Parent joined Kahler Slater in June 2020 as chief financial officer. During the interview process, she had her last meeting with the executive team on March 16, the day before the city began shutting down.
In March of 2021, she was promoted to vice president and chief operating officer.
Parent got her start in the manufacturing sector, working in various accounting roles with Greenfield-based Everbrite, LLC before moving into the tech sphere as director of finance for Concurrency, Inc. and later an operations lead with Amazon. “I will always say that I grew up at Everbrite in manufacturing. … Moving into the tech space was a concerted effort on my part. I wanted to diversify my background and I couldn’t think of something more opposite.”
A Midwesterner at heart, Parent stood out as an out-of-towner while working for Amazon in Seattle because of her Midwestern niceness. “I’m very polite. … A lot of people knew I wasn’t from that region because I said ‘thank you’ and they said ‘you’re not from here.’”
Having worked in a tech hub, Parent says there’s plenty of opportunity here in Milwaukee. “I can’t think of a better city – we’re really close to Chicago, a short flight to Minneapolis and we have the resources to have amazing technology come out of Milwaukee.”
Parent has three children. An ideal weekend for her family would involve taking in the city’s cultural assets – the Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee Public Museum or the new Bradley Symphony Center, which was designed by Kahler Slater.
Tracie Parent
Vice president, chief operating officer, Kahler Slater
111 W. Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee
kahlerslater.com
Industry: Architecture, interior design, strategic advisory services
Employees: 122
