed to accelerate the development of talented employees through a curriculum that includes discussions with SuperValu executives.
“The most important thing for me right now is to lean forward,” she says. “I feel like I’m always on the edge looking forward—looking for things to bring back to the group that nobody has asked us to do, but things that we need to be thinking about for the future.”
Being on the edge has its risks, but Moren says she has no regrets about the occasional mistakes that result: “I’ve been able to reflect on them, recover (and there is renewal in that), and then apply what I’ve learned,” she says. “I don’t worry about failure. Ever. But I do worry about not trying. What will we miss if I don’t try?”
