Ann-Marie Campbell

Ask people who have the job you want how they got it.

Honestly, being a store manager was the best job I ever had.

People know my story - how I started like they did and that I struggled with things, like being a working mom. They ask me things they wouldn't ask anyone else.

I just love to read, learn, and think through complex things.

My grandmother was divorced, and she had 10 children herself. She never finished high school. She started selling lace on the side of the road and then grew that into a multimillion-dollar business - a retail store selling mostly furniture and appliances.

I got a part-time job as a cashier at Home Depot in North Miami Beach on April 1, 1985. I didn't expect to be in retail all my life, but retail was ingrained in me from my grandmother. I enjoyed interacting with people, and I got opportunities.

My family owned a furniture/appliance store near Kingston, Jamaica. I worked there all summer but lived in a very structured environment the rest of the year at an all-girl Catholic boarding school.

I grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, as the youngest of four children and the only girl. My father died when I was only a year and a half. He was killed in a car accident when he was 26.