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Meet Kym Strong of Strong Consultants in North Dallas

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Kym Strong.

Kym Strong found her calling as a high school senior when she was short one elective, and the only class available was accounting. That serendipitous event rerouted Strong from her prior career interest in physiotherapy, and she never looked back. Strong has been a senior accounting manager for three Fortune 100 companies. She’s even managed and oversaw a billion dollar budget with the Center of Disease Control.

It is clear that her focus, ambition and pragmatic nature has propelled her steady career. Strong moved from being a junior staff accountant to more advanced roles, including operations manager at FedEx, another Fortune 100 company. Strong has received countless awards and recognition from senior leadership like Vice Presidents and even Chief Executive Officers.

She received the Above Beyond Award which recognized her leadership and implementation of new and improved processes. She was deemed a forward thinker and innovator. In addition, Strong was featured in multiple FedEx newsletters which were distributed around the world.

Kym Strong is also the author of three books entitled: Corporate America & The African American Woman, Girl Today, CEO Tomorrow and Strong’s Resume Writing & Interviewing Tips. She is currently working on her 4th book entitled: From LA To NYC: A Woman’s Guide to Entrepreneurship.

Mrs. Strong is also the CEO of The Strong Foundation, which is an organization that aids domestic violence victims and families. In 2016, Strong began Conversations with Kym, with actress, Vivica A. Fox, which is a women’s empowerment charity event that goes around the country bringing awareness to domestic violence.

Strong Systems Solutions:
Kym Strong found Strong Systems Solutions in 2013. The S3 software provides religious organizations a user-friendly software packaged to ensures IRS compliance, banking capabilities, and full accounting & reporting functionality. S3 will help ensure our customer’s finance departments operate at the highest level of financial integrity as well as ready them for any IRS or other audits by ensuring constant compliance as an organization.

Because Kym has a STRONG accounting and business background, as an end user of various software packages, such as, Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP, along with an even STRONGER background in managing and organizing accounting departments with billion-dollar budgets, she was inspired to create a software that will meet the specific needs of churches and religious organizations.

S3 soon evolved into the need in keeping these organizations IRS compliant which is the most integral part of this software. She found that churches, pastors and board members were having a hard time understanding what the IRS laws were and how to ensure their church consistently stayed within their guidelines. She also saw the need for churches to run the business side of their organizations like a corporation.

Just like public corporations have to follow the guidelines of GAAP, churches should follow the IRS guidelines. There is a need for churches to properly budget, forecast, provide reporting so they can better plan and make better business decisions for the church. I want to encourage these churches to run their business like a corporation to bring back a level of financial integrity to the Kingdom of God and to prevent an Enron situation in the future.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road, but I consider that hardships as stepping stones to success. One struggle was balancing family and my career. I am still learning how to fulfill my role as a wife and mother and still have the energy to chase my dreams.

For so long we’ve been told we couldn’t do both, but I am living proof that you can do and accomplished anything you want to do in life. I have appreciated the hard times in my life of pursuing my dreams because I know it was just as important as the happy times. They all work together, and we can’t have one without the other. It keeps us humble and causes to take accountability for ourselves.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I was born and raised in Dallas, TX, the big “little” city. The Lone Star State. We Texans tend to believe Texas is its own country. We take pride in the Alamo, the Dallas Cowboys, and chicken fried steak! I love Texas, but I never felt like I really fit in. In some ways I did, in most others, I definitely did not.

I am a much faster-paced woman than the average Texan. I mean I was a 6-year-old New Yorker trapped in a Texan body. I absolutely despised the flatlands, lack of bodies of water and extremely hot weather. I loved the big city life and the beach! Growing up, we lived in a small suburb right outside of Dallas, called Duncanville. It was a country as the name, but it was a great city. A great place to raise a family and live the picture-perfect life.

Downtown Duncanville consisted of around three small storefront buildings including a fabric store called Percy’s and a Ben Franklin Store. We frequented these stores quite often, especially Percy’s. Growing up it was four of us girls, so my mom made a career out of being a seamstress. Can you imagine how expensive it is to raise four girls? Looking back, I totally understand why my mother made our clothes. Another reason I did not fit in, in Texas, especially Duncanville was my fashion sense.

At a young age, NYC fashion was my desire. I would often try to persuade my mother to make clothing a little more risqué, but growing up as a preacher’s kid, that was out of the question. As I am writing, I realize how privileged I was growing up. We had our own stylist and seamstress on deck 24/7. Our mother. I guess that was the preparation of the life I would one day lead. Ben Franklin, the store all students would go to get their school project supplies was next door to Percy’s.

This store reminded me of those old country stores in the country western shows. I hated this store. Every time I walked into this store, I felt further and further away from New York. As you walked in the bells on the door would chime, and the staff would greet you as they wore their aprons and many buttons reading “smile” or “ask me for help.” Lord knows I despised both of these stores, but these memories would later impact me in a positive way that would make me thankful for these beginnings.

As a young girl, I always envisioned myself living a life like the characters on the shows Dynasty and Dallas. Shows like these in the late ’80s and 90’s really shaped the way of how I wanted to dress, conduct business and live life! It even taught me conflict resolution… Maybe not in the most effective way but hey we all live for drama from time to time.

I am laughing at myself now because I remember watching scenes like when JR Ewing would walk over to his liquor bar in his living room and pour himself a scotch while staring off in space with that famous grimace, plotting his next move and business venture. This may even sound more crazy, but JR Ewining was my first business crush. I loved his business savvy and literally cried when he was shot. Alexis Colby of Dynasty was another favorite character of mine.

This woman was ruthless. She was bold, audacious and beautiful. Her timeless style was everything I envied. She was mean, but she had to be, and she didn’t mind throwing hands if needed. In my head, I combined both of these characters into one, and that was me! This oil tycoon and beautiful diva seemed to have it all, but I quickly learned as I got older that I was no JR Ewing or Alexis Colby nor did I have the same opportunities that they had merely because I was an African American woman.

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Image Credit:
Brandon Lester

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