Leisa: Hello, I’m Leisa Holland Nelson and welcome to another edition of Women Mean Business, where we’re going to take you up close and personal with extraordinary women doing extraordinary things. My guest today is Kelly Hess, the President and CEO of CompuCycle, responsible, safe, secure electronic recycling; again a mouthful.

Kelly: You did it.

Leisa: Kelly, welcome to Women Mean Business.

Kelly: Thank you Leisa. I’m so glad to be here, thank you for having me today.

Leisa: I’m excited to ask you how you got to be the CEO of an electronic recycling business, it’s hardly the most feminine endeavor.

Kelly: Exactly and I can’t say this is something when I was little I said I wanted to be when I grew up. It kind of fell into my lap but truly I think my background – in college I did a Communications and Public Relations degree – but I love the nonprofit world and so I did nonprofit fundraising pretty much through my career until I decided to have kids.

And then my family’s business – my father-in-law and my husband started this company 20 years ago, we’re celebrating out 20th anniversary – and it got to a point once my kids were grown and going to school that we got this company to a level that we needed to go a step up. And really the board thought I would be able, because business development is kind of my passion and that is really what I love, so I was like why can’t I try to build CompuCycle, develop relationships, build the business and get it to the next level.

And the board was completely behind me coming in as CEO President and it’s been about 2 years that I’ve come into this role; I’ve been involved with CompuCycle for years as a consultant and trying to help on the back end side but now it’s great because I’m getting to work not just in the business but on the business.

Leisa: So you used your Communications degree and your development in the nonprofit world background to turn it into business development for this.

Kelly: Absolutely, absolutely.

Leisa: Congratulations.

Kelly: Thank you.

Leisa: Thank you for sharing that. There you have it, another extraordinary woman doing extraordinary things. I’m Leisa Holland Nelson, President and Co-founder of ContentActive, Houston’s leading web and mobile design and development company. You can find me at ContactActive.com or follow me on Twitter @LHNelson. We’ll be back again next week with another edition of Women Mean Business.