Courtney Kissler considers communication, information sharing and a passion for project measurement visibility as critical to any DevOps transformation. Her path to DevOps began on a whim, when she switched degrees from accounting to computer science while at Eastern Washington University.

After working at a few startups in Seattle, Courtney began working at Nordstroms, staying for 14 years, holding multiple roles in the retail technology division. Early in 2016, she moved on to Starbucks, where she is now the Vice President of Retail Technology.

In this Innovator’s Journey to DevOps, I talk with Courtney about the beginnings of her career in technology, her introduction to the transformative processes of DevOps, and how working with the DevOps community has allowed her to implement those ideas at enterprise scale.

About Courtney Kissler

Courtney is the Vice President of Retail Technology at Starbucks. She’s accountable for the global POS and retail store technology experiences.

Prior to Starbucks, Courtney spent 14 years at Nordstrom with her last role being the Vice President of E-Commerce and Store technologies where she drove a technological transformation essential for outpacing the demands of today’s Omnichannel consumers. She was accountable for program management, delivery, and support for all customer facing technologies including in-store, Web, and mobile touch points.

Courtney joined Nordstrom as a security engineer in 2002 and held a variety of leadership roles across the technology organization. Courtney is a graduate of Eastern Washington University with a B.S. in Computer Information Systems and worked at two startups, CyberSafe and WorldStream Communications, prior to joining Nordstrom.